Quote Originally Posted by Deuce View Post
One of the biggest mainstream criticisms of 1.0 was the copy pasted terrain, which became a meme of sorts. Unfortunately, that public criticism has provided us with empty boxes that are wrapped in nothing but pretty paper. What do I mean by this? Well, the zones in 2.0 and largely 3.0 are varied quite a bit giving this feeling that there is a detailed world to explore. However, once a player begins to open up that box and they remove the paper they begin to realize there isn't much of anything there. In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts. FATEs, something that the developers were proclaiming as this great addition to 2.0 before launch, have become an afterthought in 3.0. Most likely a result of players farming FATEs instead of dungeons for exp.
Even in this example, the environments had that benefit of the "pretty paper", and the zones do change over time ever so slightly depending on the events (Alys Llya and Alexander for one), as well as providing the setting for the FATEs and hunts as you mentioned. It'd be sigifcantly more monotonous if the FATEs took place in copy/pasted or bleak terrains every single time.

It's just not a good reason to cut corners on development, and that's the same for making interesting gear or dungeons (where players would always go for the most optimal/fastest).