Limsa Lominsa, FFXIV’s premiere seaside destination, is often massively crowded with throngs of players. They’re talking about anything and everything, they’re showing off their glamorous, AFKing on the bridges. They’re dancing and, most often, huddled around Market Boards in character model-clipping amounts.
It’s the same on basically every server.
Despite the huge variety of beautiful capital cities we now have to explore, everyone seems to be in Limsa. I’ve logged a good few hundred hours on my main character, who swore allegiance to Limsa Lominsa’s Grand Company right at the start of his epic adventure.
I’ve seen an empty Limsa exactly once, and that was at 2AM.
Just why is Limsa so popular?
Is it the beautiful views, golden sunlight casting through distant towers in the evening, that sense of coastal comforts around every corner?
Well, that might be part of the reason. But the same could be said for the other cities.
Kugane is a visual marvel with impeccable Eastern theming, Gridania is a cozy woodland, Ul’dah is rich and imperious.
Could it be the crafting/gathering guilds it houses? All of the more “chill” crafting and gathering jobs are located in Limsa. Cooking and fishing are both located within the coastal city, further reinforcing its status as XIV’s place to be.
Again – that’s definitely part of it, but not the whole picture.
Are there any practical gameplay reasons that make Limsa Lominsa so attractive to such a large part of the player base?
We could spend hours talking about the various reasons why Limsa is always so heavily populated, but the actual answer is extraordinarily simple: Market Boards.
Quick Access To Market Boards
This is really the definitive answer. Of all the cities in the game, Limsa Lominsa offers the quickest access to a Market Board, which is where players can buy and sell items to other players.
XIV’s crafting community is massive, and they all feed into each other.
Not everybody has the time to level every Disciple of the Land/Hand, so they need to buy materials from each other.
It’s not just crafting, though.
Because it’s possible to sell a number of items on the Market Board – like mounts, minions and emotes.
Even players who don’t craft will make use of the auction system to either fill out their collections, or to make some quick gil.
Certain high demand glamour items are crafted and put up for sale. You can pick up clothing dye there, too – it’s usually the easiest way to find whatever you’re looking for.
Teleport to Limsa’s Aetheryte Plaza and the Market Board is right next to it.
Travel to another city, and you’ll have to go through the loading screen to get there, plus an extra one as you move to the zone with the board in it.
The only city that comes close to Limsa Lominsa in convenience is Kugane, the capital city from the Stormblood expansion.
But you don’t have access to Stormblood until you’ve cleared a ton of content: A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, plus their lengthy post-game patches.
As a result, a lot of players investing their time into crafting or gathering only really have access to Limsa. And by the time they’ve reached Kugane, teleporting to Limsa instead is just a habit.
This is definitely the most practical reason Limsa always seems so busy, but it’s really just the ignition point for it.
Plenty of people play XIV for the social aspect, and will naturally gravitate to the more populated areas if they’re just looking to chill and chat for a bit.
Limsa Lominsa is XIV’s social hub now.
It’s been so populated for so long that even players with no interest in the Market Board know it’s the place to go to meet other players.
Although there is another practical reason why players may gravitate to Limsa – it’s not as perennial as the Market Board situation, but it certainly plays a big part in your Realm Reborn play time.
Returning To The Waking Sands
“Pray, return to The Waking Sands”.
If you’ve engaged with any of the cutscenes in A Realm Reborn, you’ve probably heard that phrase a hundred times.
It’s something the community has heavily meme’d. At times, it feels like you’re being called back to The Waking Sands (not-so-secret headquarters of the Scions) after every mission.
It doesn’t help that traveling there can be a chore. It’s located in Western Thanalan’s Vesper Bay, and the nearest Aetheryte in that zone is Horizon – a short trek away.
Before you’ve unlocked flying, running all the way to Vesper Bay every time Minfilia needs you for something feels painful.
Although they have remedied this somewhat with the addition of Vesper Bay travel tickets (rewarded in small quantities for certain quests), you won’t have enough for every journey.
Despite Vesper Bay’s location, it’s actually a bit easier to get to it from Limsa Lominsa.
There’s a ferry on the docks that takes you straight there.
So if you want to return to The Waking Sands via Limsa, just follow these steps:
Teleport to Limsa. Use the Aetheryte network to reach the Arcanist’s Guild. The ferry is right next to it, and it’ll take you directly to The Waking Sand’s doorstep.
No more slogging from Horizon to Vesper Bay!
Players need to use this route for a huge chunk of their time in the first part of MSQ content.
It’s kind of like a midpoint where they can stop off, check in on the Market Boards, get their gear repaired, and stock up before heading onto the next step of the storyline.
Limsa is always thriving because it has simple access to important features, and a vital travel route for an otherwise irritating repeating journey.
