Literally all the feels coming back lol. I would kill for this feeling back.
Printable View
I've gone back and solo'd several of the 2.0 dungeons just to be able to explore at my leisure. The dungeons really do have an incredible amount of detail in them that you miss when are running it for the nth time for exp/tomes and just want it to be over already.
To be honest, with how much they neglect the open world, I doubt they'll expand and/or update it and I completely lost hope for it.
Eastern Lowlands is in the game but it was made into a PvP zone. I guess that's the only purpose they can come up with for that zone. I don't think Coerthas is going to expand any further though.
While I am aware about the problems, I still do prefer the 1.0 Coerthas which was massive, complete, green and how barren it was made it have room for expanding/improvements like landmarks and civilization (which I could say for about any 1.0 zone) and it also had a bunch of secret areas + dungeon waiting to be released but we end up with a snowy, bitter wasteland with less of it. Also not gonna lie, 1.0 was better in open world content compared to now because that's what they aim for, not really instanced content like today.
It's a shame really... Treasure Maps and Hunts had a fair amount of potential that's just be wasted...
Hunts in particular annoy me, just because they're trashy world-bosses that I cannot bring myself to care about, but Treasure Maps are just as bad... I like Aquapolis, but I'd rather they have just adapted Maps to function that way from the start... When was the last time you bothered with a Wyvernskin Map, let alone a regular Leather one? Dragonskin Maps are the only things worth a damn, and it seems to me like the Aquapolis formula of a 50/50 chance at advancing could have instead revamped Treasure Hunts... You get a Leather Map, 50% chance it drops a Goatskin Map, then you're actually going on a series of Treasure Hunts, where as Aquapolis is just a linear jaunt through a dungeon...
Hunts though... Hunts could have added so much lore to the world... Take Agathos... We've got a little tidbit of lore about him, but that's it, and it adds nothing to the world... If he instead was spawned at the Statue of the Unsung? Well, then you've got some lore via association, and something like that creates a much more interesting world, IMO... Nope though, all Hunts are trashy world-bosses, no way we could have had something with decent structure like XIs ZNM system... Meanwhile we've got dozens of caves through the game that are just there, they don't have any purpose... All those caves at the Bed of Bones, for example... Why not have Mirka spawn in a random one of those, rather than the whole zone? Then you get his pop item, and you search those caves for him... They'd have purpose...
This... Is completely off topic though, this thread was about Coerthas, not my disappointment with certain events... Actually I'm probably disappointed by all events in some regard, I could probably write an essay on it... Probably have, actually... This week alone I've made posts much longer than this on dungeons and raid progression...
From a lore perspective, Coerthas may not go back to how it once was, at least not for many many years. Based on the Lore book preview, the Umbral Age of Fire experienced a heatwave to the point that Thanalan was scorched to the point of being a desert and that was thousands of years ago.
From a dev standpoint, I don't see why they would make Coerthas back to how it once was when they can be focusing on creating new zones for the expansion. How will it even work in terms of new players, npc dialogue and quests talking about the change in environment.
It's logical to assume that at some point it will thaw and return to "normal" but the question is "on what timeline?" After any natural disaster on the magnitude of Dalamud, one would expect some temporary climate changes, but the scale of those changes can vary from a few years to millennia.
That said, what we have here is essentially a meteor that fell out of the sky. In our universe, when that happens, large amounts of dust are thrown into the atmosphere and blocks/refracts sunlight and heat causing a slight cooling (as we've seen in Coerthas).
Alternatively, volcanic eruptions release massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and cause a global heating effect. Since indications are that the volcano separating La Noscea and O'Ghomoro is about to erupt, I would guess that when that finally goes, (just before release of 5.0?) we can expect to see Coerthas thaw.
... of course that assumes that Hydaelyn/Square-Enix follow the same physics we have on Earth.
On what timeline?
Well if we visit one of the remaining shards, we might see old coerthas again. The shards really provide endless possibilities. If we can magange to access them.
I don't imagine Coerthas will change back to how it was, the aether in the Coerthas region has changed from what it was to a more ice aspected aether, I'd imagine it's a more permanent change.