World scale lost to too-convenient travel?

It was their compromise to give each area and zone a better and more unique atmosphere... Rather than a giant endless zone that looked almost the same from one corner to another, we now have many small zones that all look and feel different.

Obviously the best would be giant endless zones with constantly changing scenery, but that is a technical challenge.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

God damn it I miss old Coerthas.

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/7/f/7f6...8cf6e1ecc2.jpg
http://www.axiomfiles.com/Files/4809...1287440401.jpg

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Totally agree.

Mor-Dhona is fine as one zone, but the fact that Coerthas is 1/5th of it's formal size (and rather bland) makes me very sad. :(

It should have been at least 2 zones, the South-East like the old Coerthas, and the North-West more like the concept art

Where's the 'community in the crack'? Or the waterfall dungeon? (maybe still coming?) Also, the "Ixali main base" is pretty much old Natalan with a few fences moved. :/

http://www.gwcdn.com/albums/images/5...3d119d469a.jpg

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Originally Posted by Gramul

-lots of things I completely agree with-

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Oh Gram, I think we all miss old Coerthas. It was massive, it was beautiful, and the music was the most pleasant I have ever heard. I would have lived in that zone.

New Coerthas, by and large, is a disappointment in comparison. Not every game needs a Xarcabard.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

2. Excessive invisible walls. Want to try and scale that hill? Nope, invisible wall. Want to wade into that water? Nope, invisible wall. What's on top of this wall? Invisible wall! Or up this cliff which looks totally climbable? Invisible wall!

4. The zone transitions are completely discontinuous. I can be traveling through a canyon (ah yes, the many canyons of Eorzea!), heading towards what looks like great swaths of mountains, and then I hit a loading screen. When I pop out, suddenly I'm in the middle of a jungle. What happened? Why can't I explore those mountains? Why is 90% of the world seemingly cut off from me? Not only is this horribly disappointing from an exploration standpoint, but it cause great amounts of disorientation for me when trying to learn my way around the world.

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I agree with your post, but I especially agree with two and four. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by the completely open worlds in games like Skyrim where if you can see it, you can go there, but if I am disappointed in anything with this game, the limited open world interaction and often incongruous zone changes are definitely a little bit of a letdown. I can and do live with it just fine, but I can't say that I wouldn't have liked to see more in that respect.

That being said, I really do enjoy trekking and fighting from Gridania to Ul'Dah on foot.

The game world feels small regardless, if you're familiar with other MMOs. Largely because it is. Hopefully the content patches will fix that.

Just for reference.. NEW Coerthas vs Old (Natalan is the same in both)

http://i.imgur.com/haQOSVg.jpg

It's too bad that we are restricted to just Central Coerthas in ARR. Hopefully, they'll add to it soon (although I wouldn't be surprised if they moved on to making entirely new zones altogether).

The maps are a lot smaller. While I like it because starting out the last thing you want to do is run everywhere, but as the game allows you to teleport, airship and chocobo the game does shrink dramatically.

I personally liked the old maps from 1.0 more, I didn't uncover all of it, but it just had a lot more dimension and depth to it. So travel has trivialized it a bit but it happens in every game, you just feel it more in 14.

{Teleport-Mea} {Do You Need It?} 1000 gil {/tell}

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Originally Posted by Gramul

But that was the best part. The first time braving the long and dangerous journey to a new town. That satisfaction of entering Juno. Finally getting your chocobo and making travel a breeze. Yeah there probably should have been shortcuts for more experienced players, but the first journeys where always something special. Something I haven't seen repeated in any other game sense.

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To be fair, it's not like you can warp to every crystal at the start of the game. The big difference in my opinion, is how early Airships are introduced compared to FFXI.

I think there are many differences that contribute, but I think warping (without a BLM) would have been very welcome for most people playing FFXI :P Let's be realistic, traveling to Jeuno for the 167th time, wasn't fun or exciting. After a while, you just wanted to get to your destination. I will agree though, that it made the world seem massive in comparison, which was awesome.

I would like to see FFXIV's airships/boats remade to what FFXI was like. Arrival/Departure times. Travel time with chance of getting invaded by mobs. etc. It made for exciting, unpredictable journey's. Then again, SE wants this game to be popular, and low levels dying on boats would discourage a lot of people in the WoW-era of MMO's.

Lost to too-convenient travel and zones that are ridiculously small.