Unused areas for later use discussion

There are a few areas in the game that have gone unused for quite a long time, neither for content, FATE areas, or side quests.

Some of these areas feel like they WERE going to be used at some point, but they never got around to it or it had to be cut for whatever reason. I'd love for them to maybe come back to these spots to add content like a PotD entrance or something so we have a reason to come back to older zones past their prime. Make the world of 14 feel a bit more lived in with new discoveries since we were taken there for the story.

These are just a few off the top of my head that ive always wondered about

https://i.imgur.com/IhGWQsR.png
Always thought it was weird that this area was never brought up in the HW story. Theres no map pin with a name for it or anything either


https://i.imgur.com/tPaVNyW.png
Always felt like this area was ment to be an entrance for something that got canned.


https://i.imgur.com/EYISBEg.png
The wall in the 'hallway' reeks of 'blocked off until content comes out' to me. Like maybe it was a dungeon planned to explain some of the allagans lore or as a Coil entrance they didn't use.


Anyway, these were just the few off my head that kept popping up from time to time, lemme know if you have any spots that looked like planned content or unused areas that you know about!

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Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

The wall in the 'hallway' reeks of 'blocked off until content comes out' to me. Like maybe it was a dungeon planned to explain some of the allagans lore or as a Coil entrance they didn't use.

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In a couple of places where they reused and altered maps from 1.x, the 'rock fall blocking a pathway' or whatnot is actually cutting off older content. If you look at the 1.x Toto-Rak map and then the 2.0 Toto-Rak, you can see there were a lot of pathways they cut off, and in the map there's just rockfalls blocking the old pathways. Same with Aurum Vale and the Dzaemel Darkhold. There is some of that in the world maps as well, though less -- those were more heavily redesigned, especially in Coerthas -- but it's still occasionally a factor in the older ARR-era zones.

(But still, even in more modern zones -- and this is true in any game -- sometimes you have a "this is a thing we were considering doing and then plans changed, so we blocked off that pathway" and occasionally the blockage still looks like "there really should have been something here...")

Usually if an area is unused in the MSQ it is used in at least 1 sidequest or class/job/role quest.

That area of Mor Dhona I recall being used in the Summoner quests. I don't really remember to what extent that area of Coerthas was used. I don't remember ever visiting that area of the Dravanian Forelands, but it has been almost 10 years...

In any case, they have been using places like that for variant dungeons so it could happen eventually.

That top one one looks like it was meant to be the entrance for some kind of dungeon.

Thank you for sharing these, and if you got more, I'd love to see them! I'm a huge fan of obscure, abandoned places in MMOs like this.

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Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

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I always enjoy running across stuff like this in the world. Thanks for taking the time to showcase your exploration.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

That top one one looks like it was meant to be the entrance for some kind of dungeon.

Thank you for sharing these, and if you got more, I'd love to see them! I'm a huge fan of obscure, abandoned places in MMOs like this.

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Agreed, it's always fun running across obscure areas like that, which were once obviously intended for something at one point.

And it's cool, because we can do the same thing for upcoming current content as well. If you were to go huntin in the new zones. You'll find places that are obviously intended for new dungeons and upcoming trials and whatnot. ^_^

Unsurprisingly given that Ala Mhigo more or less got shorted during Stormblood, Gyr Abania has a number of these particularly in The Peaks and The Lochs.

In the Peaks there's a lot of stuff with lore behind the 6th umbral calamity/fallout from the War of the Magi. The Ziggurat, the massive upside down pyramid full of Qiqirn. It has some lore about it being built by the survivors of Mhach and Amdapoor following the calamity to stabilize the aether. There's Nyunkrepf's Hope, the boat that's sitting on top of a mountain, that carried survivors out of the path of the rising waters from the flood.

There's also a lot of Qiqirn around which were stated to have been planned to have beast tribe quests planned for them which got cut during the patch cycles and replaced by the Namazu. Presumably those would have been the vehicle for using those landmarks expanding upon that lore, but now they'll probably go unused.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

I'm a huge fan of obscure, abandoned places in MMOs like this.

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One thing I miss from WildStar was that they'd build the entire continent maps out, even if chunks weren't used. Which meant you could find ways to get out of bounds and go exploring along inaccessible coasts and whatnot. And the map designers knew folks would do this, so they'd hide little stuff out there. Glitch-jump your way up a mountain and you could find a moonshiner's cabin. Or a little pleasant cottage along a river. Stuff like that. Friends and I spent a LOT of time in the original closed beta exploring areas we had no right being able to get to.

But for FFXIV... if you want some fun, go back and look at YouTube videos of unfinished/unreleased FFXIV 1.x content that the Speakers' Network used to put out as "Secrets of a Realm." The "dungeons" were actually just part of the world map in 1.x (thus why they had entrances explicitly in the world), which meant that some stuff which never got released was still there, and folks could load up the old zone maps and explore the unreleased "dungeon-y" areas. There's some interesting stuff there to wonder about "what would this have been?" Places like Bloodshore Hollow and the Ul'dah Mines.

https://i.imgur.com/MRFkbAU.jpeg
This place is an actual gambling hall that appears to have been intended as something we'd have access to, but probably wasn't added in the final product because the simulated gambling likely pushed the rating to M.