The World: so Big so Beautiful... But yet so empty

[Celef]

I agree on that but on the other side, I don't really know what they could do to make them less empty :/

[Alleo]

I agree on that but on the other side, I don't really know what they could do to make them less empty :/

To make it feel alive they just need to make it more like a real breathing and living world. More NPCs that wander around, maybe have some in the forest looking at some fungus and talking about it, or NPCs from the city states going on a patrol to make the streets feel save. In the wild you could have a big amount of small critters and other small animals going on with their lives. Have the herbivore animals and monster be passive and in bigger herds. Use fates not to spawn some random monsters but spawn some carnivore that will attach the grazing herds of animals. So make it less "monsters everywhere that will kill you on sight" and more of a world where farmers and other people can survive. So no random spawning tree of death that will attack anything that walks on the street. This way you will have a landscape that does not look like a beautiful painting but like a beautiful and alive world.

Give us riddles in the overworld (maybe each zone having at least one) that you need to find and solve or even jumping puzzles (but better thought out than the Kugane one). Yes people might look at the solution online but this is a decision by the players themselves. Or give us lore items that we can find all over the map at random places. Maybe have an item that will show us the general route but you will still have to find it yourself. Picking it up could either give you some lore of the zone or it could be part of a collection that will give you items or knowledge after you complete it. Nothing game breaking and nothing of a must have but at least something that could be done in the zones. (And please no huge amount of RNG..I am looking at you TT) I am still kinda surprised that a game that focuses so much on lore does not have some kind of way to gather it ingame. They could simply leave books at places with lore in it, that will unlock the description in a ingame lore section (thus no inventory space lost). They could even give us bookcases where we can store this in our house and click on it when we want to read them.

Have random daily quests that are not shown on the map but that you have to find by looking all over the zone. It could be that you find a certain item that is marked when you get near it and that will give you a fetch quest. Or some monsters could be marked that will start a quest to kill a certain number of them. Again nothing ground breaking and no must do but at least a way to shake up all the fate farming in a zone and this could give people a way to level up other jobs after they have done all the normal side quests.

(And yes all of these suggestion came from me playing rift, I am just a fan of its overworld)

[Dark-Saviour]

To make it feel alive they just need to make it more like a real breathing and living world. More NPCs that wander around, maybe have some in the forest looking at some fungus and talking about it, or NPCs from the city states going on a patrol to make the streets feel save. In the wild you could have a big amount of small critters and other small animals going on with their lives. Have the herbivore animals and monster be passive and in bigger herds. Use fates not to spawn some random monsters but spawn some carnivore that will attach the grazing herds of animals. So make it less "monsters everywhere that will kill you on sight" and more of a world where farmers and other people can survive. So no random spawning tree of death that will attack anything that walks on the street. This way you will have a landscape that does not look like a beautiful painting but like a beautiful and alive world.

And people will still not go there. It may be novel at first, but even the people that enjoy it will start to keep away over time, and most people will just flat out not care unless there's loot involved.

Give us riddles in the overworld (maybe each zone having at least one) that you need to find and solve or even jumping puzzles (but better thought out than the Kugane one). Yes people might look at the solution online but this is a decision by the players themselves.

Riddles are a great example of one-time-use content unless they have a writer change them up on a daily basis. Jumping puzzles too, to a lesser extent (unless you add dailies for them a la GW2 or gathering nodes at the end of them [expect rage]). The content would need to be truly dynamic to incentivize people to do it continue to do it on its own merit, and even then may need significant rewards to maintain interest.

I am still kinda surprised that a game that focuses so much on lore does not have some kind of way to gather it ingame. They could simply leave books at places with lore in it, that will unlock the description in a ingame lore section (thus no inventory space lost). They could even give us bookcases where we can store this in our house and click on it when we want to read them.

This should be a more prominent thing, even if I don't believe it would increase zone traffick. And done well. As in incomplete, in-depth, yet potentially tattered journals that FEEL like journals, and not in the GW2 style of "3-second overview of an entire reqion" or the BotW style of "Life's journal (that conveniently happens to only include events of my life relevant to you!)" We have a bit of this withe the notes left by Ser Yumeric's men, Edda's journal, etc. within the dungeons, but you'd expect places like the Sharlayan ruins to have a load of old documents lying around (granted, the Goblins might have picked them clean, but still).

Have random daily quests that are not shown on the map but that you have to find by looking all over the zone. It could be that you find a certain item that is marked when you get near it and that will give you a fetch quest. Or some monsters could be marked that will start a quest to kill a certain number of them. Again nothing ground breaking and no must do but at least a way to shake up all the fate farming in a zone and this could give people a way to level up other jobs after they have done all the normal side quests.

This is somewhat near an idea I had years ago, to make hunts into actual hunts. As in, rather than the monster just popping in a zone, you first start seeing signs of them, injured/dead NPCs on the road, spots of blood, trees knocked aside, scorch-marks on the ground, etc. You would then have to follow the destruction and lure out the monster. Kind of like how S-Ranks are now, but... less obtuse, and with a more sane way of knowing if they're actually available or not.
Unfortunately this would ultimately result in the 'Tedious' variant of encouraging zone participation in that after the first week; people would just stop caring about the journey pretty quick and want to kill the things again. And even during that time, most people would still just go, "I'll wait until someone calls it" rather than getting out there and looking for things... :-/

[Naunet]

I have played other MMOs with the "seamless open world" which if you ever had slow loading were basically stitched together with endlessly looping loading tunnels, be they tunnels with visible walls or not. As the system still had to unload the area you were leaving and load in the area you are entering.

I can climb over mountains and around valleys, swim across rivers, jump cliffs, and in some cases even fly from zone to zone in WoW, Rift, TERA, WildStar, Archeage, and BDO - and those are just the ones I've played in. NEVER have I felt like I was being funneled through a narrow, looping tunnel in the way people describe 1.0.

[mandodo69]

I'd like to see more interactive doodads and treasures hidden around the world. A good lot of the towns scattered over the world feel like hollow building veneers (Can't enter nor explore inside) with not a lot to distinguish them from one another. With a little bit of clutter and love, the game would have a whole new level of depth.

This. Even if chests, pots, and whatnot scattered about, were filled with just potions, ethers, random gil bags, etc, it would help. Look at DDO's, or even ESO's open world. In those games I spend HOURS looking for stuff, chests, crates to break, cabinets, etc. It does make the world feel alive and gives a sense of exploration.

[LalaRu]

RP you can do it in public, ERP you do it in private. Who does ERP in public violate the user agreement:

3.3 Profanity and Offensive Language... The Game is for players aged 13 and older. You agree to behave accordingly.

The agreement also say:

...If you reject this User Agreement, then you will not be authorized to play the Game...

tl;dr version and/or for who still does not understand:
If you ERP in public you may be kiss your account goodbye (I think it just suffice a report by anyone witnessed your "performance").

Then, you also can be quite unlucky...: some parent see (and screenshot) what you wrote in public chat of their 13 year-old child, and then files an offence at their local police office about it, if you are in the legal age you also may face court. This is extreme but not impossible.

[Sandpark]

How to make the world feel alive?

You make creatures and npcs in the world have different hopes, dreams, unique characteristics, and different reasons for being in particular places at a particular time. 1.0 had some of this with the creatures and FFXI had it in spades.

Implementation of that comes at a cost though. Zones would no longer just be a means to reach the end, a trivial obstacle, a detriment to questing.

Most Npcs & Enemies here have no life/goals/activities outside their purpose. Which is to stand around and give you quest or wait to be killed.

• Even the ones that supposedly have a purpose, that purpose is only watched real time in the MSQ. Retainers and squadrons are supposed to be adventurers as well, but you never see them actually out in the world fulfilling that purpose. Why do you never see the scions or Aymeric out fighting the good fight if it is not part of your quest line?
  
• Where is the XIV version of Besieged, a city under constant assault which must be protected by it's inhabitants and generals? The closest thing to that here is the MSQ in Stormblood when the scions accompany you on this journey, and that is only in MSQ.
  
• Where is the XIV version of Campaign or City-State Alliance content, where battles and wars are waged over the entirety of Eorzea? Again, some of this happens in the MSQ but not much elsewhere. In FFXI there were battlefields in multiple areas at somewhat random times.
  
• Why is it every common enemy has a limited skill set that can be averted the same way which is dodge?
  
• Why do we have Control skills when a majority of stuff worth killing resist it completely?
  
• Why do common enemies not have their own group tactics such as flanks, rear, etc, or change the way they react to things based on party composition or circumstances?

Why isn't the world alive? Because the majority of people don't want alive.

They want a nice, neat, package all created to make the game relaxing and stress free, minus the raiding community.

Why in the Seven hells would it be fun to actually ask people to depend on one another or communicate in the open world? When it so much easier to queue up and be proactively friendly or the be worst kind of as#, and regardless of which, they can queue up again and again without the trouble. I read in 1.0 certain creatures used to react differently and to some people it was annoying.
If npcs had goals they set out to achieve at certain times of days or seasons, and they had some relevant quest to progressing, people would scream in outrage at the gating.

TLDR:

• You can't have a living world, if it doesn't change.
• You can't have a living world if it doesn't inconvenience you at times.
• You can't have a living world if job creation has to adhere to everyone being able to be a flavor of another job to facilitate faster grouping up without segregation.
• You can't have a living world if most things worthwhile are locked behind instances.
• You can't have a living world if there is no long lasting persistence in skills or gear or the content you challenge.
• You can't have a living world if the world itself stops until you continue the MSQ.

I have ideas on capturing the spirit of a living world, but it exist in a self contained vacuum which will probably never be implemented. Because if it spilled out into the open fields of Eorzea, all havoc would break out and bunch of players who value convenience over immersion would run to the next game that values convenience.

[Penthea]

Has anyone considered the fact that the majority of the zones are wilderness? Why should anyone expect those to be crowded?

However I think the wilderness would benefit from more npcs than just quest/hunt mobs. WoW has critters (squirrels, rabbits, etc) and having something like that in XIV would only bring more life.

[Hycinthus]

Remove teleport.

Not all teleport needs to be removed though. Just Leave about 6 major teleport hubs, like in FFXI. 1 in Thanalan, 1 in shroud, 1 in noscea, 1 in mor dhona, 1 in Fringes, 1 in Doma.

That's it. This will encourage people to use airships, boats, to access major cities that dont have teleport. And make those airship, boat, and yes, let's implement the Thanalan train , not skippable cutscene, make them real time but not too long. In FFXI even if you want to go to a major city, you had to do this.

If you want to go further, have only Healers able to teleport to encourage interaction between players.

[Tsunenori]

Every so often I put a month back on WoW just to poke around and get it out of my system, and every time I do I always find myself marveling at how different the worlds feel. After Stormblood I had this lingering feeling that I just preferred the A Realm Reborn zones, but I wasn't able to quite put my finger on why other than the new zones being less "interactive." It's with the help of some of those WoW zones that I think I can better describe it though.

The Heavensward and Stormblood zones feel artificial. They don't feel like they're alive, they do genuinely just feel like large hubs. So, I'll try to qualify that statement. If I'm going through some random zone in WoW everything has a place. If you're near a river, you'll find a small ecosystem of hostile and nonhostile enemies that make sense, like crocodiles and insects and fish. You go a little further away into the woods and you find inland creatures, like deer and wolves. The world between is sprinkled with little signs of life, like birds and rabbits and whatever else. The birds fly away when you get near, the rabbits are being chased by wildlife, there are packs of wolves with little cubs, dens of slumbering bears, and so forth. Some NPCs patrol around large areas instead of walking back and forth in their designated spot like others. Zones are sprinkled with small settlements, ruins of ancient civilizations, abandoned buildings, and all kinds of little nooks and crannies that have strong visual storytelling to help bring the player into the moment and make them feel like they're a part of a larger world.

A Realm Reborn never exactly did this to an extreme, but it did have a healthy mix of hostile and non-aggressive enemies instead of a world that felt like it just always wanted you dead no matter where you were (which is particularly annoying for gathering imo). Also, because the zones were smaller, it was a lot easier for them to cluster enemies in groups that felt more natural as well, compared to these sprawling zones from Heavensward and Stormblood that look very pretty but feel like a dropper tool was used to place enemies in an area before moving to another to do the same. One example I like to use is the random Jellyfish behind Onokoro hanging out near some pine trees. What's their deal? I'm sure some of it is to try to emphasize that these areas are harsh and war-torn and all that's been able to thrive in such an environment are the most aggressive species, but if that's the case then maybe it's time to diversify the kinds of zone stories we're trying to tell in order to diversify the experience we're able to give players as they quest and level and go through their daily rituals.

A Realm Reborn was also fairly good at giving you a healthy amount of exploration within settlements compared to its successors. If anyone remembers one of the MSQ quests where you had to go into the jail in Whitebrim, and despite it being such a small building on the outside it goes down like 2-3 stories underground. Sure, it's mostly barren stone walls in there, but it's still a neat touch. I've mentioned the Mun-Tuy Cellars before on this forum as well, I think. The connection between South Shroud and East Shroud could have easily been a generic rock tunnel but instead it's this lovely brewery with like 3-4 little siderooms and NPCs doing their jobs, and you can just give it a little look around. It fills in the world more, helps bring it to life.

That's not to say Heavensward and Stormblood are entirely devoid of these kinds of things. I think the Xaela camps in The Azim Steppe are good about this, with all the yurts you can go into and NPCs to talk to. There are small areas in Heavensward I enjoyed as well, like the kitchen in Falcon's Nest or the buildings and stables in Tailfeather, but the inclusion of these kinds of world-building areas has diminished significantly across all zones in a way that I think is kind of unfortunate. The zones truly are becoming more and more beautiful to look at now, I'd just also love to see some of that money and development go into making them feel more alive. As it stands, they've got a case of "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" syndrome.