Anyone else feel like Tural was kind of wasted?

[GTK0HLK]

Honestly, couldn't tell you what I believe the reasons are.

They're hoping for at least another decade of XIV. (Which then hopefully will be another FFMMO)

Maybe they felt a Arc about yet again, uniting people is too much.

So they gave us a place that supposedly is all united, yet still facing issues that they easily could of stamped out with force, and negotiations with Sharlayan.(The one Neutral nation they had some ties to for at most 80 years. at least 20-10. Couldn't tell you, I'm a not a lore master.)

By this point we have a more clear idea of the constraints XIV 7.0 DT had to deal with.

and the even increasing need pace of having basically two expacs worth of concepts into one time frame. (at least for what is EW/End of Arc Story Mixed with a twist. and the start of a new Arc and some new concepts.)

8.0 and forward will hopefully be more one track going forward.

But as for Rn, it does feel like so much space was left barren.

but I've felt this in every single ARR area, ever since flying was added.
Every zone could be expanded, explored more in depth. Just like West Shroud, Give content ontop of the rocky shelf of Western Thanalan.(That is just blank space that we now see eternally with flying)

and then they did Upper La Nosceas Water Diving. which just fed my ideas even more.

The Viera Homelands, the clouded center part of the map(of the three great continents)

So much space.

if DT 7.0 was to made good space from the places we did see, the MSQ would of been sooo long, or the maps soo wide to give reason.

The Right of Succession should/could of included how they came in control of Xak Tural.

Too much crammed into a small space.

And then shard business which I was hoping we didn't have to deal with for a bit.

[Originally hoped that a hidden, Advanced society existed isolated from the world. but I'll just have to accept a unfortunately set up Electrope Landscape. and the idea that XI will likely be ducktaped into a Shard at this point.]

[Tatiana]

I think part of what caused this was the fact that you spend the vast majority of the expansion in cut scenes of characters yapping away endlessly rather than the MSQ sending you out to actually do things in the world. I've personally felt like Dawntrail is over-written, and they could have found ways to utilize MSQ to world build and let us actually see and interact with Tural. It doesn't help that the Unlost World/Living Memory counts as one of the regions in the expansion and to be quite honest, I would have preferred that be a temporary space the MSQ took us to, and had the other regions in Tural be larger with more to see and do in them.

[Jeeqbit]

In terms of actually going to all the different areas of the zones, that never happens in the MSQ. A lot of it is for sidequests and after you've done all sidequests, the entirety of each place in the game is pretty much explored. If you're not into sidequests, that's fine, but you'd probably be complaining if they merged sidequests into the MSQ, so.

As for "running out of places to go in the MSQ", I don't think this will happen because we have:

• A number of shards we can go to.
• Corvos, the garlean territories and Blindfrost.
• Meracydia.
• The past (Yoshi-P mentioned this, but I've thought it as well because a lot of interesting stuff happened in past calamities). But it would also create a chicken or egg first situation as time always does and that's the part I don't like.

Given they are only planning for "the next 10 years", they don't need a lot of places to remain unless they want to plan further than that, because they can only fit about 3 expansions into the remainder of that (now) 9 years with their current schedule.

[Carolingian]

They really shouldn't have made Tural be just one big empire. It just makes the whole continent completely boring because said empire is so perfect that there's zero internal conflict.

[NegativeS]

As for "running out of places to go in the MSQ", I don't think this will happen because we have:

• A number of shards we can go to.
• Corvos, the garlean territories and Blindfrost.
• Meracydia.
• The past (Yoshi-P mentioned this, but I've thought it as well because a lot of interesting stuff happened in past calamities). But it would also create a chicken or egg first situation as time always does and that's the part I don't like.

It's not even a matter of running out of places to go--there is so much unused space on the map of Hydaelyn that they could probably squeeze new environments out of it for another three decades.

It's a matter of wasted potential, wasted time, wasted storytelling.

By the end of ARR, the area(s) within Eorzea felt like an entire world by itself, with characters to love and sights to see.
By the end of HW, I felt like I had known the people in Ishgard all my life, an expert of their politics and culture.
By the end of ShB, I felt that if 2.0 took place in Norvrandt instead of Eorzea, the game would be just as good. Wildly different, but still good.

By the end of DT... I felt hollow.

[Jeeqbit]

They really shouldn't have made Tural be just one big empire. It just makes the whole continent completely boring because said empire is so perfect that there's zero internal conflict.

Even if there was conflict, the Warrior of Boredom would have already united them all and solved all of their problems. Just Gulool beat us to it.

[Villa101]

I feel like we see more of tural as time goss on? Like Xak tural is just NA and we saw a part of Arizona functionally

[BakoolJaJa]

I feel like we see more of tural as time goss on? Like Xak tural is just NA and we saw a part of Arizona functionally

Not how the game works, so unfortunately and obviously not. Locations never get expanded in size, what you see is what you get. Patches do not contain additional "proper" locations, with exceptions of small instanced corridors similar to the void stuff, or obviously with field operations. (The field operation we already know is technically Tural, but a completely separate island and I bet it will barely be connected to anything Tural, judging by how Eureka and Bozja worked.)

You don't get new "open world" areas to explore or do quests in. You'll have to wait for the next expansion and the next expansion will certainly not be Tural. So we won't see more of tural as time goes on. That's exactly why it feels like such a waste. With other MMOs we might have actually stood a chance, because they DO add completely new locations in patches and sometimes overhaul old ones. But not ffxiv.

[Tatiana]

In terms of actually going to all the different areas of the zones, that never happens in the MSQ. A lot of it is for sidequests and after you've done all sidequests, the entirety of each place in the game is pretty much explored. If you're not into sidequests, that's fine, but you'd probably be complaining if they merged sidequests into the MSQ, so.

As for "running out of places to go in the MSQ", I don't think this will happen because we have:

• A number of shards we can go to.
• Corvos, the garlean territories and Blindfrost.
• Meracydia.
• The past (Yoshi-P mentioned this, but I've thought it as well because a lot of interesting stuff happened in past calamities). But it would also create a chicken or egg first situation as time always does and that's the part I don't like.

Given they are only planning for "the next 10 years", they don't need a lot of places to remain unless they want to plan further than that, because they can only fit about 3 expansions into the remainder of that (now) 9 years with their current schedule.

I don't really think they would need to merge sidequests into the MSQ to accomplish that, and Yoshi-P has mentioned a couple of times now that he would like to change the formula up more in the future. Instead of having everyone stand around talking for ages in one spot for 90% of the MSQ, they could mix the dialogue with action, and then utilize environmental storytelling during quest objectives and this has been one thing I've wished they would do for years now. They could also change it up by adding new zones once in a while throughout the patch cycle, which would be a welcome change to the formula.

I don't think they will run out of space to go for expansions either, though. We spent ShB in another world entirely and that has been my favorite expansion so far.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

It's not even a matter of running out of places to go--there is so much unused space on the map of Hydaelyn that they could probably squeeze new environments out of it for another three decades.

It's a matter of wasted potential, wasted time, wasted storytelling.

By the end of ARR, the area(s) within Eorzea felt like an entire world by itself, with characters to love and sights to see.
By the end of HW, I felt like I had known the people in Ishgard all my life, an expert of their politics and culture.
By the end of ShB, I felt that if 2.0 took place in Norvrandt instead of Eorzea, the game would be just as good. Wildly different, but still good.

By the end of DT... I felt hollow.

It feels like a bitter irony - the "land" they tried so much to force feed us to learn about; seems to be the one we care the least about. The entire area overall feels hollow - even *redacted* when you realize your only going to one place to grab tomestone/crafting stuff and generally never touching the rest of the zones except for maybe the odd gpose.