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the best features of this game is............
Furor
Member Posts: 374
the graphics
copy paste terrains in an mmo (lol)
i wonder if they fired their environmental artist yet?
Comments
Copy paste was a necessity.
The game couldn't run on the PS3 otherwise.
It's not a big deal. I would agree with you about developers being lazy if this was a PC only game.
I've seen some cool areas though, some nice style on certain caverns... overall like you said its a pretty game.
I hope to experience the feeling in this game that I got sometimes from exploring certain areas in FFXI.
Was in a dungeon yesterday and I hadnt actually bothered to look up but when I did I noticed a few windows on the side of a rock hanging downwards that had light coming out from them, thought that was cool and wondered what the reason was for them being there. Maybe kobolds or something :O
Anyway, seems like you didnt find anything enjoyable about the game other then the visuals and thats too bad and I agree I'm hoping for more along the road but right now its fun enough for me to hop in and do some leves now and then and sometimes grind with some japanese people ^_^
ffxi ran just fine on ps2 and it didn't seem so copy/pasted.
If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman there to hear him...is he still lying?
FFXI was graphically far inferior to the requirements of FFXIV. The gap between pc and PS2 8 years ago was far closer than the gap between PS3 and current PCs.
If you want an MMO with cutting edge graphcis on the PC AND on the PS3, these are the compromises you have to make. Whether or not the game SHOULD be on the PS3 is another issue. I for one am very happy that there is an mmo in the console market. I enjoy laying on my couch and playing an mmo using a controller.
YEs, I can probably set up my computer to show on my hdtv but for far more cost, expense and time. It's not very practical either.
The copy/paste terrain is a lame excuse to bash the developers. There's a lot of valid reasons to do that, the terrain isn't one of them.
Guess why?
When your zones consist of few textures here and there and otherwise flatness, yeah, I'm sure it doesn't feel copy/pasted.
Most of the zone is probably built on 3 different tree and 4 different rock models. They're just so far apart and the map is so inaccurate you will never notice it.
you mean the time and expense of buying an hdmi cable? that's hardly a huge expense or takes alotta time. I have a 24" 1080p hd monitor on my pc, and use an hdmi cable....so that's sort of moot...and my laptop is hooked to my 46" hd tv with a different hdmi cable for watching hulu, youtube and netflix....what's the big deal?
The pasted terrain is because of ps3?...really? You can't just toss that out there without some facts....pfft.
If a man speaks in the woods and there's no woman there to hear him...is he still lying?
It's because of how the zones work. The game isn't completely zoned, so they load more textures at once than some games with more zones. High-res textures eat a lot of memory however. The same texture applied more than once eats a fraction of that of a unique texture.
The shittier your game looks, the more seamless you can make it and add more unique objects as well. The alternatives is more zones (like say, AoC) or less unique objects.
Although usually developers learn to use their game engines better as time goes on. You could see from the new AoC expansion that there are much larger zones overall than in the vanilla.
Humans, elves, small race, large race, humanoid race? Sounds like your basic fantasy races to me.
I was watching one of the making of videos and they were talking about using the same textures to create different effects. Sort of like they had a base armor and then by modifying this and that you'd get a new look without having to use new textures.
The design team that worked on the armor could have just as easily worked on the terrain and made it more unique without increasing the amount of textures and memory required.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
My computer is in my home office. With file cabinets, a desk, etc. For me to play using the TV, I would have to move my whole computer setup to my living room, or BUY A TELEVISION and mount it on a wall in my office... where there is NO COUCH.
Yes, hooking up my computer to a TV costs more time, effort and money than buying the game for 59.99 for a PS3 I already own.
Gosh I love my gaming laptop.
I can play anywhere I want with a controller and hdmi it up to my 50' plasma. Great investment.
Current MMO: WoW/GW2
I'm sure they could have done similar adjustments to the terrains as well, but the video had nothing to do with how they use memory. That problem would still persist.
Much smaller areas. Much lower resolution textures. Much fewer polygons. Much less detail overall. Much less resources required to load into memory.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It's actually already been explained by SE that that's the case, as it was with FFXI on PS2.
Console resources are finite. You can't simply pop open your PS3 and increase your RAM, nor can you install a faster CPU or GPU. It's set at a hard limit that SE - as well as all game developers - have to work within.
If they didn't have to worry about the game being playable on a console, they could certainly do a lot more with it. As it stands, they do.
Now, it can be argued whether they chose the most efficient approach to working with it. I'm inclined to think they could have done it better... but then I'm not a game developer nor do I know the intricacies of coding a game engine that has to work on PC and on console. So my opinion is purely speculative.
As time goes on, SE fine tunes their engine, learns ways to maximize what the PS3 can do and figures out tricks to get around its limitations, we'll see an improvement overall. Just like we did over time in XI. The latter areas of XI look amazing compared to the older areas. As do special effects, etc. Same engine, same platform (PS2) same limitations.. SE's programmers and designers simply learned to get more out of the hardware.
Actually you'll notice that tends to be the trend with consoles overall. Each generation of games on a console to come out tends to look better than the one before.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Other MMO's too. AoC zones were rather small at first, in the first expansion they are larger for no apparent loss in quality. They simply learned to use their hardware better.
Yeah, there's definitely copy-pasted terrain in XI. There's a lot of instances of it.... though they're typically much more subtle than anything in XIV.
As you point out in the Sarutabaruta shot (my old stomping grounds! -tear-), there are a number of rock formations, cliff formations and such that were reused across both zones of that region. Those same formations are also used in other zones... merely re-skinned.
It seems the effect is masked somewhat thanks to another restriction of the PS2... rendering power. PS2 couldn't render *nearly* as many polys (and all that goes with it to render a full scene) as the PS3 or other modern hardware can. So they had to keep things very basic in wide open areas, and otherwise keep much blocked from view in "tigher" areas.
However.. I think they made better use of the PS2's hardware overall for FFXI in terms of environment. I don't know how large the land chunks (tiles, if you will) are in FFXI. I can tell they're huge in XIV. I have to wonder if they'd broken the zone down into smaller chunks (tiles) and allowed for more variety between them... how that would have turned out. Let's say for every one massive land tile they have now, they could have gotten 2 - 4 smaller ones, but allowing for more variety between them.
But, again... I'm not a developer, I don't know the restrictions of working with hardware like that and I'm *certainly* not a programmer. So I'm just wondering out loud more than anything.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I'm not sure I like the trend towards making games accessible to several platforms. We, the "general MMO community" who use computers just want something different than PS3 players. We have other resources and wants. Most PS3 users want action, fun and not having to buy extra stuff to play one game (also, a subscription fee? My friend who planned to buy FF14 on PS3 asked me that with surprise). I think MMOs are best played on computer only. Otherwise, developer constantly have to try and please two different audiences, which can end in neither of them being happy. The graphics (copy paste terrains) and the UI are just two examples. Just my 2 cents.
I think most PS3 users have gotten used to that through DLC's and the like already.
PS3 and 360 users are exactly why developers now get away with stuff like charging for DLC on day 1 of release, or charging for DLC already on the disk (Resident Evil 5's multiplayer), so I don't see where you're getting this from. You should ask your friend if he bought into the Modern Warfare 2 $15 map pack that introduced essentially nothing new to the game.
With "fun, action" I meant instant gratification instead of (what a MMO introduces) character development.
And with extra stuff to buy, I meant cables, more RAM/PS3 updates. Sorry if that wasn't very understandable ^^. And I don't know if my friend played DLC , but he was really surprised when I told him there was a monthly subscription.
Isn't that what this one PC MMO called World of Warcraft is all about?
FF14 has the best graphics by far over any mmorpg out even more than the ones that may come in 2011.
Now that the game is getting cleaned here comes the SE content bombs with all the cool graphics!!!
Yes, there are re-used terrain features. Do i care? Not really. If i look at a scenery i do not notice it at all. They cleverly mask it by rotating or scaling it.
Sure if you are anal and walk around looking for these 'faults' you will find them. Then again, you could do that in ANY other game and come up with just as much re-use of graphical elements.
The scenery, scale and the almost eerie realism is what makes this game unique amongst all MMOs.
The Monsters are extremely detailed and textured also. Animations are almost uneccessary detailed. Take some time and watch a mob doing his idle animation or following you.
Just stop and smell the flowers now and then. Take a deep breath and enjoy the whole scene, not obsess about that rock over there.
For those of you complaining about the cut/paste terrain.... take some time to look at some of the other stuff that's in the game, that is far from lazy.
For example, yesterday, I noticed for the first time.... the seaguls as you take the boat ride from LL to Uldah. Also notice how your feet cut the blades of grass as you run in the La Noscea area.
If you go very close to the nannygoats, you can see the strands of hair. Look at the breathing and eye patterns of the DoDos. There's so much that went into the game in terms of animations and details of the mobs.
People are just so narrow minded about stuff that doesn't necessarily matter one way or another, and most times, its designed out of necessity.
The funny thing about the graphics in FF XIV is that even if the game is the most graphically intensive MMO on the market right now, it doesn't mean a thing when the average MMO player's computer can barely run the damn thing. It's not even like they did anything special with the graphics of the game. No amazing scenery or character models (like Crysis); just the same boring, high-res, rock formation that you can't climb or jump off.
Even graphically inferior games like Rift & GW2 seem to do more with their graphics engine, which is just shocking.