Play Online Viewer after account transfer

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Originally Posted by Rhianu

Maybe SE just has amateur programers who don't know how to create things effectively.

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Indeed! Which is why we all hated their games in the 80s and 90s and why the company went bankrupt even after their final attempt at creating a successful game series.

Sorry SE, you don't exist, you've heard it here first.


By the by: Removing PS2 support doesn't instantly make FFXI better or the possibility to become better as it's built around the PS2 and the whole reason they made FFXIV was because they didn't want to rejuvinate FFXI and decided it would have been better to create a new project (which generally it is much more wise to do so.)

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If Everquest can upgrade the game from DX8 to DX9 (and even to 9.0c) and go from crashing when fullscreen is lost, to being able to window, and can change its whole chat system to be a cross-game system, then SE can do it too.

FFXI is DX8 based, just like EQ was.
It's basically a matter of what SE thinks the future of FFXI is worth. A gradual upgrade to DX9 would allow things like:
Complex Shaders
GPU Shadows
Alt-Tab in fullscreen
DX 9 light sources!
Reflective water (part of shaders)
Cloth simulation (that would be really tough, EQ1 was able to add it though).


Anyways the point was POL Viewer sucks and this is a great time to greatly reduce mess it is.

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FFXI used to be Squares baby, it's flagship MMO. Now it's just a cash cow to be run as cheaply as possible and with as little money spent on updates/additions as they can without people rage quitting. That's just simply how it is, don't expect things like what happened with everquest and don't expect expensive additions/changes either.

FFXI is still a great game but with how Square are now viewing it I'm not sure how long that will last.

Abyssea was the last hurrah for FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Dragoy

It could well be too much work to ditch it completely, really, due to how they originally wrote it...

I'd have to say OpenGL over DirectX, though, but no one will be asking me (haha), and it really is not worth a discussion in my honest opinion because I can't imagine any major changes to the code happening, ever, and even if they would go ferit, they wouldn't ask me, or probably anyone else. \ö/


Again, just my thoughts~

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Yeah.. I'd like to see what could be done with it in OGL too...especially with the new versions of it. That is a really nice API--just look at what they've done with it in Linux. But....all hail the almighty MS-Intel alliance circa late 20th century. Guess not enough time has passed for people to take a gamble on the alternative technologies just yet.....one day.

Well OpenGL would allow them to make a Mac OSX version of FFXI if they wanted.

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Originally Posted by Eadieni

This would be a great time to, on the PC and possibly 360 and PS2, remove the play online client and replace it with a stand alone launcher similar to FFXIV. You'd just have to push an update through POL that changes the executable, and archives or deletes the existing launcher, to a simple login prompt (exactly like FFXIVs).

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Removing it completely isn't really possible because it's very entangled with FFXI functions (friend list and ingame messages, screenshots and other things). The best they could do is reduce it to a launcher. They could remove the whole POL screen and have it go from the logon screen directly to a redesigned FFXI prelauncher that includes screenshot album management and other FFXI related functions that used to be handled from the POL screen .

Also I really don't want to have to keep track of my accounts myself, I'd rather have the game keep a list of my accounts and just provide my SE ID and password + OTP to log on.

A third issue with removing POL is something that annoyed my about FFXIV. With FFXI you can stay logged into POL while changing graphics settings. With FFXIV you had to completely log out of the game to do this.

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Originally Posted by Eadieni

Well OpenGL would allow them to make a Mac OSX version of FFXI if they wanted.

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OpenGL is what they are going to have to use if they port it to the PS Vita because that's what non Windows ARM+PowerVR based mobile devices use as their 3D API.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

Not sure of the specifics on the 360--but the graphics on the PC are a seperate entity in a sense. They could add DX9 support without changing any of the core. They infact were trying to ggive it a DX update a while back, but they were exhausting more resources trying to accomplish certain things and dropped it.

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More like they were too busy with working on Crystal Tools to bother. If they made a 360 version they must have DirectX 9 code for FFXI because there is no DirectX 8 on the Xbox 360.

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Originally Posted by Eadieni

FFXI is DX8 based, just like EQ was.
It's basically a matter of what SE thinks the future of FFXI is worth. A gradual upgrade to DX9 would allow things like:
Complex Shaders
GPU Shadows
Alt-Tab in fullscreen
DX 9 light sources!
Reflective water (part of shaders)
Cloth simulation (that would be really tough, EQ1 was able to add it though).

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FFXI already has cloth simulation, they just don't use it for player models because too many characters with dynamic cloth would bring the PS2 to it's knees. Two examples are Aldo's and Cornelia's cloaks. FFXI's graphics engine can do a LOT more than you might imagine, but they have to limit what they do with it because of the PS2.

Some examples I found on youtube.

Katana with dynamic tassles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxvUwWzjGhs

Light staff with cloth ribbon attached.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xinBNaM8zpY

Flag attached to character

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKtl969JLGE

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Indeed! Which is why we all hated their games in the 80s and 90s and why the company went bankrupt even after their final attempt at creating a successful game series.

Sorry SE, you don't exist, you've heard it here first.


By the by: Removing PS2 support doesn't instantly make FFXI better or the possibility to become better as it's built around the PS2 and

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One look at Crystal Tools will tell you the whole story. They spent 5 years building an engine with a 2006 feature set and 2011 hardware requirements.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

the whole reason they made FFXIV was because they didn't want to rejuvinate FFXI and decided it would have been better to create a new project (which generally it is much more wise to do so.)

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Yes and we all saw how well that worked out for them. FFXIV was designed as a new game to replace FFXI and it is now a failed project.

If you have a game with a loyal fanbase you don't throw that game away and start over, you build on what you have that's already working. This is why EVE Online actually increases it's subscribers every year and why Blizzard decided to do Cataclysm instead of World of Warcraft 2.

POL serves as a launcher for PS2 and Xbox360 so its not going anywhere.