Revelations from Fan Festival 2017 Frankfurt

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I'm sort of curious how much we'll get to explore. The new map unveils more than just 2/3rds of Othard and Hingashi - as many have pointed out, Thavnair, Aerslant, and Old Sharlayan have also been added, while the stuff that we're presumably not meant to see or know about (including an entire southwestern chunk of Othard) is shrouded in a Fog of War of sorts. While the obscuring of Ilsabard makes sense, I wonder why these other places have been uncovered, and that part of Othard hasn't? Is it to throw long-time map makers a bone in regards to long-referenced but never-shown parts of the world? Or is there a more content-driven reason to them avoiding a cloud cover?

[LineageRazor]

.....why do we need to take a ship to doma anyhow? why not take a fast airship? to avoid garlean air scouts?

It may also be possible that Eorzean airship technology simply isn't advanced enough to fly all the way to the Far East. They may require regular maintenance, or have too low a fuel capacity, or whatever. The Enterprise might be an exception, though, given that Cid engineered it, and he's a top-rated Garlean engineer.

The new map unveils more than just 2/3rds of Othard and Hingashi - as many have pointed out, Thavnair, Aerslant, and Old Sharlayan have also been added, while the stuff that we're presumably not meant to see or know about (including an entire southwestern chunk of Othard) is shrouded in a Fog of War of sorts. While the obscuring of Ilsabard makes sense, I wonder why these other places have been uncovered, and that part of Othard hasn't?

I suspect that the official reason is that these territories are (as Ryuji alluded) far more firmly under the command of the Garleans, and so obtaining accurate maps for those areas is much more difficult.

[Neophyte]

Inb4: Let's capture the Gration to get to the far east. With Regula deceased something has to happen with that ship.
Would be a nice dungeon, if you think about it's size.

[Dualblade]

It may also be possible that Eorzean airship technology simply isn't advanced enough to fly all the way to the Far East. They may require regular maintenance, or have too low a fuel capacity, or whatever. The Enterprise might be an exception, though, given that Cid engineered it, and he's a top-rated Garlean engineer.

One thing that atleast showed up in FFXII (and I think Tactics as a whole? Only played XII) was the Jagd, places which interferred with the skystones used for Airship travel. While the Empire had found a way around it and eventually the party gets that same method it still affects most people. Its possible that something similar prevents airship travel between Eorzea and Othard.

On Kugane, another thing from XII was Bhujerba. If I remember correctly they were also considered neutral in the conflicts of the series, but ultimately still had a quite a bit of Archadian Empire within the city itself while the leader himself secretly helped the party. Kugane might have something similar, though maybe not the leader of the area him/herself.