In-Game Configuration Tool

I love how everything looks, but yea. It seems they have buried themselves into problems by choosing an overcomplicated engine that truly shines in a different aspect.

From a developers point of view I can say that in certain cases, adding additional options inside of the game sometimes also add another level of abstraction away from the game. In some cases it can make the configuration more confusing but it is not uncommon for the reason to be flawed interaction design and development planning (which, to some extent, i believe is the case in with FFXIV).

Adding things like texturemap quality and texturemap filter to menus inside the game bring with it the need to restart the client executable due to these options fundamental construction. In the case of texture quality and filters there is a need to pre-process/calculate lot's of data prior to showing it on the screen. This is only one of the reasons that putting these kinds of options inside the game may confuse less tech-savvy users and make their game experience less enjoyable.

However, my opinion is that far from all of the settings that are placed in the external configuration tool have a clear motive to their placement. Also, it seems that SE developers often tend to take the "easy way out" when faced with critical software design challenges.

And in closing, obviously ANY setting COULD be implemented inside the game... it's all just a matter of usability, interaction design and budget decisions. ;)

/Gasher

Wow no objections so far... sorta.

There might be hope for this community after all.

I have agreed with this for a long time. Though this is kind of a common thing in some cross platform games.

I agree. Plus add some of the features that FFXI had if possible with what can be toggled on/off, increased/decreased. Turning off weather effects would be awesome, since that tends to kill cpu/gpu cycles

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gasher

From a developers point of view I can say that in certain cases, adding additional options inside of the game sometimes also add another level of abstraction away from the game. In some cases it can make the configuration more confusing but it is not uncommon for the reason to be flawed interaction design and development planning (which, to some extent, i believe is the case in with FFXIV).

Adding things like texturemap quality and texturemap filter to menus inside the game bring with it the need to restart the client executable due to these options fundamental construction. In the case of texture quality and filters there is a need to pre-process/calculate lot's of data prior to showing it on the screen. This is only one of the reasons that putting these kinds of options inside the game may confuse less tech-savvy users and make their game experience less enjoyable.

However, my opinion is that far from all of the settings that are placed in the external configuration tool have a clear motive to their placement. Also, it seems that SE developers often tend to take the "easy way out" when faced with critical software design challenges.

And in closing, obviously ANY setting COULD be implemented inside the game... it's all just a matter of usability, interaction design and budget decisions. ;)

/Gasher

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my counter argument is that practically every PC game does what you just said.
The sims for instance, many people who know nothing about MMOs, computers, techy stuff in general vegg out on the sims, well the sims tells you that if you changer certain settings the client will restart for you....... so i dont think "This is only one of the reasons that putting these kinds of options inside the game may confuse less tech-savvy users and make their game experience less enjoyable." is actually very accurate since so many house wives and such do it in games like the Sims all the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dreadnought

my counter argument is that practically every PC game does what you just said.
The sims for instance, many people who know nothing about MMOs, computers, techy stuff in general vegg out on the sims, well the sims tells you that if you changer certain settings the client will restart for you....... so i dont think "This is only one of the reasons that putting these kinds of options inside the game may confuse less tech-savvy users and make their game experience less enjoyable." is actually very accurate since so many house wives and such do it in games like the Sims all the time.

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Indeed. And because of that very fact, I made sure to start off by saying:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gasher

...but it is not uncommon for the reason to be flawed interaction design and development planning (which, to some extent, i believe is the case with FFXIV)

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I totally agree that an external configuration tool is all too much 2001 and not 2011.

Yeah this is 100% needed. It's annoying to have to log out and in over and over to get a perfect set up going. Most people could probably have the game tweaked a bit better and running a bit nicer but most don't bother because you have to log out and in over and over again to see what you did. Not to mention not seeing the changes happen on the fly makes it somewhat difficult to see how much a difference things are making.

We definitely need this. Also I would like to have a usable Maximize button. I just want to play windowed and have it fit like any other window! D:

What's sad is that I had a friend who didn't even know where the graphics settings were.

Friend: "I wish I could change my anti-aliasing settings."
Me: "You can. It's in the external configuration."
Friend: "External configuration?"

And he had started in closed beta with me.

I have to wonder how many other people don't even know about or bother with the external config. It's a really outdated setup and needs to be integrated into the in-game configuration. You shouldn't have to look in two different places.