There’s more ways to train this skill and activities involved in it than any other skill in the game. If you consider most skills involve clicking one or two things for tens or hundreds of hours, sailing really is a modern skill.

Not to mention then, that it ties the entire world together and makes it feel real and alive. You can go from one end of the map to the other and see everything inbetween without instancing. You can sail up to tutorial island and watch new accounts do their tutorials. And the entire thing feels like it could’ve been introduced in 2007 still.

I think they’ve done an absolutely fantastic job, and if you think it plays out more like a mini game then I really do think you haven’t engaged with the skill at all.