Final Fantasy 14's Patch 7.1 Trailer teases character development for Zoraal, the bad dad antagonist. But it also reveals a sluggish schedule for other content.

Final Fantasy 14's story patch will be a test of whether Creative Studio 3 can respond quickly to complaints about the story, or if we'll have to suffer through a plodding narrative in the next three patches. I'm still open to giving it another chance, and this trailer promises that the premise will not be abandoned just because the entry is clunky. Spoilers of Dawntrailnaturally.

Crossroads Patch 7.1 (as shown on "Letter From the Producer" Live" today) appears to be taking Solution Nine back to deal with the aftermath of Queen Sphene being killed by Wuk Lamat, not to mention the aftermath of death. The Endless is gone, and now the people of Solution Nine will be able to remember their dead, which means that a city of people who are not used to grieving will have to deal with it.

It looks like we will also be getting a closer look at Zoraal Ja. He was one of the two antagonists who were severely underdeveloped in Dawntrail. While I could see the hints of his motivations through the thin veneer of good faith when I played it at the time the flavour text of the optional Extreme version painted a more complete picture of his story arc than did the main story. Which is, uh... bad.

Still, they say that it's better to be late than never. My main problem with Dawntrail was that it didn't allow its most interesting plots to breathe. If the patch quests aim to fix that, I will be along for the ride.

Other than that, there were no major reveals. Final Fantasy 11 fans will get a nostalgic trip with the Echoes of Vana'diel Raid, where Bakool Ja Ja, the lizard heartthrob, will play a supporting role. I'm new to the world and I'm excited to learn more. The quality of the battle content has been impressive so far. I'm confident that we're going to be in for an amazing alliance raid series.

What worries me is that, despite the general frustration with the slow pace of development of much of the content in the game, most of Patch 7.1 will be released in Patch 7.15 instead, which, if patterns are to be believed, should arrive around two months later.

The new custom deliveries will be available in patch 7.15 and later. This will leave us with the new MSQ content, the Alliance Raid and the new Extreme quests. At least the fight with FF11 mainstay Prishe is cool.

I don't know--I'm eager to play what's available, but I'm left wondering why we're prioritising the Ultimate again (a piece so difficult that even dedicated raiders won't be able to try it), over things that will keep midcore and causal players interested after they've endured a sluggish 4 months with nothing to do. It will be six to seven months after the launch of the game before they are given anything to do. And many of those quests are one-and-done. I didn't expect the problems I outlined in my post last week to be resolved immediately, but it is also not great to have been proven right again. Here's hoping that we're just at the beginning of a long uphill climb.