More enterable buildings, please!

[Hallarem]

I find it really dissapointing walking into a big city hub, a small town or other location and having almost all the buildings shut. Not only from a roleplaying perspective, but from a immersion point of view.

They did an amazing job sprinkling little points of interest and small empty camps everywhere in the world along with the general scenery, making it seem alive. But the houses still need some work, and while you're at it, make the explorer dungeon / possible raid in the future - timer unlimited.

[Starlord]

I find it really dissapointing walking into a big city hub, a small town or other location and having almost all the buildings shut. Not only from a roleplaying perspective, but from a immersion point of view.

They did an amazing job sprinkling little points of interest and small empty camps everywhere in the world along with the general scenery, making it seem alive. But the houses still need some work, and while you're at it, make the explorer dungeon / possible raid in the future - timer unlimited.

That is something I can agree on.

[kono-]

The amount of locked doors I walked into excited to see more of the culture and lore inside represented...

[KisaiTenshi]

I find it really dissapointing walking into a big city hub, a small town or other location and having almost all the buildings shut. Not only from a roleplaying perspective, but from a immersion point of view.

They did an amazing job sprinkling little points of interest and small empty camps everywhere in the world along with the general scenery, making it seem alive. But the houses still need some work, and while you're at it, make the explorer dungeon / possible raid in the future - timer unlimited.

This is how games have evolved since the time of Ultima Online/Everquest. Players don't want the loading time of entering and leaving buildings (see Rising Stones/Waking Sands as an example)

Originally how 1.0 worked, everything was absolutely seamless. NPC's were in buildings, not glued to the floor outside them. However to give this illusion of no loading time, they had to create "loading tunnels", basically areas of nothing.

With 2.0, there's all these "no entry" doors everywhere, and it kinda ruins the exploration aspect of the game. I know there isn't a single final fantasy game that lets you open or unlock every door like Ultima Online/Skyrim/etc , however it feels like all these places we keep going to, have like 90% of the area blocked off or closed off. So there's no environmental storytelling, at all. Most of the environmental storytelling we lost in HW, with only Shadowbringers really bringing any.

What I would like to see is that some of these doors just open to nothing, or tables and chairs, storage spaces, basically things for people to explore. I know why there aren't more places open in ARR (it would make finding things incredibly difficult for new players.) But that doesn't explain why like there are locked doors out in the field and there isn't a NPC anywhere.

[Iscah]

On the other hand, I think it's pretty weird that so many games just let you wander in and out of random people's houses.

Doubly so if you can ransack them for potions and 25 gold.

Triply so (looking at you, Golden Sun) if you can be doing that while investigating a case of things being stolen from the village and the game never so much as lampshades the discrepancy.

[KisaiTenshi]

On the other hand, I think it's pretty weird that so many games just let you wander in and out of random people's houses.

Doubly so if you can ransack them for potions and 25 gold.

Triply so (looking at you, Golden Sun) if you can be doing that while investigating a case of things being stolen from the village and the game never so much as lampshades the discrepancy.

That's a different RPG entirely.

Basically I'm pointing at things like the House Fortemps in Ishgard, the Ocular in the Crystarium, where there is just "a guy" outside that you have to talk to that acts as a story roadcone to entering the location. Why is this guy there. Why are they OUTSIDE. These places are not a royal palace with a guard booth. It's just a noble's house, or the equivalent of the mayor's office. Why do the doors not automatically open? Why are the NPC's not just standing inside?

Because that is about conserving memory. The same reason why we'll never see Ul'dah returned to a single map. These rooms and houses are closed off because they are expensive in memory, so there is just "nothing" there.

If the developers cared enough to allow people to explore, they would probably go back to the ARR maps and make sure there isn't a single "no entry" door. Either it opens, or it stops being a door. Likewise all the "unnamed" mender and junkmonger NPC's. They don't have names. They're just there, you aren't supposed to care. Some of the worst "immersion destroying" parts of the game are small things that feel thoughtless. Shop NPC's that have no names and no flavortext. Doors that are visible, but on the map show they go nowhere. Doors in duties that just "exist" but the map shows there's nothing behind them. All they really need to fix the NPC names is just give them a lore-accurate name and a tiny piece of flavor text that can just be "Welcome to (npc name)'s general store, How can I be of service?", the maps really just need to look like there is more to the zone/duty. If the door exists, it either needs to open, or it needs to have a reason to be locked.

"Maybe they're not home"
"This door says storage. It is locked"
"Emergency exit. In case of fire, break glass."

[Rekh]

A realm reborn was vastly better. Always fun checking on Dreks at East La Noscea; it makes the world feel more alive when you can go into houses/buildings.

What baffles me is how square enix saw the value of this in A Realm Reborn but not after for some strange reason. And then they saw the value again with dwarf home sin shadowbringers. It should just be something that's added to new expansion areas.

[Voidmage]

"Maybe they're not home"
"This door says storage. It is locked"
"Emergency exit. In case of fire, break glass."

Just wanted too say that I agree completely with this part here.
This is the cheeky little fun stuff on the side that gives more live to the world. This game was once better with that and with the little snark in it.

Now it’s just locked without anything mentioning it or „how about we explore the area ahead of us later“ overworld part splitting.

I miss the little extra rooms for gposing in it…

[Iscah]

Basically I'm pointing at things like the House Fortemps in Ishgard, the Ocular in the Crystarium, where there is just "a guy" outside that you have to talk to that acts as a story roadcone to entering the location. Why is this guy there. Why are they OUTSIDE. These places are not a royal palace with a guard booth. It's just a noble's house, or the equivalent of the mayor's office. Why do the doors not automatically open? Why are the NPC's not just standing inside?

This is pretty clear – it's because they haven't built the whole manor, just the one room that you load into, and because they don't expect you to trudge up and down Syrcus Tower every time the Exarch calls a meeting. (That and they probably don't want to have to resolve exactly where in the tower the Ocular is located, but anyway.)

If the developers cared enough to allow people to explore, they would probably go back to the ARR maps and make sure there isn't a single "no entry" door. Either it opens, or it stops being a door.

I disagree. I think it's unrealistic to expect to be let into every single locked door, and having them there makes the city implied to be much bigger than the devs can afford to model it.

Towns (and the setting in general) already have a problem with looking extremely low-populated with only a few buildings each. Removing doors that don't go places would be detrimental.

[Shibi]

I find it really dissapointing walking into a big city hub, a small town or other location and having almost all the buildings shut. Not only from a roleplaying perspective, but from a immersion point of view.

As they would need to be behind zone-ins (polygons and people with 9xx series video cards) is it really immersion breaking?

I mean it's a pity, but as soon as they stick them behind zone-ins, most people wouldn't ever bothering to enter.