Kugane might not have any outside zones.

The description for the city reads as the following. "Kugane is a port town of Hingashi in Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. It is the only port open to foreign trade vessels, and violence is strictly prohibited within the city walls." Second evidence, is that if you look at Kugane, it appears to be a larger country, with another city sitting on the other side. This city is apparently known as "Bukyo". It's very likely that Hingashi a mini version of old Japan, and not completely open to foreigners in 4.0. http://i67.tinypic.com/669blv.jpg Third piece of evidence, is the revealed zone map in the media tour. Of course, other zones could be hidden from the media event, but unless it's essential to the Stormblood story, it seems unlikely that Kugane will have any. The focus appears to be on Othard, and Ala Mhigo. http://i65.tinypic.com/24m6q95.jpg There is no exit, except for by ship. I don't think we're actually going to be anywhere else in Hingashi. Why am I concerned? Other city states let you explore. This one might not, as as a result, will feel unfinished. It won't give you the same vast explorable feeling as other city states. You might only get a city, and a housing ward, which are barely connected. Roleplayers will suffer even more, if they decide to make their characters Hingashin. How can they be natives, within their own country, if they can't even visit the rest of their home? Kugane might not be all we hoped it to be. Here's to hoping that in the event Kugane is cut off, we'll get to explore it later.

For now we don't know if the rest of the island is in lockdown from strangers or could be like o ghomero on limsa's island where the surrounding land for there is both uninhabitable and the spots that are lovable are ran by the kolbolds

My money is the rest of the island kugane is on is mainly covers in residential housing and one other island is probably the residential district for us since it is the only land accepting forgin adventures

But we won't know for 6 ish days

I might be the SB equivalent of Mor Dhona and Idyllshire. We'll see soon enough.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, but perhaps a video of the actual place will clarify things, either for you or for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgaE893QRMY

Kugane is the only explorable area in Hingashi as of Stormblood, this is correct. (Outside of Shirogane, the housing district.)

There's nothing wrong with this - its clear our character is foreign to the country and given how Japan was during its years of sakoku (National Isolation Period) - there was only one port open to traders. Originally this was the port of Hirano, but eventually was moved to an artificial island known as Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki. Traders could come and go from the port itself but they were not allowed into the country beyond the boundaries of the port city. Dutch traders broke these rules in Hirano (which was connected to the larger landmass of Kyushu island), and that's why Dejima was constructed and used as a later port.

Its likely Kugane is similar to Hirano in that it is connected to the larger area of Shishu Island (itself part of Hingashi) but that the gates that lead outside the city are closed to foreign travelers to limit interactions with the outside world. Hingashi is likely under a similar period of "sakoku" and so Kugane is LITERALLY the only place where foreigners are allowed in and out of the country. Our exploits in Othard and Doma may have an effect on this policy in the future of the game world though, and we'll likely eventually get to visit more of Hingashi.

Think lore description already made it clear that we are not allowed to go outside of Kugane.

There's nothing stopping them from potentially letting us explore the rest of Hingashi at a later date. With that said, though, given how much chaos the Warrior of Light and his allies brings with him it's pretty realistic that some doors will remain closed to them. Just look at how many have canonically been slain by them over the years - some of them deserved it, of course, but others were killed solely for differing loyalties/beliefs. In turn, those individuals very likely had family members, friends and loved ones left behind who may not be entirely thrilled by the unceremonious way in which they were butchered.

Hopefully it becomes a plot point someday.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Roleplayers will suffer even more, if they decide to make their characters Hingashin. How can they be natives, within their own country, if they can't even visit the rest of their home?

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When the game drops talk to every NPC and do sidequests to find out as much lore as you can? Use what facts you can find + fill in the blanks with your best educated guesses based on said found facts. As it is people manage to rp Thavnairians/Sharlayans/Garleans, you'll be fine.

Am I the only one noticing how prominent Suzaku, Genbu, Byakko and Seiryu are depicted as guarding Koshu? Does it mean they will be fates or Stormblood's version of the triad.

As an aside, the idea that role-players will 'suffer' for being unable to portray their character as being from some distant, inaccessible land is rather silly. For starters, the game does a lot of world building and there's scraps of lore to be found all over the place. Furthermore there's a wealth of possible places for a character to hail from both present in-game and covered heavily even if they're not currently available such as Garlemald and Sharlayan. It's nobody's fault but your own if you choose to play a character hailing from somewhere with very little solid lore to work with.

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As an aside, the idea that role-players will 'suffer' for being unable to portray their character as being from some distant, inaccessible land is rather silly.

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I don't RP, but couldn't they just say they're from beyond the gates... but have amnesia?

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Originally Posted by Rokke

When the game drops talk to every NPC and do sidequests to find out as much lore as you can? Use what facts you can find + fill in the blanks with your best educated guesses based on said found facts. As it is people manage to rp Thavnairians/Sharlayans/Garleans, you'll be fine.

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or the simpler solution, don't role-play things you know nothing about.

Stick to the game lore for WoL and don't roleplay anything not supported by it?

Oh no roleplayers will suffer, SE should fire Yoshi and cancel Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by savageink

or the simpler solution, don't role-play things you know nothing about.

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I've always found doing my homework to be half the fun of roleplaying.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

I've always found doing my homework to be half the fun of roleplaying.

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and if there is nothing to do homework with and you are just making stuff up?

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Originally Posted by savageink

and if there is nothing to do homework with and you are just making stuff up?

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While we don't know much about Kugane, we aren't completely in the dark even pre 4.0: We know they are isolationist, they are neutral figures in the current war we've got with Garlemald, the population seems to be predominantly Hyur with Au Ra and Roes sprinkled in, their culture is based on ye olde Japan, ect.

As I posted earlier, theres enough info on places we haven't visited (Thavnair, Sharlayan) for people to build characters around what we have. Long before the SE revealed we would be going to the Azim Steppe, the WHM & DRK quests + naming convention tidbits gave us more than enough material to rp a Xaela without having to pull too many ideas out of one's ass. Were some bits filled in by imagination? Of course. But for the most part, unless you're really trying to push a one winged, half dragon-half Ascian, demon summoning Allagan experiment into the average open event, most people here are cool with some minor lore fudging.

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Originally Posted by savageink

and if there is nothing to do homework with and you are just making stuff up?

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fun fact when i RP'd i played a blind lalafell who used the aether to see people complained i was lore braking and didnt want to role play with me, suddenly you know who does it and suddenly every RPer and there sink was suddenly blind using aether sight.

sometimes it is fun to make things up sometimes they become real :D

People have rped with less, and done it well at that. Any rper who is actually trying can work with what they are givin here.

Not really seeing anything that is that big a deal here either.

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Originally Posted by savageink

or the simpler solution, don't role-play things you know nothing about.

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On a technical level, that would preclude almost any and all RP. Consider, Miqo'te might be able to fly, you cannot just assume they can't, because you don't know if they can or not. It has never been explicitly clarified either way, so you don't know either way - for all you know, they can but just don't because it would look pompous to the other races and they don't like bringing it up.

So you cannot just RP a miqo'te that's unable to fly if you don't want to role-play things you know nothing about. And because that's fairly ridiculous, you just fill the gaps based on what you have and assume Miqo'te can in fact not fly because they don't look like they can fly and no Miqo'te has shown the ability to.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Roleplayers will suffer even more, if they decide to make their characters Hingashin. How can they be natives, within their own country, if they can't even visit the rest of their home? Kugane might not be all we hoped it to be. Here's to hoping that in the event Kugane is cut off, we'll get to explore it later.

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I never hoped Kugane to be more than whats going to be in the game (yeah, for no hype and getting hopes up that will be crushed!)

On the whole "roleplayers will suffer"-buisness: ColorOfSakura gave a very good explantion why there is most likely a lore-reason the rest of Hingashin is not open to us (maybe yet, maybe never). You may have noticed that this game is telling a story itself and if that story and its background asks for something is always gonna be more important than any roleplaying-buisness (this isnt even meant as "SE doesnt care about you" but obviously they care more about the story they want to tell - and right and good so!)
Also cant you just make a reason you cant go back? Isnt that what roleplay is all about? Finding explantions for stuff? Maybe someone comitted a murder the night before you left your home and they couldnt find the suspect, so they declared you the murder and now you're a person non grata. Or everyone believes you're dead. Or you're in the company of foreigners and therefor suspected to be a spy. There - pick a reason why or come up with your own!
Your roleplay and the world you create are less important than SEs story and the world they want to create, sorry. I'm perfectly fine with that - I dont want the devs see starting making compromisses on everything because "maybe someone will suffer from it"; blocks creativity and you cant accommodate to everyone, specially to every RPer, anyways. So get creative yourself and find an explanation!
I'm happy with Kugane being just the island, we'll get enough new areas to explore.

Wasn't this already known though? Like it was one of the very first things we learned about Kugane when it was first revealed.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

On a technical level, that would preclude almost any and all RP. Consider, Miqo'te might be able to fly, you cannot just assume they can't, because you don't know if they can or not. It has never been explicitly clarified either way, so you don't know either way - for all you know, they can but just don't because it would look pompous to the other races and they don't like bringing it up.

So you cannot just RP a miqo'te that's unable to fly if you don't want to role-play things you know nothing about. And because that's fairly ridiculous, you just fill the gaps based on what you have and assume Miqo'te can in fact not fly because they don't look like they can fly and no Miqo'te has shown the ability to.

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or you make a flying miqo'te who ends up looking like a jerk when they tell you an entire clan was shoved off a cliff and didn't miraculously fly to safety. It depends on available information. If you are just pulling stuff out of your butt, you are just pulling stuff out of your butt.