In the rare WoW space, but given the sort of apples to orange dialogue in my mind. These are “final” expansion overviews.

• Vanilla – Heroes win! No lasers.
• WoLK – Frostmourne laser, and then Tirion’s laser
• Cataclysm – Green jeebus shoots a magic laser on Deathwing
• MoP – Heroes beat Garrosh! No lasers.
• WOD – Archimonde uses the green laser to close the portal
• Legion – Space laser takes out Sargeras
• BfA – Titan laser takes out N’Zoth
• SL – dollars to donuts pretty darn clear that a laser made of the 4 zones is going to take down the bad guy

There are a half dozen Blizzard tropes over the years, the redemption arc being top of pile. But the dependency on lasers, and in particular lasers not used by the heroes, wasn’t one that really came to mind. I mean, you are a player are there, but you’re more of a peon or an enabler of someone else.

This came to mind as I was working through the FF14 MSQ, where the game goes to great lengths to make you the agent of change, even on the final battles. Nidhogg goes down at the end of Heavensward, but the cinematic has you pulling the stuff from the remaining dragoon. Not that FF14 spends all it’s time in the concrete, it is a story about the struggle between the god of light and that of dark. There are some really “out there” scenes.

I get that I’m in a sort of honeymoon phase here. No different than when you get a new car, or change jobs. Things that you normally take for granted really start popping out (blind spots in cars… that’s a pet peeve). It’s clear that FF14 took massive inspiration from WoW, just like WoW did from EQ, and EQ from UO, and so on. Just like Toyota took inspiration from Ford, or Yamaha from Harley. And in those last 2 cases, ended up doing better than their inspirations.