Island Sanctuary: The Tragedy Of What Could Have Been

The discussions surrounding DT content have emphasized something we all knew already.

There are many ways to play FFXIV, and when one playstyle is perceived to be getting all the attention from the devs, you end up with many unhappy players and quite vicious conflict between players.

I believe Island Sanctuary had the potential to greatly ameliorate some of these issues, as did other content that first sucks up precious resources, but is then shelved for reasons known only to SE.

First, let me acknowledge that just because a player doesn't raid, it does not immediately follow that they will find IS engaging. That said, the development of IS created a unique space that had the potential to keep many players entertained who are now either unsubbed or considering doing so.

So what could SE do with Island Sanctuary?

1. Simply allowing progression beyond level 20 would be a start. With the base content there, adding additional features would seem to be a lighter lift than creating something completely new. (Unfortunately, such an approach is apparently anathema to SE; hence why we are all at best "captains" in our GCs, why our chocobos suddenly become incapable of learning, and so on.)

2. Allow players to build a house. I won't elaborate on this since its appeal is obvious, as is the cynical reason SE would be resistant to the idea.

3. You have this vast digital space; use it! The possibilities are endless. As a general observation, any kind of group content would be consistent with what one expects from an MMO. How about a PvP dueling area? Or a zone for small group PvP? We're on a island, give us a damn boat! We could use it to find underwater ruins, which would need exploring, and possibly contain monsters that would require fighting either solo or in small groups.

But no. We're left with a static zone that offers nothing other than a source of dyes.

I've tried to think why Island Sanctuary was so boring. It suffers from the same issues the battle content has - it's not replayable and it's not fun to replay. It's a little nice to progress to 20 but it's not like Sim City or anything like that. What could have made it better:

1. Your crops are actually useful and required to make food for raids. Your work now feels useful and meaningful, because you can sell them on the market board.

2. Your animal leavings are similarly useful to make clothes and food used for raids.

3. The animals feel more alive. Maybe you can make them into a pet that follows you around. They grow up into adults, and how well they do depends on how well you feed them.

4. Obviously, a house plot. The obvious thing everyone wanted from the start, that would make them actually return there.

5. Develop technology that allows you to rule the circumstances of the island, such as artificially influencing the weather. As a fantasy game, we could do this with magic, and freely create thunderstorms or extreme heat to influence the survival and comfort of wild animals, like the Sims games!

6. Maybe you could even open it up as a tourist destination and affect the visitors. Place a dinosaur you caught from the Churning Mists and watch it chase them.

But SE just makes everything extremely formulaic, stress-free, temporary, not-replayable, meant for getting the mount reward then never interacting with it again. Their focus is on making the game work for people with 10 minutes to play and their focus on this overrides playing an actual sim game and making it like them.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

4. Obviously, a house plot. The obvious thing everyone wanted from the start, that would make them actually return there.

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I like all your ideas, in particular 3 & 6 sound intriguing, but your number 4/OP’s number 2 would go a long way towards both reviving interest in the Island and alleviating the lack of housing plots on many worlds.

So as not to reinvent the wheel, it should function just like a regular housing plot, just off on an isolated part of the Island that doesn’t interfere with current gathering nodes. Bonus if you can choose from among the Island’s different environments for background scenery: Bending Beaches for a plot that appears to be on the beach, Fatal Falls for a more foresty, waterfall type of place, or even Crumbling Caverns for a plot inside a cave!

I still use my Island because of its large outdoor furnishing limit. Makes for a nice place to set up gpose spots! Failing a fully functional housing plot, if they even gave us a more customizable Cozy Cabin in its own spot away from the mammets and workshops, that was designed to allow dye and indoor furnishings, and maybe had a door to a basement level the size of a small plot, that could be a kind of “housing lite” option. I’ve always loved Cozy Cabin 4, and that’s the version I currently have on my Island. But you can’t dye the roof or the curtains and carpets, and you can’t add any furniture to it.

Honest Opinion, i would love if i could build a house there, i mean that would solve so easy the Housing issues we are facing currently, and i mean you dont need to remove the ward system, keep it how it is, there has to be citys were you can see your neighbors and then there is the countryside were you are alone, so easy solved

then add pls ranch style houses thank you

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I like all your ideas, in particular 3 & 6 sound intriguing, but your number 4/OP’s number 2 would go a long way towards both reviving interest in the Island and alleviating the lack of housing plots on many worlds.

So as not to reinvent the wheel, it should function just like a regular housing plot, just off on an isolated part of the Island that doesn’t interfere with current gathering nodes. Bonus if you can choose from among the Island’s different environments for background scenery: Bending Beaches for a plot that appears to be on the beach, Fatal Falls for a more foresty, waterfall type of place, or even Crumbling Caverns for a plot inside a cave!

I still use my Island because of its large outdoor furnishing limit. Makes for a nice place to set up gpose spots! Failing a fully functional housing plot, if they even gave us a more customizable Cozy Cabin in its own spot away from the mammets and workshops, that was designed to allow dye and indoor furnishings, and maybe had a door to a basement level the size of a small plot, that could be a kind of “housing lite” option. I’ve always loved Cozy Cabin 4, and that’s the version I currently have on my Island. But you can’t dye the roof or the curtains and carpets, and you can’t add any furniture to it.

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Cozy Cabin IV is lovely with the atrium and a bed away from the mammets, and yes it would be so much better if we had some decoration options, or simply the ability to rebuild it on one of the landmark spots.

Island Sanctuary was a great way to get some unique gear and while away some time doing something similar to whatever draws the game's fishing community to continue fishing after ARR.

The storyline was interesting, and the rewards for reaching level 20 were ok.

That being said, with as much disdain for 'spreadsheet island' as the forums saw over the almost three years it was in place, I'm not surprised that there was no effort to continue it. I'm not surprised that the Eureka and Bozja content has not been continuously updated nor that Heaven on High isn't being constantly updated either. Past content is, well, past content. It can still be engaging for those who seek the rewards offered (including Market Board entrepreneurs who obtain unique dyes to sell).

As far as housing is concerned, I'd rather SE concentrate on improving housing that already exists, "bigger on the inside" apartments and housing plots, more housing wards and the like. The Island has its charms, and rewards, but so do a lot of systems not currently being updated that are still there for those who want the rewards.

It felt so logical to eventually develop island sanctuary into instanced housing. And then SE just dropped the ball.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I've tried to think why Island Sanctuary was so boring. It suffers from the same issues the battle content has - it's not replayable and it's not fun to replay. It's a little nice to progress to 20 but it's not like Sim City or anything like that. What could have made it better:

1. Your crops are actually useful and required to make food for raids. Your work now feels useful and meaningful, because you can sell them on the market board.

2. Your animal leavings are similarly useful to make clothes and food used for raids.

3. The animals feel more alive. Maybe you can make them into a pet that follows you around. They grow up into adults, and how well they do depends on how well you feed them.

4. Obviously, a house plot. The obvious thing everyone wanted from the start, that would make them actually return there.

5. Develop technology that allows you to rule the circumstances of the island, such as artificially influencing the weather. As a fantasy game, we could do this with magic, and freely create thunderstorms or extreme heat to influence the survival and comfort of wild animals, like the Sims games!

6. Maybe you could even open it up as a tourist destination and affect the visitors. Place a dinosaur you caught from the Churning Mists and watch it chase them.

But SE just makes everything extremely formulaic, stress-free, temporary, not-replayable, meant for getting the mount reward then never interacting with it again. Their focus is on making the game work for people with 10 minutes to play and their focus on this overrides playing an actual sim game and making it like them.

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I don't particularly like 1 and 2 because chores are not fun, but, at least, it's an idea that some might enjoy and it offers external rewards, which is something every side content in this game lacks, so it might be positive, who knows.
Point 4 will never happen because Yoshida wants a neighbourhood. I don't know about the rest of the world, but even though EU housing is mostly full, the neighbourhoods are dead. But most importantly, artificial online mortgages brought on by housing scarcity force people to stay subscribed, which translates into money for SE.

Look, Island Sanctuary was never going to be a new form of housing, that was just players deluding themselves.

What they promised was what you got, a farming simulator that was meant to be casual content, nothing more.

Refering to earlier suggestions here, a full control instanced island would be cool. Weather, music and all. But they just straight up gave up on it before even trying to innovate away from the hole they designed.

But we KNOW why they didnt let us even build a proper living space there, instead of just a factory mammet slave labour camp. Because it would compete against housing and therefore make people drop their subs because they knew they wouldnt have to worry about keeping their houses.

To their defense, they did openly state several times that players should be tempering their expectations.... Though I don't think this excuses the fact of simply turning the instance into a glorified weekly retainer venture.

It definitely is sickening though, regardless of the above.

I'm still not over them adding more and more "rare" animals to capture, and then just... never giving us a further pasture upgrade or anything of the sort so you can actually have all of them at once. We have 20 pasture slots, but there are almost 30 animals with weather and/or time based spawns...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Look, Island Sanctuary was never going to be a new form of housing, that was just players deluding themselves.

What they promised was what you got, a farming simulator that was meant to be casual content, nothing more.

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I never expected housing.
I expected them to keep updating it at least a little bit (upgrades maybe, new things to make and grow, new things you could build). Instead they just abandoned the whole thing. I still use it a bit because it's a good source of Hi-Cordials, but otherwise it's just something I plug in Monday night for the week, check it the next Monday night, rinse and repeat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Look, Island Sanctuary was never going to be a new form of housing, that was just players deluding themselves.

What they promised was what you got, a farming simulator that was meant to be casual content, nothing more.

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Oh I didnt expect them to. SE's incompetence is too well known for that. But it is laziness to not do it and yoship even admitted this 'oh well this is all we promised so no need to try' problem in the last live letter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Look, Island Sanctuary was never going to be a new form of housing, that was just players deluding themselves.

What they promised was what you got, a farming simulator that was meant to be casual content, nothing more.

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Idk man, even as farming sim it kinda fails? It's more like spreadsheet simulator. You spend most of the time managing mammets rather than doing, you know, farming. As someone who love farming sim (Harvest moon, stardew valley), island sanctuary fails at everything for me.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Oh I didnt expect them to. SE's incompetence is too well known for that. But it is laziness to not do it and yoship even admitted this 'oh well this is all we promised so no need to try' problem in the last live letter.

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Indeed, it would be nice if SE occasionally exceeded our low expectations, rather than apparently trying to slide by with the bare minimum of effort and innovation.

I've said already what needs done. Volcano erupts and island sinks in the ocean.