Airship as Guild Housing and Docking at Floating Cities!

[MrKupo]

I like the idea, but not as much as I like having your FC mates living in a neighborhood with you on beach-side residences.

In terms of this actually happening, I don't see someone actually flying the ship but rather an NPC that is selected (similar to selecting a companion) and the ship being instanced.
From this, I have some ideas (sorry if its been stated. I didn't read through the whole thread)

1) If it is instanced, there can be an additional option in the menu called called "Call Airship". Once your Free Company has bought and built an airship, players can call it to them (with maybe a 5-10 minute wait) and then they are then transported to the ship flying above.
2) This can make the airship become a central hub for meeting prior to raids and such (even take away some of the congestion in Ul'dah)
3) The airship can drop players off at a certain camp without having to have all of the players in the same party. This would make it possible for traveling as a Free Company rather than traveling as a party.

The reason I don't see the airship being pilotable is because I can't imagine how the devs could possibly make a bunch of airships flying around in the sky work, let alone make flying work while dividing the map into smaller zones.

[Davorok]

FreeCompany Airships with casinos and card games?

[Seif]

Yes. My only fear is that SE is afraid to try doing anything so original and cool that requires that much work.

[Gilraen]

Umm, hate to say it's been done before (though I already have) but it has. Star Wars Galaxies had player ships where you could invite others to man ship turrets and use repair kits to affect repairs. It was fun, but admittedly the most fun was had by those in the cockpit and turrets. Unless you have tangible rewards for doing these noone's going to want to do them, which is why it never really caught on in Galaxies.

[Hycinthus]

Actually, airships as guild housing is old hat. Dungeons and Dragons Online uses airships as guild housing. It's expensive and likely involves upkeep but that's all I know about it (wasn't in a guild that had an airship). Personally, I think it's an interesting idea that could potentially make use of those extra spaces in the towns that have no obvious use (not talking about the future mog houses).

Yes you are correct, which is more the reason that if an old MMO was able to implement it, I'm sure SE should have the know-how to do this. Airship has always been a staple in the FF universe, and it would be awesome if they can do this.

The reason I don't see the airship being pilotable is because I can't imagine how the devs could possibly make a bunch of airships flying around in the sky work, let alone make flying work while dividing the map into smaller zones.

In my wildest dreams, the airships would be navigable, but I think you are correct. If they ever implement this idea, I think the airship LS houses would be instanced and would not be pilotable. Firstly we don't even know if FF14 2.0 world is designed so that they can be viewed nicely from above. Secondly pilotable airships do pose many problems such as airships being landed everywhere to disrupt activities. Although I still wish to see the airships being able to land at cities/towns, or at the floating dungeons/pvp platforms.

Umm, hate to say it's been done before (though I already have) but it has. Star Wars Galaxies had player ships where you could invite others to man ship turrets and use repair kits to affect repairs. It was fun, but admittedly the most fun was had by those in the cockpit and turrets. Unless you have tangible rewards for doing these noone's going to want to do them, which is why it never really caught on in Galaxies.

I think the most tangible reward is having a guild house that you can share time with along with your LSmates. Also, there can be special NPCs or some perks of having an airship, maybe a buff or something. But I think that having an airship that you can decorate, and maintain, and spend time together with friends, is a reward in itself. I for one enjoyed my time in EQ2 guild house, we spent time there during guild meetings, or grouping up before doing a dungeon. This is the same idea, except it's located in the sky.

[Seif]

At the very least I hope to be able to see the ground and have meaningful airship rides with unique content accessible only there on the ship.

At the most amazing level I'd like to see ships take on massive dragons like in the intro and in Monster hunter 3 Tri.

Whatever SE does with these I really would beg them to set the bar higher than XI and keep that as a minimum bar for possible airship awesomeness if that makes any sense.

This could really be the card that they could play to show things and gameplay unique to XIV over XI and preferably it should be more fun.

[MariyaShidou]

Allods Online

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVx6M1Jdgm0

Ship serves as sort of Guild House, as you have to keep loot in it during Astral visit. Opposing Guilds can fight you, board you and take your loot. IMO we could use more refine on this and it could works.

[Hulan]

Actually, from a technical standpoint, it would not be that difficult to make airships player controlled. If I were to attempt such a thing, I would create an overworld zone with a relatively low LOD version of the world. If we realistically look at the number of high-quality (let us assume for a moment that the barrier for entry is high) linkshells on a given server, the number is probably somewhere between 20-40. Given that, if other company AS models have a comparable LOD to a player model, the engine should easily be able to render them.

Because the "flight zone" is a separate zone, you can use different geometry with fewer polygons for the terrain. The feasibility of having pilotable Airships would be entirely based on how low def SE is willing to make the overworld terrain. The actual graphical quality would not even have to drop that much from the player's perspective, since all of the terrain will be viewed from a great distance anyway.

Honestly, the hardest part for SE would probably be deciding how to manage piloting the Airship. Is it whoever grabs the wheel first? Is it just the highest ranking member on the Airship at the time?

I think there is a lot of potential in this idea, particularly if you made the Airship follow real-world rules. If you want to get on the Airship, you should have to be were the airship is, or ask for someone to fly to you. It probably wouldn't take long (looking at how Airships worked in previous FF titles at least) maybe a minute or two at most, but it would add a degree of connection between the player and the Airship. Something like "this is our airship, and even when I'm not online it's still flying around doing things".

[Sagagemini]

Great idea! I'm all up for it.

[Albio]

I don't know if someone suggested this or not cause I didn't read the whole thread, I have class in a few, but can we just have floating cities period? I loved Bhujerba in Final Fantasy XII. I think it was one of the coolest FF cities. It would be awesome to be up in the sky. Maybe in an expansion pack?