History Trivia / FinalFantasyXIV

*** The first new race in the initial planning stages were initially going to be Viera from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' possibly using the name Au Ra. Concept art also showed a LittleBitBeastly version alongside the ones in ''XII'', being sized somewhere between Lalafell and Miqo'te and having more anthropomorphic traits than just the ears and claws (and also males). The scaled demon-like Au Ra ultimately won out for being ''Heavensward's'' new race, and (female-only) Viera, now appearing identical to the ones from ''XII'', wouldn't be added until ''Shadowbringers'' four years later. Another variation showed a bizarre fusion of a viera and a bangaa (although this was probably made as a joke).

*** G'raha Tia, a character introduced in the Crystal Tower raid of ''A Realm Reborn'', was originally meant to have a green color palette instead of a red one. The first day of 2024 Tokyo Fanfest had a panel where the developers talked about the game development process. Said panel showed an image of G'raha Tia when he was in development, [[https://www.youtube.com/live/9A2ljmmUT_I?feature=shared&t=18061 along with his original color palette]]. The rather jarring colors caused Yoshida to instantly reject this design and order it replaced, leading to G'raha Tia being made predominantly red instead of green.

** The other Ultimate from ''Endwalker'', The Omega Protocol, was also not immune to content leaks. During the World First progression, a video came out showing a single player clearing one of the later phases with GodMode on, which could only have been obtained on an interal development server. A post was made promising an extremely harsh punishment to whoever was the perpetrator. In the same post, Yoshida also mentioned that somebody managed to send a false completion flag to the Unending Journey (a book that allows you to see various cutscenes) in order to show the final cutscene from the raid. That player was discovered, and a penalty was issued against their account.

** Happens nearly all the time thanks to data miners that analyze each patch that goes live. The reveal of new combat jobs, rewards for future events, and even end game boss characters were spoiled by people posting information found by the data miners. There was also an accidental leak by in the European version of the game within the French game client where a bug in the game's dialogue script caused an NPC to list every playable race, which also included the Hrothgar race before they were officially revealed at the 2019 Tokyo Fanfest.
** In April of 2017, someone known only by their handle as "[=BluFever=]" started posting on the Website/GameFAQs board for ''FFXIV'' giving out leaks for the game, starting with nailing down [[spoiler: Tsukuyomi]] as the boss fight of 4.3 and the context behind the character's existence as an initial proof. Once that was proven true, they then went on to accurately describe all of the bosses of the final Omega raid (albeit with incorrect names) and a vague description of ''Shadowbringers''' early concepts, as well as saying Blue Mage being introduced as a DPS job (technically true) in 4.5 and next expansion would bring a Soldier job (Gunbreaker) as a tank, and Dancer as a healer (the only wrong one, though this itself, and the presence of Dancer's healing ability, in turn has led to a ''lot'' of speculation concerning the development history of the Dancer job). Their final post had them tell people to look at their profile picture of a rabbit and a lion, teasing people with Viera and Hrothgar. Shortly after giving that final hint [=BluFever=] quietly disappeared after feeling as though Twitch streamer and major name in the ''FFXIV'' Community Mr. Happy called them out for leaking content and "started a witch hunt", and also because they were close to being caught and fired (or perhaps even charged with something) since they were almost undoubtedly a Square Enix employee or someone with direct communication with one after being correct so many times in a row.
** Another happened in the leadup to Dragonsong's Reprise, where someone ''from the Square Enix offices'' posted a picture of a developer's computer with [[spoiler:Dragon-king Thordan]]'s model on it. Yoshida was allegedly ''furious'' about this leak because it could only have come from an employee, though if they ever found and dealt with whoever it was, they never updated the community at large.
** The other Ultimate from ''Endwalker'', The Omega Protocol, was also not immune to content leaks. During the world first progression, a video came out showing one of the later phases from a perspective that could only have been obtained on a development server, showing a single player, 100% immune to all damage, going through the entire phase of the fight. A post was made promising an extremely harsh punishment to whoever was the perpetrator. In the same post, Yoshida also mentioned that somebody managed to send a false completion flag to the Unending Journey (a book that allows you to see various cutscenes) in order to show the final cutscene from the raid. That player was discovered and a penalty was issued against their account.

** Averted at the end of ''Endwalker'', thanks to some DevelopersForesight. TheStinger of 6.5's MSQ shows a character just from the waist down as Erenville speaks to them. When datamined, the character model for this NPC was just a set of hips and legs, and nothing else, to prevent the character's identity from being revealed early.

** The Moogles of the Churning Mists had worn down great a many a player's patience with their inane tasks born mostly out of laziness than anything else during the course of ''Heavensward''. In 3.4 the Warrior of Light is caught retelling Aymeric about their adventures and framing them as "Cruel Taskmasters". In the same patch which added the Moogle Beast tribe, it starts when you learn that every artisan Ishgard had sent has quit and gone home because of their obnoxious nature, pointless labor, and annoying pranks, and the option to refuse to help the Mogmender is one of the most aggressively angry negative responses in the game.

*** Originally in 1.0, there were supposed to be six starting cities. Along with Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ul'dah, Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, and Sharlayan would have also been cities for players to start in. Between the the dev team trying to keep 1.0 afloat and then working on ''A Realm Reborn'', there was no time to implement the additional three cities. Ishgard was eventually opened up in ''Heavensward'', Ala Mhigo was used as a dungeon in ''Stormblood'', and Sharlayan was used as a city in ''Endwalker''.

** Parsing -- using third-party advanced combat tracker tools to measure a player's DPS, healing, or other stats -- has been a sore spot for the development team. The official stance the dev team takes is "don't ask, don't tell" with such tools. That is to say, they know players use parsers, but they won't do anything about it unless you stream yourself using it or openly admit to using it in-game. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_i6mjiGerU In a February 2020 stream]], Yoshi-P said that the reason the dev team is reluctant to make any kind of "official" combat tracker is because they know some bad apples would ruin the bunch by harassing people for DPS that was too low (which has happened before with the third-party tools), and the dev team members don't want the game to be based around combat effeciency and nothing else.

** The abuse of parsers -- third party add-ons that measures a player's DPS output -- is the reason why the developers are very reluctant to make an official one. Because of people that use parsers to verbally harass people with low DPS (even in content where DPS checks aren't used), just mentioning that you use parsers puts you at risk of someone reporting you and getting yourself banned. In patch 3.2, the developers created a training ground where players can whack a dummy whose HP is based off of various raid bosses (with some adjustments due to the content being for solo play) so that people can test their skill rotations for optimal DPS performance, but it doesn't give much information other than you know you are doing good if you can break the dummy before the time limit expires.

** Sena Bryer, [[https://twitter.com/senabryer/status/1744440904856064061 the voice of Wuk Lamat]], has been a Warrior of Light since 1.0, and is also an avid player of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. ''Final Fantasy XIV'' is a game very close to her heart, and considers it an honor to have a voiced role in the game.

** A few other things Yoshida stepped in on were effectively to say they were never happening - one was that the Warrior of Light will never get outfits based on past villains like they do past heroes with the veteran rewards, and that there will never be a playable job that is downright evil (like Necromancer), only dubious and morally shaded at best like Dark Knight or Reaper - both of these were reasoned as Yoshida wants to make sure the Warrior of Light is never seen as anything but a heroic figure, unlike many other [=MMOs=] which usually have at least one strictly "evil" class to play as, which inevitably causes a disconnect when this is completely overlooked to still focus on the heroics they do.

* IKnewIt:
** Many people figured that Yugiri's race, and thus the new playable race to be introduced, would be reptilian or draconian peoples. WordOfGod is that [[DownplayedTrope despite their draconic appearance, they're actually more demonic]].
** Given the nature of how Achievements are named, you just knew that there were at least more than a few people who expected a [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 "Let it go"]] reference in patch 2.4 (Dreams of Ice).
** [[spoiler:Ilberd being a traitor]] was guessed by players since the first part of "Before the Fall", even after he called out [[spoiler:Eline Roaille]] for being one.
** When Lucia was introduced, people who manipulated the camera in a certain angle were able to [[spoiler:see through her circlet and discovered that she had a third eye underneath, which would make her a Garlean. People quickly assumed that she was and when ''Heavensward ''released, Lucia reveals that she is one.]]
** When Square started to release previews of ''Heavensward'' in March 2015, they showed off a dragon mount that could be obtained in the game. Lots of people believed that the dragon in question was [[spoiler:Midgardsormr, who had stated in 2.5 that he would be using the Warrior of Light's blessing to strengthen himself. At the end of 3.0, Midgardsormr transforms and gains an adult dragon's body, allowing the Warrior of Light to ride him.]]
** After patch 3.3, [[spoiler:Nidhogg's defeat in 3.3 has the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud throw the wyrm's eyes into the abyss below the Steps of Faith so that no one can get them and would be out of harm's way. After the Warriors of Darkness watched the eyes take the plunge, people speculated that the eyes would be retrieved and used for something awful. Fast forward to patch 3.4 and the ending shows an Ascian giving an Ala Mhigo rebel leader both of Nidhogg's eyes frozen in a shard of ice.]]
** During The Rising in 2015, players were taken to the 18th Floor (a MythologyGag to VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV) and got the chance to converse with Naoki Yoshida, who noted that the next expansion was already in the planning stages and could potentially include a swimming mechanic and the long-awaited [[TheRedMage Red Mage]] job, leading fans to speculate that Yoshida was speaking the truth, before Tokyo Fan Fest 2016 confirmed both to be true.
** The identity of the masked rebel leader "The Griffin" was long thought to be [[spoiler:Ilberd, Flame General Raubahn's EvilFormerFriend. Come 3.5, and the Griffin was revealed to be... Ilberd. To the surprise of no one besides Alphinaud.]]
** The female monk in the ''Stormblood'' trailer was long thought to be either Yda, or her unseen-but-alluded-to sister. Come Patch 3.56 and [[spoiler:both camps turned out to be correct, with the woman indeed turning out to be "Yda", but combined with the revelation that the Yda players had come to know was in fact her sister Lyse pulling a DeadPersonImpersonation. A few fans even managed to predict ''that'' twist, too!]]
** In the trailer for 4.1, Pipin is heard saying to Raubahn "Is this what you really want, father?" Many people speculated that Raubahn was going to [[spoiler:leave Ul'dah and return home to Ala Mhigo. In the main story, people were correct about Raubahn leaving, but it wasn't by his own will. It was Nanamo who relieved him from his role in the Syndicate and the Immortal Flames and convinced him to return home like he always wanted.]]
** When the full ''Shadowbringers'' trailer came out, it showed a figure in the Crystal Tower, watching the Warrior of Light fight. Many people guessed [[spoiler:that it must be G'raha Tia, and were revealed to be correct late in the 5.0 main story.]]
** A common theory post-Omegascape was that [[spoiler:Omega had survived by uploading his brain into the toy Omega that Wedge made that Alpha takes with him on his journeys. The ''Tales from the Shadow'' entry "A World Forsaken" makes this explicit right in its opening lines, being framed as the observation of a {{Heel Face Turn}}ed Omega.]]
** Themis' identity [[spoiler:as Elidibus. Aside from Venat, he's the only ancient with white robes, he outright mentions remembering seeing the Warrior of Light in Elpis briefly, and in TheStinger of ''Endwalker'', he has a speaking role despite his face being obscured by camera angles. His voice is distinct enough for sharp-eared players to connect the dots before his identity got revealed.]]
** Many players predicted that the post-''Endwalker'' story would have [[spoiler:Azdaja turning into Golbez's Shadow Dragon, since she has a similar body style and shape to this dragon's initial design]]. This played out pretty much as expected in the 6.4 MSQ.
** Deryk's identity turns out to be [[spoiler:as Oschon, the Wanderer. This was of little surprise, as he partakes in the wanderer's lifestyle, and there was a noticeable loophole in that the Twelve just needs to keep their true forms hidden. While the Twelve prefers animal guises, they never said it ''has'' to be animal forms. Oschon opted for a human form that resembles an in-universe [[https://i.imgur.com/SLtvmlk.png depiction]] of himself]]. The developers knew the players caught on quickly; just before the final raid in the "Myths of the Realm" arc, the player can choose a dialogue option making it clear that the Warrior of Light correctly deduced Deryk's identity from the start.

** Aside from ''World of Warcraft'', ''Final Fantasy XIV'' contends heavily with ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestX'' (ironically, Yoshida's previous project and part of the reason it was believed that ''XIV'' could be saved with his direction) and especially its own predecessor, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''. It's even more ironic considering ''Phantasy Star Online 2'' and ''Dragon Quest X'' had collaborations with ''Final Fantasy XIV'', the former receiving Odin as a boss fight and several of the game's artifact gear as costumes, and the latter giving Eorzea a limited-time questline themed around the rival game's brickmen.

** As seen at GDC 2014, [[https://twitter.com/gamasutra/status/446418234632192000 Naoki Yoshida is dismissive of the 1.0 version of the game]]. The aforesaid GDC panel was also dedicated in part to why he thought it failed. Yoshida cited three main problems: an unhealthy obsession with graphic quality over gameplay, a surprising lack of MMORPG knowledge amongst development team members, and the mindset that the solution to every problem could be fixed or patched in a future update.

** Yoshida also feels some regret over the half Hyur, half Elezen character Hilda Ware by opening the possibility of mixed race characters. When asked about whether or not mixed races will be seen again at Fanfest 2018, Yoshida grimaced as the question was being asked. While he said that he would consider it in the future, it would be limited to [=NPCs=] due to the sheer number of problems that have to be resolved for playable characters.

** The other Ultimate from Endwalker, The Omega Protocol, was also not immune to content leaks. During the world first progression, a video came out showing one of the later phases from a perspetive that could only have been obtained on a development server, showing a single player, 100% immune to all damage, going through the entire phase of the fight. A post was made promising an extremely harsh punishment to whoever was the perpetrator. In the same post, Yoshida also mentioned that somebody managed to send a false completion flag to the Unending Journey (a book that allows you to see various cutscenes) in order to show the final cutscene from the raid. That player was discovered and a penalty was issued against their account.

* CreatorKiller: Version 1.0, with its bugs and generally unpolished nature, as well as health problems, led to original developer Hiromichi Tanaka's removal as producer and his eventual departure from Square Enix -- and he was one of the original ''founders'' of Square back in the '80s.
* CrossdressingVoices: Papalymo in the Japanese version (voiced by Creator/EriKitamura), but averted everywhere else.

** The developers wanted to try to make a new Ultimate for every odd numbered .X patch, but difficulties resulting from the UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic meant that the team was scrambled enough trying to keep regular content running through the rest of ''Shadowbringers'' and into the start of ''Endwalker'', so after The Epic of Alexander in 5.1, Ultimates had to be put on hold until 6.1 brought in Dragonsong's Reprise, a nearly 3 year gap between Ultimate raids.

** Titan was originally going to be the first primal you did battle with in 1.0, but after the Japan earthquake he was shelved and replaced with Moggle Mog.

** Common consensus is that ''somewhere'' along the line, there's been some. The arguments are over just where, ranging from the theory that ''FFXIV'' 1.0 was rushed out to beat a [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft certain popular MMO]]'s next expansion, to claims the developer replacements were an unnecessary move to give executives [[TheScapegoat a scapegoat]] (or a publicity stunt). The noticeable improvements made to the game after the staff replacement suggest more of the former, however.
** The game was meant to have a version for the Xbox 360 as well, but the plan was cut short due to Microsoft refusing to allow cross play with the [=PlayStation=] 3 or the ability to play without an Xbox Live Gold account. This unfortunate trend has persisted into the succeeding console generations, and remains the reason the game is not available on the Xbox One or Series X|S, despite other recent ''Final Fantasy'' products being available for them. Finally averted during the 2023 Fan Fest when it was announced that the game would be coming to the Xbox Series X|S in 2024 just ahead of the next expansion ''Dawntrail''.

* MilestoneCelebration: The Rising events serve as this. The event always starts on August 27, the date that ''A Realm Reborn'' was launched in 2013. Each also features a message from Naoki Yoshida [[ThankingTheViewer thanking the player for playing the game]] and for continuing to support them, as well as saying that ThePlayerIsTheMostImportantResource. The tenth anniversary of the game's launch in 2023 also features letters from various people in-universe that thank adventurers for their hard work. These letters were LeaningOnTheFourthWall, as even a cursory glance at them made it clear that they were from the development team members who were also thanking the players for appreciating all their hard work.

** The official forums worked like any other forum, and Square Enix needed people to test it in its beta stages. Naturally, people started to clog the forums with spam, flame wars, and other annoying things, prompting Square Enix to slap down a heavy posting restriction where every user has a limited amount of posts they can make in a day based on their character's level and a 1000-character limit was also thrown in to prevent people from filling posts with text walls (whuch was eventually increased to 3000 characters). Then again, Square Enix wanted to test how the forums would work, and it could be argued that [[GoneHorriblyRight they got exactly what they wanted]].
** The abuse of parsers (third party add-ons that measures a player's DPS output) is the reason why the developers are very reluctant to make an official one. Because of people that use parsers to verbally harass people with low DPS (even in content where DPS checks aren't used), just openly mentioning in the game that you use parsers puts you at risk of someone reporting you. In patch 3.2, the developers created a training ground where players can whack a dummy whose HP is based off of various raid bosses (with some adjustments due to the content being for solo play) so that people can test their skill rotations for optimal DPS performance, but it doesn't give much information other than you know you are doing good if you can break the dummy before the time limit expires.

** In the past, jobs that were getting adjustments would be reflected in the prelimary patch notes or sometimes during a live letter. Due to misconceptions, backlash, and general complaining about certain jobs [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks no longer being good]], job changes are only sparingly discussed now. Only really big changes (such as major changes to the Paladin in patch 6.3) will be discussed in Live Letters, and the full details of job changes aren't posted until the patch goes live.

** When the first ''Stormblood'' trailer was released, players began speculating who the woman in the red dress was[[labelnote:Spoiler]]revealed later on to be Lyse, Yda's sister[[/labelnote]] and what job she represented. Immediately fan theories suggested she was a Dancer, given her very dance like martial arts kata, elegant dress, and use of a weight at the end of her left arm's sleeve/bracer. It would turn out that the character in question was not a dancer, or even being added as a class, but instead a certain familiar monk. For 2017's "The Rising" seasonal event to celebrate the 4th anniversary since ''A Realm Reborn's'' launch, the minion of said character [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this]].

* RealitySubtext: A "Reference Page" NPC in the Sharlayan library has a line about the desk experiencing an unusually high number of requests, asking the player to wait patiently for the issue to be resolved. Given that huge DemandOverload of ''Endwalker'''s release was ''extremely'' predictable (just for starters, one of the biggest causes of the problem was that planned server upgrades to account for the player influx had to be delayed due to a global semiconductor shortage), one might wonder if the parallel is deliberate.

** Deryk's identity turns out to be [[spoiler:as Oschon, the Wanderer. This was of little surprise, as he partakes in the wanderer's lifestyle, and there was a noticeable loophole in that the Twelve just needs to keep their true forms hidden. While the Twelve prefers animal guises, they never said it ''has'' to be animal forms. Oschon opted for a human form that resembles an in-universe [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/4/47/FFXIV_AST_The_Arrow_Card.png/revision/latest?cb=20170725132732 depiction]] of himself]]. The developers knew the players caught on quickly; just before the final raid in the "Myths of the Realm" arc, the player can choose a dialogue option making it clear that the Warrior of Light correctly deduced Deryk's identity from the start.

** Deryk's identity turns out to be [[spoiler:as Oschon, the Wanderer. This was of little surprise, as he partakes in the wanderer's lifestyle, and there was a noticeable loophole in that the Twelve just needs to keep their true forms hidden. While the Twelve prefers animal guises, they never said it ''has'' to be animal forms. Oschon opted for a human form]]. The developers knew the players caught on quickly; just before the final raid in the "Myths of the Realm" arc, the player can choose a dialogue option making it clear that the Warrior of Light correctly deduced Deryk's identity from the start.

** A few other things Yoshida stepped in on were effectively to say they were never happening - one was that the Warrior of Light will never get outfits based on past villains like they do past heroes with the veteran rewards, and that there will never be a playable job that is downright evil (like Necromancer), only dubious and morally shaded at best like Dark Knight or Reaper - both of these were reasoned as Yoshida wants to make sure the Warrior of Light is never seen as anything but a heroic figure, unlike many other MMOs which usually have at least one strictly "eviler" class to play as, which inevitably causes a disconnect when this is completely overlooked to still focus on the heroics they do.

** Many players predicted that the post-''Endwalker'' story would have [[spoiler:Azdaja be turned into Golbez's Shadow Dragon]], which played out as expected in 6.4.
** Deryk's identity [[spoiler:as Oschon, the Wanderer, was of little surprise, as he partakes in the wanderer's lifestyle, and there was a noticeable loophole in that the Twelve just needs to keep their true forms hidden. While the Twelve prefers animal guises, they never said it ''has'' to be animal forms. Oschon opted for a human form. The developers knew the players caught on quickly, with a dialogue option pointing out the reveal.]]
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: If you want to rewatch a cutscene from a seasonal event, you'd better hope someone recorded them because they are not archived into the Unending Journey.

* DevelopmentHell: Eureka was was supposed to be released shortly after the launch of the Stormblood expansion. It got delayed twice and wasn't released until 9 months later due to the developers not being satisfied with how it was coming along in the start and had to rework it. Some also speculate that Eureka was going to be similar to the Diadem and got scrapped after players didn't like how Diadem (both the original and revamped versions) turned out.