Plus, it may make it harder to handle on the PS3 if they add overhead to the engine runtime. At this time, other matters take precedence such as the combat, ui, content, and network latency (imo).
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Except those aren't the issues you touched on in your OP. Those are actually also all more important than the graphics. Come to think of it, graphics are honestly pretty much at the bottom of the priority list. The game looks gorgeous already without everything having shadows. Maybe I'm just biased because I can enjoy graphics from any style or gaming generation and take them for what they are. To me, FFXIV is more than pretty enough in the graphics department.
Ironically enough, the event-decorations cast shadows lol.
The buildings etc in the settlements also cast shadows.
Which is my point exactly. Events are a positive thing for MMOs. They keep people entertained in short bursts and generally require far less to create and set up than all the other content. Throw up a few decorations, add a monster spawn or two, set the event NPC and you're done. Also I know at least for me, when I had quit the game for a few months back at launch I kept coming back at the very least for the events. Even though I wasn't happy with the game back then I kept the game on my computer and logged in just to make sure I participated in the events. Eventually I came back to the game after the Heavensturn event because I could see the other changes they had made to the game.
The irony of this is had I posted a thread that said "MAN EVENTS ARE AWESOME!" there would be plenty of people who chime in and say they suck.
That is because those things were added in the same fashion that an NPC is added or a PC. Those things do cast shadows in this game. Just the world itself doesn't cast any shadows, or do much of anything else you would expect from a modern graphics engine.
The real point of this thread wasn't to put resources on casting shadows, but instead to illustrate the missallocation of resources to events. I just arbitrarily picked shadows because it is annoying, but not particularly important right now.
I really would like to see the dev team stop adding content, stop adding quests, stop adding dungeons and start fixing the game at its core.
Adding content to a broken game doesn't really make it more fun, at least not in the long run. As long as you continue to have to cope with fundamental problems, the frustration that grows with those issues eventually outweighs any temporary fun you derive from events, or dungeons (which have limited replay value, even in the most polished games)