Splitting the story...

[Okamimaru]

What if the story splits in the beginning of stormblood allowing you to go to ala mihgo or kugane first and then reconverge later... it could explain why it seems like we start in kugane.... everyone looks at the map and sees ala mihgo right there and kugane all the way on the far side of map forgetting if you were to go to kugane it's faster to sail west from horizon... which is why the Domans keep popping up at the docks there...

[Draginhikari]

I don't believe it currently possible to sail to the West to Kugane because I believe there are other landmasses to the west that aren't visible on the map if I recall right. There are known trade routes through the southern coast of Eorzea going East which is the most likely route.

[Balipu]

A lot of people speculate this, but I really do not think it is possible for multiple reasons.
For example:

Why would we even go to Othard without any good reason when the story leads to Gyr Abania, our neighbour?
You would need all the zones, dungeons, quests, and gear to have two versions, depending on when you do each storyline if it splits.

[Tsubaki75]

Not only that, but you would have to sail east to get there, if you went west you'd fall off the map

[Dualblade]

Pretty sure the New World that the Mamool Ja come from is to the west. Its a lot like saying its faster to get to China from the UK by sailing West, up until you remember "oh right, the Americas."

[Okamimaru]

Then why do the Domans keep showing up in western thanalan and not from the east?

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Domans aren't sailing East to get West - they're sailing West, and then docking in Eastern Thanalan because that's the first accessible port. In fact, the Encyclopedia Eorzea all but outright states this to have been the case for Yugiri and her group: it mentions that they initially begged asylum at Hingashi and then at Thavnair, with Thavnair obviously being further West than Hingashi.

Anyways, yeah, the story isn't gonna split. That sort of thing works well for single-player games, but when you need to have people assembling groups for instances, how do you ensure that enough people are doing both options to make both choices a viable option? No, the story will likely follow a single path, starting in Gyr Abania before taking us East and looping us back around to where we started.

[Silvus]

While others may have a much better responce then I do on this, thought I'd put my reason is as I do notice a few possibilities.
So for story telling purposes showing they arive by boat makes it easy to show they traveled by sea without them having to explane it if they had say walked across the desert. So with that in mind, where with whatin game maps could they show them ariving by boat if they came from the east?

Starting with The Black Shroud we have East Shroud, no where on that map really could serve as a dock for their ship, indeed where they would aproch from is also covered by Castrum Orlens, and why would they want to dock right next to that place, when they are trying to run from them? So we go down to South Shroud, again no real docks in the area and the only water is more of a marsh area, not idea for the ship they first show up in, the small boat recently could of though but if he was looking for the boat the tohers had left on he'd have given it a pass most likely. So the shroud isn't really idea as far as i can see for a big boat to stop at, none of the areas viewable from sea look inviting afterall.

So then we move down more, entering Eastern Thanalan, the section of this map with access to the sea... is covered with gient crystals and monsters, again not inviting for people on the run looking for shelter. Southern Thananlan isn't looking much better with the massive desert we can see covering all the south part and a beast tribe base along the east of it, most likly don't want to hop off the boat and walk an unknown distance in hope of a city in the heat. On the in game world map we see that the Gold Saucer is bellow that but we don't get to travel around it's outside so again carn't show them ariving by boat and they seem to want to keep main story away from it (probebly cause you have to do a side mision to be able to reach it) going around the south we see the Goblet shows up next, like with the Saucer they seem to want to keep Main story out of housing areas, plus with players changing the look of buildings and such for the areas would make it hard to have concistincy with what they arive to see. Brinigng them finally to Western Thananlan where there is actually a dock that is visable from sea and a town around it that could look somewhat inviting, bascily their real first sign of civilised life as it were.

Next if they actaully came from the west and not the east, well they would encounter La Noscea and all it's ports and stop there instead.

[Cilia]

They wouldn't split the story for the sole reason of keeping progression linear. While a lot of people hate that and I can understand why, from a design standpoint it makes the most sense - if everyone proceeds along the same path there's no need to develop multiple instances, story advancement isn't dependent on multiple conditions, etc. There's no reason they can't do it, but likely lack the resources to develop such a thing.

From the trailers so far I can only surmise that we'll be pushing through Gyr Abania to the gates of Ala Mhigo, only to be rebuffed by Zenos before heading to the East in search of Hien's help. Beyond that I can only guess, though I do fully expect to return to Gyr Abania for a final push into Ala Mhigo and the final showdown with Zenos. (All just speculation, of course - I lack precognition.)

[KageTokage]

I'm thinking the zone progression is going to be The Peaks > The Ruby Sea > Azim Steppe > Yangxia > The Lochs > The Fringes, personally.

I can't really see us jumping back and forth between continents and think it's more likely we'll wrap up the Doma side of things before we head back to Gyr Abania.