Conclusion: We really like FATES, but lie to ourselves.

[Shurrikhan]

That's one of my sort of "dream open world content" that I would like to see added. Though I fear it may be a pipe dream to hope for.

I worked up a "Living World" (before I even knew of GW2's patches by the same name) update idea for 1.x back in the day, among which that was a part (and, honestly, what I'd hoped would take the place of Housing with time, as I wanted people to be out in the world more, and more connected, rather than... less). Your idea especially reminds me of, say, Turning Leaf in 1.x, where you'd have sort of hiker groups that had just finished sneaking past the Lv. 99 Treants and now provided search and rescue, of sorts, for those less fortunate, but building so much further on all the means that made all that was great about that little piece of emergent gameplay.

The "Living World" thread was... pretty long, to say the least, but everything in it would still apply today. The only part of it the game's even scratched the surface of yet was the FATE chains introduced in ARR. I can't find it in the archives, so I may have to rewrite it, though.

Highlights:

• Map-wide mechanics and events (encompassing FATEs and FATE chains, but among far more and with more cohesion)
• More advanced mob and herd behaviors.
• More Journal involvement than just Quests, allowing for the collecting of lore and interaction with psuedoquests (easter egg or hidden quests, so to speak, that don't take on a discrete entry until you've notably progressed them, and no official quest-like entry until their completion)
• Hunt systems (more akin to MH:O, rather than what we later got, with more lore interaction and generally as longer, more involved unofficial pseudoquest chains)
• Greater interaction opportunities with existing developments (e.g. working with the Marauders, Yellow Jackets, Bronze Shields, Wailers, the Ul'duhn cavalry scouts, on a map-specific and cross-map basis)
• Greater economic interactions possible, especially in furnishing the above merged with what became special deliveries, rather than such being limited specifically to leves.
• The development of sparser fringe zones in areas that have less excuse for randomization (no moving trees, no sandstorms, etc.).
• Frontiers system, as briefly mentioned here.
• Outbasing (building and development of depots, posts, bases, training grounds, and the like, in the open world or across Frontiers), using the cross-seeding tech from the Frontiers system.
• Largescale scaling PvE content in the open world in the vein of actual warfare (whereupon previously semi-randomized or -instanced areas would collapse to a single seed, where all interact with each other to meet the threat head-on).
• Broader NPC reputations systems (without any gameified metrics) allowing for further interaction therewith, including in the manner of Squadrons, Special Deliveries, Wonderous Tails (minus the added content-rewards system) and Trusts -- able to fit alongside either, but probably with both placed under this broader mechanical manner.
• Ship-building and usage. Would later include submarines. Pirates, beastkin, trawling, deep sea fishing, and underwater salvage all included, of course.
• Interactable airship building and in-person usage, rather than via a mission board. Sky Pirates and potentially Garlean forces and air-based supply lines included, of course.