Why 4.0 should have a zone with danger, no ports, no mounts, and a hidden town

[dinnertime]

The current open world zones are also dead anyway even on the biggest servers such as Balmung because there's not much to do in them aside from gathering and there's little to none FATE parties that happen unless a relic grind says otherwise so I find it funny that people think this will be dead on arrival when what we have now is also the same.

I'm opposed to the OP's idea of the zone being too inconvenient to explore but it would be nice at least to have a very relevant but optional open world zone that's actually fun and captures and actual sense of exploration and adventure which people seem to be opposed about for some reason.
I think it would be a good change from the same-old instances we always get in every patch where the people you get from the DF would barely communicate because they would rather speed-run and leave the instance immediately than have a laid-back time playing with the party. Anybody else tired of that?
Mind you, Diadem is close but it's poorly implemented content, with lots of flaws that's still being ignored and it has a time limit plastered onto it.

Even hello kitty online had a more challenging open world when it was launched (completely serious)

Just this line alone makes it utterly pathetic how hospitable the 2.0 and 3.0 zones are, which is ironic since the Calamity had a lot of negative effects on Eorzea, so people would think the world would become more dangerous, but we get the complete opposite from 1.0.

[silentwindfr]

Even at launch, ESO and TOR were both -considerably- larger than FFXIV is.
And in both those games, some areas would feel dangerous to a degree.[/B]

i stop you there, yes at launch they had some area that was dangerous, because it was launch character was not full level or well equiped for face this sort of threat now.... you can breath throught it and strangely it's what you do... and more important this two game too have teleportation that can be overused.

what you want is not danger but a walking simulation, it's nice the 2-3 times but after it become more a bother than anything since you will spend more time to travel than actually play! because even in FF11 it was possible to cross the whole world without fight... the point? none exept increase the life artificially of the game.

the content don't die, it's not because you have no interest into it that it is dead. FF14 have a major pool of content, simply people don't care for it that all. but a new player that want a skin or simply experience this content will do it. make the traveling in the world longer or artificially harder (yeah i talk of you gobelin level 99 of the V1 don't ignore me) will not help to do what you think more drive people away.

TJust this line alone makes it utterly pathetic how hospitable the 2.0 and 3.0 zones are, which is ironic since the Calamity had a lot of negative effects on Eorzea, so people would think the world would become more dangerous, but we get the complete opposite from 1.0.

the calamity did hit as hard the beast and danger of Eorzea than the city. a lot of area was simply destroyed and creature did disappear in this calamity or some area are simply un reachable like the spirit forest filled with treant.

[Melondra]

Huh... I learned something today. Dunno about a whole zone but something like this would definitely be pretty cool. Like fel reavers, only they're death jellyfish.

This area was know as SEA aka "The Garden of Antiquty" you need Chains of Promitha Chapter 8-1 in order to aces it.

[Shurrikhan]

well great for you!
But you see anything implemented directly affects ALL of us. Especially those of us that are mount, minion, achievement hunting, OR that are part of statics for example and would need to be capping the new tomestones as fast as possible. Meaning if you offer some new content, what the reward is going to be is important, what percentage of people would like it is important, how much of a must do and for what group of people is important.

For example anyone serious for 3.2 has to either have their crafters up, or know crafters. Because iLvl 220 and a progression shortcut.

Could you define what you mean by "directly" then? Every 'rule' or 'mechanical' change suggested for this area has been limited to the area alone. Nor are any of the 'changes' actually new, or even changes. The mount-less rule, for instance, is no different from in every city in game already. The only way this would affect you is if the daily quests could be perfected as to be the quickest form of tomestone gathering. This is unlikely unless they make use of optimal 8-mans. Although "daily", quests are not going to be competitive with the daily dungeon roulettes, if only because they are multiple, and the relevant roulettes are one or two at most. But more importantly, why would this be an issue? Is there something so wrong with a form of currency gathering that may be faster done in the open world than in a dungeon (the only alternative aside from hunts)? The only thing I can think of is when your raid team requires you to cap tomestones immediately after reset for that extra push of gear, which this would merely exchange repeating the same optimal highest ilvl dungeon spam for after the initial roulette bonus. Is that such a loss?

I'll admit. I'm not a fan of any daily zones I've yet seen. I have, however, enjoyed certain daily quests or quest systems. But consider: I'm also not a fan of the how exploration is typically done in MMOs, and yet it's frequently my favorite part in any of them. The model can be improved on, even if a large part of that may be by scrapping the idea of what a daily zone is completely, and replacing it with something that simply fits a similar function, which is to say an enjoyable open-world time sink. And for a genre that is almost definable as being a time sink, for better or worse, that's not saying much. It can have its own progression. It can have its own PvP. It can have anything it wants. It need only be fun. The reason so many daily zones fail is because they were never crafted to be daily zones; they were merely leveling hub-zones for which certain quests were made repeatable and perhaps level-scaling, largely as a way to stimulate and inflate the economy for crafters and their consumers.

Side-note: even so much as calling it a daily zone has been us thread-taggers speculations as to necessary design/compromise. The OP listed it only as a zone with certain old-school sensibilities and entirely intrinsically enjoyable qualities.

[TaleraRistain]

You've just described early EverQuest. However, even EQ had to change because players just don't want mechanics like that. Those mechanics also make the game a lot less accessible, leading to lower subscriber numbers.

[Azurymber]

You've just described early EverQuest. However, even EQ had to change because players just don't want mechanics like that. Those mechanics also make the game a lot less accessible, leading to lower subscriber numbers.

yes.
hence why i said one optional end-game area
and not re-doing the entire game

So nothing in the game gets changed.
Just one area gets added, that is -not- required
You can just go do some open world content that isn't hunts or fates, and fight some things that don't die in one combo (kind of like when ppl solo snowcloak difficulty)

[Judah_Brandt]

So you'd like a glorified theme park inside of a theme park MMORPG that caters to one very specific group of players allowing them to have a place where they hold majority against the rest of the community? You'd like this giant resource of a zone because it would be nice to hang out on a beach without being harassed or something? I hate to disapprove of your idea so vehemently but RP Jurassic Park is a poor use of resources. We all ready have so much content in the game that people dump on.

There are so many functions in the game that can be pointed to which fill a niche, only to be disliked by the majority for sake of convenience. Would Lords of Verminion be more popular if you could queue for it through Duty Finder? How about Chocobo Racing? How about Triple Triad? They're just getting around to implementing a large PVP system. What percent of players in FFXIV utilize the PVP modes?

Here's an idea, go to Azys Lla and equip i50 gear. How many hits does it take to die from a Clockwork bit now? Difficulty can be artificially altered, any idea to implement something will eventually be surpassed and made irrelevant. It's how the MMORPG treadmill works. Gimmick content without reasonable longevity or sense to it is literally a waste of assets. No one is stopping you from playing the game how you want to, but requesting yet another niche feature and trying to justify it is something I can't fathomably agree is a good idea.

[Kurogaea]

I like the idea. No reason to not have it if it's OPTIONAL. I say it like that because people don't seem to get what that word means nowadays. :/

[Defias]

Honestly. I wouldn't care if it was implemented. I personally would never go there.
My issue is...that knowing companies now a days...they will tie something to it in order to justify the funds expended to make it.
Which would probably force me to go there.
As the majority of the player base would ask:
"What do I get for going there & enduring such a zone?"
"Why go there if I get nothing?"

Also developing such content would take away from other things they should be working on.
That said...FFXIV is not a survival horror MMO like FFXI was so I feel like it would go against the game's look and feel.

But I feel everyone should have something they enjoy.
But the dev team has a tendency to create things and bait/force us into them and/or make what should be simple (Glamour, Chocobo Racing) and make it tedious/complicated.

[Kurogaea]

And watch it become a ghost town a month after the expansion is out.

I can't support this. If it lacks the convienence everyone is used to, then people simply won't get there unless they absolutely have to.

You'd rather have your hand held then to adventure out on your own? Think I'm starting to see what this game is apparently catering to :/