Quote Originally Posted by Preypacer View Post
Horutoto Ruins in XI, compared to, say, Cassiopeia Hollow. Both lower level dungeons, both pretty large.

Here's a link to the map for the Hollow

Now, here are links to the maps for Inner Horutoto Ruins (Click Here) and the Outer Ruins ( Click Here)

The first thing you notice is how differently they're set up.

The Hollow is pretty much one large area of rooms and corridors with nothing really going on. A generic, albeit pretty, dungeon.

The Ruins, however, are separated into sections and are riddled with interesting sights, weird contraptions and other various points of interest. Further, they tie directly into the game's lore which Windurst players are introduced to early on in the missions. There's tons of interplay between one map and another, as well as between Sarutabaruta and the Ruins, with all the entrances scattered about, accessing different parts of it (Eldiemme Necropolis has a very similar setup).
Sorry but, I had to comment on this. Either you have some serious nostalgia going on or these ruins looked vastly different to you. Don't get me wrong, currently FFXIV's dungeons are pretty weaksauce, but to say the boring identical rooms of Horutoto that were connected by the same tunnels that were EVERYWHERE in FFXI was unique and interesting is just absolute bull.

You can try to embellish it as much as you'd like by intricately describing it whilst giving the Hollow (in this case) a bland and flavourless description (despite looking pretty damn gorgeous in the larger areas), that doesn't mean it's better.