Personally I love the desert, I live there, grind there, farm there, and pretty muuch everything there. I love the feel, the music everything. My two favorite locations are Shakatu and Arehaza.

But Shakatu can be hard to get to thru the desert, forcing you to travel alot due to a lack of a more direct route. Considering how wealthy shakatu is, it being the only other location in the desert with a marketplace, and how much work was put into the feel and layout, the city is deserving of a more direct route to the desert. Going thru gahaz, is not only going the long way around, but it interferes with peoples rotations, and some people just KoS. The addition of a path directly to the east of shakatu, that leads into the desert, would improve traffic to the city and its use, since currently unless you are going to Gahaz, Shakatu is just really out of the way.

As for Arehaza, it is such a great place, I like to cook/farm/alchemy there, but you can barely fit a bed and a table in most houses.  They are very small, and have odd door placement. I would like to suggest the conversion of the building behind the blacksmith into a habitable house, most farms have larger houses in the rest of the areas, and arehaza is a town. Theres even a house that has more doors than it does space or windows. The addition of a slightly larger house like the conversion of the building i suggested, would make it a more appealing place to live in.

While non of these suggestions are game changing, theya re simple requests, that might improve the experience in the desert, and might even encourage more players to use these areas.

Agree, through the years I got many reports about players loving the desert but avoiding spending much time in it due to inconvenience or lack of incentives such as the ones you suggest.

I like it alot, I moved everything there entirely, but I dont leave valencia or arehaza/palm tree areas. I dont mind travelling thru the desert to the other posts, but in almost a year and a half of living there, ive been to shakatu twice, once for the elephant, once to exchange seals. Its like a continent of its own, its so out of the way, and both routes are also winding routes, so you do extra running/riding. 

Shakatus lack of a dock doesnt help much either and that harbor of hope, is misleading, youd think there would be a warf there but theres not, you have to go to the abandoned one, wich is also misleading. I was happy they added a marketplace, but its punishing to get to from the desert.

And Shakatu the goblin, king of kings, duke of dukes, master trader extraordinaire, and honorary black belt, deserves better. If anything hes super rich, all those golden seals, and what not, he can prolly bring his extended goblin famil to the desert and they could probably get it done in no time. A small wooden bridge here and there, and you got yourself a direct route to the desert.