I remember the first time I stepped out into La Noscea and checked my map, I was completely in awe of its size. But that feeling quickly subsided when I realised that there really wasn't anything to see, and what is there doesn't seem to have any real rhyme or reason to it, and I think that's the point.

For example, there's a bunch of bridges in the north western section of La Noscea – I forget the camp name – but there are no towns or people, so I can't help but think to myself, "Oh, that's pretty...but why would the people of La Noscea go to the trouble of building bridges here?"

It comes across like the devs were interested first and foremost with making the zones as gigantic as possible, with notions of how they were to fill the space an afterthought, and I don't think that's a good design philosophy when creating a game world.

I also remember being sorely disappointed when I zoned into the Twelveswood from Thanalan; not because there was a zone, but because in the blink of an eye I had went from parched desert wasteland to a verdant, lush forest. It does come across as kind of lazy. :\

Anyhoo~ I'm all for smaller zones and more variety; one of the things I liked the most about XI is the way levelling slowly took you across a varied and interesting world in a logical manner.

This new team seem to get it, though, so I'm confident that any new zones will be both interesting and well thought out. (*'-')b