Looking at that image, it's funny to note that the "big bridge" that's not open and we fight Greg on appears to be along the old path between Coerthas and Gridania. I guess a new path opened when the Calamity hit.
That aside, they did a pretty damn good job of connecting 1.0 and 2.0, because that fits really well on top of the ol' 1.0 map. Using Natalan & Ishgard as anchor points, Dzemael is in the same place, Aurum Vale barely moved, there was an abandoned fort where Whitebrim now stands, etc. I guess they lore-wiped the whole old southern portion of the Coerthas map out in 2.0 though, 'cause Mor Dhona clearly used to be way farther south than it is now.
The old Mor Dhona map fits perfectly on the new one as well. (Edit: aside form missing the entire southern half D: )
http://www.ffxivinfo.com/images/maps/mor-dhona.jpg
http://ffxivmaps.com/img/region-mor_dhona-small.png
The old camp Rev Troll is actually still there in 2.0 where those crystals bursted from the ground (old copy/pasta camp tent and all.) The singing shards have migrated much further North though in 2.0 and the North shroud zone seems to have been blocked by crystal tower D:
I swear to god Yoshida said something about "Primals we'd never even dream of/expect" coming after Shiva/Ramuh. Also, storywise, it is unlikely we will run out of Primals to kill. We haven't explored all of Eorzea yet really, there may be beast tribes in Gyr Abania/Sharlayan and then there's the Primals of Meracydia and Orthard still, which we know exist. Goblin and Qiqirn primals too plz. It seems to be the Ascian MO to drain aether from the planet and the summoning of Primals definitely does that. Bonus points if the Five Races start summoning the Twelve again (as the processes are the same, like Moggle Mog)
Most of the maps actually fit extremely will, which is surprising considering how different they feel in 2.0; there are some liberties taken of course, but I think my cursory glance some weeks ago Thanalan was the most dramatically changed area.
Also no idea if you mean that Ramuh pic is indicative of a press event or the concept art?? The pic of Ramuh is actually from a MSQ not long after Toto-Rak, can't fault people for not remembering the one cutscene we got a 10s glimpse of him tho
I actually miss just having a large ass open zone with little oddities thrown in like 1.0. It's not hard to give it purpose either, just toss a FATE or quests in there. Zones now are more like a nature trail for tourists whereas 1.0 was just, "Here's the wilderness and your compass, have at it." The Evershade Tree (whatever that big ass tree in Central Shroud is called) for example, just felt more awe inspiring first seeing it in 1.0.
Being hopelessly lost in Black Shroud and walking carefully to not draw the wrath of lv80 Treants. I miss the world from 1.0 more than anything else (though it's a low bar when talking about 1.x content).
I look forward to the Goblin Primal: Great Grand Gobbiebag XIV.
Goblin Primal needs to be Ultros and the Qiqirn Primal needs to be Typhon.
Make it happen, SE.
(mostly guessing here, I'm no game dev)
The seamless zones were a lot of the reason why the 1.0 zones were bland; the system needed common textures and shit across the entire zone so everywhere looked the same. That's not to say that the best of both worlds couldn't be implemented, but SE went for ease of programming over putting more shit on their already very time-constrained plate.
That said, 1.0's seamless zones weren't all that great. You could tell exactly where the regions were sewn together because they were always connected by a choke point (you can even identify them by analyzing the old maps; they were generally separated by a thin, uninteresting, and often long corridor surrounded by tall rocks/walls) so the system had time to load whatever new shit was required for the upcoming region. Choke point vs black loading screen? Honestly, I couldn't give a shit either way.
Now, if they had ever been able to seamlessly transition between to radically different regions, The Black Shroud and Thanalan for example, then I might've been more impressed, but not even 1.0 attempted to do that.
The checkpoints didn't bug me in the world, but the zonelines in the current cities and exiting them annoys the hell out of me.
You could tell where the stitching was in 1.0 cities, however, because the horrifically buggy servers had a tendency to always disconnect you and crash when you walked across them. I was flatly unable to walk out of Ul'dah for a long while because as soon as I got down the ramp onto the sands, my game would shit itself.
There was a post by Yoshida 10,000 years ago during 1.0 where he outlined the exact zonelines for Ul'dah (which he called Zone A and Zone B) and the zonelines in 2.0 are the exact same.
idk why but that always made me feel sort of smug
And with that, I drop this in here:
FFXIV: ARR Chinese Style Boss "The Year Beast" Revealed, Patch 3.0 After E3
3.0 after E3 could be.....at any point in the future lol. Seems like an odd quote to put in an article.
It's probably supposed to be 2.3.
Patch 4.0 revealed to be after 2014