UI updates and Graphics adjustments-

[Eri]

In all seriousness, I don't think this is anything to do with graphics card/computer strength.

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view (where there are buildings, forests and other obstacles in real life) there has to be a limit to the view to give the effect of expansion.

Stand on a hill overlooking valleys, your view is rarely infinite due to dust, clouds, fog, mist, etc.

Plus,if you absolutely must see the entire zone taking away the feeling of exploration and expansion (inb4 "I've seen every zone and know where it leads"), there are two examples by consumers of third-party programs proving just how easy it is to do on a PC.

My 'Clipping Limit' in RL ain't as bad as FFXI is. Pc and Xbox can handle it so ye i'd like it :P Don't care about Ps2 ...... buy a PC or an Xbox seriously >_>

[Yrusama]

My 'Clipping Limit' in RL ain't as bad as FFXI is. Pc and Xbox can handle it so ye i'd like it :P Don't care about Ps2 ...... buy a PC or an Xbox seriously >_>

My uncle once drove my cousins and I several miles into a desert after taking a wrong turn. We were on a straight road most of the time, driving towards some distant mountains. The mountains were so far that they never seemed to get closer (grow larger in my vision), even after 10-20 minutes. They were much farther than Castle Oztroja (shown in Hercule's pic). If SE tries to claim the "distance of visibility is accurate", they've clearly never been in a flat region bigger than a couple of kilometers.

[wish12oz]

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view

I could almost agree with this, if the game wasn't as old as it is, some things, like the spine in meriph, are just weird looking and it totally ruins the feel of the game for me. In dynamis, or like Caedarva, I don't mind the current distance since they're obviously intended to be like that. But for vast brightly lite areas I just can't agree.

[Dart]

I could almost agree with this, if the game wasn't as old as it is, some things, like the spine in meriph, are just weird looking and it totally ruins the feel of the game for me. In dynamis, or like Caedarva, I don't mind the current distance since they're obviously intended to be like that. But for vast brightly lite areas I just can't agree.

quiet you dirty cheater!

[Divinius]

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view (where there are buildings, forests and other obstacles in real life) there has to be a limit to the view to give the effect of expansion.

This is a bit of a ridiculous statement. As others have said, unless you are in a smoke-filled room, your view distance is far better in reality than it is in FFXI.

Besides, a view-distance "fog" and a "clipping plane" are two different things. Personally, I hate both, but at least the former is more realistic-looking than the latter (and the former is usually used to hide the latter). In places like Meriphataud, the clipping plane just makes the landscape look stupid, as in the above pictures.

And for the people commenting on the 3rd-party tools that may or may not have been used to generate the "improved" images, all this does is act as another prime example of why so many people use said 3rd-party tools to enhance their game experience. Here's something that a 3rd-party tool allows you to do that doesn't affect "fairness" in any way, and should not require a 3rd-party tool to do. Stuff like this is exactly the type of thing that should be high on SE's list of graphics enhancements needed to bring the game closer to the standards of the current decade.

[Dazusu]

I don't care about PS2 in the slightest - or Xbox. I play on PC.

[Kaisha]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.

[wish12oz]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.

If they let you render more of the background those caves and stuff won't need fixed!

[Yrusama]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.

You know, it's funny. I never had this problem a long time ago, but lately it's a glaring eyesore when I visit Valkurm. Why do those render and not the mountains?

XIV 1.0 had a related graphical issue. The Stealth ability gives the player partial transparency (like Invis in XI), but for some PCs the game couldn't handle opacity less than 100% on some features so they just didn't render. This resulted in images where the character's lips would not appear, exposing the gums and teeth and giving people nightmares. Other instances involved characters whose eyes were missing, and in my case a facial scar turned into a gaping crevasse on my face, revealing my head's hollowness (lol). I don't think this will be a problem in ARR, though.

[Dazusu]

All games have a render limit. Even the most recent ones (granted further than FFXI - but their 'areas' are either infinite, or a lot larger than FFXI). If you can see an entire zone from one position - it takes out the sense of exploration/space.

That's the problem. FFXI's zones are tiny in comparison, seeing the entire zone does nothing for the game experience.

Just my opinion, they could always expand the render, doesn't mean people have to use it. I'd be one that doesn't.