Is there going to be open world content ever? Have I missed news or anything related?

[Mycow8me]

Keep up the support for more openworld content guys and the people that are against it for whatever reason... Please continue posting as well so SE can hear your opinions too. They can't begin to create fun and exciting openworld content that is vastly improved from its ffxi counterpart without many different opinions and ideas. I'm not going to be able to post soon due to subscription running out. Haven't even logged since like 2 weeks ago anyways. Will be checkin news for ffxiv over the months.

[NefarioCall]

Some of the dungeon mechanics in FFXI i thought were great, in terms of doors with levers and keys etc. The area design was at times fantastic. I couldn't help thinking with CT ... this is not a labyrinth. It's a straight line with a couple straight line corridors going off to the sides. and hey, i love CT. Great fun ... but the straight line syndrome is a product of the lobby server. An open world area can be a legitimate labyrinth type design.

Again, the Beastman strongholds are perfect in concept, just not nearly big enough. Make them large enough that a player can spend hours digging around their corners. Put a few unique items in there that aren't necessarily essential to player progress so much as they offer an alternate comparable item to what you can get elsewhere.. or in the case of things that don't break the balance, totally unique things. Minions of course and mounts being the obvious things. What about a rare color of dye?

I also think that for Gatherers, the low percentage dig point is a necessary alternative to the hourly unspoiled nodes.
Space the gathering points around the area such that when a player uses one up, they must make a perilous journey to the next available location.
Then make the items tough to dig up.

Also, any sort of achievements that can go in there will give players a reason, even if the reward is little more than the completion of the achievement.

[RyuDragnier]

That was my favorite part about airship rides and boat rides in FFXI. I was sad when i got on the airship 1 how quick it was and 2 that i was alone on it lol. I also had my own tele taxi services in 11 as well it was a good way to make money. I remember when the Treasures of Ahturhgan exp came out there was a giant que of players getting ready to get on the boat. The world felt so real everyone getting ready to board a ship to go to a new land.

I loved those boat rides. Once I entered a boat and there was a Bard, a Dancer, and a few others on the ship. The Bard played for us a ballad and told a story while the Dancer danced to it. Was one of the most memorable rides I ever had, it felt like an actual boat ride irl, and we even had a couple making out in the corner of the ship.

[Emnily]

Until we have ps3 version, we can forget about real open world. If read early 2.0 interviews - they wanted fully open world without loadings, graphical update and many other things. And after... they announced ps3 version, which archeticture couldn't hold good enough ever 1.0, so they lowered graphic, but add more effects, change game to be ruled by server side and other limits. It same as with many multiplatform games of past years, old consoles taking them into bottom of quality, because they hited their limit.

[Clavaat]

ruled by server side

I'm going to take this piece, and explain why what you said doesn't make any sense.

Running server-side is what allows more systems to be able to play, as opposed to limiting it. This is a good design, from a programming standpoint, because you limit client-side processing (i.e. your PS3, PS4, PC). This game is still fairly demanding, I'll admit, but server-side processing is a good thing. The catch is, you have to have servers powerful enough to handle it. This is incredibly expensive (both processing and money-wise).

Also, this is why open-world content may still be a ways away. Open world content = much more processing on the world servers alone. Add in the fact that the server now has to process positional data for tons of players in more areas, you get a program that requires very very heavy server load. If they have the capability to do this, more power to em.

[Seif]

Until we have ps3 version, we can forget about real open world. If read early 2.0 interviews - they wanted fully open world without loadings, graphical update and many other things. And after... they announced ps3 version, which archeticture couldn't hold good enough ever 1.0, so they lowered graphic, but add more effects, change game to be ruled by server side and other limits. It same as with many multiplatform games of past years, old consoles taking them into bottom of quality, because they hited their limit.

XI exists with tons of large open world areas open world chests and pressure plates... You name it it's there and people are still playing that content on ps2.

So you saying that stuff can't be done a decade later on ps3 is just not right.

[ispano]

XI exists with tons of large open world areas open world chests and pressure plates... You name it it's there and people are still playing that content on ps2.

So you saying that stuff can't be done a decade later on ps3 is just not right.

Except it is right. The game already stretches the PS3's limited memory as it is. This has actually been explained.

[Velhart]

Is there any open world content confirmed for 2.3?

If not we could be looking at another half year of playing a lobby game
I honestly hope they'd just ditch the shiva plans further back to focus on in-game variety.

Do we really need yet another primal instance more than we need reasons for the open world to exist?

XI exists with tons of large open world areas open world chests and pressure plates... You name it it's there and people are still playing that content on ps2.

So you saying that stuff can't be done a decade later on ps3 is just not right.

I love this argument for it's irony from a FFXI player. So how many times did people really go exploring in FFXI? If I recall correctly, people bunched up in Jeuno or Aht Urghan and didn't bother to go outside at all unless you had a reason to. People didn't explore Ifrit's Cauldron or the deeper Aht Urghan areas. It was simply inconvenient and a hassle to walk around in these areas, even with a full party. Sure it was nice to see something for the first time, but what is the ratio of people paying a WHM for teleports over just running/chocobo there? More in the WHM's favor, to the point a lot of WHM's main revenue was teleporting people. I have explored ARR more than I ever did in my 7-8 years of playing FFXI and all the time I spent in FFXIV 1.xx combined.

It isn't to say that exploration factors are not needed, but I wouldn't go to FFXI as an example. SE has already put a lot of things in ARR to get you out and exploring places you likely have not been to before. Quests, treasure maps, and even the Atma -> Animus books took me all over the world. Yoshida even said too many times at this point that more and more open world content will be coming over time. I don't get what the whine is about when it has already been acknowledged and the team right now is working on it. Its like people want them to wave a magic wand and the game becomes all open world content.

As for the other argument. FFXI doesn't use nearly the amount of memory per area in comparison to ARR. While areas in FFXI do look nice for their time, it has a lot of reused assets and a lot of the portions of the area do not have much in it. It was intentional for FFXI so they could not strain the memory and offer the open world content in the area. If ARR focused on open world as opposed to instances, it would of been on the same boat. More open perhaps, but a lot less attention to detail, especially with the PS3. I rather have smaller, more detailed areas like right now as opposed to a giant chunk of land that has nothing (Version 1.xx).

Open world content is never a bad thing, but it has to work with the server structure and work with the ideals of the system. SE shouldn't just tack something out in the open world because people want it. SE has to convince both us and themselves that the content given is in fact better to do out of instance as opposed to being in one. Treasure hunting is a perfect example. It would be awkward to make that content instanced. However it being open world opened a lot of possibilities and future potential of the system mostly because it is in an open world setting. An open world HNM, why I ask. I rather be in an instance where there is no interference from others. Not to mention I love instances over open world trial monsters because in instances you can have neat mechanics like Titan knocking you off the ledge or Leviathan slamming the boat trying to throw you off.

[Clavaat]

Do we really need yet another primal instance more than we need reasons for the open world to exist?

You cannot compare these 2 things. One exists on an instance server, one exists on a world server. For the sake of server stability, an instance is more likely than an open world piece of content. This has been explained many times.

[Seif]

It'll be interesting to see if 2.3 is any different than the previous 2 patches.

The time limit of 6 months until personal housing is almost up so at least we know that is coming.
We also have seen what shiva looks like and it has been in development for ages...

So the question is is 2.3 just another summon instance with housing or is there anything for the open world in it too?