Invisible walls are a bit overboard.

So, me and a few of my friends constantly get blocked when going around the world by invisible walls, some because it runs to risk of you falling into deep water, (btw after flying expansion swimming would also be nice) and others for seemingly no reason at all, and we all agree it's ridiculous. There are also quite a few landmarks that you can't even explore, like this giant hole in the South Shroud that leads into old ruins, but you only know that because of the npc that is by the hole, not because you can actually go in there, god forbid.

It's so frustrating when you can't go off the unbeaten path a little, and I mean doing so within the zone, although there are a lot of places you can see in the distance that look interesting, but you can't go to, (YET I'm hoping.)

It's probably impossible right now, but when you drop support for the ps3, (I'm 90% sure you will in the coming years, not only that but I read interviews where you said you would) I think it would be amazing to get rid of these invisible walls, at least the ones that seem like bad game design, and not like they're there for a purpose, (which is probably most of them.) It would also be great if down the road you could make the world more seamless, again when you aren't limited by the ps3, because it's the little things that make the game come alive to me most, like the fantastic sound effects, like where your footsteps time with the stepping sound perfectly, along with the ambiance effects like birds chirping, and seagulls flying in the distance, paired with having your clothes get wet when it's raining, and so much more. It's very immersive when you can go places without a loading screen, it just feels better, and I'm sure it would in this game too. Maybe one day you could even give us little cut scenes of us on the boats and airships as we load into the next area, when we're using those vessels to travel I mean, or maybe even something more interesting.

Or at the very least I'd like to see more of the current areas opened up, I mean if you look at the game geographically, we are missing A LOT of the world when we go through the loading screens.

Long P.S: Instead of just having invisible walls they could have actual in-game reasons for why you can't go over there, such as actual objects that you couldn't possibly cross, or when jumping off a cliff to somewhere different you would simply die, or something else that would make sense, or for things like going out into the ocean, it, you would be attacked by some sort of sea creature, etc. and be killed, or simply there are reasons within the game as to why you shouldn't go to said place, such as the current in the ocean would be too strong, which would stop you from going beyond the limits of the game. There are all sorts of interesting game designs that could be implemented.

If they ever do drop support for PS3, it doesn't mean PS3 players won't suddenly be able to play. It means they wouldn't be taken into account for further content upgrades or support. FFXI showed this much. I think it's kind of sad how you're so willing to have a whole demographic of players screwed over (I play on PC and PS3, so I'm not particularly biased), just so you can do things that are more suited to a sandbox MMO than the themepark style we have now. Most of the areas they have blocked off by invisible walls are blocked because:

A. They go into pits or deep water. (PS, the "flying expansion" you mention hasn't said anything about there being flying in it other than FC owned airships. If you're hoping for flying mounts you're going to be disappointed.)

B. Are blocked off for lore reasons, likely because content will be added there in the future. The Duskwight ruins you mentioned come to mind.

Unrelated, your character looks like a creep with his little pedostache.

Even open content sandbox style games have limits on them, not like its never ending. Though with some of those types of games, you can get stuck and have to resort to restarting the game from a previous save. In which this game does not have the option of starting from a previous save, you could be screwed if you get stuck somewhere.

I'd rather they keep the zones condensed with neat things to look at everywhere than open everything up and have areas devoid of anything interesting (Like in XI and 1.0).

Every player in this game has the ability to "return" for free. The longest you'd ever be stuck for is 20 min. I agree about the limits though.

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Originally Posted by Verranicus

I'd rather they keep the zones condensed with neat things to look at everywhere than open everything up and have areas devoid of anything interesting (Like in XI and 1.0).

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1.0 wasn't exactly what I call 'open'. It was very flat, with as much invisible walls as ARR. I would say more, because at least ARR has the option for jumping.

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Originally Posted by whoopeeragon

1.0 wasn't exactly what I call 'open'. It was very flat, with as much invisible walls as ARR. I would say more, because at least ARR has the option for jumping.

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The zones were all 5x bigger than what we have now, but they consisted of the same mountains, grass and hills across 99% of the zones as opposed to the smaller but much better looking versions we have now.

Its very clear the OP doesn't understand how programming a map works or designing a video game works at all, if you don't know how th e process functions then how can you say something is possible?... you can't jump off a cliff because where would you go? you can't go for a swim bc
1) waters aren't maped, In real life if you go to California and try to swim 300mi to go somewhere, go ahead you will probably die in the process.

2)water graphics are a whole different graphic ball park. Even droping ps3 support would loose them not just PS3 users, but pc specs would be raised as well. However most people don't want to waist gigs of memory graphics so they can go swim in an ocean, unrealistically, for no reason. If they actually added in invisible walls so that you could swim to places, like midgosmmr, and not go off exploring nothing.

3) 90% of the "sealed off" areas have a quest or npc, or other forms of lore if you read all your quest. The area you talk about is mentioned, also the ruins of beladona, the floating city, and many more. All the new dungeon entrances have been your so called "invisible walls" so logic means that future content will go here.

Well, there's some fairly strange things though. It honestly feels like a rush-job.

Middle La Noscea for instance has rivers flowing through it, you can use the bridge or go through the rivers to the other side. nothing the matter, and you get a large playfield that way.

North Shroud on the other hand. There's rivers flowing through there too, not even deep ones, but no, you have to use the bridge even though you could have easily crossed through the water. Essentially cutting off large parts of the map turning them into funnels.

I had absolutely zero problems with 1.0's map. So what if they copy'd a lot of things, unless you were up close and you were really looking for it, you never would have noticed.
(And people say that like it's some great sin, there's not a game or MMO around that doesnt re-use pieces of land or models in it)

I much prefer 1.0's maps over the whole roads with a few meters of land on each side that we have now. I certainly never noticed any of the stuff being copy'd, and unless someone specifically pointed it out to you, nor did you.

The only people who complained about that were people who didnt enjoy the game and were looking for something to blame. Where-as the original combat system that people found terrible and demanded to be changed (Twice!) because they kept having to press 1-2-3 is in general terms equal to the one we have now that people absolutely love. So i dont understand people anymore.

The Invisible walls are only in spots where people will get needlessly stuck (sorry, there's NOTHING in the ocean for you or that deep crack in the planet so no point in being there) or if they want players to generally follow the level design. Remember, all throughout Beta and early 2.0 days people complained endlessly about that small jump at Camp Bentbranch where people would get stuck if they tried to take a small shortcut...something invisible walls would have completely fixed.

Despite popular belief, it is not due to consoles, because I've played plenty of PC ONLY MMORPGs that has them because not everything is meant for player interaction - some places you 'can't explore' doesn't even have geometry you can stand on, it's there for show most of the time.

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Originally Posted by Surian

Well, there's some fairly strange things though. It honestly feels like a rush-job.

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Originally Posted by Surian

I had absolutely zero problems with 1.0's map. So what if they copy'd a lot of things, unless you were up close and you were really looking for it, you never would have noticed.

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Wat?

That makes no sense and you should feel bad.

Most of the invisible walls I get, like cliff edges, caves, and ruins, but I really wonder why some puddles in the Sahagin beast lands have to be gone around.

Something that really disappointed me with this game was how little you had to explore, not to many cool nook and crannies to go into. Everything is so condensed and streamlined not much open world in the open world if you get what I'm saying.

I also ran into invisible walls and fell into a gaping hole on my pc, this though was when I owned a GT520 graphics card, I was tired of bumping into invisible rocks it was like the world was trying to catch up to me running.

So I went and bought a brand new Power supply unit and a GTX 650 graphics card and all those things disappeared.

Best thing you could do is save up, buy yourself a playstation 4 or get a brand new pc, if its a bit stuff on wallet, go playstation 4 route and just exchange some games for credit.

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Originally Posted by Surian

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As someone who played XI for years, no, the only people who complained about the large and lifeless maps were not looking for something to blame. I adored my time with XI, but going from it to early WoW was like a splahs of ice water to the face. I saw that zones could have personality beyond "grassland zone a, b c", "desert zone", "snow zone" like XI and XIV 1.0 had. It didn't just have to be an endless field with the same hills and mountains and ponds copy and pasted everywhere.

You sound like one of those folks who thinks 1.0 was actually good, which unlike my statement that the zones were empty, is factually wrong. If it wasn't, why would 2.0 exist?

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Originally Posted by Verranicus

As someone who played XI for years, no, the only people who complained about the large and lifeless maps were not looking for something to blame. I adored my time with XI, but going from it to early WoW was like a splahs of ice water to the face. I saw that zones could have personality beyond "grassland zone a, b c", "desert zone", "snow zone" like XI and XIV 1.0 had. It didn't just have to be an endless field with the same hills and mountains and ponds copy and pasted everywhere.


You sound like one of those folks who thinks 1.0 was actually good, which unlike my statement that the zones were empty, is factually wrong. If it wasn't, why would 2.0 exist?

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1.0 WAS good. It's the meaningless updates after updates that slowly killed it and drained the life out of it. Battle systems getting completely revamped into something totally unworkable, huge nerfs left and right with the removal of physical levels, spell MP costs and weapon damage and defense and the fact that they didnt also change the monsters go to along with our massive power-nerfs.

1.0 was GREAT. By the time they got to 1.23, all the good things they started out with were long since removed from the game up to the point where they actually had to shut the servers down because it had become utterly unplayable.

So it's not 1.0 that is the reason why we have 2.0, it's 1.23 and the pointless changes for the sake of being diffirent and listening to entitled a-holes with "suggestions". Please get your facts straight.

1.0 maps had way way too much copy paste. To the point there was really only 5-6 unique geographic designs in some zones that were copied over and over again just turned different directions.

Now XI's World maps, are head and shoulders better then XIV's in my opinion. For 1 main reason. It was a world not just quest hub to quest hub.

XIV is too condensed. You can get to a town or settlement in XIV within 1min of leaving another one. XI felt like a whole world. XIV well feels like we are playing in the confines of a city, nothing but civilization everywhere.

Having a larger world just makes a mmo feel that much more grand to me. Yes there will not be quest every few steps and it will take more time to travel but that is a good thing in my opinion.

Agreed. Even in XI the copy paste was more natural. That's what I think they missed the biggest mark when it comes to ARR - it doesn't feel like a world, it just feels like...something necessary to be there for the sake of it. This is why whether you liked it or hated it, WotG was an amazing experience because it actually looked like it was the areas we 'grew up with' (some literally did) but in a completely different time period and how the world actually felt like it was at war.

Something else 1.x did beautifully, when the Garleans started closing in, it felt like it..here..the 'threats' we have doesn't feel like anything because everything is an instance for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Surian

1.0 WAS good. It's the meaningless updates after updates that slowly killed it and drained the life out of it.

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Oh gods. First we get a huge influx in "1.23 was amazing" people, and now we have people like you that actually have the audacity to say to 1.0 was good? I do not think "good" means what you think it means.

1.0 was the biggest flop I've ever seen, and for good reason. 1.0 had nothing, and anyone who says otherwise is a troll or a fool. SE didn't even provide a decent way to download or update the game, you had to torrent the updates and apply them yourself. There is a reason that the vast majority of the player-base quit the game before their first month was even over.

I've played some MMOs that allow me to swim and fly since day 1 and those games are not sandbox/open world.

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Originally Posted by WinterSolstice

Oh gods. First we get a huge influx in "1.23 was amazing" people, and now we have people like you that actually have the audacity to say to 1.0 was good?

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Sorry to burst your bubble but quite a lot of ARR is still utilizing concepts introduced in 1.0 and the few updates shortly after, so the fact a lot of the foundation systems in ARR are 1.0 systems, he is correct - 1.0 was good, the concept in itself was amazing. The issue was it being unfinished and pushed out despite the director/producer saying it wasn't ready.

Also, don't say something like this:

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I do not think "good" means what you think it means.

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Good is subjective. You may like ink spaghetti and say it's good, I can say it's the most disgusting thing to ever exist.

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Originally Posted by Odd

Every player in this game has the ability to "return" for free. The longest you'd ever be stuck for is 20 min. I agree about the limits though.

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I agree but there are still situations where you might be unable to use return. Like being in a constant state of fall for instance or your character is twitch glitching so they cant stand still to return.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

Sorry to burst your bubble but quite a lot of ARR is still utilizing concepts introduced in 1.0 and the few updates shortly after, so the fact a lot of the foundation systems in ARR are 1.0 systems, he is correct - 1.0 was good, the concept in itself was amazing. The issue was it being unfinished and pushed out despite the director/producer saying it wasn't ready.

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Yes, 1.0 was so good that square publicly apologized for it and replaced the dev team. You can't do much better than that.:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I agree but there are still situations where you might be unable to use return. Like being in a constant state of fall for instance or your character is twitch glitching so they cant stand still to return.

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That is an ancient issue which games has solved ages ago. This is not something unique FFXIV devs would suddenly experience.

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Originally Posted by Surian

I had absolutely zero problems with 1.0's map. So what if they copy'd a lot of things, unless you were up close and you were really looking for it, you never would have noticed.

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The rose-colored nostalgia glasses are strong with this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA7GGnyNwEs

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Originally Posted by Edli

That is an ancient issue which games has solved ages ago. This is not something unique FFXIV devs would suddenly experience.

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Ok. I was mostly referring to going outside of the boundries of the game and getting stuck. During Beta, they had a command /stuck that would fix things when you were stuck and couldnt teleport.

They might drop PS3 support in 4.0 and expand the world in more ways than just adding more zones, could even add seamless zones again. Whenever they do drop support though expect it to be the next "but the game is still X give it time, wait until Y".

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Originally Posted by axemtitanium

The rose-colored nostalgia glasses are strong with this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA7GGnyNwEs

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I just want to add to this in case someone comes along and says that's hardly any copy paste.
This is just a small section of the 1.0 thanalan map.
http://i.imgur.com/TjS4ugy.jpg
Yea...

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Originally Posted by WinterSolstice

Oh gods. First we get a huge influx in "1.23 was amazing" people, and now we have people like you that actually have the audacity to say to 1.0 was good? I do not think "good" means what you think it means.

1.0 was the biggest flop I've ever seen, and for good reason. 1.0 had nothing, and anyone who says otherwise is a troll or a fool. SE didn't even provide a decent way to download or update the game, you had to torrent the updates and apply them yourself. There is a reason that the vast majority of the player-base quit the game before their first month was even over.

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Every time I watch a video of anything 1.0-1.23, it reminds of how painful and mindnumbing it was to play.

It seams that between the "1.x was better" and "drop PS3 support NOW!!" arguments we've lost the real point of this thread.

While it's quite true, as many have pointed out, there are invisible wall that serve important purposes. There are also many walls that are quite odd.
You cannot jump on top of Minfilia's desk, why?
You cannot go behind the counters of shops in the market wards, why?
You cannot jump down the stairs to the airship in the Gridania adventurers guild, why?

There are other examples that I can't think of at this time. But there are some invisible walls in this game that they could take out now and it wouldn't hurt anything.

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Originally Posted by Cutie_McSnuggles

It seams that between the "1.x was better" and "drop PS3 support NOW!!" arguments we've lost the real point of this thread.

While it's quite true, as many have pointed out, there are invisible wall that serve important purposes. There are also many walls that are quite odd.
You cannot jump on top of Minfilia's desk, why?
You cannot go behind the counters of shops in the market wards, why?
You cannot jump down the stairs to the airship in the Gridania adventurers guild, why?

There are other examples that I can't think of at this time. But there are some invisible walls in this game that they could take out now and it wouldn't hurt anything.

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I agree with this post. Another one is that you can jump down the stairs going north in Middle La Noscea but you can't jump down northeast to the fishing hole for some reason. There are a few walls that could be taken out but on the whole I'm quite happy with the amount of walls in the game.

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Originally Posted by Verranicus

Unrelated, your character looks like a creep with his little pedostache.

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Originally Posted by Estevo

Sigh, seriously? You actually think facial hair has to do with one's creep level? Facial hair above the lip is pretty normal, it grows in whether you like it or not. .

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LMFAO!
I'm dying. xD

holy necros batman.

Not only a necro, but doesn't even elaborate.

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Originally Posted by Verranicus

(PS, the "flying expansion" you mention hasn't said anything about there being flying in it other than FC owned airships. If you're hoping for flying mounts you're going to be disappointed.)

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It's funny because you are so wrong

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Originally Posted by oOLupusOo

It's funny because you are so wrong

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Its funny cause you are commenting on theory crafting based on over a year old info. Did you come back here just to gloat and say you were wrong?

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Its funny cause you are commenting on theory crafting based on over a year old info. Did you come back here just to gloat and say you were wrong?

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http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8zapjscxh1rtoarl.gif

Well this has been constructive.