The World: so Big so Beautiful... But yet so empty

[Hycinthus]

Inplement Trade like Archeage. Where you have to craft and carry your package across zones on horseback/carriage. The farther zones you bring your package across, the more reward you will get.

It's very lively in Archeage when you had 10 people waiting for an airship carrying trade packs on horsebacks and then we all just chat on the airship during the journey. Or on ships/galleons that people built and drove across the seas to the other continents bringing our trade packs.

[Naunet]

<excellent stuff>

You've worded this beautifully and perfectly. Yes to all of it!

[Shurrikhan]

[Good insights]

:: It's but a memory of a memory now, but I could have sworn the guards at the entrance to the Mun Tuy Cellars back when it was a leveling/leve/NM labyrinth area, rather than a mere tunnel, in 1.x had some decent jokes about... life when being a guard at the entrance to Mun Tuy Cellars. I'm glad at least that while the sub-zone was effectively removed, it remained at least a bridge between larger zones. Sadly, I don't think it points out a willingness to detail as a hesitation to anger Legacy players even further (especially after turning Sorrel Havens into a dry well when it was a huge misty river) that extended about the length of the Saghali Desert).

The Xaela camps in the Azim Steppes are actually one of my own core examples of missed opportunity. You get to see these different cultures during the MSQ, but it ends at the point of baiting any interest player. "What now?" An incredible opportunity for meaningful, dynamic daily-like activities just stops there with the completion of the zones quests, which have yet to show any real attempt at interesting mechanics. And, to be honest, given what we know of the steppes... the zone honestly felt far too small to be housing its alleged numbers, much like Doma is apparently a nation with the population of one tiny village and captives that can seemingly only come from one other, now-ruined, similarly small village. It feels... off.

Take a typical tiny zone arc from WoW for comparison. Enter the frey, find maps to leaders (likely keeping the prisoners), free prisoners, use said prisoners to set the enemy camp into frenzy while locating key lore to be used later; return the engineer (one of said prisoners) so that he can build your aircraft to get around cliffside defenses, attack runebinders not only to dismantle defenses and draw out officers but take their items necessary for seeing into the past around ritual bonfires, which in turn makes available new strategies and proposes new plot arcs, dismantle anti-air defenses, set up and defend a flag to move enemies to your position for as long as possible, hyjack the AA guns to take out as many reinforcements as possible before launching yourself out one such AA gun in order to return to your base.

Compare the above to: found sheep, (irrelevant to prior) lit some lanterns, (irrelevant to prior) delivered a letter, (irrelevant to prior) fended off a few bandits, (irrelevant to prior) gathered weeds, (irrelevant to prior) led a guy to someplace where (off-screen) he apparently learned he was good with his fists, (irrelevant to prior) talked to locales, (irrelevant to prior) did some weird gauntlet run for some guy, (irrelevant to prior) killed some bear-things... There's definitely something missing from the idea of quest synergy, not to mention the engagement in quest mechanics themselves or visual storytelling. For all the stock-animation and standard-pan cutscenes in this game, they do a fairly poor job of conveying lore or more immediate story relative to the soft phasing and ingame unlocked cinematics that WoW's been using since its first expansion and have been prevalent since the second (2008).

:: Personally, I'm not as put off by less settled zones of Stormblood and especially Heavensward as I was by the fact that the highly settled zones of ARR lent themselves to expectations that weren't met, from Yellow Jacket guard posts and their observation blimps doing absolutely nothing, to their being no patrol or other reasonable elements in military strongholds (generally beastmen camps), to the lack of any interesting dialogue from the wardens of smaller camps, the limitations of NPC interactions, etc., to even the apparent superfluousness of structures given their having no ostensible function. In Stormblood, the Lochs had a similar dissonance to it. How would a nation never more than thrice Ulduh's population have a city more than twenty times its size, even when one excludes the vast areas of sunken/flooded structures beneath? It took me out of the experience to "well, some zone artist really had fun with this..." By comparison, I found most of Heavensward's feeling somehow more right, simply because they felt historied and like we were arriving in a very specific time and therefore perspective of that area, but they didn't feel contradictory.

tl;dr: Something, something, utility and scale.

[Amaranths]

They need to add outpost to attack and defend so if the mobs win they get the outpost an we cant use mount in that zone or able to teleport or lose other things to it an if we win get get tomes mats etc they don't have to be in the arr zones tho maybe just HW and SB. BAM! zone filled with people!

[Clethoria]

I hope we get more stuff like the Sun/Moon minion NPC, and curious places you can speculate history from patched in. I think HW did this best because despite showing a world full of rot and remnants of history, it had vistas that were worth checking out. And despite the size, there was always something in between worth pause. Coerthas Western is literally a frozen wasteland but is 10x more interesting to look at than Azim Steppe in my opinion.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

Having seen Ixion mess, I rather not have a FATE heavy world or worse instanced open world maps...ever
You know it's just a matter of time before people asking instances if it happen.

That said, I do like the story FATEs like in Steppe. It brings the world alive another way.
World lore need to be more rich than just few NPCs, plus the reward is just right
if they put a consumable/currency item like Outfoxed, so they can add new incentive.
Maybe HQ food, all kinds so it's not just one time thing. No more glamors/minions I hope.

[Nhisso]

We are in spaces that serve our needs. You can see the huge world around us. Our maps are small because our story takes place in those areas. It isnt a giant open world

[Furiea]

yoki event number 2 haha

hell no... that event needs to burn in hell for eternity.

[Alleo]

And people will still not go there. It may be novel at first, but even the people that enjoy it will start to keep away over time, and most people will just flat out not care unless there's loot involved.

Riddles are a great example of one-time-use content unless they have a writer change them up on a daily basis. Jumping puzzles too, to a lesser extent (unless you add dailies for them a la GW2 or gathering nodes at the end of them [expect rage]). The content would need to be truly dynamic to incentivize people to do it continue to do it on its own merit, and even then may need significant rewards to maintain interest.

Lets be honest, there can simply be no content that can keep the zones active for all players forever. You always will have more active ones and those that are barely visited but at least some changes could mean a bit more activity for at least some time. Its not for everyone but at least those that enjoy a truly alive world will like it. I mean they have lots of minions which they could use to repopulate the zones as normal animals. And making the herbivore ones passive should probably also not be that big of a chance. They are already quite lucky that they can use a lot of monster models from FF11 and from other FF games and also have quite a lot of recolors of existing ones in the new zones. So they could use the time that other MMOs need to fully create new monster to create more wildlife. Heck most small critters could be copied all over the zones with different colors which would make it feel more alive.

Yes in the end you will not visit it all the time even if the world feels more alive and riddles and stuff like that is a one time thing. But these could be at least some small steps to make it more lively next to fates and hunts. And maybe if they add more smaller things like that over the time you will have more things to do in there. And if they dont have the best weapon behind it or other incentives like that, than people will not feel forced to do them thus only those that are interested in these things will do it. Which is a better game experience for at least those players.

[Catwho]

In regards to the Azim Steppes, at one point during the MSQ an NPC (I think it was Cirina?) even says specifically that the area we have access to is just one small part of the vast steppe-land; the nomadic tribes were only gathered in the accessible area because of the nadaam, and not all the tribes were bothering to participate. Only the Qestir and the Oronir live there year round. I assume there's a secret tunnel elsewhere or an invisible bridge over the gully to the east to go to the inaccessible parts, and the desert to the south looks wide open as well.

Edit: There is also an in-game explanation for why previous hubs are now more empty. Mor Dhona and Idyllshire were under construction for most of their patches; there were tons of people flowing in and out helping with the construction projects. Now it's over. Rhalgr's Reach is the capital of a newly liberated nation and in dire need of repairs - so of course it is going to be very busy!