Old world boat routes

I have been playing a monk out of Qeynos, that beautiful city by the sea (normally I play casters). Ignoring the convenience of PoK (not always open on all servers since there is progression before that era usually) the following stands out to me:

Why aren't the major ports all connected?

I get that boats are traditionally buggy, and maybe back in the day multiple boats in a zone may have been a dev no-no, but logically you should be able to get from Qeynos to Freeport at least. Maybe all other shipping goes from Freeport... like a direct route from Freeport to Erudin...

Not that I want more boats in the game (or dev time spent making more boats, put in a few more translocators instead). Translocator gnomes are the best boats.

Maybe the Freeport to Qeynos route was not economically feasible because of cheap adventurers that wont pay.

North of Antonica was probably too cold, and in the south, the humans were probably afraid of that Loch Ness Monster. They even put it on the map! It's huge. Captain Nalot wasn't afraid though. He took on every pirate vessel he saw. Nothing was stopping him from reaching Velious.

Also, the trip across the south of Antonica didn't go so well for Colin Dain and his crew. And I don't really know... here's a reddit thread that had some discussion about this topic too.

Freeport to Qeynos going south also has to contend with Gunthak and the Buried Sea, both of which are infested with pirates and bad weather conditions in Buried. Overland is just better.

Interesting information.

Is Norrath flat?

Qeynos to Felwithe seems that navigation would be possible. Felwithe to Butcherblock completes the trade route. But High Elves didn't choose to navigate the seas...? (Can't remember if the water/dock features in Felwithe actually look ocean-linked or not).

Totally not, they were for an internal (to the continent) water feature. The map showing Felwithe on the ocean was never shown in the actual zones.

Probably not, since we've seen Norrath from the moon and there's a globe in Skyfire.

But if we had ship-to-ship combat...

We do, it's just not in the form that you jumped to the conclusion that it would be.

Love this thread. More like it please, I get smiles on my face because of it and all the fun comments and stories.

Yeah, I'm totally amazed we have an ongoing thread about the lore of boat transport in EQ!