Designing Areas.

[Gennosuke]

Yoshida: Changes will be made to both the geography and the design of the areas. Some areas will be changed rather drastically, so I'd love if you all could discuss how you think the changes will be made while you're all looking forward to it.



He asked for it, so lets give it to him.

I personally thing that, "The Sanctuary of Zi'tah" was one of the most fantastic Areas in FF11. I was really hoping that there would be an area like that in ff14. the moment you walk in, you really feel like its a mysterious and adventurous place. I often spent my time there doing stuff, just because the area (not to mention the music) was fantastic. I would be grateful if an area like that showed up in FF14.

On a side note, for existing areas, i personal think, it would be nice to have land marks that really stand out. thing that make you think "something amazing happened here. I wonder what happened"

Lastly, FF14 is still pretty young. it would be interesting if in the future, based on server conditions or something like that, certain aspects of the land would change. Maybe seasons. Seasons would be difficult to do i think. then again, what about editing ff14 is easy.

What do other people think about, good edits to terrain, would be.

Excellent post and comment Shunyu. You really spoke my mind out on this one. This is probably the most troubling issue in FFXIV for me. I really hope this message and idea goes through to Mr. Yoshi and the dev team. I'm quite happy to see him expressing his interest in hearing our thoughts on this topic.

I do wish for many changes to come, but this ranks up as the first priority.. followed by the Battle/Job System/Abilities, content, and then the rest.

Funnily enough, i was just chatting to a friend a little while ago about how much nicer Sanctuary of Zi'tah was compared to Gridania. Zitah was also my fav. place, i'd spend long time there just due to the experience there. It felt much more thrilling and adventurous of a place than Gridania ever did.
It's just everything about the place. The Nature, the terrain, the openness, the massive size of the trees. There is just a thrill and an awe and surprise factor when exploring it, it's kinda misty, you don't know whats up the road.. it's like you have to go there to find out. In Gridania, you could pretty much see everything in one go, it's kinda like a bird eye's view, everything is given straight away, from beginning to end of screen.

I'd really like to be able to explore an area in FFXIV and wonder what's around the corner or up ahead, i want to feel immersed and overwhelmed by the nature around me, by the size, by vast open lively fields, by the surprise and thrill factor, by a luscious environment.
I think one of the main issues is that the size of nature in FFXIV isn't quite as big and overwhelming as it was in FFXI. Really need to feel everything massive around you to give a sense of awe, adventure and reality to the area.

Zi'tah:
http://www.miingno.ch/ffxi/beautyofvanadiel/0003.jpg

Also, i strongly agree on the music as well, though it's not quite related but music as beautiful as Zi'tah's really just completes the experience and theme and would make you want to spend a long time there, it's just a masterpiece, so very soothing, my fav track in FFXI. Gridania's is just so dull..

The other obvious issues ofcourse are content and landmarks and uniqueness.
The copy-paste terrain really just killed the experience entirely, you walk in gridania from start to end and you can not distinguish from the starting area, its like going in circles, its just really bad. Every single area should be different and unique from the other. How could it be adventurous when you're walking in the same area over and over again? not to mention mobs are mostly the same too.

There should be some major landmarks in different areas, the camps.. really need to change. Personally, i'd rather do away with the camps all together (esp now with the leves not being the focus anymore.) and have somethin else thats much nicer done instead to resemble each new area, and not just in the limited space like camps but somethin that would extend out further to cover smaller regions of the map. Just like a complete terrain change from one place to the other.

Just need to mix it up. Some examples of what i would like to see are waterfalls, cliffs, sea, sand, ponds, luscious caves underground (not the so very bland ones we have now). FFXI did it perfectly.. for example, yuhtunga and yhotor jungle did them very nicely, complete terrain changes from one place to another, beautiful waterfalls and environment.


http://www.miingno.ch/ffxi/beautyofvanadiel/0007.jpg
http://upload.wheel-of-games.com/gal...al/pic_514.jpg
http://www.miingno.ch/ffxi/beautyofvanadiel/0053.jpg
http://ffnext.com/images/game/ffxiii...vironment2.jpg
http://sukilife.files.wordpress.com/...5_00-17-49.png

Really, all it takes is to look at FFXI, was so very well done.

Also, It would be really nice to spice it up a bit, throw in some fun events or activites, have some boats for use in rivers, let one be able to drift off a waterfall down to another area, or some water slides. There's just a limitless amount of cool and wild ideas to introduce to make it more fun and lively.