Open up the world, please! Part I

[Galka_Rock]

Wouldn't really be that much work. The transition zones are mostly already made. They just need to be retextured.

[Felis]

Wouldn't really be that much work. The tunnels are mostly already made. They just need to be retextured.

Not much work for the 3 original cities (the city maps from 1.0 just got halved to put in 2.0), but many works for the open world zones and Ishgard (there are more missing between the zones than just canyons, tunnels or stairs).

The 3 entrance to Ul'dah will get reduced to 2 again and will be changed back to the 10 sec walking tunnels.
The devs could put mini-zones between the zones to fill up the holes. It would be a good idea to put a sea zone between Limsa harbour and Vesper Bay, that allow us to swim or to dive ourself from La Noscea to Thanalan.

Instead in V2.00 we get a brief cutscene and then we're just instantly somewhere else, it's no different from teleporting.

Have nothing to do with 2.0, the same did the airships also in 1.0

[KisaiTenshi]

Have nothing to do with 2.0, the same did the airships also in 1.0

It's pretty clear from the Gridania opening cutscenes that they had intended on Airships being how players got to these locations at some point rather than the Aetherytes, but I sat and watched one of these locations for quite a while in V1.00 and never saw any airship arrive, so maybe it was something that was abandoned before being just a cutscene. I had expected a similar effort that the ferry had where you actually were on an airship for at least a minute with other players. The only place they brought this back was with the ship to Kugane. (The very same ship model from V1.0 no less, if you watch the cutscene while you're on it below deck.) Other versions of ships in the game never let you go below deck other than the one at the Wolves Den.

What I really want is a large Airship like FFVI's Blackjack where you have a top deck, a lounge/quarters, and an engine room. But all airships in the game are these tiny rowboat-sized things that clearly weren't designed to fly around the world. Give me my large airship that I can either pilot manually or set a course and then go below deck and do other things.

As for the space between La Noscea and Thanalan, I think the Ruby Sea area was rather disappointing in terms of scale, they even lampshaded the fact that you could swim across it. The space between La Noscea and Thanalan is about the same.

[Galka_Rock]

That's why I mentioned Ul'dah should not be seamlessly connected. Not being allowed to walk in through the front gates is annoying because they are totally connected to Thanalan. However, Limsa had bridges, and Gridania had canopies.