DevTalk: Detailed Analysis of Depopulation in Limsa/Grid and How to Fix It

[geniusprime]

I am not going to dwell on the details of SP, Leves etc. I am only going to talk about the design of the other two cities. Firstly Ul'dah overall design is decent. Its not particularly great but it works. It would be nice if they can just open the gates instead of forcing gamers to make an unnecessary detour; you know save gamers a few seconds here and there.

Then you have Gridania which feels more like a maze. In fact the entire world of Black Shroud is a blatant unattractive maze. No-one who has played the game should be wondering why the population is low. Its a navigational nightmare. I don't know why the original developers thought that making everything in the city to be similar to that of an ants nests would be a great idea. Its simply dreadful and the overall design feels and plays like an enormous timesink.

Limsa is not any better. The varying floors and everything is connected by a relatively long bridges has a very similar feel to that of Gridania. The city supposed to be accessible. Not play out like a separate tiresome adventure. And that is really the issue with the other cities. Its simply painful to navigate. Not only that, it takes a while to leave both cities because someone thought it would also be a equally great idea to have a unnecessarily long bridge from these cities to the actual world.

OK I am done ranting about the horrible designs of these two cities.