Would you trade new ingame content for an engine upgrade?

As others have similarly thought before me, I don't know if expecting 10 more years for FFXIV is realistic without some major engine and/or system upgrades, so I think it would be in their best interest to postpone content for said upgrades if that was a choice that needed to be made.

I played FFXI for 8 years. In this player's opinion, Wings of the Goddess was the last "real expansion." It became a different game entirely after that. In my mind, the expiration date for FFXI was set the moment Abyssea came out. And that was at the 7 year mark. FFXIV is past that 7 year mark already. Of course, FFXIV isn't FFXI. Their expansions (in this player's opinion!) have only gotten better with time. So this game might have more longevity than FFXI did.

I think if they work on a new engine, it should be one that they can leverage in the future for another game entirely. Whether that be an MMO or not.

There is nothing I want more for this game than an engine update.

The few people who seem to be confusing an "engine update" with an "engine swap" in this thread seem to midjudge just what amount of effort that would entail. Sure, (insert your favourite engine here) is a nice engine, but switching engines is not a thing any sane person does for an ongoing project. You can't simply take code and copy-paste it from one engine into the other with some changes. Instead, it would be more like rebuilding the game from scratch in the new engine, to the technical specifications and limitations of that new engine. That's already basically developing a fully new game in terms of development, especially if the graphics are updated at the same time. Add to that the fact that it would have to be backwards compatible with whatever their current data structures are if you don't want the upgrade to also reset everyone's current state and progress. This means you might not even get much improvement in terms of server architecture out of it, depending on what the limiting factors are, while hugely complicating the requirements instead of playing to the strength of a new engine. It's not worth it for anyone, players or developers. Should FF XIV ever nears the end of its life cycle in a decade or two and SE makes a new MMO, they can make or use a new engine for it. Any improvements to this game will have to come from updating the current one.

But it will be as they have always done: Silently, bit by bit, in the background. Historically they have prioritised server improvements, physics and other such things over graphics when it comes to prioritising changes, because those will keep the game's look consistent and probably only be a marginal raise on the system requirements. I'd expect this trend to continue into the future. As they have stated repeatedly, the limitation on their ability to improve is know-how, not budget. I therefore also wouldn't expect the scope of the upgrades per patch to ever increase.

As for delaying content to free up time, this very thread is the perfect example as to why that would go over poorly, as no one can agree what should be cut in favour of what. To me you could remove dungeons and nothing in terms of content would be lost since those are a snorefest from the second time on when there is no new and shiny story and lore in it anymore. For others that might be the main content they run and they'd instead remove Exploration content or raids in a heartbeat cause they don't do that content. No one would ever agree and the odds of any one person ending up getting exactly the content the find expendable cut in favour of updates is next to nil.

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Originally Posted by KuroMaboroshi

Sure, (insert your favourite engine here) is a nice engine, but switching engines is not a thing any sane person does for an ongoing project. You can't simply take code and copy-paste it from one engine into the other with some changes. Instead, it would be more like rebuilding the game from scratch in the new engine, to the technical specifications and limitations of that new engine. That's already basically developing a fully new game in terms of development, especially if the graphics are updated at the same time.

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FF14 won't use Unity or Unreal Engine. What people want is gradual update of part of the game and that what MMOs can do. WoW right now has a highly modern backend and frontent for the game, they even have native Windows ARM client not to mention Apple ARM. And when auction house could not perform well after expansion launch they just implemented a new, better one and launched in one of subsequent patches. Such games are composed of distributed services and aren't a bit monolithic block.

So there is no excuse to keep old limitation, old client when they want the game to run for next 10+ years. This will eat some cash and time but that's the point of current state of the game - sproutbringer and EW happened and now they have the cash and player momentum to pull it off. If not with time people will just go to newer, more modern games. Lost Ark, Elder Ring, Ashes of Creation or even WoW, New World are competitors that aren't sleeping.

If another game gives better cat girls and glams the result will be obvious ;)

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Yeah of course. It is also a big financial risk to leave your game as is and hope people don't unsub and move on to newer games when they come out.

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Show me your evidence. I've seen no indication whatsoever that graphics is what causes people to leave MMOs. It's just not that important to players and a lot of people play on potatoes so their graphics settings are low regardless.

Old school Runescape and WoW Classic have older graphics and do fine. New World is a beautiful game and that did fuck all.

I've seen the opposite much more often: inaccessible graphics requirements reducing player population. Rift had this issue significantly at launch.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

FFXI still looks like it did in 2005. As a consequence it has lost the majority of its playerbase.

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I seriously doubt people are leaving FFXI due to graphics lol

This is a nonissue for the vast majority of people. For a new MMO to come out and grab players in an established MMORPG, it would need considerably more than graphics, I assure you.

I would, but... when that would happen though?

Realistically, now would be the perfect time for it. Since EW wrapped in the .0, content patches with less features so 7.0 could launch with this and the new story arc.

My two cents: postpone 7.0 for 6 months or a year. During this time frame, have pre-planned releases of events to help keep some people playing for a short time. Maybe bring back some older events like Garo or Yo-kai that take time to get all the items. This game could go so far with an updated look/customization options. I would love to see the engine get upgraded at some point.

The only alternative (that I can see) to not upgrading the engine, is to make a brand new MMO on a newer engine down the road.

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Originally Posted by MidnightEquinox

Old school Runescape and WoW Classic have older graphics and do fine. New World is a beautiful game and that did fuck all.

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WoW Classic SoA died pretty quickly, now is left with some raiding guilds while wannabie casuals moan no one else plays the game while hardcore don't want them in their guilds/raid groups. Original Classic launch was a success but just like private servers before it players where there for the progression and since around AQ they started to fall off to then go to TBC which now evolved into few mega-realms and all others dying forcing Blizzard into free transfers from all those dying realms. And TBC since like month or two after launch is just raidlogging.

Graphics aren't some mega-essential part of an MMO but they do play a role. The game with a better boob slider will have an advantage, especially among games where extreme raid progression is part of the end game :D Xeno won't quit playing FF14 tanks due to graphics quality but your local Limsan girls can ;) Yet edge case scenarios of RTX 3090 level of detail is not something that people really want here. Just less pixelisation as an option.

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Originally Posted by MidnightEquinox

Show me your evidence. I've seen no indication whatsoever that graphics is what causes people to leave MMOs. It's just not that important to players and a lot of people play on potatoes so their graphics settings are low regardless.

Old school Runescape and WoW Classic have older graphics and do fine. New World is a beautiful game and that did fuck all.

I've seen the opposite much more often: inaccessible graphics requirements reducing player population. Rift had this issue significantly at launch.
I seriously doubt people are leaving FFXI due to graphics lol

This is a nonissue for the vast majority of people. For a new MMO to come out and grab players in an established MMORPG, it would need considerably more than graphics, I assure you.

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Here is an article of a study saying that around 75% of gamers do think about graphics when buying a new game. MMO or not bad graphics will prevent new players from wanting to try it out and make old veterans want to try new games with new graphics. So long as the gameplay is good.

https://www.cinemablend.com/games/75...ame-64659.html

Me and my friends left FFXI for FFXIV because it looked much better. Unfortunately it wasn’t too good at the beginning but we waited for the game to be re-released and it paid off big time.

We would do the same if another FF MMO came out that looked better.

Eyeballing this thread it does seem the majority would put off content to improve the graphics engine and all the system improvements that said work would bring to the rest of the game. (Glamour dressers)

I do not see the opposite more often. And you are confusing the reasons better looking MMOs have failed. New World, PSO2 NG launched with great anticipation and healthy playerbases but it was the unpreparedness of the game and gameplay issues that so far have tanked them.

Finally Nvidia and AMD combined cannot supply the world with enough new next gen GPUs for new PCs and consoles throughout the world right now even with shortages (they said demand was unprecedented). A high indication people are ready and investing in new graphical technology. Presumably to not play RuneScape.

Old games have fans that make them do “fine” yes.

Now I need to see your evidence that people prefer worse looking games please, and that they wouldn’t leave said games if a newer and better looking version of them came out.

By your logic everyone would still be running the PS2 because all newer consoles bring to the table is more horsepower for better graphics. Gameplay can be good or bad in any device after all. But that isn’t the case is it?

It depends for how long.
First of all ff14 is the number 1 mmo (or is it 2 now after lost ark?) And can do 2 things at the same time. But if it will not take more that 1 patch time i be ok for it.

Nah, let's go full FFXI on it and run it dry until FFXVII Online.

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Originally Posted by sharknado

WoW Classic SoA died pretty quickly

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I played Classic for a whole year through and did not observe any dying on the server I was on. Admittedly, I was too busy playing to look outside, so maybe I was on a magical server idk. AQ launch was such a mess a bunch of us on Horde got teleported out of the gong area into U'ngoro Crater lol. I don't know what SoA is, though.

I'm not sure that the raidlogging issue is related to the game's graphics. :P

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Here is an article of a study saying that around 75% of gamers do think about graphics when buying a new game.

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Why would you not think about graphics when buying a new game? That number could as well be 100%. And graphics can also include artstyle. You can have a nice art style without top of the generation graphics. I think FF's artstyle is fine.

I'm not sure how "graphics are not super important for an MMO" gets interpreted as "nobody looks at graphics ever" or "let's have worse graphics on purpose".

But people looking at graphics is not equivalent to "here's a wonderful MMO but the graphics are not top generation so I'll skip it". And especially "I'll try it" has very limited value for MMOs, you want people to stick, if they stick word of mouth makes everyone try it anyway.

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Originally Posted by sharknado

So long as the gameplay is good.

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Yeah and that's the problem. As far as MMOs go, the gameplay is not always good. Often it is not good.

If a new MMO comes out with genuinely good gameplay, people will switch to it, full stop. It obviously shouldn't look super ugly but it's not graphics that will make or break it, not for a game people often play to mess around with friends.

My logic is for MMOs specifically. FPS players seem to value graphics a lot, for instance.

FFXIII is an example of graphics chasing going awry...

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Originally Posted by sharknado

Me and my friends left FFXI for FFXIV because it looked much better.

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That's you and your friends. Most people avoid FFXI due to the fact that it always sounded horrendously grindy, FFXI players even wear it as a badge of honor. And, well, FFXIV exists, and it's newer (which has many advantages besides graphics). I've never heard of anything that makes me want to play FFXI in favor of FFXIV, graphics have nothing to do with it, and honestly what kind of circle of friends do you have where FFXI is even on the table? Barely anyone registers that game as existing outside of FF fans.

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Originally Posted by sharknado

Eyeballing this thread it does seem the majority would put off content to improve the graphics engine and all the system improvements that said work would bring to the rest of the game. (Glamour dressers)

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This forum is composed of like 5 repeat posters, nothing said here represents anything even remotely.

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Originally Posted by MidnightEquinox

Yeah and that's the problem.

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You are quoting the wrong person ;)

Sorry man my vBulletin skills are rusty, it's been YEARS.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Yes. The longer we put off any sort of fundamental upgrades, the more unlikely an upgrade in the future becomes and the more likely another abandon/remake becomes.

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Especially considering that almost every asinine limitation in the game is a result of 1.0 spaghetti code. So many core features hamstrung with "why the hell can't I just..." moments.

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Originally Posted by MidnightEquinox

I played Classic for a whole year through and did not observe any dying on the server I was on. Admittedly, I was too busy playing to look outside, so maybe I was on a magical server idk. AQ launch was such a mess a bunch of us on Horde got teleported out of the gong area into U'ngoro Crater lol. I don't know what SoA is, though.

I'm not sure that the raidlogging issue is related to the game's graphics. :P
Why would you not think about graphics when buying a new game? That number could as well be 100%. And graphics can also include artstyle. You can have a nice art style without top of the generation graphics. I think FF's artstyle is fine.

I'm not sure how "graphics are not super important for an MMO" gets interpreted as "nobody looks at graphics ever" or "let's have worse graphics on purpose".

But people looking at graphics is not equivalent to "here's a wonderful MMO but the graphics are not top generation so I'll skip it". And especially "I'll try it" has very limited value for MMOs, you want people to stick, if they stick word of mouth makes everyone try it anyway.
Yeah and that's the problem. As far as MMOs go, the gameplay is not always good. Often it is not good.

If a new MMO comes out with genuinely good gameplay, people will switch to it, full stop. It obviously shouldn't look super ugly but it's not graphics that will make or break it, not for a game people often play to mess around with friends.

My logic is for MMOs specifically. FPS players seem to value graphics a lot, for instance.

FFXIII is an example of graphics chasing going awry...
That's you and your friends. Most people avoid FFXI due to the fact that it always sounded horrendously grindy, FFXI players even wear it as a badge of honor. And, well, FFXIV exists, and it's newer (which has many advantages besides graphics). I've never heard of anything that makes me want to play FFXI in favor of FFXIV, graphics have nothing to do with it, and honestly what kind of circle of friends do you have where FFXI is even on the table? Barely anyone registers that game as existing outside of FF fans.

This forum is composed of like 5 repeat posters, nothing said here represents anything even remotely.

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You kind of dodged the question big time and provided zero evidence. Instead resorting to attempting to discredit the evidence I provided. Honestly if you can’t provide any evidence besides how you personally feel about it then I don’t know why you think we should take your opinion as more valid.

Heck, even Runescape redid its engine (straight from wikipedia) Seems like FFXIV's popularity is growing too.

The first public version of RuneScape was released in January 2001 in beta form, with Jagex as its copyright holder being formed later that year. As the game's popularity grew, the game engine was rewritten and released as RuneScape 2,[11] with the original version of the game being renamed RuneScape Classic. The third iteration of the game, known as RuneScape 3, was released in July 2013.[12] Old School RuneScape, a separate, older version of the game dating from August 2007 was released in February 2013, and is maintained alongside the original client. It was announced that mobile ports of both versions of RuneScape would be released for Android and iOS devices in 2018.[13][14] RuneScape was released on Steam on 14 October 2020.[15]

As long as I keep my glamours and my pretty Au'ra face, I dont mind a brand new experience.

I'd be okay wit a 1 year delay to overhaul the engine... More than that there would be no content to keep me playing.

No. /10char

I wish that, with the money they made this time around they would actually ditch new content for an overhaul of the engine... But.... There is a very , very old work mindset at Square Enix, it consists, if you will of a "Don't try to fix it if it's not broken" and keep old engines and way of doing it "alive" but it also stiffle innovation very much. You would need to have a complete overhaul of segment of SE to make a new / total re-upgrade of the engine happen.

From this mindset u could say that it also proposes that, newcomers at SE are forced to develop very rigid, in the "box" of what works, work ethic and ultimately it's not the devs that are making the decision. The netcode is very "limited" and wonky in FFXIV, not allowing you to whisper if you are in instances /dungeons / raids...

I would hope to see an upgrade, something that looks closer to Final fantasy 16 in terms of fidelity, buuuuut i really doubt it, what i see them do is more like 4/ 5 more years of "this" then... I hope i'm wrong. I would even sacrifice some of my mounts or some of the features yes, that we had over the years for this whole engine upgrade.

Will it happen... With this very specific type of mindset ? Somebody would need to either Completely change his mindset, or be pushed out the door for it to happen.

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Especially considering that almost every asinine limitation in the game is a result of 1.0 spaghetti code. So many core features hamstrung with "why the hell can't I just..." moments.

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To be honest, it blows my mind how an MMO in 2022 can be so limited. Never in my entire life have I seen a game so held back by awful code. It really shows how bad 1.0 really was and I'm amazed that someone could create something so fundamentally outdated even back in mid-2000s. Look at WoW - it's an ancient game, but it's smooth, has great netcode and has continously received updates to its engine. WoW is a more modern game than FFXIV in pretty much all respects. That is sad and it needs to be fixed sooner or later.

It was said in a recent interview in the media tour that all the 1.0 spaghetti code was fixed over time, including a change to chocobos working as pets, a change to player collision and summoner.

"We don't have any sort of like technical, or like a technological issue that was carried over from 1.0, because ARR was meant to kind of discard what we had from 1.0 and rebuild it from the engine."
https://youtu.be/ge32wNPaJKk?t=560

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It was said in a recent interview in the media tour that all the 1.0 spaghetti code was fixed over time, including a change to chocobos working as pets, a change to player collision and summoner.

"We don't have any sort of like technical, or like a technological issue that was carried over from 1.0, because ARR was meant to kind of discard what we had from 1.0 and rebuild it from the engine."
https://youtu.be/ge32wNPaJKk?t=560

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Yeah, I liked Larryzaur's media tour questions to YoshiP. People like to say 1.0 spaghetti code when they don't have any clue. It's more when they rebuilt the UI, there are just many things they never really built. Then there are new things they tried in a shorter amount of time, like Summoner job branch off of Arcanist class was chaotic, so much that they don't want to do that again.

As a developer as well everything he says makes logical sense. There is always that list of enhancements we tackle and more we want to get to. Much of it we cannot tell the public until we get further along the process. Most of the time we are on the same page as the community. There is so much involved to move the gears from business case, priorities, and man-power cost. Like every expansion gives them likely all those things to tackle several off the list. Graphics engine to me is something that would take several development cycles. Although from past interviews I remember he talked about they kind of already were on a planning path.

They can't really make much less in game content, so I would take a engine upgrade as they are already taking in game content away every expansion anyways. At least the game will function.

@OP

Whether I'd trade content for an engine upgrade would depend on what content would be sacrificed and, more importantly, what eventual content or other affordances the engine upgrade could provide.

Without a vision of how the engine upgrade would be put to use, I'd be mostly uninterested, and would rather the game just died after a one more arc of expansions, having done all it can manage well, and that a new MMO come out thereafter to actually take advantage of whatever engine upgrades it's built around from the ground up.

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Originally Posted by Katt_Felista

I wish that, with the money they made this time around they would actually ditch new content for an overhaul of the engine... But.... There is a very , very old work mindset at Square Enix, it consists, if you will of a "Don't try to fix it if it's not broken" and keep old engines and way of doing it "alive" but it also stiffle innovation very much. You would need to have a complete overhaul of segment of SE to make a new / total re-upgrade of the engine happen.

From this mindset u could say that it also proposes that, newcomers at SE are forced to develop very rigid, in the "box" of what works, work ethic and ultimately it's not the devs that are making the decision. The netcode is very "limited" and wonky in FFXIV, not allowing you to whisper if you are in instances /dungeons / raids...

I would hope to see an upgrade, something that looks closer to Final fantasy 16 in terms of fidelity, buuuuut i really doubt it, what i see them do is more like 4/ 5 more years of "this" then... I hope i'm wrong. I would even sacrifice some of my mounts or some of the features yes, that we had over the years for this whole engine upgrade.

Will it happen... With this very specific type of mindset ? Somebody would need to either Completely change his mindset, or be pushed out the door for it to happen.

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So some stubborn stuck-in-the-past old fart is the reason why we can't have nice things? I'll believe that.

Currently it seems like we are trading away in-game content for nothing, so if we can trade it for something I'm all good with it.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

They can't really make much less in game content, so I would take a engine upgrade as they are already taking in game content away every expansion anyways. At least the game will function.

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They can. Since HW they have been using " remove to improve and recycle".

For example SE are totally capable of removing every single dot(including nin damage up)effect and give you 20 more potency.

Or remove tank stances and keep only provoke.
Maybe remove 1 ring slot.

The engine does not really need an update. The ingame assets need a rework. The metal shaders are bad, the lighting is often very incorrect, many texures have a very low resolution etc. Fixing those things would bring more quality without risky engine upgrades.


Cheers

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Especially considering that almost every asinine limitation in the game is a result of 1.0 spaghetti code. So many core features hamstrung with "why the hell can't I just..." moments.

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It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

Yoshi-P has already mentioned wanting to do a graphics overhaul post-6.0, but I don’t know if they would recode the game without focusing all their dev efforts on it and no new content being released for a very long time.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

Yoshi-P has already mentioned wanting to do a graphics overhaul post-6.0, but I don’t know if they would recode the game without focusing all their dev efforts on it and no new content being released for a very long time.

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Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0.

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Nobody can say whether it is spaghetti or not as long as they do not publish the sourcecode. :) Maybe it is not spaghetti and they simply made some architectural decisions in the past, which are not so optimal today. The game was compatible with the PS3. And the PS3 architecture is vastly different to PS4/PS5/PC etc.

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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I guess they have most textures in a much higher resolution. This is how textures are usually made: create them in a high resolution and then scale them down. It is how MIP mapping works. But if they have deleted the high res textures then it will be time consuming to recreate them, yes. :)


Cheers

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

It’s ARR spaghetti code, not 1.0. It’s a result of the dev team having to make something cheap and fast to replace 1.0 but still works “good enough” to not be a repeat of 1.0.

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And "cheap and fast" usually means "reuse the code". In particular, it means "reuse the netcode that took most of the dev time".

What changed is the gameplay pacing, the graphics, the way progression is handled, but the foundation for the code still is 1.0, although it's slowly being changed. At this point, there is far less 1.0 code than there was in ARR, but the easily noticeable change to latency in AoEs dodging is a result of that, for example.

So no, I don't want to lose content for the game to have an engine change, since they seem to be able to make some changes that actually affect the core engine, and thus, slowly revamp the engine.

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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I never know how to read that. They are now massively successful. Why can't they hire people and invest in graphics/textures for the foreseeable future of the game, without foregoing content in the process ? I mean, if they've got something else in store (new game ?) I could understand.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Nobody can say whether it is spaghetti or not as long as they do not publish the sourcecode. :) Maybe it is not spaghetti and they simply made some architectural decisions in the past, which are not so optimal today. The game was compatible with the PS3. And the PS3 architecture is vastly different to PS4/PS5/PC etc.



I guess they have most textures in a much higher resolution. This is how textures are usually made: create them in a high resolution and then scale them down. It is how MIP mapping works. But if they have deleted the high res textures then it will be time consuming to recreate them, yes. :)


Cheers

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It was said that they made them low res to begin with , quite a glaring mistake on their part , and done to speed up the re purposing of the game after 1.0 (and built around the ps3 not PC) hence why they cant dedicate staff to create a whole 2.0-6.0 bank of higher quality textures for all assets

If they already had a bank of 4096 textures we'd of had them inserted already , at the very least as an optional dl pack or preinstalled and an in game option to enable them (prob for PC only) with certain requirements to ber able to use said option ,like 8gb ram plus 4gig Vram min etc etc

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Originally Posted by Nuki

Pretty sure he also said that they could do a texture update but if they do we lose a whole expansion.
No thank you!

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Currently (WIP) but La Noscea and Thanalan have 2x upscaled res texture upgrade, and a test 4x res Thanalan currently available on PC on nexus website .

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Originally Posted by Teno

I never know how to read that. They are now massively successful. Why can't they hire people and invest in graphics/textures for the foreseeable future of the game, without foregoing content in the process ? I mean, if they've got something else in store (new game ?) I could understand.

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I'd imagine that it would require SE to invest more budget into the creative division that Yoshi-P is responsible for, which is also making FFXVI. I'd also imagine that hiring people would take time, effort, and money in order to train and pull people away from the existing dev work. The suits at SE also probably see the success of FFXIV as a sign that they do not need to invest that much into the budget to do an overhaul if the game is already so successful that they had to stop selling it. Why sink a lot of money, time, effort, personnel allocation, and office real estate in order to do a overhaul on a game that is already extremely successful? FFXIV is currently SE's cash cow that keeps them afloat and funds other projects (that seem to fail on their own).

There's also the fact that competent programmers don't exactly grow on trees. I don't know what Japan's economic situation or job culture is like or if they have the same "learn to code lol" thing over there, but just because you have the budget for it doesn't mean it will happen, especially if you're just hiring in order to do an engine/graphics overhaul. What would happen to the people they just hired then? Would SE keep them on and continue to pay them or just let them go?

It may not be the answer a lot of current players want to hear, but it's being realistic. Either way, there's a new letter from the producer in just a couple of days so I'm sure we'll find out more on 6.1+ and maybe even something about a graphics update then if it's something being planned for the near future.

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Originally Posted by Izar_Chillen

It was said that they made them low res to begin with , quite a glaring mistake on their part , and done to speed up the re purposing of the game after 1.0 (and built around the ps3 not PC) hence why they cant dedicate staff to create a whole 2.0-6.0 bank of higher quality textures for all assets

If they already had a bank of 4096 textures we'd of had them inserted already , at the very least as an optional dl pack or preinstalled and an in game option to enable them (prob for PC only) with certain requirements to ber able to use said option ,like 8gb ram plus 4gig Vram min etc etc

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They could make a community contest for this like the contest for weapons. I guess, many fans would recreate the textures with a much higher resolution.


Cheers

The underlying Engine driving 1.0 was scrapped completely for the Engine currently running (since ARR came out).

A lot of our limitations revolve around that Engine, which may see upgrades, but at a cost.

As for the supposed 'spaghetti code' ... this is a Realm shared by both PC and Playstation Console players. One has to understand that most other MMORPGs have solved cross-platform problems the old-fashioned way: separate worlds for PC and for Console players. Or, as is the case of WoW, not bothering to write code for Playstation or Xbox in the first place.

The fact that you can play with players on either platform is pretty much a miracle.

One should probably blame the inconveniences they encounter in-game on PS3 console limitations ... removing them without affecting the PC/Console cross-platform play of the current game can get risky.

Introducing new features is relatively easy, as the code doesn't conflict with nor replace what came before.

Be careful of what you ask for. A complete rewrite may put an entire expansion of content at risk ... the miracle of 2.0 rising from the ashes of 1.0 can only be performed once. If SE had not been in dire straits at that time, I doubt it would have been done at all.

The question to ask is "are you all right running an expansion-worth of content for 3-4 years, rather than 2?", not "would you give up content for an engine upgrade?".