One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Kafeen]

I think they are making it a viable option. There is a crystal near Horizon, forget its name, but its surrounded by rank 90+ mobs telling me that it will eventually give us R90+ leves. Really lame if you ask me.

Either that or they're not sure what to do with the area yet so they just stick a bunch of stupidly high level mobs there to keep people away rather than closing it off completely.

Either way its a waste though. If its intended to be used at those levels then there's no need for it while the level is capped at 50, I can't see it increasing to 90 any time soon.

I would have rather seen camps like those used either for leves of the same level as other camps we have, giving people another alternative camp to level at or spread the range out a bit more so rather than changing camp every 10 levels, have something more like 10, 20, (25?), 30, 35, 40, 45, 50.

I really do not like the whole camp/aethyr system. It's incredibly linear and having each camp look EXACTLY the same, with the EXACT same features, with a big floaty crystal that gives you things to do it kind of creepy. They should fuse the camps with the questhubs/towns/settlements and each new encampment should reflect the style, architecture and ecosystem of the zone in which they are found.

Yeah, rather than picking up leves in the town, then travelling out to the camp to activate them, I'd rather have an NPC at the issue leves. Not just for the story aspects you mention but for smoother gameplay too. Players could gather at the camp they want to do leves, forming parties with other players gathered there, accept the leves available to all players (though I'd rather have all leves available rather than a random selection). Having a guild dedicated to adventurers is nice, but if players tried the same thing there, with players of all levels gathering in 1 spot it would be chaos. The lack of a search feature for players (at the moment) rules out that option and a lot of people don't like random shouts to find people.

You could apply the same to local leves too, if you want to do Goldsmithing leves (for example) you go to the goldsmithing guild to see what has been requested of them.

I'm not sure what you'd do with the adventurer guild if these changes were made though.

[Nilheim]

Great OP, I completely agree with everything you said. The devs need to really think hard on this.

Realistically speaking though, I can't see them changing the current zones considering how long it takes them to fix or implement anything at the moment. Instead I guess I'll just hope they'll learn from this BIG mistake when they work on expansions.

[Kafeen]

I don't think just changing future zones will be enough, many new players will still get turned off by the current zones and stop playing before they get as far as any extra content.

[Rowyne]

I was playing Aion this week (free play this week) and as I wandered around the Eltnen zone I was struck by how imaginative and creative it is compared to Thanalan (which I've been seeing a lot of lately, damn all you Ul'Dah barnacles). There were different shapes everywhere, varied terrain, deserts, greenlands, forests, streams, etc. all in this one zone. I struggled to get a handle on how it compared to Thanalan in size. I might be wrong but it seemed like one corner of the map was equal to one section of Thanalan, like Horizon for instance. In other words I'm saying one zone in Aion seemed like it was = to one zone in FFXIV. Playing that game this week just made me feel so sad for the environments in FFXIV. It's really laughable how bland and copy-pasted everything is when you stop to take a look at another MMO for a second.

Yes, Aion really is a beautiful game. It's a little glimmery because of the celestial theme, but I personally love it. I had originally believed Eorzea would be just as beautiful, just more realistic.

But realism doesn't mean sacrificing variety.

The regions of Eorzea are often termed 'frontiers'. America was once a great frontier. And the land is a great mixture of plains, fields, mountains, deserts, canyons, rivers, lakes, shores, snow, rain, tornadoes...

The frontiers of Eorzea have no variety within the three major starting regions.

[Nilheim]

I don't think just changing future zones will be enough, many new players will still get turned off by the current zones and stop playing before they get as far as any extra content.

Very true, although they could release zones for low level people too. For example Kazham came after the original zones but it quickly became the best place to exp from 25 to 32. They just need to give players the motivation to move to those new areas after a while.

I agree with you though, it would be much better to change the current zones, but I just can't see it happening. And it makes me very sad considering starter zones are always special to players, even years later.

[Richard]

I don't think just changing future zones will be enough, many new players will still get turned off by the current zones and stop playing before they get as far as any extra content.

This is pretty much the main problem in a nut shell. Like I said in a previous post, if SE can reskin and retexture Tam-Tara Deepcroft and Cassiopeia Hollow and turn them into instanced dungeons, then they should be able to spend a solid month or two reskinning/retexturizing and optimizing Thanalan, The Black Shroud and La Noscea for a progressive exploration path.

Let's say you were going to go buy your first house. You pull up in the driveway and the house is beautiful. But you take a look at the front yard and its nothing but a drab landscape of dull tones and colors, no definition or style to it at all and the path up to the house takes you completely out of the way to get to the front door.

Would you honestly buy the house unless the previous owner/realtor fixed it?

[Sigmakan]

The instanced dungeons are just reskins? >.>

Please say it aint so.

[Daedae]

The instanced dungeons are just reskins? >.>

Please say it aint so.

you can google the leaked phots/vids, they kinda are

[Richard]

The instanced dungeons are just reskins? >.>

Please say it aint so.

yeah. pretty much. the coerthas one is unique, but The Black Shroud, Thanalan and La Noscea ones are just more copypasta with a twist.

[Daedae]

yeah. pretty much. the coerthas one is unique, but The Black Shroud, Thanalan and La Noscea ones are just more copypasta with a twist.

twist= cracked eggs? OH THE MYSTERY! Barrels?!? THE HUMANITY! Resized coral trees? I CAN FEEL THE ADVENTURE IN MY LOINS!

I just hope the content placed therein will be a challenge, and whether some story aspects will be placed inside.