I don't feel like i'm playing an mmo...and I know why

[Mohamed]

I have thought long and hard about the "why" though... and it has all pointed to one aspect found within this game:
Zones having a claustrophobic feel to them.

The zones feel small to me. Even maximizing the camera view distance and graphics and zooming out I feel like i'm in a very choked space. Someone mentioned corridoring... maybe that's it. There is no real world example to give you to paint the picture but if you go by feeling, claustrophobic would be it.

When I travel outside, I turn around and see the borders, which makes it even more claustrophobic... and then I know what I see is where I can go so it's like... "oh quest isn't here" ok teleport! Literally my quest completion so far has been majority of the time: teleport to aether -> talk to NPC in room in city -> teleport to other aether... lather rinse repeat. I am not complaining about teleport at all. In fact, I am very neutral about this. This post and this thread isn't meant to focus on teleporting from one place to another, rather... it is meant to focus on what ideas we can provide to be able to make this world feel more like a world and not like a couple of towns, with minimal area around each town, that's 1 minute of travel (or instant) from the other town.

Please understand that I am talking only about me here. Basically, some of you may agree that you don't feel like you're playing an mmo but for a different reason - which is perfectly fine. Some of you may not relate to me at all.. I.E: To you, it's an mmo and it feels like an mmo. Some of you may relate to me completely...

So, just thought to put it out there so we can have a good discussion.


I love the graphics in this game, its races, jobs, and playstyle which is why I will still be throwing my money at Square Enix every month. I want to see it grow not shrink so closing my sub wouldn't help my case since they do need my money and everyone else's money to improve the game, which is what I sincerely hope they will use it for.


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Due to my 3 post limit, I will be updating this main post with a few key responses that help further focus the intent of this thread:

For example, on page 3, Calyanare said the following:

I think what people want is the high-res textures and zone size from 1.0, and not the copypasta. In case that wasn't obvious.

Reason this was said was because a few players in this thread thought I wanted what a majority of other threads want -> which is to revert back to 1.0 (something I'm unfamiliar with, I joined in December so I'm talking solely based on how ffxiv was in december since I wasn't there for 1.0 I don't have any clue about 1.0).

Also, the following was said by Jomoru on page 3:

Its good to know something like Skyrim would make you feel like you're playing an MMo...

There are two ways I would like to approach your statement Jomoru:
While you are correct in implying that the proper definition of mmo is in fact referring to the massive amounts of players online playing with you in a role-playing environment, and therefore, it doesn't have to be "massive" in terms of zone size, I feel like mmorpgs based on exploring/questing/dungeoneering/raiding/etc should build upon the mmorpg skeleton and in fact develop environments that can bring out more of those activities, not limit those activities.

Or, of course, it doesn't even need to have zones or world questing/exploration themes at all... see Disney's MMORPG "Pixie Hollow"... it's an mmorpg by definition but you get what I mean...

Skyrim being an MMO is really a good example of something I'm talking about I guess. Huge world, not instanced in the sense that I won't ever need to experience a loading screen to explore the whole world or meet up with another character (unless they are in a dungeon) and it has a lot of interaction with the environment.

However, this is final fantasy 14. Let's try and light the light bulbs and get some ideas going to make final fantasy 14 a little bit more breathe-easy and less like you are going from point a to point b to point c in a tight environment.