A Return to Interactive Transportation - Airships & Ferry Rides

[colonel_spyder]

First time here. First post.

Something that I thought of lately that should return - I'd like to see interactive transportation back in the game as a scenic choice where you can sit, converse with others, role-play, fish, craft by riding a boat or airship. Perhaps a FATE where the ships are attacked and have to fight off the fiends and protect the gatherers/crafters from being attacked.

I understand that FFXIV is designed to respect the player's time but what if the player wants to respect the game's development and spend their time to enjoy the scenery?

Or am I the only one feeling this way? Thoughts?

[HammAndCheese]

Honestly, it's a cute idea.

[KateHarthing]

I'm all for bringing back reasons to go to older cities and expansions again (other than gathering)

Yesterday I wanted to see if I could walk from one of the starting cities, and travel by boat and airship to Tural.
(spoiler it's not as easy and direct. Obviously the fastest way is just from limsa to Tuliyollal but that wasn't the idea)
But even when I walked through, most of the servers starting areas like east shroud ect were so empty. It's really sad!

[Tahli]

I've always wanted this! There's something just so much more immersive, relaxing, and making the world feel more alive with having travel methods like this.

To add to the ideas, having a train or trolley making rounds on the railroads in some areas, or a chocobo-drawn cart leisurely strolling through, big ships for crossing seas, and small boats for smaller bodies of water.
Bonus points if you can play Triple Triad or Mahjong while traveling with other passengers.

[Absurdity]

To add to the ideas, having a train or trolley making rounds on the railroads in some areas, or a chocobo-drawn cart leisurely strolling through, big ships for crossing seas, and small boats for smaller bodies of water.
Bonus points if you can play Triple Triad or Mahjong while traveling with other passengers.

I've been thinking that ever since you first get to Black Brush Station in Central Thanalan.

[TKMXIV]

Reminds me of the good times I had playing Maple Story way back when.
Waiting for the Air ship with people. The high level players would go on deck to fight monsters while low level players hide away in the cargo hold.

[DPZ2]

I suspect this has never been implemented because the cost outweighs the benefits. SE already has airship and boat travel cutscenes, and they have data on how many players disable them.

How many days or weeks of actual game time would players realistically tolerate to travel from Limsa Lominsa to Tuliyollal? The cutscene is about two minutes long, but the implied in‑universe travel time is 2–3 weeks. The Limsa to Kugane voyage is even longer, around 3–4 weeks in lore.

Even the train from Tuliyollal to northern Tura, which is one of the shortest “major” trips in Dawntrail, would take 6–12 hours in‑universe. The cutscene compresses that into 30–40 seconds.

A zone‑wide train or cart ride might be more feasible, but it would come with major limitations:

• occupancy would be low
  
• runs would need to be tightly scheduled
  
• the ride duration couldn’t exceed the time it takes a Chocobo to cross the zone
  
• and the odds of encountering other players on any given run would be extremely small

Given all that, it’s understandable why SE sticks to cinematic shorthand instead of real‑time interactive transit.

[Tatiana]

a cute idea but it would only work well if the game were more open world than it is, because you'd need a reason to take them and they'd have to be better than mounts for anyone to bother

[colonel_spyder]

I believe this feature was a thing in 1.0, similar to FFXI (I always enjoy the airship rides). Didn't take long to go from one area to the next within minutes, certainly not weeks (unlike raising your own Chocobo in XI which took about a month in real time). I think the way it worked was similar to an instance; you're on an airship but the world below was made smaller to make you believe you are well above the clouds. Same with ferry/boat rides. The possible reason I suspect they did away with that stating in 2.0 was "to respect or player's time" and not offer that as a choice as it would also save on resources required.

Now with Dawntrail closing, why not use Electrode to modify those transports to "speed up" travel? It's been a while since we have seen Cid and his crew go to work. Make it a questline to help them gather what they need to unlock that feature.

This is, after all, an MMO. We just got used to quick gratification of instant travel and queuing up, removing the immersion in the process.

[CCheshire]

I was there, Gandalf, but this is one of the reasons I never wanted to bring it back because I had no idea how much IRL time I wasted going to and from places using that airship along with it being outdated now we have mounts along with teleports since ARR.

Also, ppl are already annoyed that we can't immediately unlock all aether currents when we first arrive in the new zone and we can still like use said airships or walk to each place for RP reasons now in 2026 without wasting real life minutes on your own WoL if the idea of breaking immersion is a problem too.