What if they did a "restoration" quest series...

...for the West Shroud?
Reforestation is the coolest thing ever amiright
No seriously, this would be so cool. I don't think it'll ever happen but it would be so cool.

I'm into it! I'd really love to see their take on these areas that got nuked in the Calamity. We lost so much of Coerthas, too.
Now that we know we can balance out the elements to restore areas, I wonder if we could fix at least part of Coerthas, The Shroud, etc.

this is something i have never thought of!!! this would be amazing. i mean hey, its been like twelve years now.

Part of the West Shroud has already appeared in ARR as a battlefield for a specific PvP event a number of years ago but that was removed as I understand it (I don't do PvP so this information is second-hand). From what I recall it looked much like the rest of the ARR era Black Shroud, albeit with some parts partially crystallized with fire aspected corrupted crystal.

Either way as the place is badly crystallized it would essentially just be like Mor Dhona (apart from the aforementioned PvP battlefield), a crystallized wasteland and thus, not very interesting as a location, hence why the development team have kind of forgotten about it (it was never a really important location in the old 1.0 Black Shroud either as my less than stellar memory recalls, so little wonder it was ignored in the changeover to ARR.)

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Part of the West Shroud has already appeared in ARR as a battlefield for a specific PvP event a number of years ago but that was removed as I understand it (I don't do PvP so this information is second-hand). From what I recall it looked much like the rest of the ARR era Black Shroud, albeit with some parts partially crystallized with fire aspected corrupted crystal.

Either way as the place is badly crystallized it would essentially just be like Mor Dhona, a crystallized wasteland and thus, not very interesting as a location, hence why the development team have kind of forgotten about it (it was never a really important location in the old 1.0 Black Shroud either as my less than stellar memory recalls, so little wonder it was ignored in the changeover to ARR.)

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Yeah, it was a Feast map. They did make concept art of its post-Calamity state, which makes me wonder if it was planned and got cut fairly late.

https://sjc1.vultrobjects.com/cucdn/...-concept04.jpg

It's not just concept art. You can literally go to South shroud and look at it and it's just like that concept. ARR maps actually let you see what is in the nearby maps, whereas expansions don't bother with such passionate detail.

https://i.imgur.com/ZjIkHJa.jpeg

There is also The Lost City of Amdapor and its HM that takes place in that area:

https://i.imgur.com/ZUQ9aO8.jpeg

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's not just concept art. You can literally go to South shroud and look at it and it's just like that concept. ARR maps actually let you see what is in the nearby maps, whereas expansions don't bother with such passionate detail.

https://i.imgur.com/ZjIkHJa.jpeg

There is also The Lost City of Amdapor and its HM that takes place in that area:

https://i.imgur.com/ZUQ9aO8.jpeg

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Not just the South Shroud. You can actually see it from every single Shroud zone, including The Striking Tree (Ramuh fight arena). That much attention to have it constantly visible seems strange to me.

Oh right, I was looking to the south of Central Shroud. I found it at the west of Central Shroud, but it's a very close shot showing it's right next to Central Shroud. Odd as that is, it is really far away from the South Shroud perspective, I suppose. In North Shroud it's to the south and very close to the exit, behind the Dalamud crash there. It adds up for the most part. Just great attention to detail compared to what they'd do now.

Central Shroud:
https://i.imgur.com/cWi7lba.jpeg

North Shroud:
https://i.imgur.com/7oGivsj.jpeg

Striking Tree:
https://i.imgur.com/rp76qzl.jpeg

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Originally Posted by Shistar

I'm into it! I'd really love to see their take on these areas that got nuked in the Calamity. We lost so much of Coerthas, too.
Now that we know we can balance out the elements to restore areas, I wonder if we could fix at least part of Coerthas, The Shroud, etc.

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I desperately want to fix Coerthas. C'mooooon, Yoshi-P, Garlemald has the "colorless frozen hellhole" aesthetic covered. #DefrostCoerthas2025

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Originally Posted by Tahli

That much attention to have it constantly visible seems strange to me.

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As for it being strange, it's not strange for ARR. They have the La Nosean volcano visible from all the La Noscea zones, and I think Western Thanalan viewable from a distance? You can see Limsa Lominsa from a distance in La Noscean areas too. In Thanalan, you can see Ul'dah, Eastern Thanalan's bahamut damage from most areas, the Gold Saucer and the garlean place from Southern Thanalan. It's just the sort of love they stopped even caring about or that their overburdened procedures phased out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

As for it being strange, it's not strange for ARR. They have the La Nosean volcano visible from all the La Noscea zones, and I think Western Thanalan viewable from a distance? You can see Limsa Lominsa from a distance in La Noscean areas too. In Thanalan, you can see Ul'dah, Eastern Thanalan's bahamut damage from most areas, the Gold Saucer and the garlean place from Southern Thanalan. It's just the sort of love they stopped even caring about or that their overburdened procedures phased out.

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Oh, didn't realize that! That's a shame, it really is a nice detail. At least for the Shroud, it gives an air of mystery for what that place is like now, since we can't currently visit it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

As for it being strange, it's not strange for ARR. They have the La Nosean volcano visible from all the La Noscea zones, and I think Western Thanalan viewable from a distance? You can see Limsa Lominsa from a distance in La Noscean areas too. In Thanalan, you can see Ul'dah, Eastern Thanalan's bahamut damage from most areas, the Gold Saucer and the garlean place from Southern Thanalan. It's just the sort of love they stopped even caring about or that their overburdened procedures phased out.

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All of your examples are confined to a single city-state, and that hints at what I think actually happened: We went from 3 very large regions in ARR (the three city-states) to 6 smaller regions in all of the other expansions.

You can't see Coerthas Central from North Shroud, and vice versa, despite them being connected in game. Same for Coerthas Central and Mor Dhona. Same for Coerthas Western and Dravanian Forelands. Etc.

The city-states were probably each designed from the start as one, coherent map that then got chopped up into pieces because I guess the hardware of the time couldn't handle anything more.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

[...] Either way as the place is badly crystallized it would essentially just be like Mor Dhona (apart from the aforementioned PvP battlefield), a crystallized wasteland and thus, not very interesting as a location, hence why the development team have kind of forgotten about it [...]

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I have to disagree. What we can see in-game suggests there's a healthy mix of crystallization, vegetation and waterfalls caused by the ground being torn apart from the impact (something that also happened in other areas of the Shroud that we can actually visit!)

This could make for an amazing area that features all of these + new cavernous systems, unearthed ruins of Gelmorra (we can never have enough Gelmorra!!) and possibly more lore about Keepers of the Moon and Duskwights, since they are known for having moved away from Gridania to do their own thing now that the elementals aren't powerful enough to blast them out of orbit with the Greenwrath.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OccasionalToast

I desperately want to fix Coerthas. C'mooooon, Yoshi-P, Garlemald has the "colorless frozen hellhole" aesthetic covered. #DefrostCoerthas2025

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Garlemald sure knows how to drive that seasonal affective disorder straight into our brains. lol no wonder all Garleans are so bitter.

I like snowy Coerthas too, but I think the lowlands could be less snowy and more green and keep the highlands as the snowy areas!
Mostly because going back and editing areas that are used for HW+ MSQ would be difficult. They can choose what to do when re-adding old areas, though!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

All of your examples are confined to a single city-state, and that hints at what I think actually happened: We went from 3 very large regions in ARR (the three city-states) to 6 smaller regions in all of the other expansions.

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I think the lore would greatly benefit from going back to the multiple smaller zones in a bigger region format. Or just do all 6 areas based on a bigger region for once... would be a nice change of pace if they're dead set on the 6 areas per expansion!

There's quite a few areas they could do it for tbh. Garlemald comes to mind.