My heart just fell totally...

[IndigoDarkwolf]

You ever take a huge amount of family members to a theme park and you waste most of your time deciding what to do next or where to go, and you wind up not getting anything you wanted done?: Final Fantasy XI. (XIV also)

My family had a simple solution for that: Show up at the beginning of the day, do a walk around the entire theme park, and just stop at every ride anyone wanted to ride on.

To be fair, each of the LSes I'd join would try to organize some similar concept. My "join date" notwithstanding, I didn't really fall in love with this game until the beginning of this past September, which meant that I, for one, was highly eager to participate in these groups each time one my LSes would try to organize one.

The problem was with misaligned play schedules amongst the few players who were willing/able to help progress players through mission content, compared to the relatively large number of players who would rather try to finish grinding their Culinarian to 50 so they can have all-50s going into ARR, or PL their dual-boxing alt/mule while leveling was easier, or some other task. And that's fine, it just meant that we'd put together whoever could play and go shout in Ul'Dah... for an hour. Or two. That last part could definitely stand to see improvement, so I'm looking forward to a X-realm quest queue, especially if it can keep parties together.

[A_Hortensia]

My family had a simple solution for that: Show up at the beginning of the day, do a walk around the entire theme park, and just stop at every ride anyone wanted to ride on.

Definitely, and I'm a rare case of trying to help everyone through the all the stories; through-out of all my linkshells. (Again, probably because I still haven't fully shifted away from viewing XI and XIV as FF games and not as MMOs.)

Just for clarity, I'm not bashing XI or XIV at all.. I was just trying to make the statement that..

Final Fantasy Online = Disney World. I enjoy both a great deal.
I wouldn't want to stand around doing nothing in Disney World and not have any fun.

Roller Coasters have single rider lines for the same reasons SE wants to implement this function.

[Jynx]

Don't use it.

Everyone wins!

So what about the people who want to play open world content but find themselves with a utter lack of such content because cross server grouping encourages if not demands the developers to make content only happen in instanced boxes.

[Fylion]

Honestly though, I was a WoW player for a LONG time, and this was a great idea. The only qualm(s) I ever had with it were: 1.) Trying to communicate with someone from a different continent, and 2.) End-game raids done through it.

The auto-translate system, while not perfect, will still help solve one of these issues. Here's hoping they don't add end-game alliance raids to this system.

Now what I really want to see is them add in a system where crashing/dcing during a synth doesn't eat all your materials.

[Punainen]

It did, you heard about hostess going bankrupt? No more good cupcakes = World ended.

Hostess =/= good cupcakes, lol.

[Preypacer]

So what about the people who want to play open world content but find themselves with a utter lack of such content because cross server grouping encourages if not demands the developers to make content only happen in instanced boxes.

Which is what they've already confirmed will be the case for dungeons, which all will be instances. No more world exploration, going into a cave and seeing how far in you can get or what's in there.. seeing other groups in there xp'ing, or exploring the place themselves, etc. No more finding hidden places and areas to explore just because it's there and you can. No remote areas, nooks and crannies that exist purely to give the world a sense of place, history, flavor and variety. Nope... everything will bedesigned specifically for some form of dungeon run or quest line. It'll be split up into instances and everyone will get their own private slice of Eorzea.

Lame. Never would have believed they'd go that route.

For me, personally, that was 1 huge red X on ARR.

Having, as Yoshi-P put it, "strong guidance in all zones so players know where to go and what to do" is a second X. But that's fodder for another thread.

So... Just waiting to see what the third will be. Cross-server grouping is almost an "X" for me.

Yoshi-P seems bound and determined to turn the "world" of Eorzea into mere "background scenery for a game".

[Endigiont]

How about this, you ask for the option to exclude yourself from Cross Server dungeons. Problem solved.

[A_Hortensia]

Don't give up on them just yet, Preypacer!

Most often the final product is not as advertised. Often times developers can use pretty strong language just for the purpose of enticing a certain demographic. Consequences are sometimes it can repel other groups of players.

Like in my case, one of my favorite aspects of FF is grinding exp with a party at various camps through-out the world. (With high exp aspirations to meet, for that true feeling of accomplishment from a level up..) A lot of their announcements tear my preference apart. I can't possibly pass judgement until the final product is delivered though.

I will be really shocked if they actually remove exploration and the open-world feel from the game; it sounds to me like they are just adding in a lot of activities on top of the already vast world. So proceed with caution, yet, proceed nonetheless!