One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

keep the discussion and ideas flowing in Siobu, would be nice to get a dev response at some point in this thread! :)

I loved reading every bit of your post. I honestly felt I wanna start up my "PlayOnline" with its cozy bluish interface checking my messages and logging into Vanadiel with my NIN and explore! You scratched a huge surface of good memories.

I agree with most of the comments above. But it is true that FFXIV's zones are WAY bigger than FFXI. however, I need to echo my fellow players above that it needs diversity in nature, in mobs, in feeling overall (be it music, or any other affect that adds to the gamer's experience) I do appreciate the work that was put into the current zone, but yes it is not enough.

Thanks for such a nice topic!

We've all probably seen the leaked dungeon photos/vids floating around by now and it brings up an interesting thought. All of the dungeons (thus far) have just been re textured instances of prior areas of the game. SE has made minor cosmetic touch ups like adding large Coral trees to the La Noscea instances, lots of background overgrowth and misc. wooden structures in the Black Shroud instances, large broken eggs, pools of bright glowing liquid and ancient architecture in the Coerthas instances and glowing aether, flowing water and webs to the Thanalan Ant Lairs.

Now how hard would it be to give each zone/subzone in the game that small attention to detail? Add a few things here, re texture spots of the environment there. With zone lines this would give drastic changes to each subzone of each map. How hard would it be to re texture mobs in each specific area? XI did it with every mob in the game and even though it was monotonous, it was 100% better than what we have right now.

To be completely honest I don't even think it would take them that long either. After they get all the core systems fixed it would probably only take their artists/programmers a month or two to do. It's the little things like this that would bring back the wide eyed adventurer feeling we all got when we first stepped foot into Vanadiel. BRING IT BACK!

thoughts?

Btw: Even seamless worlds can be fun to explore. And the crazy thing is: there were games WAY back in 2004 who already had this (Lineage 2). Now the game itself was a total grinder, but the general zone layout was quite interesting to explore.

So perhaps it's less being in one zone or another, but being in something that feels different enough to make a difference. All of Thanalan is yellow and brown. All of the shroud is dark green. All of Limsa's vicinity is grey and light green. Perhaps there's the real problem.

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

Btw: Even seamless worlds can be fun to explore. And the crazy thing is: there were games WAY back in 2004 who already had this (Lineage 2). Now the game itself was a total grinder, but the general zone layout was quite interesting to explore.

So perhaps it's less being in one zone or another, but being in something that feels different enough to make a difference. All of Thanalan is yellow and brown. All of the shroud is dark green. All of Limsa's vicinity is grey and light green. Perhaps there's the real problem.

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I will agree with this to an extent. I still feel each sub area within a map needs its own attention to detail and I don't think a loading screen for 5 seconds will hurt anyone's feelings too much. If you can go from Central Thanalan, walk into the "no loading screen seamless world tunnel that connects each subzone" path and then walk into Western Thanalan and have it look not the same as Centeral Thanalan, that would work too.

Why all the actual game is so easy and borring ? Cause they wanted to focus on "casual" players... big mistake. Most of casual players i met said they will just quit once we will have to pay...

We want challenge/fantasy/adventure etc SE please don't follow the "casu way" there are so many offline games for them don't ruin this FF14 ; ; bring back the magic

I like the large, seamless zones but as I've said before, more diversity in the zones would be nice both in the environment and enemies in those areas too.

The way the maps are laid out, they look like they could be given more distinctive look. Thanalan has its Central, Eastern, Western, Northern and South Eastern areas. La Noscea has Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western Areas. The Black Shroud has Central, Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western areas. But at the moment all of these areas in each region do look too similar.

Coerthas and Mor Dhona are also being wasted at the moment. There are calls to go there for quests but the lack of Leves in those areas is disappointing.

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Originally Posted by Richard

I don't think a loading screen for 5 seconds will hurt anyone's feelings too much.

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I don't even think the loading screen would be needed. The underground dungeon areas don't require them to go into an area with a different aesthetic.

Ideally I'd like to see the zone lines between the existing zones removed so we have one seamless world, with extra areas inserted to give a smoother transition from zone to the next but I can't see that happening.

We really need Yoshida/Dev thoughts about this matter as this looks like one of the biggest concerns of the actual FFXIV players.

Like! on OP post if you can please :)

If I may amend further thoughts to my previous posts, I'd also like to touch upon the seams.

I, personally only, do not mind and would not be affected either way. Whether there was a brief, painless loading screen or nothing at all. Both are fine and appropriate, for me. Fortunately, this does not affect my first point at all.

If Sarutabaruta (both of them) seamlessly connected to Giddeus, to Windurst, Tahrongi, the Maze, the Mountains... That situation would not affect FF14 problem. Sarutabaruta still serves its purpose as a training ground, Tahrongi serves its purpose as the first face of larger foes. The Mountains serves its purpose of truly throwing the players at even more deadly foes. All along the way, the landscape transitions into something new. Whether it's the grass beneath your feet dwindling into sand, or rocky mass breaking into a swamp.

If all of FF11's zones were seamless, or if they all had loading screens... If all of FF11's areas remained the same, then would it matter? We still have all of these beautiful areas, with the stakes getting bigger and bigger with each step ahead (stronger foes, more risk).

However, I understand that hardware does affect our future. I, personally, feel that the FF14's issue of progression is so desperate for help, that if seams must be sacrificed (seams that currently exist otherwise, only tricking its adventurers with what seems to be size) to create a world, to create milestones, to create that moment where you release your hand from the keyboard to take in what you see after crossing that line, I, personally, would be welcoming of this change.

That moment is important. It says to us, "You are no longer a meek recruit. You have grown, and this is where I've taken you. Where will you go after this?"

This question does not exist, because we know where we will be after the Central Shroud. As we pass Cedarwood to Bloodshore, we've already seen where we WILL be. We're thrown from camp to camp of opposite ends of the maps, fighting beasts and assassins with darkened hearts, all within the confines of the Shroud. The moment means nothing. There is no question of where we will be from one to fifty. We've been there. As soon as we took our first steps, we've been there.

I do not wish to say that there is anything wrong with seams. Like I said, I am fine either way, so long as the core issue may be resolved. However, where will the compromise lay? For those who desire a clear range of levels for each land, and for those who desire one large land to travel?

I want for smaller lands, and small in this world is actually very misleading, with one purpose. Some may wish to keep the larger lands, the Shroud, La Noscea, Thanalan. But what of the level range?

If all of the Shroud was changed to that of typical trainee grounds, say 1-10, is it necessary to have 5 instances (size-wise, I mean) of the same area, all serving the same purpose of getting one man to level 10?

Unfortunately, the areas are only large to contain the range of 1-50 foes. Should we receive a genuine world, a true map, we may only really need an East and West Sarutabaruta. Not East, West, South, North, Northwest, Southwest...

Unfortunately, this is a valid concern as we all desire something different for our world's future.

But what's best? I know how I feel, how do you feel?

Thank you, everyone again! I appreciate every one of you who came to visit this thread, including you readers. :)

Oh, and I enjoy the idea of adding areas between the areas/divisions we have now. It's a very nice option for expansion of diversity and transition.

pretty much 100% agree with your latest post Sio. sums it up nicely.

props to the OP, this thread needs to be seen by the devs.

I do wonder if they'll even consider a major overhaul of the starting zones, I'm doubtful. At least if they see that enough people are tired with the lack of variety, they will surely address it with expansions bringing in new areas.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

The world doesn't even make sense. I mean Thanalan's desert suddenly transforms into a forest at the Shroud zone line? Where's the transition? I always felt there was a region missing between those and even on the world map it looks like there should be a desert area that turns into a grassy area followed by a river and then grassy before going to forest. Shroud itself makes no sense. If you've ever been north of Nine Ivies you'll see the area is miles above the ground, yet on the world map it's all flat.

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You gonna tell me, and we could compare both XI and WoW, that these games didn't have drastic zone differences when they changed? Valkurm to....anywhere? Or Ashenvale to the Barrens?

People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better. Better get that in your head, accept it and let the team worry about something that they can accomplish worth doing to make the game better larger than on a cosmetic scale.

I'd prefer the team spends more time on creating new areas for exploration rather than spend time remaking areas to transition better right now.

This is by far the single largest obstacle this game is facing. This isn't going to be fixed by a couple of people adjusting a formula here and there. They need to put massive effort into this and not cut any corners. But are they even devoting that much manpower to this game? In beta they were quick to hide behind flimsy excuses of "not enough memory" or "DVD limitations" but nobody would have scoffed if the game shipped on multiple discs, and in my opinion nobody's going to scoff now if they need to push out multiple-gigabyte patches to fix this.

I do appreciate that they realized the game wasn't good enough to charge for yet, and that they're continuing work on it and haven't just abandoned it. However, if SE isn't willing to put forth the considerable resources necessary to fix some of the most fundamental problems like this, they won't have to worry about whether to abandon it or not because we'll already be gone.

+1 to this. I wholeheartedly agree.

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Originally Posted by Draven

You gonna tell me, and we could compare both XI and WoW, that these games didn't have drastic zone differences when they changed? Valkurm to....anywhere? Or Ashenvale to the Barrens?

People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better. Better get that in your head, accept it and let the team worry about something that they can accomplish worth doing to make the game better larger than on a cosmetic scale.

I'd prefer the team spends more time on creating new areas for exploration rather than spend time remaking areas to transition better right now.

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This whole thread is not centered around transitioning between zones. That is more of an afterthought. Creating more zones to bandaid the old ones is not fixing the problem it's just exacerbating it further. They are doing the right thing by reworking a lot of the original mistakes tanaka and his team made and they ALSO need to work on the way the world is laid out. It's a HUGE failure I don't care how you angle it.

The team CAN accomplish it and they SHOULD consider doing it for the betterment of this game. They are called starting areas for a reason because its the first place you start. If the starting areas suck hard how do you think the overall outlook of new players is going to go? They are not going to bother drudging through crap upon crap to *hope* they get to something better at the end. They will just not play. SE wants money. SE wants subs. SE NEEDS to fix the things that matter. Period.

I am very worried.

Such a good thread! And I agree wholeheartedly with the OP! I seriously hope that the devs/Yoshi sees this soon and repond, and maybe if some people could post this OP inthe native language forums on this board, it could go a long way in making the devs realise how big of a problem this actually is.

Each of the starting regions in FFXIV do disappoint me, i was hoping for more variety :(

They could add more to the regions like settlements and land marks and give us new enemies, also change the level range from 1-50 to something like 1-20/30, i wouldn't mind this! I don't like the starting regions adjacent to each other. I would rather more regions to be added inbetween starting regions with level ranging from 20-30/40, this would give us more variety.

Accomplish what exactly? Is the OP talking about limiting the rank of mob level or remaking the areas entirely?

Just sounds like another glorification of XI and complaining about XIV without good suggestion as to how to improve XIV.

At best here's what I think they will probably do. Nothing is going to change in the original town areas. They may change some of the scenery a little but the availability to do Leves 1-50 will remain.

They will add more areas and give those areas similar Aether camps and they too will have leves you can do there as alternatives to the same rank leves in the town areas. A few new mobs but largely many familiar ones from the original areas. Coblyns, Rats and Puks for example.


That's it. No fancy transitions, no added zones in between Thanalan and Black Shroud. Just more areas as alternatives to these original areas.

I'm sorry I can't jump together with the energy (often with insesant bashing of XIV) that incredible changes like these are going to happen. I set my expectation low~ and enjoy it for what it is.

@Draven: I dont think its about adding new areas and aetherye camps. Its about mob distribution in the already given areas. In FFXI, You went from (taking Windurst as starting point, like me :) ) Sarutabaruta to Tahrongi Canyon to Buburimu to Valkurm to Konschtat, etc fighting mobs appropriate to level rang. In FFXIV, you go from Thanalan to.... well Thanalan, to grind mobs in leves and behests. The sense of progression and adventure through exploring different places as you travel simply is not there, and I feel that this needs to be fixed, as soon as. IMO Its boring and after 9 months of putting up with it, Im not sure Id want to spend 2+ years doing that for all classes/jobs.

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People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better.

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This is not the point of this topic, OP is not saying "I want better transitions!" LOL he is saying I want a progression of each zone to create the sense of accomplishment as you adventure along the road from 1-50. This is a major problem and something they better fix/adjust w/e. They could create all new expansions or they could just fix the mob placement. Make a big world map and organize the layout of mobs to create natural progression. If they kept the 1-30 mobs as Richard said broken into subsections within the 3 main regions so that as you adventure out of Ul dah and take a right hand turn you don't run into lvl 90 fire drakes. This is just shitty planning and design.

Solution
Central Thanalan: 1-10 [marmot,coblyn,WORM,bees]
east thanalan: 10-20 [dodo,puk,spider,ladybug]
west thanalan 20-30 [goat,vulture,beastman(ogre?),cactuar]
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coerthas: 30-40 [antelop,wolf,piesty,bird]
etc etc..

In order for this design strategy to work they would need to make a few changes to other systems to promote the idea of party play and encourage you to group up and adventure in this fashion rather then just leve linking from camp to camp.

Solution
-Add chain bonus for efficient killing OUTSIDE of levequests
-adjust sp caps to promote killing harder mobs (remove 10 lvl gap as max)
-add basic party search/seeking feature
-add a form of transportation outside anima (mounts system) to allow players to travel to camps and explore

Everyone glorifies XI for what it did correctly. No one wants to see XIV make XI's same mistakes they only want to take what was amazing from it and utilize it here. If SE was smart they would do the same. If you are satisfied with how the exploration and level progression of XIV is right now then I feel completely sorry for you as it must not take much to please you.

XIV has the potential to be an extremely well liked game as long as SE rebuilds it correctly. That is all people want out of this thread.

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Originally Posted by tachikoma

This is not the point of this topic, OP is not saying "I want better transitions!" LOL he is saying I want a progression of each zone to create the sense of accomplishment as you adventure along the road from 1-50. This is a major problem and something they better fix/adjust w/e. They could create all new expansions or they could just fix the mob placement. Make a big world map and organize the layout of mobs to create natural progression. If they kept the 1-30 mobs as Richard said broken into subsections within the 3 main regions so that as you adventure out of Ul dah and take a right hand turn you don't run into lvl 90 fire drakes. This is just shitty planning and design.

Solution
Central Thanalan: 1-10 [marmot,coblyn,WORM,bees]
east thanalan: 10-20 [dodo,puk,spider,ladybug]
west thanalan 20-30 [goat,vulture,beastman(ogre?),cactuar]
--------------------------------
coerthas: 30-40 [antelop,wolf,piesty,bird]
etc etc..

In order for this design strategy to work they would need to make a few changes to other systems to promote the idea of party play and encourage you to group up and adventure in this fashion rather then just leve linking from camp to camp.

Solution
-Add chain bonus for efficient killing OUTSIDE of levequests
-adjust sp caps to promote killing harder mobs (remove 10 lvl gap as max)
-add basic party search/seeking feature
-add a form of transportation outside anima (mounts system) to allow players to travel to camps and explore

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+1 Tachi agree with a lot of these ideas

Well written and a bit poetic. You have indeed captured the essence of FFXI and what we all hoped would be the essence of FFIV.

"Oh, war is the common cry, pick up your swords and fly
The sky is filled with good and bad, mortals never know

Oh well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow

The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath
The drums will shake the castle wall, the Ringwraiths ride in black (ride on)

Sing as you raise your bow, (ride on) shoot straighter than before
No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold

Oh, dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light
The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back, bring it back"

Battle Of Evermore by Led Zeppelin

This I feel is the biggest issue with the game.

From Bastock to the tunnel then into the desert and then getting lost in the desert.
Or exploring outside windurst in the towers, finding the secret path into the sewers then ending up in Windurst.

I miss these things to name a few x.x

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Originally Posted by tachikoma

This is not the point of this topic

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I didnt say that was the entire point of the topic. I was making a general comment that people need to keep in mind what possibilities are really worth pushing for. That person (not the OP) not only is forgetting the realities of already existing MMOs (and console RPGs) that have the same lack of transition between zones, but probably has no idea what it would take for them to change the zones without massive amounts of work for trivial gain.

I understand OPs talk because I played XI too, and he's right. But I'm tired of people talking about how great XI was, rarely ever acknowledging something SE did right about XIV and making little to no effort in contributing something constructive to the improvement of THIS game.

Btw I'm in no way shape or form a fan boy of SE. In fact I think they made some of the worst MMO design choices for both XI and XIV. However many of the participating players in the forums here are making the game sound worse than it really is and making XI sound better than it really was I think. It's completely unconstructive around here 70% of the time and it's time to hear more constructive critisizm.

I like Kidkaze's suggestion of spreading level progression to already existing areas, but I'm concerned about what the consequences of that might be for the existing areas.

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Originally Posted by Draven

You gonna tell me, and we could compare both XI and WoW, that these games didn't have drastic zone differences when they changed? Valkurm to....anywhere? Or Ashenvale to the Barrens?

People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better. Better get that in your head, accept it and let the team worry about something that they can accomplish worth doing to make the game better larger than on a cosmetic scale.

I'd prefer the team spends more time on creating new areas for exploration rather than spend time remaking areas to transition better right now.

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Why would they create new zones for exploration? NEWS FLASH! A tremendous part of the current map we have is filled with monsters we cannot hope to kill. So there are your 'new areas for exploration!'

I never understood why they made the zones as massive as they did, and filled them with so many useless things likes R99 basilisks when they couldn't even give camps like Drybone landmarks. If they cut off 50% of our current world and map, I doubt anyone would notice for weeks. Seamless is overrated, I'd rather have a variety of zones, I don't care how unrealistic it is. Giant, overgrown canaries are unrealistic and I want them too.

I agree with pretty much all that was said in this thread and I read each and every single posts. I may add that the fact that we have these HUGE ass "seemless" zones is maybe the issue but it could also be used to fix the problem. Black shroud for exemple, each zone within Black shroud could (should have been from the start) be different from one another and requiring the adventurers to be stronger and stronger as they progess. The reason that it feels like we are in the same exact zone from 1-50 is that the WHOLE zone is exactly the same everywhere; same color, same outlay, same trees, same rocks, same mobs, just the same everywhere. If the shroud was broken into sub-zone that esthetically looked like "saruta-baruta, taronhgi canyon, Giddeus, buburimu" all in the same seemless zone, then we wouldn't fell like we do right now.

To sum it up, yes it does worry me that we do not leave the zone, but that is what a seemless zone is. It would not cause any worry, in anyone, if the same zone was diverse depending on where you are within that zone, and that goes for all the zones we have right now.

And saying they got limitations and therefore required that each zone is relatively alike and copy/pasted, well this is bullsh** in my opinion. Hell, WoW is pretty much seemless for each continent they have and each of the continent have various zones with very different esthetics to each one of them. Sure they use copy/paste for some elements as well, but it sure is less apparent than in FFXIV and it doesn't require a very good PC to play it. FFXIV could do the same with the stunning graphics they have, it would just require a better PC which pretty much everyone had to get to play the game anyways.

I really wish FFXIV to succeed, I really do and would love to play a successful FFXIV, but right now as it stands, and reading this thread actually made it worse, it's really not up to my expectations even tho the graphics are stunning.

The dramatisation was hilariously bad, but the point is valid. They really need to make the experience of moving between sub-zones of each region MUCH more interesting.

How they do that is up to them, but it's more than necessary.

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Originally Posted by Draven

I didnt say that was the entire point of the topic. I was making a general comment that people need to keep in mind what possibilities are really worth pushing for. That person (not the OP) not only is forgetting the realities of already existing MMOs (and console RPGs) that have the same lack of transition between zones, but probably has no idea what it would take for them to change the zones without massive amounts of work for trivial gain.

I understand OPs talk because I played XI too, and he's right. But I'm tired of people talking about how great XI was, rarely ever acknowledging something SE did right about XIV and making little to no effort in contributing something constructive to the improvement of THIS game.

Btw I'm in no way shape or form a fan boy of SE. In fact I think they made some of the worst MMO design choices for both XI and XIV. However many of the participating players in the forums here are making the game sound worse than it really is and making XI sound better than it really was I think. It's completely unconstructive around here 70% of the time and it's time to hear more constructive critisizm.

I like Kidkaze's suggestion of spreading level progression to already existing areas, but I'm concerned about what the consequences of that might be for the existing areas.

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If you'd actually read most of everyone's posts you'd see that it isn't really that far fetched of an idea of what we're suggesting.

- Progression from zone to zone with introduction of zone specific mobs and levels
- POSSIBLE but not required zone lines to break up the monotony of huge areas smashed together
- Unique cosmetic changes to each subzone*

No one is suggesting they start from the ground up again. All of these things will breath more life and immersion into the experience that is FFXIV. How could any of these things be a waste of time when it's what people have been begging for, for almost 9 months now? They are reworking Battle, UI, Jobs and new Content. All of that stuff is great and we applaud them for doing it. But go back and fix the design mistakes as well.

* If SE can spend a month (or two) to re-skin Tam-Tara, Cassiopeia Hollow and Copperbell Mines into new instanced areas they sure as hell can spend a month added cosmetic changes to currently existing zones.

This is counter-intuitive, imho. They add seamless zoning to the game, and people assume that these large areas are one zone? Every single Aether is surrounded by an area that is its own respective zone - if you run with a group, you can even see people depop and repop across the borders.

As for ranking 1-50 in one zone - there's no reason to grind on open-field mobs at all. Ever. They're for farming. Properly linked levequests will send your SP pull far beyond even the /feeling/ of "grinding" (something I absolutely love about FFXIV) and you can move right on from zone to zone to zone. You're literally playing through just enough parties between two ranks to learn to efficiently use the abilities that come with them and that's all you need (again, imho).

There are many more zones coming to the game, but these are the main bases of operations. If FFXIV were FFXIII, these areas would be the Central Plains.

The only flaw in these zones is the lack of distinctness to each. I don't mind if they all share a similar theme, but dear Twelve, PLEASE, some unique plants or landscape features or something. Too much copypasta. As for the rest of your concerns, I think some will be addressed in time, and some just require being looked at from a different vantage point.

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As for ranking 1-50 in one zone - there's no reason to grind on open-field mobs at all. Ever. They're for farming. Properly linked levequests will send your SP pull far beyond even the /feeling/ of "grinding" (something I absolutely love about FFXIV) and you can move right on from zone to zone to zone. You're literally playing through just enough parties between two ranks to learn to efficiently use the abilities that come with them and that's all you need (again, imho).

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So when my leve static has finished all of its leves for the night and I'm still 50k TNR are you suggesting I not go farm raptors at Boulder Downs for 25-30k an hour? You'd just rather I waited until tomorrow for leves to reset I guess.

Mobs like raptors in areas like Boulder Down, or Efts in Treespeak/Tam Tara are MEANT to be grinded on. SE is giving the community the option to choose. With that in mind SE needs to go even further and optimize each area for leve/grind play - and it all has to be unique. I agree the copypasta is unbearable and that is one of the MASSIVE concerns of this post.

@ Richard well I did read the post up to page 3 and I read 1 solid suggestion by another person, not the OP talking about how to make it better while the rest mostly talked about how great XI was (which is boring me to death to read now)

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

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Originally Posted by Draven

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

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I'd like a direct source to said confirmation on them reworking the zones ASIDE from Yoshida's apparent distaste for The Black Shroud. There has been no mention of reworking zones.

They are ADDING things to zones such as active beastmen, beastmen strongholds and frontier quest hubs. This, again, is putting a bandaid over an already festering wound.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

This is counter-intuitive, imho. They add seamless zoning to the game, and people assume that these large areas are one zone? Every single Aether is surrounded by an area that is its own respective zone - if you run with a group, you can even see people depop and repop across the borders.

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People assume it is the same zone because they are all so similar. There is little to no variation in the surrounding area.
Imagine if SE used the same textures and objects they used in Ronfaure for every zone between San D'oria and Bastok.

I don't understand all the gripe about loading screens, perhaps because I'm not an XI player, but XIV is not seamless as far as zone shifting. Have you not noticed those scrawny tunnels that seem to connect each zone, despite how geographically silly that is? Those tunnels act as a kind of buffer to block the player from seeing the game rendering the next zone, bit by bit. It's clever, but it's not seamless, and as I remember, it's been a while since I have been so desperate, aren't there actual loading screens between all the major zones anyway? Thanalan--->Black Shroud has a black loading screen, so the whole XIV is seamless awesomeness is really just moot.

Praising XIV for having a seamless world, when it obv doesn't is just silly. Azeroth had a seamless world as as far as continents went for the most part, and I don't understand why XIV could not adopt that same technology as it has been around for years. Granted Azeroth is much smaller than Eorzea, with an incredibly diverse array of zones, and I believe Tanaka explained that the higher resolution polygons are what stopped XIV from being truly seamless. Just two sides of the coin here :-)

i agree 100%. Nothing really is dangerous in this game, that makes it even worse. You can even run by mobs that could easy kill you but they return fast to their territory (i don't want something like follow you until you zone, but a lil longer would make things more dangerous).

Due to the lack of danger, no matter if in dungeons or in the wide areas, there is no feel of an adventure at all, nowhere.
The classquests/main missions even make it worse. It feels like goin to the zoo with momy... but not like ff at all.

Gobs are even friendly right now, they don't aggro.
We really need a lot of open world content (not instanced) dungeions (also nto instanced) to explore, fight through as a group... We need to have dangers all over the place with only few places to rest. Thats the only way we might get an adventure feeling.

It can't be the solution to add more "leves" that might be better or challenging (we need them too ofc). We need to have the world all around us to be more dangerous, far far more dangerous and challenging.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

The world doesn't even make sense. I mean Thanalan's desert suddenly transforms into a forest at the Shroud zone line? Where's the transition? I always felt there was a region missing between those and even on the world map it looks like there should be a desert area that turns into a grassy area followed by a river and then grassy before going to forest. Shroud itself makes no sense. If you've ever been north of Nine Ivies you'll see the area is miles above the ground, yet on the world map it's all flat.

I don't think they can fix these areas. They just need to be forgotten about as soon as an expansion comes along and adds new areas. Then again we aren't even using Coerthas and Mor Dhona for content yet or the 20 or so dungeons that are locked away.

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

It's almost ridiculous, but true nonetheless.
MMO Players around the world kept crying for a seamless world, and now that we have it, all are dissatisfied.
The irony.

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This is why I don't even consider the world seamless. Anything within a region I call a zone, I'm looking for the seamless world to happen between zones.

When I got into open beta and started in Gridania and then went to Ul'dah, I was very disappointed that there was no seamless transition from a forest to a desert. You see the forest, you zone, you see the desert. You don't see a transition start happening when you get to the southern part of the shroud, you don't see hints of a forest starting behind you as you enter the desert, you hit a line and the game blacks out and reloads you into another area ala FFXI. I wanted to see a walk where you eventually see the transition and the game loads you to another part of the server as you keep moving and no stop and black screens.

This is why I'm disappointed by their "seamless world".