Sagolii Desert?

[Kyatai]

Where exactly is the Sagolii Desert anyway?

I cannot find it on the map I have of Eorzea...

[CassandraJean]

I believe its in the south Thanalan! all the way to the south of that map. Like as far south as you can get.

[Zeah Loraire]

Yup, Southern Thanalan. Reminds me a lot of Altepa Desert from XI.

[CassandraJean]

Ah! and here I found the map you can see where it's located.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kyatai]

Ahhh you guys are awesome!

I knew I could count on you Thanks!

And thanks for the map on top of the location, CJ! That makes it even better to visualize. hehe

 

So.. having never played XI nor been in 1.0 or Altepa Desert... what kind of landscape are we talking about? Barren-esque like along Route 66 in New Mexico (aka dirt, dirt, few tumbleweeds and skulls, far off mesas...) or sloping picturesque like Four Corners area/Navajo lands (mountains, caves, multi-shaded sands)... or rough and tumble with Saguaro ala Mesa, AZ?

OR... desert with islands of greenry and mountains like Tucson?

OOOoorrr just more of the same coming out of Ul'dah IG? lol

 

*trying to visualize for character concept for my Miqo*

[CassandraJean]

Well I spent a whole day during the Beta exploring every location and I visited the Desert for my friend (her Miqo'te is from there) so that's the reason I know, hah!

 

I thought it was incredibly dry and barren looking. Not soft sand. But it did have some dips and rises in the sand.

[Adelpha]

The Sagolii Desert is very different from most of Thanalan; it's just rolling sand dunes (with some minor landmarks like ruins interspersed). Not much in the way of civilization, aside from a few excavators at Byregot's Strike.

 

You can see it starting at 21:10 in this video:

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[Kyatai]

Ahhh *bows* thank you!

You guys are awesome

[Xeon]

Do note thats the mobs there is 32-35, unless you got north east where the mobs are 40+ something. Should cross the bridge at red labyrinth and follow the cliff wall down unless you wanna run through the 40's.

 

Edit: Just noticed levels showed on map, woops .

 

-Xeon

[DAISHI]

Yup, Southern Thanalan. Reminds me a lot of Altepa Desert from XI.

THE BEST AREA IN ALL OF FFXI.

[K'nahli]

How large is it? My miqo'te lives there but I don't want to visit there just yet until the story prompts me to. I am a little afraid that it is a relatively small expanse and not very desert-like but rather just a "small", sandy section of the map.

[Aysun]

How large is it? My miqo'te lives there but I don't want to visit there just yet until the story prompts me to. I am a little afraid that it is a relatively small expanse and not very desert-like but rather just a "small", sandy section of the map.

 

If you run to the 'edge' of it on the map, you can see it continues out if I remember right. The tribe that actually lives there is very established at the oasis camp, but that's not to say that more don't live further out or something. It's probably quite large, we just don't have access to the whole thing (like most of Eorzea).

[Moondoggie]

Fairly large. But i always like to think of the big picture when it comes to these places. The whole area is rather vast or if your character is born in a place they would be running into family members every two minutes .

[Ildur]

As a rule of thumb, all the spaces depicted in the game world should be considered much larger than they are despicted in game. Otherwise, we would have things like Ul'dah having exactly one tavern and exactly one merchant street even though it's a commercial city. Or outer 'towns' and 'villages' that are only two or three houses.

The reason the game is despicted smaller than it is is for gameplay and design reasons: making a world based on reality's scales would not only take a long time to fill up (meaning you would have long spaces of uninteresting locales), but would also mean the players have to spend more time travelling than actually playing.

 

So, yes, it's safe to assume that the Sagolii desert is much bigger than shown.

[K'nahli]

Well that kinda goes without saying but I still hope it isn't too small in-game.

[Roda]

reasons: making a world based on reality's scales would not only take a long time to fill up (meaning you would have long spaces of uninteresting locales), but would also mean the players have to spend more time travelling than actually playing.

So... like 1.0?

(although I would like for there to be more expansive zones. Travel time is fun if you have plenty of alternatives for the people who don't want to walk.)

 

(also here's a screenshot of the beyond-lands)

[Ildur]

I did not play 1.0, but I did hear the problem with it was that it was big and repetitive. If you are going to have a big world, you have to pack it full with locations, sights, odditites, NPCs, encounters...and to not place invisible walls everywhere.

 

Zones in ARR do feel kind of small and full. This was a design choice made to counteract the point above: a large game world feels empty if you don't invest enough time to place enough unique features in it. Just take a look at Skyrim for how a big world full of things to explore is done right.

 

But even then, you have the problem that, no matter how big the devs make the world, it will still be smaller than it should be in a realistic sense. Otherwise, you'll end up with a lot of unexplained things: like who can there be twenty NPCs living in a town when there's only three houses with two beds each; goods that exist and are items in-game but that have no production facilities in the game's despicted regions; farmlands that are too small to produce food for the towns and cities, etcetera.

[DAISHI]

In terms of MMO design, bigger is not better in general. FFXIV learned this, WoW learned this, it's why travel time has been reduced across the board. People want to do things in their game, not walk around lost. There's a time for it, and you can have larger areas, but for a debuting game, packed content is the number one demand. No more FFXIV 1.0 mistakes.