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Anyone else feel let down by the xpacs "gothic/gloomy" vibe?
JeffSpicoli
Member EpicPosts: 2,849
First off let me see that FFARR Is my go to MMO and without question the best themepark on the market right now. With that said i was extremely let down with the new trailer for the upcoming xpac that featured the new zones. All the zones looked so dark and gloomy , One of the things i love so much about FFARR is the immersion of fantastic colorful and vivid settings like the forest of the shroud, The ocean vibe and the desert.....
This new xpac seems to feature nothing but dark and gloomy zones , everything looked devoid of color almost black & white.Im hoping this was just 1 or 2 zones showed and some tropical and life filled zones will be present in heavensword. Also I noticed while they showed flying the little floating island seemed to be very"basic" and not full of detail like the current game which has me concerned. I really hope they are not going to sacrifice attention to detail and the beutty of the world in order to make large and wide open zones.... Im a little concerned. What say you?
Aloha Mr Hand !
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Tbh I thought that too. Then I realized the video has a ton of black saturation. Even the grass and water were black. At the end of the video, they show a quick montage of a bunch of areas that don't have that over saturation and it looks fine.
You and I both. I will be starting a brand new character Dark Knight. Hopefully, it won't be like the rogue where you can't choose it right off the bat.
I really love it. It reminds me of FF 4, 5, and 6 which is my favourite era of final fantasy. I can see how some people won't like the change in direction though.
You and I both. I replay FF4 (and the after years) and FF6 and FF tactics yearly on my PSP/Vita.
Where did the times go when people could actually enjoy something new that slightly differed from the current standards of the game without getting upset?
This is the theme of the setting (Ishgard). it does not mean that there will never ever be colorful and vibrant zones in the game again.
I strongly urge that the designers be given some artistic freedom rather than be forever constrained by their previous work. It makes for a more varied experience.
You are essentially showing why newer games tend to go for dark and gloomy settings with non-vibrant colors. Because the customers don't want to see change to the norm. FFXIV team has already proven that they are not limited by the artistic standards of today. Why can't we allow them to express their artistic freedom and let them offer the kind of product they want us to experience? I know there is a negative perception towards brown colors and non-vibrant settings among some gamers, but that's what Ishgard is all about.
I hope you can enjoy the change of pace rather than be put off by it. Because soon the theme will change to fit the next setting, whatever that may be. With SE's track record I highly doubt it will be that dark and gloomy.
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I seen the same thing so no the world will not be gloomy and what not. It was just a crappy video at PAX, so I wouldnt take that video as anything other than a hardware issue.
Something I always liked about FF14 was the devs decision to keep their game with a more muted realistic palate, almost a low fantasy look. Too many fantasy games use a super saturated palate and it gets really boring sometimes because the real world looks nothing like that.
The new zones look gorgeous. But tbh I'm more excited that the zones are proper mmo size. Once ps3 support is fully dropped, I hope they go back to the vanilla zones and open them up.
ARR zone size has nothing to do with PS3, how many times must this be repeated until people finally get it?
Sorry could you provide link from yoshida that says otherwise? Because from my perspective, 512mb of ram is the culprit. But I could be wrong. I do know in a recent interview he said he wanted to eventually go back and make the zones bigger bit he hasn't said why they are small.
Square Enix has been doing this for years and i am sure on purpose.You really SHOULD have a contrast like that in games ,it is that good versus Evil feeling and that is what every story in every game is always about.
I remember when Aion came out,it was nothing but pink and purple trees and shrubs,i thought oh cute ,but looks fake.
No matter the mood feeling of a zone,Square has been famous for installing a sort of LOVE theme in all their games.So i guess in a way the gloom helps highten the love or success feeling of over coming the gloom.
It really is no different than entering an instance to fight some giant UGLY mean looking boss,then the joy after defeating the horrid boss.
Square Enix has always followed mythology and Gods at war and the strife between gods and the people.The love themes comes from conquering evil and bringing joy back to the game's npc's and real players.
If you ever followed the COP missions for example ,it was a lot of death along the way and in the end you overcome death and say farewell to your friends forever,the love and sorrow theme again.
FFX ..The whole game was about Yuna going to sacrifice her life to save the people,the world,in the end it is all a Love theme again,the triumphant victories.
What makes for the best movies??The heros against all odds,everything looks like doom and gloom,then the triumphant victory and everyone is happy.
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I believe they said you need a high level character to be able to unlock Dark Knight, as the class itself starts at level 30 or so (just my guess). Yoshi-P said that he didn't want people to have to start over at level one with the Advanced Jobs (wants to skip the grind of lower levels), and there is a distinct lack of base class for Dark Knight to fill the 1-30 gap.
To the title of this thread, it's a nice change for me. Everything was too colorful in the base game. Though it still has a lot of color when you're flying around, from what I saw. They did say that this expansion was supposed to be really dark.
The original assumption came out of thin air in the first place, Yoshida has never even hinted that the PS3 is the culprit in regards to the zone size. Meanwhile a) Heavensward on the PS3 will have huge zones, b) the original FFXIV made with the PS3 in mind had huge zones, c) even FFXI for the PS2 with like 52mb of RAM had huge zones, lastly d) games such as Skyrim with even bigger areas exist on the PS3.
You yourself said that the HW zones are proper MMO size. Meanwhile the PS3 support has gone nowhere and somehow it all works out.... We can certainly make some deductions here.
ARR zone size is a design decision, nothing more. The original was widely criticized for having too many recycled assets and empty space. Thus they decided to go for the opposite extreme in ARR. Now they have finally found the balance. More importantly, in all of these design decisions the PS3 has been involved all the same.
As far as zone size goes, the limitations aren't as much as you might think. As an mmo, a lot of the details are server side. Due to this, the game can be set up to only show with a limited view distance. View distance done right can do wonders in saving as far as GPU power goes. People don't realize how good coding and design can allow systems to function smoothly.
The zone size itself might of been done originally in FF14 smaller as a way of controlling and mitigating any issues consoles might have. The larger zone sizes just might show they feel more comfortable with it running on console without feeling as if it might cause issues. It is hard to say really.
Surely, I'm not saying the possibility isn't there. I simply think it makes little sense in the context. The 1.0 zones were ridiculous in size, but the few interesting sights that existed were so dispersed and so many assets were recycled the experience was a complete opposite of ARR. In that sense I highly doubt the contrast in areas is unintentional at all. I'm not sure if it was completely necessary to make ARR zones the opposite extreme of 1.0 but I do suspect the players would've been very sensitive towards the way the ARR areas are built, much more than in any other MMO.
Either way now the same kind of baggage no longer exists (hopefully) so SE can keep making larger zones in 4.0 and beyond. But never like in 1.0 ever again, that much is certain.