No expansion ever had 10 zones nor did patches ever come out every 3 months.
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Wrath of the Lich King launched with ten zones:
1 - Borean Tundra
2 - Howling Fjord
3 - Dragonflight
4 - Grizzly Hills
5 - Storm Peaks
6 - Zul Drak
7 - Icecrown
8 - Crystalsong Forest
9 - Wintergrasp
10 - Sholazar Basin
There's also Dalaran, though since that floats above Crystalsong Forest during the expansion I'll consider it to be an extension of that particular zone. On a technicality you could probably count the Death Knight starter zone as a new zone, though it's temporary and only relevant if someone plays that particular class so I'll leave it off of the list.
It's an unfortunate trend for MMO's to begin releasing less and less content as time goes on if they feel they can get away with it.
You could argue that ARR had more zones, but what actually happened is they made the current 6 bigger in exchange for there being less. You can see how Upper La Noscea and Outer La Noscea are actually the same area.
Content reduces because as you build a stack of cards there become fewer places to stack those cards without knocking it all down. Developers also want to maintain a good work-life balance.
I'd rather small miniscule zones than massive barren wastelands with almost nothing in them. At least the ARR zones feel full when compared to something like; the Sea of Clouds and how 70% of it can remain completely unexplored and have no repercussions on your gameplay because you do not need to return there ever again for the MSQ after you finish that portion of the MSQ, the Peaks and Fringes, which are basically the same zone split in two, the moon zone in Endwalker, forgot the name because it's that forgettable and the underwater zone in shadowbringers. Massive zones are a hit or miss and are now just big to be big when some can be reduced in size and have no impact on the overall feel of the zone and save development time and costs.
I think it will and it has. Lets review things that have happened out of the ordinary. The ordinary being a new dungeon, some msq, and an alliance raid or raid segment.
1. Oceania Data Center
2. FFXIV Wide server upgrades to accommodate larger populations and ideally remove hardware limitations to making some changes a reality
3. A Graphics upgrade (huge)
4. Sanctuary Island
5. Criterion Dungeons
6. PVP Rework
All this stuff is pretty big, and pretty out of the ordinary. I also want more, I do. But lets give credit where credit is due.
SB was able to offer a lot though and didn’t have to cut anything out. SB gave us an entire housing district with no bugs. They gave us diving(new). They gave us spear fishing(new). We were getting more dungeons, Ultimate, data center travel, 4 relic weapon zones etc. And they did all this without having to cut other content. Compare this to ShB which cut Hildibrand,allied beast tribes quests, the number of dungeons we get per patch, deep dungeon etc. And a lot of this stuff was confirmed cut before covid even came.
I would probably strike out PVP rework, cause this is like the 3rd rework PvP has had. It's nothing new really outside of the new crystarian conflict mode but we lost feast in it's place, and the battle pass type progression layout.
Graphic update already happened before in SB when they stopped supporting PS3.
Server upgrades.... those should have happened in ARR TBH this is very long over due.
Oceanic Server has been a complaint since ARR again long over due.
So there is your credit where credit it due there. Most of this crap should have happened a while ago, or has already happened at least once.
Criterion dungeons sounds cool, but I have a feeling they will find a way to screw that up. Like making it be for leveling alt classes vs something new and fresh.
Sanctuary Island, Yoshi P has already said players are expecting to much of this, so that tells me it is probably going to suck however I don't expect much from the devs when it comes to new side content.