"lock/unlock" after equipment change

[Alhanelem]

It's not developer laziness, it's ps2 limitations

[Arcon]

It's not developer laziness, it's ps2 limitations

Not sure if you're being serious, but no.

[Alhanelem]

Not sure if you're being serious, but no.

Not entirely, but yes. Everything in the client code, whether you're on PS2 or not, was written FOR the ps2. the xbox is a butchered port of the PC version which is a butchered port of the ps2 version. Only in the last couple of patches have they addressed even the slightest sort of issues specifically for the PC client other than crashes.

We may see "PS2 limitations" used as a cop out, but it's not like there is no truth to it being the cause of many of our gripes.

[Arcon]

Not entirely, but yes. Everything in the client code, whether you're on PS2 or not, was written FOR the ps2. the xbox is a butchered port of the PC version which is a butchered port of the ps2 version. Only in the last couple of patches have they addressed even the slightest sort of issues specifically for the PC client other than crashes.

We may see "PS2 limitations" used as a cop out, but it's not like there is no truth to it being the cause of many of our gripes.

Then maybe your wording is just off. "PS2 issues" might apply, but not "PS2 limitations", because those issues (for the most part) aren't limited by hardware, just by design.

[Alhanelem]

Then maybe your wording is just off. "PS2 issues" might apply, but not "PS2 limitations", because those issues (for the most part) aren't limited by hardware, just by design.

The PS2's lack of RAM and hard disk space is a very real issue. There are creative work arounds (e.g. storing items in your character data by the use of NPCs so it doesn't need to be in memory when you're not using that stuff, or by splitting off seperate inventories that don't all have to be simultaneously in memory). It's not JUST hardware limitations, you're right. but there are limitations to the ps2 that will hold the game back (or at least require more complex solutions to issues) for as long as it's a supported platform.

[noodles355]

I wouldn't say delevoper laziness or ps2 limitations. I would say poor coding. Most people are starting to think that the FFXI code must be really messy with lots of poor work-arounds which makes changing certain fundamental things that have been there from the start almost impossible without breaking 10 things in the process, and then breaking another 50 things whilst fixing those 10 things.
The amount of time it would take to fix it probably wouldn't be that great, but the amount of time to find it, and then subsequently fix everything that you broke in the process would probably take years.

[Kaisha]

I think you all underestimate that FFXI is a whole MMO that's running on an extremely paltry 32mb ram.

Any 'fixes' to existing code may require more of a memory footprint than what's currently available or what was previously used. Honestly we will probably never know since devs typically refrain from speaking about their programming, or say what's actually viable.

The game still has memory leaks, and they can't even fix those.
(Made more noticable by Abyssea, which is why it takes forever to zone out at times when you've been in there more than a couple hours. From what I'm seeing the game flushes everything from memory when you zone to hide problems like that, which is why your inventory/model/etc always have to reload)

[Arcon]

I was talking about the issue at hand, which is losing the lock on equipment change. I know PS2 is holding the game back in several aspects, but this is just a matter of bad design. Keeping the target locked (hell, even automatically relocking after the change) wouldn't require any additional memory at all.