Is most of FFXIV's failings due to their choice of engine?

I am kind of surprised at the amount of hype over Korean MMOs in this thread, and it makes me a little sad. Korean MMOs grab your attention with amazing graphics and excessive animations, this is nothing new. Korean MMOs -always- have terrible gameplay, overly generic stories, non existant customer service, and beyond terrible programming. I'm not trying to defend FFXIV here but... using Korean games as examples of "doing it right" is kind of a stretch. >.>

^ generalizing/stereotyping.

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

A korean grinding game don't run on a fuming pile of crap tecnology like ps3. Thread over.

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wtf are u talking about this game isnt on ps3 yet, ppl with 2 grand rigs have problems with the engine
Also Blade & Soul looks amazing as well as fun i cant wait till its released in the us

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Originally Posted by Ava

I am kind of surprised at the amount of hype over Korean MMOs in this thread, and it makes me a little sad. Korean MMOs grab your attention with amazing graphics and excessive animations, this is nothing new. Korean MMOs -always- have terrible gameplay, overly generic stories, non existant customer service, and beyond terrible programming. I'm not trying to defend FFXIV here but... using Korean games as examples of "doing it right" is kind of a stretch. >.>

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This concept is actually pretty applicable to anything that becomes popular (i.e. much money can be made from)... it's an unfortunate reality to deal with coming from an artistic perspective XD

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Originally Posted by Ava

I am kind of surprised at the amount of hype over Korean MMOs in this thread, and it makes me a little sad. Korean MMOs grab your attention with amazing graphics and excessive animations, this is nothing new. Korean MMOs -always- have terrible gameplay, overly generic stories, non existant customer service, and beyond terrible programming. I'm not trying to defend FFXIV here but... using Korean games as examples of "doing it right" is kind of a stretch. >.>

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I think what they are getting at, is how do low budget companies, with very little achieve so much visually, and this game doesnt seem to (with regards to environmental over all design) the op think it maybe the limitations of the engine, I personally think it is just poor design, reusing assets isnt the problem, its how they reused it. Gridania has overhangs and top and bottom levels, with clearings and streams here and there, these are fine, but instead of designing an area with all these tools, they designed one repeating pattern of these building blocks and used them over and over. Instead of using the building blocks to make the area, over all, interesting.

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Originally Posted by Physic

I think what they are getting at, is how do low budget companies, with very little achieve so much visually, and this game doesnt seem to (with regards to environmental over all design) the op think it maybe the limitations of the engine, I personally think it is just poor design, reusing assets isnt the problem, its how they reused it. Gridania has overhangs and top and bottom levels, with clearings and streams here and there, these are fine, but instead of designing an area with all these tools, they designed one repeating pattern of these building blocks and used them over and over. Instead of using the building blocks to make the area, over all, interesting.

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It's because there's a difference between taking an engine, making a level (or world in this case) with already created units and creating your own engine (or heavily modifying one) to make a unique experience. Ever wonder why so many Korean MMOs look the same? A lot of it is because they probably only make minimum modifications to their engines. Western MMORPG developers heavily modify their engines to make a unique experience for their games because their programmers are capable of such a thing. But I mean, even I could go download an engine and make a game world that looks beautiful by myself.

I don't think everyone posting in this thread fully understands what an engine actually is. It's not hard to make something pretty. It is hard; however, to make something unique, pretty, and well programmed.

e: Anyone interested, here's UDK: Unreal Development Kit (Unreal Engine 3) http://www.udk.com/ You can try it for free.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

Then why can't you do the same? The only reason why you're still here is because you're upset that Yoshi-P is turning this game into something you don't want.

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him and quite a few others. i don't like the direction this game seems to be going, but i am holding off bashing the direction until i see the direction it is actually going not where it seems to be going. looks can be deceiving so i will wait until i see more of a full landscape of the final direction.

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Originally Posted by Ava

It's because there's a difference between taking an engine, making a level (or world in this case) with already created units and creating your own engine (or heavily modifying one) to make a unique experience. Ever wonder why so many Korean MMOs look the same? A lot of it is because they probably only make minimum modifications to their engines. Western MMORPG developers heavily modify their engines to make a unique experience for their games because their programmers are capable of such a thing. But I mean, even I could go download an engine and make a game world that looks beautiful by myself.

I don't think everyone posting in this thread fully understands what an engine actually is. It's not hard to make something pretty. It is hard; however, to make something unique, pretty, and well programmed.

e: Anyone interested, here's UDK: Unreal Development Kit (Unreal Engine 3) http://www.udk.com/ You can try it for free.

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which is why i say regardless which path you choose engine wise, you still need to design good environments. a tree or stream in ffxi may look lovely, but when you see the same pattern of tree stream tree stream tree stream, you are failing as a designer

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Originally Posted by Physic

which is why i say regardless which path you choose engine wise, you still need to design good environments. a tree or stream in ffxi may look lovely, but when you see the same pattern of tree stream tree stream tree stream, you are failing as a designer

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Agreed, I was mostly responding to your opening sentence about budget. Doesn't cost a lot to hire someone to make something with an engine. It does cost a lot to hire someone to modify it and create new assets, though.

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Originally Posted by Seif

Look at it closely. Every scene is sharp only in a very limited area of view. Everyhting else is blurry the foreground and even more so in the background. The bloom makes every bright surface look blurry no matter where they are in relation to the camera.

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Errr... that's called DoF... Well you know? If you are too stupid to understand that DoF and bloom are just effects that can be turned on or off, I guess I shouldn't waste my keyboard on you anymore.