Part II of our WotG journey will contain a guided tour through the streets of
Southern San d'Oria (S). It's the only zone of the red city which you can access in the past. 

This is where we start our tour – The Moogle Residence – The furniture inside looks really fancy, but there is not much more added value. In fact, you can't even use your storage from the present. Makes sense though

Now let's continue our walk from outside our Moogle house and try to make our way 
to the center of Southern San d'Oria (S).

The decor seems a little more detailed. Some banners and different NPCs were added.
All SHOPS are closed in the past ! So there is not really much you can do in these streets, but to listen to the fresh Sandy music and complete the two quests that are already implemented.

A nice top view on Southern San d'Oria (S) Plaza

This is where you would normally find the chocobo stables. In the past there are just a few npc soldiers who are staring at some chocobos. You can't rent these chocobos (perhaps in one of the next updates?). 

Center of South San d'oria with a closed gate in the distance which should lead
us to Northern San d'Oria (S), but is currently inaccessible.

The Auction house with a local pig. Of course the auction house isn't working in the past, but here it functions as a place where you can sign up for all sorts of mini-missions, most comparable to the assault missions in ToAU. The NPC at the tree (you can hardly see him) is the person who teleports you to the battlezones where beastmen are attacking the outposts (like Jugner, E-Ronfaure,…) and you're able to team up with the allied forces to hold them off. The fights are a mélange of Garrison and Besieged and will give you a decent chunk of EXP at the end of each battle (excellent to solo or while waiting for LFG). The more you show your face on the battlegrounds, the higher you will climb up in rank and status on the warladder as well.
A higher valued medal means for example more EXP as reward.

But more details on the actual Campaign struggle in a later update… 

Back to our tour, this is the exit to East Ronfaure (S). Certain zones like La Theine and
West Ronfaure just don't seem to exist in the past…
Curious how this will work out in the future

This is how East Ronfaure looks like as soon as you exit Southern San d'Oria (S)

And this is how the exterior of Southern San d'Oria looks like by night.

As I experience it, there is just not much content yet in the new expansion. Besides the addition of Campaign and the brushing up of certain zones in the past, it's obvious that SE still has a lot of work to do contentwise. Then again, the content of FFXI expansions were always far from complete when they got launched. It will take at least a year of SE version updates, before we can truly review what Wings of the Goddess really has to offer. 

I. Prologue:

Two months after the release of Square Enix' latest expansion Wings of the Goddess, I finally got around in writing my personal experience with the new content. A Lack of time, but most of all the actual lack of passion to go out there to explore the new zones, prohibited me from writing this post. At this moment everyone's feelings about the expansion are still very mixed, as it doesn't really bring much new content at this time yet; but then again was COP or ToAU any different when they got launched?  

II. Travelling back in Time:

The Cavernous Maw can be found at various locations in Vana'Diel, upon clicking it you'll be warped to the past.

These Cavernous Maws are located at:

• Batallia Downs (S) (H-5)
• Rolanberry Fields (S) (H-6) (Located on the border of H-6 & G-6)
• Jugner Forest (S) (H-11)
• Pashhow Marshlands (S) (K-8)
• Meriphataud Mountains (S) (K-6)
• East Ronfaure (S) (H-5)
• North Gustaberg (S) (K-7)
• West Sarutabaruta (S) (H-9)
• Sauromugue Champaign (S) (K-9 do not fall off cliff)
  • Note: You must pass through Garlaige Citadel to access this Maw. Do NOT go back in the present and leave the cliff if this is the Maw you exit in the first CS of Mission 1. Go unlock another Maw in the past such as Rolanberry Fields (S) first. Otherwise, you'll have to either Gate Breach Garlaige in the present or get tractored up the cliff (in the present) to go back into the past again.

LOL @ that last note by the way, I didn't know about this and had very hard trouble going back into the past. Thank you SE for constructing things once again in a way that they're bound to stress out people unnecessarily :/

Anyway, once you get teleported to the past, you'll find yourself in a total new world. Just take a look at the next two screenies, the first one is taken at the Cavernous Maw in the present, the second one is taken at the exact same location, but in the past. 

Basically SE has redesigned the scenerey of every existing zone by

• Adding more objects such as towers (Campain, see later)
• Different lightning and weather effects (Rolanberry Fields was never that spooky)
• The addition of new mobs and relocation of new ones (/wave at the colibris in East-Ronfaure)

The Sprite (Sidhe in Japanese) is by far the most popular new addition SE made. These beautiful creatures roam most of the new zones and will cast Cure I, II, III, IV, V and Raise III on any nearby player. Delicious !

III. Unlocking the new jobs:

Dancer: 

Scholar:
 

Both Dancer and Scholar are easily unlocked solo. There are no fights involved as you are only required to run around a little and have some talking to do with a few NPCs

IV. The Road to San D'Oria:

If you think the Road from Batallia Down (S) to San D'oria (S) is considered to be a walk in the park, you're sadly mistaken. First of all new and stronger mobs roam all the new areas which can in some cases pose a threat to a level 75. Secondly you can't just run straight to San D'Oria as there are various roadblocks implemented in the game which force you to make a massive detour in jugner through another zone called Vunkerl Inlet: 

I was happy when I finally managed to get to safety inside the Walls of San D'oria and oh my this city is a sheer beauty ! Everything looks so more epic in the past (including the new music, which isn't so *bweng bweng* anymore as the version of the present.) I am witholding deliberately some screenshots of the beautiful new San D'oria because I want to post them together with some screenshots of Campagin and the new Windurst and Bastok.