Question about Cartenau and West shroud from 1.0

[Kotemon]

Cartenau wasn't in 1.0 at all, actually. It's always just been referenced as a place and never visited outside of PVP. From what I understand there wasn't anything out there of interest then, anyway (inb4 "There wasn't anything of interest in most of 1.0's copypasta zones! Trololol!").

Here's a trace of the Ironheart map with simple English.

Thanks, having a whole regions shape helped

Are you meaning this?


I don't think thats actually part of Dalamud. Still though, West Shroud was pretty messed up by the fall of Dalamud, as evidenced by the huge shard sticking out of the ground near Fallgourd Float, I imagine that Gridania is working with the elementals to try to perhaps restore West Shroud.

Also, I was the one who asked the West Shroud question way back when!

I have no idea where that image is from but running around at night I found that peak at the spot where the Fate with Lunar Golems spawn.. I also took the time to notice that between that chunk or those glowing lights in the distance something is suspending the rocks in mid air by what looks like a former/possible route into the west shroud. Although I doubt that glow resembles the ones holding the floating city up in the air. For some reason it looks like that crater in Coerthas but inverted. If the Ixali are trying to get in there may be aether infused trees?

Aside from that I was taking the time to piece segments of maps together and discovered nothing is to scale, and 95% of all the 2.0 maps online are bad. Still has the fog of war over topography despite being fully visible. The maps in-game reveal a lot more topography, that alone makes it easier to piece them together. Scaling is way off, I shrunk New Gridania to fit it in central where it overlaps and Old Gridania had to shrink to scale onto it.. North Shroud is either a far distance from Gridania or is really small compared to central shroud. Map wise it should not scale to be the same size or smaller than Gridania. Given that Gridania as a whole is now scaled to central none of the zones to North Shroud line up. Even scaling it to Central Shroud (only) the two entry points don't line up very well. It'll be easier if there were more topography reviled around the main map as to give scale, rotation and distance between maps. Just like Iron Lake and Fallground have parts that overlap. Along with Gridania and Central shroud. Moving to Mor Dhona everything is also moved about like Singing Shards and the Toll went more north to the zone(compared to what I saw on 1.0 not the best for detail). The only way to see how everything fits is if a couple maps contain the lower and eastern half of Silvertear lake. Given what I'm seeing of the Shroud so far West would have either been big enough to border on Silvertear or obscurely small like north shroud. I haven't gotten to South or East yet but so far it seems there was some location shifting going on when they redid the maps and zones after the end of 1.0. If north could be scaled and placed right and then Coerthas and Mor Dhona would follow (to a point). North Thanalan is iffy since it has a huge invisible chunk to the east. Thus no reference to Silvertear Lake or how big of a gap exists between it and Mor Dhona. Let alone where the fill in the blanks for Cartenau and West Shroud would be given the current detail on 2.0 maps.

[Itseotle]

Talks about map inconsistencies

Also if you open up the world map in-game, and then zoom in to the regional map in-game, nothing really adds up either. On the map there is a huge gap between Eastern Thanalan and South Shroud, but in-game we can clearly see where the two zones meet. Additionally, South Shroud literally sits just a bit east of Mor Dhona, but there has (afaik) never been any path from south shroud to Mor Dhona. There was I believe an old 2.0 beta map that had a connection where Lost City now sits, which would explain that space at least somewhat. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the area could be Amdapori(sp?) ruins and are blocked by the elementals.





Also, according to the game map, there is a vast section of unexplored land south of Ul'dah and South Thanalan, as well as further to the East of Eastern Thanalan, a large chuck of area that on the Thanalan map is in Mor Dhona, but isn't part of the Mor Dhona map at all, O'Ghomoro as mentioned above, and lets not get started on Coerthas...

bottom line really is there are some glaring inconsistencies with the in-game maps but there is also room for expansion and exploration.

[Velox]

Utilizing the position of Central and North Shroud, and from locating those crystals from different directions, we can deduce that West Shroud would be on the map as follows


(I borrowed Itseotle's image to edit )

From what I can tell, we travel THROUGH the West Shroud every time we go from Central → North, and vice versa. The fact that we can see the same destruction from both sides (burnt trees and boulders near Spriggan Dig are the same as seen in the area south of Fallgoard Float). This proves that West Shroud lies directly between Central and North Shroud. This is also evidenced by the settlement marker on the map (purposely put there) that I circled in red. This shows that Gridania has some sort of hamlet or outpost in this region.

At this point, I'm assuming West Shroud is being treated like the Coerthas Lowlands, which we know exist between North Shroud and the Coerthas Highlands (and were accessible in 1.0), but now we seem to simply "warp" through them like they aren't even there anymore. I am hoping at some point in the future we regain access to all these maps that exist, yet don't exist anymore.

Also, according to the game map, there is a vast section of unexplored land south of Ul'dah and South Thanalan, as well as further to the East of Eastern Thanalan, a large chuck of area that on the Thanalan map is in Mor Dhona, but isn't part of the Mor Dhona map at all, O'Ghomoro as mentioned above, and lets not get started on Coerthas...

bottom line really is there are some glaring inconsistencies with the in-game maps but there is also room for expansion and exploration.

In regards to Southern Thanalan, the area south is all part of the Sagolii Desert. In fact, if you go in-game and head down there, go as far south as you can go and you see how the desert actually stretches on for many, many yalms (we just can't access it). As a semi-spoiler, at some point in the story we probably will due to the fact that SE left us a nice unused road to it. It can be found near the Amalj'aa camp (the far southern outpost on the edge of the desert). If you head down there, you can see where the road is and how we're blocked by invisible walls from progressing any further. There are similar roads in many places, all utilizing invisible walls, waiting to be opened up in expansions to come. You can see the road that will take us to Ala Mhigo if you go to Larkscall and follow the road East, past where that Magitek Menace FATE spawns.

[Nalien]

The Black Shrouds regional map is an absolute mess. I remember putting together all the regional maps (because I really dislike the artistic map and would prefer a proper "world" map) and for the most part things were fine. La Noscea looks nothing like the artistic map version but it fits (ended up aligning it with various small islands, all the other regions involved aligning the coastal sections), Mor Dhona fits almost perfect with Thanalan and Coerthas. Coerthas and the Shroud though? Absolutely terrible. I think if you overlap them the Coerthas region map puts you closer to Central Shroud and the Shroud map is more likely to have you going off into Xelphatol. The gap between Thanalan and South Shroud seemed fine to me, there are a lot of areas which seem to have a large transitional area skipped over, but North Shroud to Coerthas simply did not align in the slightest.

Were there a West Shroud I'd actually expect it to be where we zone into Coerthas from, with North Shroud leading to Xelphatol. That would actually fit fairly nicely looking at it...

Made a new (awful chimera) of a world map, sorry about the quality but yeah, that Coerthas/Shroud zone makes zero sense... Almost makes me think West Shroud was cut at some point...

Wonder if Heavensward could edit a few quests and add West Shroud in... It's clearly meant to be there, even the in game zone from Central Shroud seems to indicate it... Spriggans Dig is dead, but if you look beyond the zone line there are plenty of healthy plants that I'd expect from West Shroud given what we can see of it (crystals trees and waterfalls can be made out). Same can't be said looking from North to Central. Hope we don't just get Ishgard themed areas but also an expansion into beast tribe territories, I can see a Paglth'an region, Xelphatol region and O'Ghomoro region being added fairly easily. If you look at some of the early concept maps there are even indications for such zones. Well, only O'Ghomoro really since "Zone to Volcano" is only going to take us one place. Interestingly though, it looks like the area we fight the Chimera during the Relic quest was originally going to be an Ixali dungeon? Can't really see that happening now, but if you go off in that direction (and if you go just north of Natalan there is an Ixali gate leading that way) you'd end up in Xelphatol. Paglth'an could be reached either by the gate at the end of Zahar'ak. They'd all actually be perfect places to put roaming Primals for Free Company summoning, too. Sylphs and Sahagin might be left out in that case though, but there are a lot of blocked off paths in Sylphlands that could lead to a Sylph region. Sahagin I can't see getting their own region until swimming is added though. Heck who knows, maybe before we build Airships we'll build regular ships and the Indigo Deep will be a large area we can sail about in for a Sahagin region... Don't actually see how they could introduce Leviathan in that way without reworking the entire fight...

[Grayve]

I'd like to see all the maps done that way. It makes it easier for me to picture how I'm traveling through Eorzia.

[Kotemon]

This is also evidenced by the settlement marker on the map (purposely put there) that I circled in red. This shows that Gridania has some sort of hamlet or outpost in this region.
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Wouldn't that suggest that there's still some sort of Hamlet defense going on in the area? Assuming if the assumption about Ixali incursions into there via Gridania main quest is correct.

Made a new (awful chimera) of a world map, sorry about the quality but yeah, that Coerthas/Shroud zone makes zero sense... Almost makes me think West Shroud was cut at some point...

That a pretty decent world map. Right now I'm trying to pretend there's small mountain ranges and the occasional moon chunk that creates the gap in some of these places.

Btw: is there a name for that really big mountain past the cliff by that hermits hut north of Camp Overlook.. That's a pretty big mountain for La Noscea's area.

[Jeiko_Hunter]

So, here's the thing about the maps that I think people are missing:

Early era maps are never accurate. EVER.

Sure, they have the technology to accurately draw them out, but there are any number of constant struggles that interfere with map drawing. At best, they guess. no one has the time in such a conflicted land of interests such as Eorzea.
The problem with the Black Shroud is the trees. They would be the worst culprit of interference, especially in the deeper canopies where light is fleeting and time can become distorted.
In regards to why West Shroud is inaccessible to Adventurers, perhaps the majority of the God's Bow and Wood Wailers are engaged in it's defense and exploration, remapping the altered terrain, seeking a new location for an Atheryte? The lack of an atheryte would explain why we cannot access the area in terms of game logic and such.

[Chewy2nd]

I think we do go through part of West Shroud, as the Ancient Eorzean Stratum is directly south from Fallgourd Float, I think, as said above, the majority of West Shroud is currently undergoing recovery.

I like the early era map idea, it makes sense.

[Zohar_Lahar]

Wonder if Heavensward could edit a few quests and add West Shroud in... It's clearly meant to be there, even the in game zone from Central Shroud seems to indicate it... Spriggans Dig is dead, but if you look beyond the zone line there are plenty of healthy plants that I'd expect from West Shroud given what we can see of it (crystals trees and waterfalls can be made out). Same can't be said looking from North to Central. Hope we don't just get Ishgard themed areas but also an expansion into beast tribe territories, I can see a Paglth'an region, Xelphatol region and O'Ghomoro region being added fairly easily.

A key note at fan fest did say Heavensward would have "Dravania and other beast-tribe domains."

[Kotemon]

I've found a nicely marked map from Coerthas 1.0, until now I've been assuming Mor Dhona and Revenant's Toll were re worked parts of Coerthas lowlands. Due to the area between Central highlands and Lowlands resembling the area around Revenant's Toll. After looking up Ewe Lake this old map fills in most of the gap between it and Mor Dhona. This is great reference as now I can move this further away from Mor Dhona when piecing them together on the 2.0 maps. But makes the question as how North shroud is ending up zoning near Dragon Head since the big bridge is a wreck from what was seen in the fight with Greg. (why is it impassible again?)




In another post about the possible location of Alexander possibly being in or around Ewe Lake. If that's true then are we currently warping past the Central Lowlands into Central highlands from Mor Dhona? Just like West Shroud.


Aside from that between 1.0 and 2.0 the Central Region is for the most part unchanged except around behemoth and snow cloak, it seems Ogre's Belly replaced the path to that small area just East of Natalan. Cant see a way that leads to East Highlands though.

A key note at fan fest did say Heavensward would have "Dravania and other beast-tribe domains."

Comparing the two maps and the current Snow weather. Is it possible all that is from IceHeart /Shiva and that weatern Highlands is now a possible Dravanian stronghold (given the state of Stone Vigil) ? Also for 2.55 it seems there is a Keep on the bridge to Ishgard.