It would be nice if crafters had an impact on the non-instanced world, say:
1. 100 carpenter leves are done by the server at camp horizon/hamlet/settlement and we get a new...building etc
2. 100 alchemist leves ... and we get a new aethryte crystal
say, turning a settlement of one house and 3 npcs into a sprawling hamlet like Oaks Nest

but the downside is that the above can be attacked by garleans and beastmen (think campaign battle) and can be destroyed

i posted this a long time ago in another thread:

"Regarding Local Levequests - these should have a bearing on evolving the camp. Buildings/Tents should be erected and services offered. An inn, a chocobo pen, a garden, etc. Basically merge the hamlets idea into Camps. The Camps at the present time are really not immersive because they all look exactly the same. I would rather have come across smaller unique settlements like were put in the recent update. As an aside, allow for these constructed Camps to be raided by beastmen and garleans. Buildings can be damaged or destroyed, repaired or are built again when enough leves are processed. Camps should have the possibility to become as large as Hamlets. It seems absurd there is only one city and 2 hamlets in each region. I would love to come across Camps as big as say Owl's Nest in Coerthas. Allow more buildings to be erected and in turn add NPCs to the realm offering quests. Employ DoW/DoM support by making fully built up Camps housing an NPC who offers weaponskill quests or Trial of the Magian style quests for example. So basically, the DoW and DoM have an incentive to join in with protecting these settlements in the long term. "