Boulders Down

When they revealed the first expansions to involve Ishgard and its surrounding areas I was almost sure we would see what's behind the glaringly obvious entrance to whatever is buried under it, yet now the last two dungeons of this expansion have been announced and Boulders Down wasn't even looked at.

With the reveal that 6.0 might take us to the northern part of Ilsabard to Garlemald, and the high likelihood that 5.0 will involve the southern part of Ilsabard + Thavnair I wonder if they plan to do anything at all with Boulders Down, or if that's just an idea they discarded.

These "swords" and shards of are found throughout ARR areas, some of which were used as entrances to the coils containing Bahamut. As it wasn't chosen, for one reason or another, to be one of these entrances, Boulder Downs seems to be just another impact crater in which a piece of Dalamud is impaled.

It's possible that - at some point the future - we may see existing zones revisited for the sake of additional dungeons. Especially if there's positive feedback regarding such an idea.

I've long suspected that this is a case of scenario supply and demand.

Dalamud dropped quite a few internment hulks on Eorzea (especially if you try to count all of the ones you can see "in the distance" added as horizon flavor to other zones). By making sure that all of the main ones had obvious locations and ways you might get to them, they could ensure options if the need arose (kind of like how I suspect that they haven't released the world map even though they have a general idea of it just in case they need to tweak it to work with future ideas). Should this have been the case, they'd have ended up with more options than coils.

I was pretty surprised when Boulder Downs turned out to be nothing, but I was downright shocked that we didn't do more with the Mor Dhona hulk. Look at that thing. Is has its own thunderdome! And we skipped it!

Now, part of the answer is obvious: only four hulks survived the collapse of Dalamud to the degree that they could functionally burrow and re-align to find Bahamut's heart. The others are varying degrees of broken, and we can only speculate as to what (if anything) within remains functional after five-point-some-odd years without the systems that failed.

On the one hand, we can quote Koji Fox:

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Originally Posted by Gamer Escape Interveiw with Koji Fox (E3 2016)

There are some that aren’t as destroyed as others and there might be a chance in the future to re-explore them, but you’ve spent enough time in these coils for now.

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On the other, we have to consider Xelphatol Protocol: going back and opening up the other hulks is possible, but are we sure that it's more interesting than other options? Similar to how Xelphatol is mostly a bleak, windswept region with barely anything to see, its sacrifice might pave the way to something more novel or enjoyable. (Open-world Promyvion-like zone, please. Purple glows.) If Earth were an MMO, and we wanted to add, say, Spain, does that inescapably bind us to have France, Germany, England, etc. at the cost of India or Russia or Peru? We could see a little of so much, instead of so much of a little. Those are scales that must be balanced. (With open-world, purple Promyvion, please.)

Wasn't Boulder Downs one of the exit points for the Binding Coil storyline? Each Coil had you start from one place, but once you completed it, the storyline had you appear outside somewhere else.

Don't have the source right now, but I remember reading in an interview that the Allagan ruins in Boulder Downs were stated to not be parts of Dalamud. It's not too far from the Mor Dhona zone wall (which itself is actually pretty far from Mor Dhona), so it may simply end up being used as the cop-out entrance for Eureka to keep them from ever needing to acknowledge Syrcus Tower again.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I remember reading in an interview that the Allagan ruins in Boulder Downs were stated to not be parts of Dalamud.

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I'll see what I can dig up. My notes on the area are kind of a mess of back and forth claims from 2.00 onwards.

At the very least, the Sightseeing Log implies that the red junk around the Allagan ruins was Dalamud's doing.

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Originally Posted by Sightseeing Log: Boulder Downs

Before the Calamity, Boulder Downs was a vast sloped lea littered with moraine deposited by realm-swallowing glaciers long receded. The rain of debris that accompanied the fall of Dalamud, however, transformed the landscape into a frozen wasteland pocked with gaping impact craters and peculiar dark matter formations.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I was pretty surprised when Boulder Downs turned out to be nothing, but I was downright shocked that we didn't do more with the Mor Dhona hulk. Look at that thing. Is has its own thunderdome! And we skipped it!

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We didn't entirely skip the Singing Shards hulk. We get teleported to the end of it when we enter t13, before entering the Burning Heart

I wonder if another internment hulk fell in Dravania beneath the Churning Mists. There are a lot of impact holes in that zone. Maybe another one fell in Gyr Abania.

This got me thinking about all the areas that look like they should be a dungeon entrance but (at least as far as I know) aren't. Some of them might be used in solo content I haven't gotten to yet, but the one that springs to mind immediately is the tomb just outside Ul'dah with all the Spriggans. What is that place?

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Originally Posted by LuckyFish

This got me thinking about all the areas that look like they should be a dungeon entrance but (at least as far as I know) aren't. Some of them might be used in solo content I haven't gotten to yet, but the one that springs to mind immediately is the tomb just outside Ul'dah with all the Spriggans. What is that place?

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That's the Sil'dih Excavation Site - the ruins of Ul'dah's former twin city which was destroyed in a war years before. The exact details of what actually happened are murky at best, Ul'dahn history (which, as Ferne himself stated, is usually "written by the winners" and so might not be necessarily true from a certain point of view) states that the war was because of dwindling water supplies and which Sil'dih was losing horribly, which caused them to resort to no less than necromancy to revive their fallen soldiers as a zombie horde simply in an effort to recoup their mounting losses against Ul'dah's forces.

This apparently backfired on Sil'dih horribly though, in that the zombie plague used to revive their dead soldiers now spread from the military to the city itself and pretty soon the entire nation was wiped out both by the zombies and an empowered Ul'dah who now turned the war into a public relations stunt to "send these zombies straight back to Thal!" Prior to the Calamity, Sil'dih was entirely buried under the sand, occasionally being seen off on the horizon as a shimmering mirage, but the geographic upheavals to the land Dalamud's fall wrought revealed the ruins.

Of course, as noted the truth is far more murkier than that -

the Hildibrand quest line suggested that it was in fact Ul'dah which really unleashed the zombie apocalypse on Sil'dih - which drove that quest line's antagonist to get revenge on Ul'dah for the city's destruction. However, given the Hildibrand storyline exists in a kind of parodic 'bubble' that is not necessarily canon to the main scenario, it's unclear exactly if even that is truly what happened (I lack the lore book so I am unsure exactly if anything more or less than this is listed there on the subject). Either way, those ruins are of the former city of Sil'dih which was destroyed in a zombie apocalypse.

Incidentally, you actually travel through there during the ending cutscenes to the 2.55 storyline - the Sil'dih Aqueducts connected Ul'dah to it and the player's character exited the Aqueducts through there when fleeing from the Crystal Braves and the Brass Blades (an early Ul'dah main scenario quest instanced battle also takes place outside there too).

So the ruins of Sil'dih definitely appear in the game and are important to the game's storyline.

Wow! I'm really impressed with the world building in this game. That's really clever they put something interesting yet conspicuously unimportant right outside a starting city, only to have it become important (in an understated) way at the end-game.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Hildibrand quest line suggested that it was in fact Ul'dah which really unleashed the zombie apocalypse on Sil'dih - which drove that quest line's antagonist to get revenge on Ul'dah for the city's destruction. However, given the Hildibrand storyline exists in a kind of parodic 'bubble' that is not necessarily canon to the main scenario, it's unclear exactly if even that is truly what happened (I lack the lore book so I am unsure exactly if anything more or less than this is listed there on the subject).

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The lore book corroborates the Hildibrand version of events. And while the Hildibrand story might by whacky and comical, most characters in the story react to the setting in a very natural way- mainly being aghast and dumbfounded by Hildibrand's eccentricities. So it's hard for me to imagine that the setting in which the Hildibrand questline finds itself in is itself outside of canon. There likely was an Ala Mhigan gladiator cheating her matches with help from a... whatever typhon is. And according to the lore book, the fate of Sil'dih was really decided by Ul'dah.

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Originally Posted by Encyclopedia Eorzea

Timeline
1159 - Lalawefu Sil Tatawefu ascends the throne in Sil'dih and increases taxes to spur economic reform.
1162 - Lalawefu takes measures to secure a stable water source, and is hailed by his people as the "King of Springs." The act deals a serious blow to Ul'dah, as Sil'dih's water supply is diverted from upstream of their sister sultanate's own reservoir.
1177 - Lalawefu Sil Tatawefu succumbs to illness. A withering drought overtakes Thanalan. Sil'dih falls into economic decline, and its people voice public discontent with the sultanate's excessive taxation.
1178 - Ul'dah invades Sil'dih to reclaim their water supply. Sil'dih takes advantage of the crisis to unify its people under a common cause, and wages a war of resistance against its sister state.
1179 - Ul'dah enlists the services of Ala Mhigan mercenaries, and the soldiers of fortune swell their ranks as the kingdom besieges Sil'dih.
1181 - Ul'dahn thaumaturges develop the Traders' Spurn, an alchemical concoction with the power to reanimate the dead. With this devastating weapon, they lay waste to Sil'dih.

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Originally Posted by Sounsyy

So it's hard for me to imagine that the setting in which the Hildibrand questline finds itself in is itself outside of canon

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In my headcanon, Hildibrand has his own bubble, like holiday NPCs (e.g. the Heavensturn NPCs from the Far East remember being here several times even though it was 5 years since the Calamity then and is 5 years since the Calamity now). Everything that's true in Eorzea is true in the Manderville Bubble, just not the other way around. Sil'dih happened, but you can't survive an explosive point blank to the face following a fifty story faceplant into the dirt. So far it's worked out pretty okay, the bubble's edges are just kinda murky around the Gold Saucer.

But to quote Oda-san's encouragement: Hildibrand's canonocity is ... whatever you want it to be! It works on the same principle as the "present" timeline and roleplay standards, lol.

The ruins of Ul'dah's twin city state Sil'dih. Decimated by the Trader's Spurn which enacted a zombie plague on the city, and Ul'dah proceeded to bury the city to get rid of the zombies they made. Currently only used as the site of the level 10 Golem battle if you start in Ul'dah, and where we pop out from to get on the carriage to head to Camp Dragonhead after things hit the fan in 2.55.