A Final Fantasy MMO with fanfare has all the room in the world to explore tech or fantasy. Airships, magitek, sand cruisers, bombs, guns, magic, flying dragons, espers, etc. I feel that no matter how much I express my disdain for repetetive quests in mmos or rpgs in general. Nothing will ever meet every hope each individual player wants. They put to much effort into quality and the quantity usually dips. Put too little effort into quality and the quantity usually rises. In a subscription based mmo, I assume most mmo companies aim to do more of the latter to keep your wallets emptying?
Why must quest jobs usually trend towards fetch, kill, escort, and craft?
That is only four job descriptions.. How many jobs/job descriptions exist in the world world to draw inspirations from? Mechanic, artist, musician, recon, sabotage, slander, city community hours, and on and on and on. Maybe on a few npc interactions let us win their hearts or change their minds through conversation and actions.
There were not full blow crafts in every Final Fantasy. Through the use of dynamic hotbars make some fugging mingames in context to what the job quest consist of. Stimulate my reflex, emotional, and cognitive brain by introducing things it is not used to.
Nature: When you go on an adventure in secluded areas(besides frequent tourist attractions). Everything is not sugar and rainbows, it's not safe, it's not convienent, etc. The weather can't wait to **** on your ice cream sunday. Maybe everything is peaches and cream and suddenly a stranger wants to kill you just for the sake of it?
Give me one massive linked region consisting of 10 zones the size of beaucedine glacier. Call this zone the desert of despair. Let the environment affect me during my quests. Bloodthirsty chupacabras attacking out of thin air, spread out oasis that I must reach to not die of thirst(This need to drink could be region specific), sandstorms so fierce that you can't see 5 feet in front of you.
Make me navigate by night watching the stars and navigate by day by watching the sun, make an area with quicksands and narrow passageways that make me drop some inventory to not break my footing, have some elaborate secret passages in a crypt that demand multiplayer cohesion(maybe not good idea on a frequented required quest) but nonetheless. Have safe peaceful areas or machines to get through pieces of this hell on eorzea. Stimulate my reflex, emotional, and cognitive brain. Brainfug me, then when I feel safe, brainfug me again, and again, and again.
Add some landmarks with lore and problem solving. Add some story to this whole affair with a mix of linnear script and non linnear random sequences. Oh look there! There is a collosal beast in the center of that chasm with a dust tornado. Maybe we have to keep an airship in working order until we reach the center and descend down into the chasm?