Non instanced dungeons. An under-looked game design method in XI

[Azurymber]

FFXI had the most amazing world of any MMO i have ever played. Not only that, but every zone had tons of cool places with different mobs to level on.

Leveling beastmaster surpassed any experience I have had in any other game. Having to seek out new camps, find secret caves, create my own camps (before they made mobs respawn) and survive, always ensured I was having a lot of fun.

I remember getting to Lufaise Medows for the first time, and how amazing it felt being one of the few on the servers to make it there. Exploring the sanctuary of zi'tah for the first time as a low level whitemage trying to sneak-invis past everything and eventually making it through Ro'Maeve to the hall of the gods. Finding out there are sewers underneath sandoria and windurst, and much more.

In FFXIV on the other hand, within the first few days of open beta I had pretty well gone -everywhere- in the world, including all the atherytes, all the areas with high level mobs, etc. I literally ran around trying to find cool unique things. Meaning i covered pretty well 100% of the world (running to every cave, every corner, etc).

I ended up making 2 exploration guides for FFXIV.
The first was during open beta:
http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...493176341076#3

The second was in may of 2011 (1 year ago)
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rets-of-Eorzea

Overall, I was really disappointed. I honestly hope 2.0 captures what FFXI was able to achieve. However, from the pics they have shown it looks like 2.0 will be a bunch of small interconnected instanced-like zones. Which honestly looks really disappointing.

[DarthTaru]

Excellent OP. Very insightful. Maybe i'm enjoying it all the more because it's in the same spirit of my lodestone blog from this morning. I'm just in an FFXI sorta mood lately.

If FFXIV becomes all about instanced raids i'm going to be utterly disappointed. I hate to say it because I dedicate a lot of time to the game, but if they intend to make a Final Fantasy WoW i'll quit. The wonderful thing about open world NMs and open world HNMs and open world everything, is that the result of open world is a living, breathing environment. It gives zones meaning and depth and purpose. They become somethings domain rather than just an obstacle to suffer on the way to an instance. Who would have fond (or at least entertaining) memories of Dragon's Aery if it was just the entrance to an instance where you fight Fafnir behind closed doors?

Notice you never hear any epic stories or fond memories told about the KS99 Wyrm but hear them by the hundreds about peoples wars against Nidhogg.

This might be getting a little off your original topic but I think it's still all within the same vein.

I read a lot of the posts on these forums and if Yoshi P is designing the game around them I worry about the future state and direction of this game. We'll see what 2.0 brings.

[Quesse]

FFXI had the most amazing world of any MMO i have ever played. Not only that, but every zone had tons of cool places with different mobs to level on.

Leveling beastmaster surpassed any experience I have had in any other game. Having to seek out new camps, find secret caves, create my own camps (before they made mobs respawn) and survive, always ensured I was having a lot of fun.

I remember getting to Lufaise Medows for the first time, and how amazing it felt being one of the few on the servers to make it there. Exploring the sanctuary of zi'tah for the first time as a low level whitemage trying to sneak-invis past everything and eventually making it through Ro'Maeve to the hall of the gods. Finding out there are sewers underneath sandoria and windurst, and much more.

In FFXIV on the other hand, within the first few days of open beta I had pretty well gone -everywhere- in the world, including all the atherytes, all the areas with high level mobs, etc. I literally ran around trying to find cool unique things. Meaning i covered pretty well 100% of the world (running to every cave, every corner, etc).

Overall, I was really disappointed. I honestly hope 2.0 captures what FFXI was able to achieve. However, from the pics they have shown it looks like 2.0 will be a bunch of small interconnected instanced-like zones. Which honestly looks really disappointing.

I was BST in FFXI and that was my experience as well. I had a blast. Toraimarai Canal was one of my favorite zones for BST leveling and I remember how much fun it was to do the quest to gain entrance the back way. Such a wealth of little discoveries waiting to be made. Also challenges. Soloing or Duoing certain NMs. All that magic is completely missing in FFXIV, replaced really with one activity - the instance grind. Grind an instance. Repeat. That's all there is. Probably why I haven't played much in the last 3 weeks.

[ThePatriarch]

Leveling beastmaster surpassed any experience I have had in any other game.

This is an experience, that I doubt will ever come close to being touched by any other game.

I too enjoyed it like nothing else, ever.