Rokien's new thread on Open World.

[MrKupo]

I hope people don't get confused about the meaning of "instanced" here. It's not like we'll be separated by channels or the world will be devoid of other players. It just means there won't be a need for transitions between different types of terrain. The world will still be persistent. I just want to clarify (at least that's how I understand it)

And if you think about it, right now we have a character limit, which is why you see so many people popping in and out of invisibility in Ul'dah regardless of distance. Right now, we have parts of the map loaded that we never even see. If those parts are minimized, this would allow for a higher character count, meaning more crowded looking cities, larger drawing distance for mobs, PCs, and NPCs, and we'd probably barely see a difference.
Just think about all of those bottlenecks between "areas" we have right now. That point when all you see is 2 walls on each side of you, add in a 10 second loading screen and you'll never see people randomly popping out of nowhere like we do now, because we have a huge map loaded that we aren't even in.

Those bottlenecks are practically loading screens, except we have to hold w instead of stare at a blank screen.

[bobbygunz]

Don't act like gifthorse didn't warn you all.

[Nikita]

Actually quest chaining is the best thing ever, hope to see it in 2.0!!!

[Wincy]

I don't mind the instances so much. My problem is that everything keeps requiring a certain number of people. If I want to go into a Hamlet Defense run with only 6 people, WHY SHOULD I NOT BE ABLE TO DO THAT!?!? That makes me a sad Wincy.

[Skies]

Hum- I'm new to this whole MMO slang thing. What IS Quest Chaining?

(also, nowadays when I think 'open world content' I remember of my playthrough of Dragon Age 1... The final battle... It must have been friggen epic, except I never saw it, had to play with the camera facing outward/the sky and get as little as possible of the battle on my screen at any time, otherwise the game would crash )

[Rokien]

Hum- I'm new to this whole MMO slang thing. What IS Quest Chaining?

(also, nowadays when I think 'open world content' I remember of my playthrough of Dragon Age 1... The final battle... It must have been friggen epic, except I never saw it, had to play with the camera facing outward/the sky and get as little as possible of the battle on my screen at any time, otherwise the game would crash )

quest chaining, where you go to a hub and pick up 3 or so questts, they tell you to go around the same area and either kill or talk to an npc. you turn those in and 3 more quests pop up. once you get done with sll the quests you will be at a certain level and leave the area and not come back. You get to another area and do the same thing. WoW does it, tera does it, failwars does i.

sorry ut this game shouldnt be like every other mmo out there

[Arcell]

Strongholds in 1.19
Sphoshae in 1.19
IMPERIAL strongholds in 1.22

Sure is ignoring open world content amirite? Especially when they force me to go to Natalan for Vortex Totems for Garuda, right?

Have you tried doing those imperial invasions? Enemies randomly pop up and disappear. It's horrible. Imagining Hamlet Defense with an open world would be great, but I never took into consideration the character limit.

For 2.0, yes, I would love to see more open world content. Hell I'd be fine with adding a lot more mid-level dungeons and open world activities. It's just not possible until then. Most people clearly cannot understand that.

Exactly. They're going to add more open-world content in 2.0 but it's more fun for Rokien to just ignore all the facts and rally on about all the instances being the devil and ruining everything the game has to offer. Does anyone seriously think the game is going to go 100% instanced or open world? There has been absolutely no indication of this happening, quite the opposite actually.

There has been quite a few additions to both open-world AND instanced since Yoshida took over.

Instanced:

Dungeons
Primals

Open-world:

Roughly 20 low-level NMs
3 (soon to be 4) end-game Strongholds which are also tied to the Primal battle rewards.
Shposhae (an open-world dungeon)
One-time 7th Umbral Era Events (Garlean Invasion/Lambs of Dalamud)
Quests

So honestly, the game is leaning toward having a mix of both. Anyone who doesn't realize this is delusional or ignoring the facts.

[Rokien]

Exactly. They're going to add more open-world content in 2.0 but it's more fun for Rokien to just ignore all the facts and rally on about all the instances being the devil and ruining everything the game has to offer. Does anyone seriously think the game is going to go 100% instanced or open world? There has been absolutely no indication of this happening, quite the opposite actually.

There has been quite a few additions to both open-world AND instanced since Yoshida took over.

Instanced:

Dungeons
Primals

Open-world:

Roughly 20 low-level NMs
3 (soon to be 4) end-game Strongholds which are also tied to the Primal battle rewards.
Shposhae (an open-world dungeon)
One-time 7th Umbral Era Events (Garlean Invasion/Lambs of Dalamud)
Quests

So honestly, the game is leaning toward having a mix of both. Anyone who doesn't realize this is delusional or ignoring the facts.

all the strong holds are the same, all those nms are not even nms, all dungeons going to be instaced, content finder, hamlet, heck they are going to try and make part of the open world instanced with CF.

lets not forget questchaining

[Skies]

quest chaining, where you go to a hub and pick up 3 or so questts, they tell you to go around the same area and either kill or talk to an npc. you turn those in and 3 more quests pop up. once you get done with sll the quests you will be at a certain level and leave the area and not come back. You get to another area and do the same thing. WoW does it, tera does it, failwars does i.

sorry ut this game shouldnt be like every other mmo out there

Uhn... Just to be sure-
Are you against quest chaining by itself, or are you against quest-based progression?

I will be sincere, I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would be against pure quest chaining, hell I did that with the current XIV sidequests.

I can, however, understand (and heavily disagree until the end of my life) people disliking quest-based progression. Sure, that is my favorite type of progression but I can accept that some people might not like it.

[Alhanelem]

I fail to understand what's so horrible about instances. The only valid complaint is "immersion breaker" but IMO the impact of it is trivial and the benefits outweigh it.

How are the instances "wearing" on you? How is killing things in instances less fun than killing things in the open world? I really don't understand.

I also fail to understand what's so horrible about quest chains. It seems to me what you're really against is progression. You want to be able to do stuff in any given area regardless of quests.
Well, for one-

FFXIV is not that quest-heavy. Levequests barely even count, it's basically just like grinding normal monsters except other people can't interfere.

For second, it's rather silly to expect to be going back to a low level area for high level activities. EVERY MMO has this kind of progression. If you don't like this, you're in the wrong genre. This doesn't even have anything to do with "open world vs instanced."

lets not forget questchaining

The game barely even has it at all. I don't really see why you're complaining about this. Levequests aren't a requirement and many people grind the old fashioned way.

all the strong holds are the same, all those nms are not even nms,

Art/style variation is limited until post 2.0 due to limitations. "all those NMs are not even NMs" is both subjective and wrong. Whether you think they're too easy or not, they're still NMs, monsters that are stronger than the others around them with unique drops. That's what an NM is.

I'm convinced at this point you're in the wrong genre. You want stuff every MMO has to not be in this game. That's a sign that the genre is not right for you.