Will Coerthas ever return to normal?

[Nalien]

Either part of Coerthas is fine, or Xelphatol will be visually similar to 1.0s Coerthas, since the Howling Eye remains untouched by winter...

Aside from such consequences usually not glossed over/not thought of in much of fiction, the reasoning for why it isn't as bad as it should be is probably Allagan related. They put the thing up there, wouldn't surprise me if the reasoning goes that (with the help of the Crystal Tower) they were able to minimize the effect of the planet suddenly having two moons instead of one and its return ultimately ended up being less damaging as far as climate goes because of it.

Didn't they always have two moons? I seem to remember something about them converting Dalamud into Bahamuts prison, rather than building the satellite themselves... At the very least, one of the Allagan Runestones depicts Dalamud, and it really shouldn't if they built it...

I also doubt, given the fantasy setting, that the climate is controlled by much more than aether... I doubt the moon does anything for the tides and I doubt Dalamud had any impact outside throwing the aether out of whack... Coerthas is a frozen wasteland now because the Calamity disturbed the aether and Coerthas lucked out with a bunch of ice-aspected aether floating around...

[Zohar_Lahar]

On that note, I'm surprised we haven't heard of any further reaching effects of Dalamud's fall. A moon fell within the atmosphere before exploding into a billion pieces and ceasing to exist. If the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun dictate the tides of the planet, why did we not hear of any crazy tsunamis or similar disasters? Strictly speaking, a large portion of Limsa should have undergone dramatic changes as well (aside from the apparent shrapnel damage), not to mention what ever catastrophes occurred across the sea. I feel for whatever island nations might be on Hydaelyn, because they would have probably been utterly destroyed and drowned as a result of such an event ... which would have made for a pretty cool dungeon or something.

Lower La Noscea was ravaged by a tsumani, which is why they had to build a bridge to reconnect Gods' Grip to Vylbrand. Not to mention the rift along the Nym River in Middle La Noscea.

[DarthSanguine]

I wouldn't mind see the Eastern Highlands and the Lowlands at some point, though. It might be nice to see the transitional geography between them and Mor Dhona/the Shroud.

The Fields of Glory PvP Zone is the Coerthas Eastern Lowlands.

[Anonymoose]

You know, ever since 2.00 came and people were sad that none of Coerthas was still the Rocky Mountains of Eorzea, I've been watching for them to seize an opportunity to give just one zone of it back. Clearly there's a niche of people that don't want to give up on it, right? (I've been pushed back to sitting on the fence, myself.)

We got the central highlands so we could get into Ishgard at all, but that was snow. And we got the western highlands back with Ishgard, but they served as a frozen, heretic-and-dragon-laden wasteland barring travel to Dravania, which meant worse snow.

Then we got back the eastern lowlands, which connect to the shroud, in the form of PVP. I assume that means that they just didn't have anything better to do with it. That's also made me more or less give up on seeing the west Shroud, which stood between the western highlands and the central Shoud. Even though you can see it from Camp Tranquil, even though it's in the concept art, it doesn't look like anything too important can be done with it so isolated. Though, we have a La Noscea PVP, a Thanalan PVP, and now a Coerthas PVP. West Shroud PVP...?

Anyroad.

That leaves the central lowlands, which you'll notice we skip right over between leaving the central highlands and arriving in Revenant's Toll, similar to how we skip over southern Mor Dhona (Brittlebark and Silvertear Falls) when we come in from northern Thanalan. Doesn't seem likely we'll get those back in open-world form, from our current point of view (but you never know!). Even the beast tribe regions seem to be in the process of being funneled into dungeons so we can accelerate the movement out of Eorzea (starting with Xelphatol). (But you never know!)

Aaand that leaves the eastern highlands, which go ... vaguely east. In the direction of Xelphatol and Ala Mhigo.

HAS THE TIME COME!?

Who from the "gimme dat old Coerthas" camp is willing to get their hopes up, again? lol

[Rocl]

My hopes are always up. Let's not forget when we visit the Howling Eye in the early MSQ (Lv44ish) it's still lush and green--seems like a candidate for "old Coerthas" to me!

[bass9020]

You know, ever since 2.00 came and people were sad that none of Coerthas was still the Rocky Mountains of Eorzea, I've been watching for them to seize an opportunity to give just one zone of it back. Clearly there's a niche of people that don't want to give up on it, right? (I've been pushed back to sitting on the fence, myself.)

We got the central highlands so we could get into Ishgard at all, but that was snow. And we got the western highlands back with Ishgard, but they served as a frozen, heretic-and-dragon-laden wasteland barring travel to Dravania, which meant worse snow.

Then we got back the eastern lowlands, which connect to the shroud, in the form of PVP. I assume that means that they just didn't have anything better to do with it. That's also made me more or less give up on seeing the west Shroud, which stood between the western highlands and the central Shoud. Even though you can see it from Camp Tranquil, even though it's in the concept art, it doesn't look like anything too important can be done with it so isolated. Though, we have a La Noscea PVP, a Thanalan PVP, and now a Coerthas PVP. West Shroud PVP...?

Aneroid.

That leaves the central lowlands, which you'll notice we skip right over between leaving the central highlands and arriving in Revenant's Toll, similar to how we skip over southern Mor Dhona (Brittlebark and Silvertear Falls) when we come in from northern Thanalan. Doesn't seem likely we'll get those back in open-world form, from our current point of view (but you never know!). Even the beast tribe regions seem to be in the process of being funneled into dungeons so we can accelerate the movement out of Eorzea (starting with Xelphatol). (But you never know!)

Aaand that leaves the eastern highlands, which go ... vaguely east. In the direction of Xelphatol and Ala Mhigo.

HAS THE TIME COME!?

Who from the "gimme dat old Coerthas" camp is willing to get their hopes up, again? lol

For some reason though Anonymoose SE keeps calling the PVP zone Coerthas Eastern Highlands instead of lowlands. Is it possible its just a typo or mistranslation? A dev has never responded to any thread that its mentioned in even threads I've commented on for it. Which makes me wonder if we will get the Highlands at some point or along with many other zones it will be forgotten.

On topic:
I feel like we were given the Hinterlands as a representation of the old coerthas. Its green, has mountains and where Alexander is currently looks VERY similar to the old Ewe Lake. But I'm still holding out hope for a 1.0 coerthas somewhere else ingame one day!!

[Nalien]

Old concept images for Coerthas Central Highlands actually had the snow being a gradual thing... South of the map was meant to be more green, though I guess with the scope of 2.0 maps that wasn't going to make much sense... Something the size of Western Highlands might have worked... Can get a sense of climbing a mountain with a zone that size, a gradual change in climate would work better as a result... Can always do that with Central Lowlands, yes we skip over it, but that could easily just be because that path is fairly boring and sidesteps much of the zone... Take West Shroud, there is obviously something going on there, but it seems entirely reasonable that our path from Central Shroud to North Shroud would go around it, not through it...

With Xelphatol being a dungeon though, I think I'm about ready to give up on the open world content in this game... As much as I love something like Dravanian Forelands, and want every region of Eorzea to be treated like that... They didn't do much with the area... Open world content in this game is just woefully lacking... There's some nice lore to be had with things like the sightseeing log, but even that could be so much more... Forelands has plenty of ruins hidden away, that could all be entrances to something, but how long did we wait for Issom-Har to get more than a mention in a few quests? There are still plenty of areas like that in 2.0 zones (North Shrouds door, for example), and Forelands doors don't even get names/quests hinting at any relevance... FATEs/Hunts/Levequests would need a serious overhaul for me to start caring for open world zones again... Hunts in particular, I'd like a more rigid spawn structure like XIs, I just loath wandering around aimlessly looking for Hunts, but if you stick Lord of the Wyverns in that cave with the door? Then his lore becomes that caves lore...

I would expect that the Ixali gate north of Natalan will be the entrance to Xelphatol, rather than the future zone to Eastern Highlands I've long speculated it to be... Although I'm really hoping we get there by Airship, Cid needs to enter the MSQ again, if only to meet Hilda... I think we may still get the Eastern Highlands in some form though, I have a nagging suspicion that Dawn Vigil might be converted into a housing area one day... One might expect it in the city-proper, given there is even the perfect gate for it near one of the High Houses, but players wanted Ishgard Housing for a snowy themed area... The Pillars ain't particularly snowy... Dawn Vigil would be, though I guess that means still no green-Coerthas...

Sigh... So many areas, never enough developers or content... Oh how I dream of all the unused Castrums being used for something... You can't give me Platoons and not have me think "A TRPG style assault on these would be awesome!", Yoshida... Instead I'm probably getting Grand Company Ventures, aren't I? That (presumably) Coerthas Western Lowlands Castrum will taunt me until the day I die...

[MicahZerrshia]

I wonder why they have the stance against open world content that they do.

My biggest wish is that they open zones that we have as dungeons to us after the hm versions have been completed. It would be amazing to explore Wanderer's Palace or Amdapor, Snowcloak or Cutter's Cry. The maps already exist as does the music, they could do it with slight alterations. Fates don't need to be in them, they could put some gathering nodes in there, give it some side quests (that for the love of the twelve do not involve finding lost something or others). Special treasure maps for those areas or something. Give them some life. So many of these areas are wasted by faceroll dungeons and they are so beautiful that its a shame not to use them in another capacity.

[Morningstar1337]

I wonder why they have the stance against open world content that they do.

My guess is fear that the players would abuse it, that they would be unable to faithfully adapt XI's content to XIV's open world, or because of general association with 1.0

[LalafellDown]

I liked it back in 1.0 the music was nice too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XWjdKre5kg