Next visual improvement: Status icons

[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.

[Unleashhell]

Ok, here is a scenario for you.

Company has 500,000 of that country's currency to spend on improving their product. They want to keep their customers, because their product is on the decline in it's product life cycle. They know that there is one complaint that their current customers want changed. They instead spend half the money to make the box look prettier. Is that a waste of resource? Yes.

Actually no it isn't. You go shopping for food, and companies will put on the packaging "New and Improved" and they not only change the product but change the packaging. Does it work? you bet it does otherwise companies wouldn't have been doing it for a century. Its all marketing to attract customers or keep current customers buying their product.

Doing subtle changes to the game such as icons, fonts etc helps step up the game visually. I know I like all the graphical improvements to the game and I am hoping to see a lot more. I do not understand how people can say the artists are doing nothing. Do you realize when you make new armor for instance, its not just ok this is what it looks like and bam its done. You have to create that armor on each race type, and then do the full motions of that armor such as running, casting magic, swinging a weapon. All of that takes time, they aren't just sitting around doing nothing. Ask anyone who does graphic artwork that has to wrap textures around a wire frame and they will tell you how long it takes.

Keep up the nice visuals SE!!

[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.

[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

[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.]

[Midorikaze]

Probably a little off-topic but still in the visuals department. It would be great if the character selection screen was actually widescreen-friendly. It's weird seeing everything stretched horizontally so my characters all gain about 50lbs each. I know it's just the character select area but it's been a gripe of mine for quite some time - maybe animate them a little, I don't know...They look a little stiff. Just sayin'...

I am liking the new look of the status icons, a bit smoother. Making them easier to distinguish different effects (for those different status effects represented by the same icon) would be a big plus. Not to mention the higher-rez names are most welcome.

[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.