I share the opinion that a lot of FFXIV's zones are looking rather dated at this point. Even some of the newer zones, whilst bigger and prettier looking, lack a certain charm compared to the original design choices. Take Aleport for example - it's a fairly small settlement but you can enter almost every building which makes it feel much larger than it is. In newer zones, we lack that luxury. Given that older MMO's have designed some pretty immersive and impressive looking settlements/cities that also serve as zones to explore...I would very much like FFXIV to up its game on many fronts.

Even though flying was added to the ARR zones...nothing was really done to build on that. There's no secret areas to discover. There's no hidden items to acquire.

Other MMO's have such features - as do many single player games - so I hope we get a more meaningful open world someday.