Questions of Othard and Geography

[Jeiko_Hunter]

Now, I know that our travels to the continent of Othard are quite a long time away, at least 3-4 years by current dev cycle rates, but would it be too much to ask for a generalised map of the continent for players to draw from?
Doman refugees are likely to have brought one or two along with them and they don't have to be complete either. Just something for the player base that take joy in giving their character more depth.

The small tidbits here and there from the naming convention and in-game dialogue from Doman NPCs barely scratches the surface of what Othard is like, and for a lot of Auri players, that lack of information is likely to be devastating when we finally get to journey to the Far East.

I am aware that the continent is mostly the open plains of the Steppes with the northern and north eastern edges mountainous, but having a map of the general continent and Doma's place in the world will ease the transition of Au Ra from 3.0 into the future so much easier.

I know the likelihood of mod response is low, but a man can dream...

[VargasVermillion]

I've also been interested in a world map of the whole world even if we can't go to most of it yet, I know eorzea is kinda hard to leave atm with it's location being below the continent where garlemald is located with the eastern route also blocked off by garlemald but surely they would know at least where the main great continents are located and have maps of such areas.

I doubt we'd get any responses but if there is a lore reason for why we can't see the world map I would be interested in hearing it. Gameplay wise it would simply be a low dev priority but it's a little hard to believe from a lore perspective. I mean merchants used to actually trade with cities on the other continents including garlemald at one stage.

[myahele]

The closest we have to the world map is this:


West is the unknow, newly discovered continent; we don't see too much of the northern continent and barely the eastern ones

[Enkidoh]

I presume that picture is either... a very vague guess (and thus is just fan art not to be taken seriously), or it's a background texture that's been cleverly pulled from that

shot of Hydaelyn from space from the final scene of the current 3.0 Heavensward storyline quest - and thus is accurate.

Either way, you have to remember that FFXI has never had a complete world map of Vana'diel shown, even after well over a decade of service and multiple expansions later, the only maps for Vana'diel have only ever been of player-accessible lands like the Middle Lands and Eradjia - other continents are referred to frequently in the game's story but have never been shown on any map. And given FFXI's storyline is been officially wound down now, it almost definitely never will have a full world map released now.

Of course FFXIV is still young, but the reason why we haven't yet seen a full clear official world map of Hydaelyn (and the same reason Vana'diel never had a full world map in FFXI either), probably has something to do with how new areas are added into the game. As the world expands, it's entirely possible that the development team may wish to develop an entirely new place or land that has not yet been referred to in the lore, and thus keeping the overall geography of the world deliberately vague allows them to easily slot the new place into the geography without causing lore issues (and the resulting massive retcon to the geography it would otherwise cause if the world map was static).

So for this reason I doubt we'll be seeing a full world map of Hydaelyn any time soon.... because there most likely isn't one, yet - Hydaelyn's geography isn't yet 'set in stone' so to speak and is still in a state of flux development wise.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

What gets me with the Doman refugees is that both the Au Ra Raen and Hyur have Japanese names, such as Oboro and Yugiri. I thought it was just the Raen who had Japanese names?

[Cilia]

Doma is (or, more accurately, was) a nation and Doman is a culture, not a race; there's no reason Doman Hyur wouldn't have Doman (Japanese) names. (It's kind of like how some people will give their characters names that belong to another clan / race and say they were adopted, only this makes factual canon sense.)

[Grayve]

I presume that picture is either...

It is extracted from the final MSQ. There is a thread on reddit linking to the bluegarter forums, where it was originally posted.