My favorite “rumor” was not about the future, but at the time a current release. I made a joke about how Marcus was the best unit ever created in FE7, and people started joking about how one day he would be taken seriously, but was all around considered trash.
Well… I’m sure any of you know that he’s invaluable in ranked runs, or any for that matter, and it was just a community still learning tricks of the trade that were considered niche or groundbreaking at the time, but common sense and basic now. I think Seth got the same treatment, but I remember people ragging on FE8 because it was viewed as too easy with skirmishes and tower abuse.
This was on the old NSider forums, mind you, but considering most FE communities didn’t exist yet, I’m not sure of how many other places discussions carried on.