Next visual improvement: Status icons

[Alhanelem]

It's entirely your opinion what's "more productive."

To me, a total overhaul of the visual experience would be extremely productive. But since the people who work on stuff other than the visuals would still be there, it doesn't have to come totally at the expense of technical immprovements.

They can have their cake and eat it too, they just need to be willing to invest a little more in their baby.

[Korpg]

That's fine by me. Gives those "artists" something to do with their time.

Think they are going to do it?

[Eric]

I don't know why people haven't pointed out how arrogant it makes you look to assume that you know the inner workings of the FFXI staff.

You make it seem like they would need one artist specifically just to update the status icons. Your signature obviously points out that you have no taste. Aesthetics are important for some people, stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us.

[Korpg]

I don't know why people haven't pointed out how arrogant it makes you look to assume that you know the inner workings of the FFXI staff.

You make it seem like they would need one artist specifically just to update the status icons. Your signature obviously points out that you have no taste. Aesthetics are important for some people, stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us.

How many people do you think it takes to group of icons in a month? Seriously, how many?

How many people would it take to draw a few pictures of 100 icons in a month?

Seriously, I show an opinion and you guys think its gospel. That you think that it will become what I say because I'm showing everyone my opinion with basis behind it.

Few of you guys actually convinced me that people really want the makeup and junk, but I still don't think that the amount of money Square Enix puts for art per month is worth what they are getting back. Nobody here has proven that the artwork made in the last 3 months is worth the money invested.

That is my point. You can have all the pretty flowers in the world, but if they don't work for what is intended, what is the point in having them and spending the money for them?

[Eric]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.] You're implying that SE hires one artist specifically to work on the status icons, or that they will have to hire one just to update them. Why can't SE use one of the artists that already does work for the game and ask him to make icons?

I'm pretty sure that they're keeping at least one artist around. It's pretty common sense that a game for which new content is being developed would need artists. Asking one of them to update the icons wouldn't cost any money. At most it would cost a few hours of their time. If the artists for FFXI aren't doing anything impressive, as you say, then why not make them do some work to justify hiring them? New job abilities are coming with the cap increase, so are new weapon skills(I would presume). [Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.] They're smarter than that.

[Korpg]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.] You're implying that SE hires one artist specifically to work on the status icons, or that they will have to hire one just to update them. Why can't SE use one of the artists that already does work for the game and ask him to make icons?

I'm pretty sure that they're keeping at least one artist around. It's pretty common sense that a game for which new content is being developed would need artists. Asking one of them to update the icons wouldn't cost any money. At most it would cost a few hours of their time. If the artists for FFXI aren't doing anything impressive, as you say, then why not make them do some work to justify hiring them? New job abilities are coming with the cap increase, so are new weapon skills(I would presume).

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

They're smarter than that.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

I did not imply that SE should hire artists, I'm saying that the artists they currently have have not done much for this game in recent months, and I was questioning Square Enix's decision in keeping such artists on the payroll instead of spending the money on something else that needs to be done.

We all know that there is at least one "artist" on board. Have they contributed much in the past year? Yes, they gave us nice looking weaponskills up until December, but it is now July and we don't have anything new to see except shiny weapons, Aztec armor, and better lettering (which they probably did not do anything). Is that really 6 and a half months worth of work there? 5 and a half if you want to take away the month lost during the earthquake in Japan.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

[AyinDygra]

Just thought I'd throw this in here...
A 3 part interview with the effects team, Translated over at JPbutton.
(the effects team handles the icons too, as stated in part one of the interview)

The most interesting quotes, related to this discussion:

Hatae: For anything that is displayed in the game in Japanese, we also have to make it in the 3 other languages. Requests for new status icons are also often made to the Effects Team for some reason. (laughs) Things relating to the User Interface and menus are handled by Producer Tanaka though. The status icons made by the Effects Team are the ones you see at the top of your screen.

–How many people are on the Effects Team?

Hatae: Right now it’s the 3 of us.

–Can you tell us in detail what the 3 of you are each in charge of?

Hatae: The battle effects aren’t really handled by any one person. For backgrounds, we decide who will be in charge of each area and that person is responsible for all the effects needed there. We only use one effect designer per area so that the scenery has a uniform look to it.

Tsutsui: Lately, the three of us have been diving the work between us.

–For a game of this scale, I was expecting there would be more people.

Hatae: It’s been the three of us since around the latter part of production for WotG.

–Was the team larger before?

Hatae: No…. It’s always been around 3 to 4 members with people changing positions.

–You mentioned before that you make the status icons. Now there are a lot of different ones but in the past there weren’t very many. For example, the icon for Utsusemi was just the regular enhancing magic icon. Why did it change?

Tashiro: That was a request from one of the planners.

Tsutsui: We don’t really put forth the idea to change things. It’s mostly us meeting the requests of the planners when they have them.

Hatae: They get changed if there is an opportunity for it.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

[Alhanelem]

It's an aspect ratio issue @ above. For some reason the aspect ratio setting (and a lot of other settings) are character specific and don't get used until you log in.

[Midorikaze]

I can see how that would mess things up...lol

[OMEGA_HACK]

/shameless bump

Also, would like to agree, that with updates the status icons we get a plethora of updated (new looking) status icons. I was actually doing the Early Bird Catches the Worm KSNM99 just now and I saw I had 6 of those weird gray shield with a red line through it buff icons...A little more variety doesn't hurt.