[EW SPOILERS] Please Rename This Trial

[Seera1024]

I think if anything areas from this expansion were spoilers. in fact I kept myself from checking friendlist and fc list at all until I was all caught up. I even had to mute all linkshells, including hunts, and novice network. It's torture, but sadly that's how it is.

I don't think the locations are definite spoilers for everyone. They aren't to me, that is.

1. It was obvious we were going to Old Sharlayan, Thavnair, and Garlemald via the trailers and such. They weren't meant to be kept quiet and hush/hush.
2. We were explicitly told we are going to moon.
3. Elpis has no meaning without context.
4. Ultima Thule could have been a location on the moon. The moon is also in the Sea of Stars so one could have figured it was another location on the moon and that was where we were going to be at the end, which based on trailers and such was what I had expected. For the story to end with us on the moon.
5. The Mothercrystal is vague enough it tells you nothing of what to expect. We knew going in that this was the end of the Zodiark/Hydalen. We knew going in that Hydalen is a primal and confirmed by Hydalen herself early EW, it was to be expected that we had to deal with that for that cycle to end. For those not through Shadowbringers or enough into EW, we've talked to Hydalen or been around the mothercrystal enough times in cut scenes that it may have been assumed that that is what we're doing there and nothing super major like fighting her.

Now some people do not want any kind of spoiler at all. But if you are that type of person, you should know what happens when you do certain things in this game and prepare yourself accordingly for the chance of spoilers when you look things up - be it via the gathering logs or friends list.

It would be a nice option if doable and not too hard to add is to have the game set to have it possible to mark things as ??? for any location you haven't unlocked, though. I wouldn't say no to that being an option. It wouldn't be an option I would want, though, so it would need to be optional.

[Frizze]

And even if you somehow don't know what Ultima Thule is, if you by mistake even look up gathering logs, you'll see an high level area situated in The Sea of Stars, again pretty big. And no, not the moon, I mean an area other than the moon.

I personally didnt see the name "Ultima Thule" until pretty late in the story, and i wasnt sure if it was an overworld zone a dungeon or some other instance. I also purposefully spent very little time thinking about it to avoid speculating on things that hadnt been introduced in some way via the story. But the sea of stars gathering log "spoiler" was a nothing to me. I spent most of 2021 thinking there would be a 2nd zone on the moon(darkside/core/something) because they introduced the area of Mare Lamentorum very early on in the preview process, so seeing this mystery Sea of Stars zone just "confirmed" what i already thought.

[Tlamila]

Now some people do not want any kind of spoiler at all. But if you are that type of person, you should know what happens when you do certain things in this game and prepare yourself accordingly for the chance of spoilers when you look things up - be it via the gathering logs or friends list.

Right, and I said the same. But since keeping yourself from all thsoe things for weeks is pretty hard, especially when it's muscle memory to check on friendlist to see who's online. It takes 1 second of misclick to notice the location of at least a few of your friends, especially if you have a long friendlist and each on of them is going through the expansion.
As for the gathering log, non-unlocked areas are usually not shown so it was a weird one. And keeping yourself from gathering and crafting until you're done with msq, especially if you like having all crafters and gatherers maxed first thing, is a bit much.

[Seera1024]

Right, and I said the same. But since keeping yourself from all thsoe things for weeks is pretty hard, especially when it's muscle memory to check on friendlist to see who's online. It takes 1 second of misclick to notice the location of at least a few of your friends, especially if you have a long friendlist and each on of them is going through the expansion.
As for the gathering log, non-unlocked areas are usually not shown so it was a weird one. And keeping yourself from gathering and crafting until you're done with msq, especially if you like having all crafters and gatherers maxed first thing, is a bit much.

It's not a bit much if you care about not being spoiled that much.

It boils down to which one you have a higher preference for: crafting/gathering or keeping yourself spoiler free.

I was having some issues with the In From the Cold duty (couldn't find the objective). I did not want any story spoilers and looking up help with quests is very likely to generate story spoilers. But I was stuck. So I had to weigh MSQ progression with possibly spoiling the next little bit of the story.

Given the number of players who feel the vague location names that SE chooses (yes, even the mothercrystal is vague for this context) are spoilers is relatively low, I do not think the name needs to be changed. And the only way I would be fine with the option to hide locations being added is if it's quick and easy and doesn't take much time to do. Because the number of players that would benefit from this are not large enough that it would be worth possibly giving up other things the devs could be working on or putting off other things until later. Only so many devs and so much time and probably a long list of things that they'd love to add if there was more time.