The world feels too small.

[CookieM]

I played FFXI for 4 years and still love it but after the expansion beyond lv 75 it's not worth my time.

I play FFXIV ARR for 2 months+ and already achieved 2 max characters with relics. I feel SE ripped me off.

[Sublimeprince]

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[ElHeggunte]

Every time I see this topic, no matter the game, I have to ask: "what does it matter?"

Unless every zone has a reason for players of all levels to always be in them, making them huge is just a waste of resources. No matter how big or small, once you've explored a zone fully there was rarely any reason to go back and take the scenic route again. If you came back a zone you did it with purpose and made an immediate beeline towards your destination, leaving the rest of the zone completely untouched.

FFXI was no different. The zones were big and expansive, but there was rarely any reason for you to be out in the middle of them so they were usually devoid of life and otherwise big for the sake of being big. I quit right after the release of WotG so maybe things changed after that, but from when I started during NA release all the way to WotG most of the zones were empty 99% of the time, save for someone passing through on the way to another location or people doing a specific quest or mission.

Forcing people to spend a lot of time on travel is just a timesink. It isn't difficult and it doesn't add anything to gameplay, it's just padding your playtime. Even in FFXI it was very easy to run from a place like Windurst all the way to Bastok or Sand'Oria on foot at level 1 without ever incurring a death once you knew where to go and who to avoid.

I would much rather SE spend time and resources on interesting content instead of wasting time making expansive and detailed zones that people will explore all of once and then never explore again until something forces them to.

[gadzi_h]

It feels like the world is small. Coerthas seems moderately sized, but as someone said before traversing from sanctuary to sanctuary seems like a 100 meter dash at best. I miss the vast expanse of worlds from FF XI. The very idea of questing somewhere else forced you to do simple things like gear up. Mind you it was a grind walking everywhere. There are many things FF XIV has done well. I love the graphics for each area, stunningly beautiful vistas, I love that I was able to get a chocobo so quickly, I love that I can teleport if I'm not broke. But I wish the zones were bigger, so that 500 gil seems like money well spent. And hey what is done is done. those are the zones. So lets make some new zones and if there are PS3 limitations holding the game back like another poster said then maybe we just have to deal with a few more loads from zone splits.

Things I hated from FF XI taking a ferry only to have some crazy level mob kill me in the hull of the boat and having to wait 15 minutes during the boat ride. It added to the feeling of the world being larger but was a pain getting killed buy some ocean pugil really sucked.

Teleports seemed like a luxury, and as a result a market for teleporting opened up, which again seemed like a luxury.

Snails pace of the game.

But as someone has already stated this is 10 years later and a game informed from so much more...

[peaches]

just a timesink. It isn't difficult and it doesn't add anything to gameplay, it's just padding your playtime.

Oh, you mean just like what they did with the mythology tome cap? 300 points a week, 2+ weeks to obtain anything, 6 months to gear out ONE class? "Just get Allagan gear", some people might say, well, there is a one week lock out timer on Coils and you are not guaranteed anything.

So, go ahead and say that larger zones is just empty padding. Maybe it'll give me something to do while I wait for weekly resets. While you're at it, this whole "leveling" thing is an unnecessary waste of time. Why not just start off at level 50? Then players wouldn't be forced to do quests that make them talk to NPCs in one part of the world and teleport or walk to the place they were just in. You wouldn't even have to move anywhere, and they could just have Mor Dhona as their only zone where you stand still in place until your 30m queue as a healer finally comes up. At least then there wouldn't be any "empty and unnecessary" zones adding useless "padding". /endrant

Sorry, but lack of content is not a feature. No world to explore, two dungeons to eternally farm for your tomes. Please, by all means, look forward to it.

[Doo]

FFXI was no different. The zones were big and expansive, but there was rarely any reason for you to be out in the middle of them so they were usually devoid of life and otherwise big for the sake of being big.

NMs, HNMS, leveling spots, quests, bcnms, etc. There were plenty of reasons to explore the beautiful world of Vana diel!

[Dreamer]

Every time I see this topic, no matter the game, I have to ask: "what does it matter?"

<Snip>.

I'm only speaking for myself here, but I play MMORPGs for the virtual world aspect. I generally care less about the 'game' part and more about having something to explore and be a part of. Socializing, crafting and economy, and roleplaying are generally my bread and butter for these types of games; if I wanted to do other stuff, I would play offline games, since they're generally far, far better at gameplay and such than MMORPGs.

When the world is small, it directly affects my enjoyment of the above more than just about any other factor. It doesn't matter if every inch of land has a purpose or not; what's important is that it's there, and for my style of play a large gameworld gives more possibilities than a smaller one.

[Lucke]

I do miss the openness of 1.0, even though it was copy/paste. I liked going from Thanalan into UD without zoning. Only other MMO I played without zones was Vanguard. Seems like a zoneless world, is more advanced than a world with a bazillion smaller zones.

Eorzea could have been this big, without zoning!
Eorzea 3.0

If you look, you could see what may have been Thanalan and the Shroud. Noone cares about LL so it's not in that tech demo.

[Baneus]

Yes FFXI wasn't that big either but come on guys. What other product can come out now with shorting comings that it had 10 years ago and be acceptable? I just do not get this mentality. "Games can be crappy because they were crappy 10 years ago". Just drives me crazy. I understand older games were different but there is a reason we have new technology and engines. Games are suppose to get better with more technology, not be on par with 10 year old games or worse in some cases. Just saying.

10 years ago the playerbase for every single MMO was a fraction of what even the worst ones have these days. In those 10 years, the technology and game engines have gotten marginally better and the playerbase has increased to match. So you pretty much end up with the same situation.

Though I have read a bit on the storage situation and the Dev responses to it and I have to wonder; what sort of horrible DB implementation are they using that can't be expanded easily to accommodate large amounts of static storage (stuff in houses and chests, not moving with characters)?

[gadzi_h]

Though I have read a bit on the storage situation and the Dev responses to it and I have to wonder; what sort of horrible DB implementation are they using that can't be expanded easily to accommodate large amounts of static storage (stuff in houses and chests, not moving with characters)?

Good point, I've worked a lot with SQL databases and this sort of movement should be a no brainer, cross table query based on your characters ID/Server ID. Oh well.