I'm sure CBU3 will make these zones look beautiful and I'll enjoy exploring on foot as I always do and we haven't seen all of them yet but the ones they have shown looks.... familiar yet different. I didn't think much about it until one of my friends that played wow started complaining how FFXIV zones look so boring compared to wow.

I've never played wow but they shown me some examples when I asked them. They shown me a forest that was really pretty, it was all blue. Then was another one that was almost all purple and a couple more...

It just really made me think...yeah FFXIV zones were quite boring looking compared to this. Notice how FFXIV coolest zones/dungeons are always high fantasy/sci Fi zones(unless it's allagans design). Ultima Thule, azys lls(allagans but it's an exception) and basically all of shadowbringers aside the desert and lominsa with a bigger cliff, elpis( inc. pandemonium) One of the reasons people like ShB so much aside the story is it felt like an actual high fantasy world compared to the usual and it's a shame we're not going back to that.

I have no doubt we're get a sci fi or fantasy for the last zone in DT but a majority of what we got is just......jungles...and some wild west cowboy zone and some highlands area that just looks like azim steeps. We know CBU3 has the ability to make these zones but they can't because they already set out a certain theme for the source and that's to be close to our own world. I really hope in 8.x we go to a different shard because that seems to be the only way for CBU3 to get really creative with their zone design and make high fantasy zones.

As this is clear as we seen from SHB and the 13th shard where it's very medieval fantasy. Once again I am aware we having seen all the zones and I'm not really complaining, it's more disappointment that we keep getting these grounded zones. The likelihood of getting a sci-fi like zone at the end is high as we've seen a screen shot of a high tech zone, probably the last zone. But the likelihood of having another one aside from that is very small.

I get the vocal minority likes simplicity and grounded approaches but at some point we need to spice things up. This is Final Fantasy. Want to again say I'm not complaining. I'm just disappointed in yet another batch of grounded and realistic settings that looks like things we've already had just more expanded.

When I look those zones from WOW. I can't help but be jealous that how come we can't get zones like that, because that would look beautiful in FFXIV. Guess we'll see in 8.x when we see meracydia...but it's probably just going to be allagan infested and design.

TL;Dr WOW zones are more interesting in design and more pretty to look at than FFXIV; FFXIV is more realism and lacks fantasy zones compared to wow, thus making it less exciting to look at compared to wows more high fantasy zones.