Poll: Seamless+CopyPaste VS. Zones+Variety

I don't think it has any kind of streaming given that objects just sharply get more detail in the distance as you approach, you can even see the line between the two.

There is a good reason that 99% of MMO's use BSP terrain with objects placed on top for detailing rather than XIV that has everything sewn together skyrocketing the mesh sizes.

Hands down #2. I really have 0 interest in exploring the world we have now. And exploration is the biggest thing to me in a MMO. Unless we get a lot more variety in zones, no matter of tweaks and fixes will keep me around.

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Originally Posted by Pooky

Hands down #2. I really have 0 interest in exploring the world we have now. And exploration is the biggest thing to me in a MMO. Unless we get a lot more variety in zones, no matter of tweaks and fixes will keep me around.

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I'm pretty much done with FFXIV for that reason now. I could never get tired of FFXI's simpler, smaller zones because they are expansive and unrepetitive. Sure, some things repeat, but it's not as frequent or obvious as FFXIV. And that's if there were no expansions or updates.

But, unless the outdoor regions of FFXIV get a massive makeover to be more believable than the copy/pasted crap they have now, I'm not going back to it no matter how awesome they make combat, quests, the storyline, or anything else.

It's funny how much the change to zones and more variety is winning. If SE really doesn't see this than something is wrong here. I hope some multilingual people translate the first three posts and reposts this in other languages, and links it so we can see what other languages are voting. And please keep the color fonts so we know what they're voting on.

Edit: Atleast I know if I want to develop an mmo, it's obvious alittle downtime for more believable areas is what the majority prefers rather than a seemless world with absolutely no original feel.

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Originally Posted by KorPoni

It's funny how much the change to zones and more variety is winning. If SE really doesn't see this than something is wrong here. I hope some multilingual people translate the first three posts and reposts this in other languages

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Actually, the Japanese version of the "copypasta sucks" thread was one of the very first threads posted on these messageboards.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...81%8B%EF%BC%9F

Yoshi P himself posted in it.

I agree with the japanese forumers, a BIG FAT NO to copypasta zone, it sucks.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Actually, the Japanese version of the "copypasta sucks" thread was one of the very first threads posted on these messageboards.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...81%8B%EF%BC%9F

Yoshi P himself posted in it.

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Google translate gave me this for Yoshida's post:

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Producer / Director is Yoshida.

Everyone, MAP Thank you for complaint.
Yoshida also like you to MAP's specifications, there is a strong sense of crisis,
There are an enormous amount of work is well advanced plans for redesign.
However, as already pointed out that Itadai in order to fundamentally fix the
You will get to give me a time.

Therefore, the current MAP collision mitigation (steps / Relaxation caught) is followed by steady,
In a parallel measure to promote the long term planning radical refurbishment.

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"Radical refurbishment"...does this mean they are actually planning on radically changing the maps in the long term?

I hope the Devs' have plans to do something about this I would much rather have zones and loading times if it means better more varied enviroments.

they should just dump the PS3, wait for the next generation to port then problem is solved.
or find better compression tools for the textures .dds files there useing should just turn to .png

everyzone in ffxi is cut and paste even the textures are the same just rec-olored, wow reuses houses map sections & re-colored textures.

ill go even further every game ever made has copy and paste elements no game has ever not did that unless you want to have a pc or game console with super computer specs to run it. everything is tricks from programming to only drawing stuff in your view to run a game. but everything has to cahce somewhere or you get that loading screen and streaming loading like oblivion for the (x360&ps3)
from portal systems(UT,Crisis) to streaming with a clipping plane(WoW).

Copy paste isn't the problem is the fact that everything looks dull and empty. Hell at this point I wish we had "recolored textures".

yeah as i said i dont mind loading zones that much , we usually see it anyway while teleporting and are like 3-5s max ....

The world that we have now, with massive seamless regions, but a lack of environmental variety.

However I have to add, they should add some unique type of grass, or branch, log over the ground, unique plant, rock here and there. So it would not look all the same :o

A world that has smaller zones, with loading time in between zones, that allows the game to load a greater variety of textures per zone and give the artists more leeway to make the environments more detailed and less monotonous.

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Originally Posted by Synthesis

The world that we have now, with massive seamless regions, but a lack of environmental variety.

However I have to add, they should add some unique type of grass, or branch, log over the ground, unique plant, rock here and there. So it would not look all the same :o

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I'm sure they could do that if there weren't any PS3 limitations. This is the whole point of separating the maps into smaller zones. You can't have both variety and large maps. You need to consider the PS3 version, no matter how much you don't give a shit.

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Originally Posted by Mack

Copy paste isn't the problem is the fact that everything looks dull and empty. Hell at this point I wish we had "recolored textures".

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Actually it's the combination of those two plus one other problem: monster camping is impossible to do because they're so spread out and inconsistent. You can't camp "dodos" because there may be 3 in one spot, but any more would be across the massive area somewhere else.

We all ready have "loading zones". If you want to go from Thanalan to the Black Shroud, you hit a loading screen. Same thing with Coerthas and Thanalan/Black Shroud, etc.

I would prefer smaller zones with loading screens over this, but I don't see why we can't have smaller zones that don't have loading screens. I understand that the textures are nice, but there are other MMOs with nice environments that have seamless zones, and there is a lot of variety between the environments. It's one of the few things that WoW does fairly well.

Sorry, but there is no seamlessness in FFXIV. You sit through a loading screen every time you cross from Noscea to Thanalan, or Black Shroud, etc...

Seamless means seamless. FFXIV is not seamless; it's just a game with huge areas separated by loading screens.

heyo more long threads that involve the bland @$$ world we have. Don't expect a response ever though, the other ones in the 80page 800 reply range and they still havent gotten jack.

I think its obvious 90% of the players would rather more unique zones then the crap they spewed so far.
hey look...its that same rock formation....again....

and just to put the point out there..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La9nLBfH44c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA7GG...eature=related

I was in Cass Hollow the other day and usually I don't pay that much attention to the surroundings in it as it is not one of my favourite places to be. However as I was stood next to the node I noticed to big chunks of the scenery were exactly the same on different sides of the room. Well that started me off, then I started noticing loads and loads of things that were copy/paste. Literally the whole zone is built using just a few different pieces and then just copy pasted everywhere.

I understand it's a cave, so what can you do with a cave but I never got that feeling in FFXI that everything was the same reused bits of map all over the zone. Needless to say as much as I didn't like Cass before I noticed all this, I dislike it even more so now.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

I was in Cass Hollow the other day and usually I don't pay that much attention to the surroundings in it as it is not one of my favourite places to be. However as I was stood next to the node I noticed to big chunks of the scenery were exactly the same on different sides of the room. Well that started me off, then I started noticing loads and loads of things that were copy/paste. Literally the whole zone is built using just a few different pieces and then just copy pasted everywhere.

I understand it's a cave, so what can you do with a cave but I never got that feeling in FFXI that everything was the same reused bits of map all over the zone. Needless to say as much as I didn't like Cass before I noticed all this, I dislike it even more so now.

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most things in ffxi were also reused peices over and over, in fact most games use reused pieces over and over. I agree they need more variation, in large maps, and different maps, and different colors, but if you re going to look at the game looking for copy and paste you will find it, in droves, and not just this game, but most of the games created over the last 20 years.

What has happened is you have lost your willing suspension of disbelief, and maybe you will never get it back. Even when they create new zones, and other such things you can be sure there will be copy and paste, its actually in general a very effective way of doing things, and if used well, can take a few pieces and make something more interesting.

make no mistake though it was rampant and common in ffxi.

It's a combination of a number of things really.

You didn't notice texture reuse as much in XI *even though* there was plenty of reuse in XI because the layouts were different and there were unique map features. Also, since the maps were smaller, you didn't spend as much time traversing them to notice it.

Every XI veteran knows Crawler's nest and Boyahda Tree are basically the same place, except BT has the waterfall, organic lakes, and Goobbues, while CN has mossy testicles, lots of twisty narrow passageways, and more overall "depth".

Pso'Xja and Horutoto Ruins share a lot of the same architecture/textures, but Pso'Xja uses different lighting/color filters to give it a different appearance, plus it's much more claustrophobic, and there's significantly different mobs there.

Even Carpenter's Landing had an excuse to be very much like Jugner, but they gave it enough of its own flavor with the layouts and the little touches here and there, like the logs on land and coming out of the water, that godforsaken owl, and the spider nests (the passageway webbing I believe was in Jugner, but not the nests).

Some of these features are in XIV, but they're more spread out and you have to go looking for them. I anticipate more of them would be present, but the maps, like so much else in the game, were simply rushed. It's probably safe to say that The Black Shroud was the last region they worked on, since they showed La Noscea in the very first demo, and Thanalan has far less of this problem than The Black Shroud.

I almost get the impression based on the lore and the layouts that they originally intended for The Black Shroud to be something along the lines of the Old Forest in LOTR, where if you strayed off the roads, the forest itself would start shifting and changing shape preventing you from easily returning to the road, but as cool as this sounds, I can't imagine it being very feasible to do in-game, and it'd piss off a lot of people.

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Originally Posted by Physic

most things in ffxi were also reused peices over and over, in fact most games use reused pieces over and over.

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Most people understand that at a fundamental level, copy paste techniques are needed to some extent for good optimization. However, FF14 does this very inelegantly. It doesn't even have resized models, or palette swaps, or unique layouts and orientations. It's just the same large chunks of terrain.

Prefer loading screens with more varied areas.

As it is now, I find the method of implementing seamlessness annoying. Instead of loading screens, there are loading "hallways." you know those narrow winding paths between sub-regions which gives the system time to load the next area. You'll notice if you're running from Uldah to Horizon, for example, if you put yourself on follow on someone and run thru the narrow pathway, the person you're following will disappear until you get to the end of the "hallway" because basically it's a loading screen that you can move your character thru.

There's one of these for exiting/entering town too and it's kind of awkward. You know how the gate of Thal is always closed and you have to run around the side to exit town? I always wondered why they didn't just open that gate so we could run through an entrance instead of around it, like normal people. I would prefer dealing with the loading screen as long as no chat is lost in the process.

I would take zoning with variety any day~

Really interesting thread, I would much rather have loading times to have more varied and better structured zones, the question is will they and can they change it? Will the PS3 release limit or prevent what they can do to resolve this problem? They can fix all the other problems with the game but for me if the zones, terrain and how they merge together are still as they are many of the other aspects will mean very little in the bigger picture...

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Originally Posted by Raizen_Reyne

Will the PS3 release limit or prevent what they can do to resolve this problem?

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PS2 didn't limit FFXI in the terms of zone design but it did limit it in terms of many zones were possible in the game without instancing the same zone in a different way (Regular > Dynamis > Abyssea for example). Unless people are expecting zones to be like a constant mini-game where you're playing with every object possible for no reason then yeah I highly doubt that will happen.

Thank you for making this poll :). I voted for zones

well we already have a big topic about this, the one thats like 100 pages long, but if we are bringing it up again, yes il take smaller zones and wait a black screen for a few seconds if it means not the same craptastic repeat zones over and over...by a mile.

You could cut the zones in half and it would be 2-3x bigger then any FFXI zone...and those were plenty big.

Small and more diverse zones are much better. Not only do they make it more pleasing to the eye, but it also brings much more to the table. SE has the monster "territory" or whatever so that a mob won't chase players for ages... but with smaller zones they will be able to do away with these territories (which is a good thing since it prevents the more traditional way of partying) because the player can just zone and get away. Also, smaller zones divide the world in easy to manage areas... this especially helps when players try to remember routes and give directions. It also helps give an area a feel or a reputation. With the big areas, there is less of a concept of liking or disliking a zone, it is more like liking or disliking a specific place in a specific zone. One of these ways is easier for the human mind to process and remember. Some people like larger areas because for various reasons, but the main reason we should have smaller areas, in my oppinion, is because it makes it easier and more managable for the player. If any of you have played other games with smaller zones then you can probably still remember your favorite places and the layout of those zones... But with FFXIV, I find that it becomes more difficult for people to do those things. FFXIV needs to help players form memories of the game. When everything seems the same, it is harder to form seperate memories since it all seems to mesh together into the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Kyant

Small and more diverse zones are much better. Not only do they make it more pleasing to the eye, but it also brings much more to the table. SE has the monster "territory" or whatever so that a mob won't chase players for ages... but with smaller zones they will be able to do away with these territories (which is a good thing since it prevents the more traditional way of partying) because the player can just zone and get away. Also, smaller zones divide the world in easy to manage areas... this especially helps when players try to remember routes and give directions. It also helps give an area a feel or a reputation. With the big areas, there is less of a concept of liking or disliking a zone, it is more like liking or disliking a specific place in a specific zone. One of these ways is easier for the human mind to process and remember. Some people like larger areas because for various reasons, but the main reason we should have smaller areas, in my oppinion, is because it makes it easier and more managable for the player. If any of you have played other games with smaller zones then you can probably still remember your favorite places and the layout of those zones... But with FFXIV, I find that it becomes more difficult for people to do those things. FFXIV needs to help players form memories of the game. When everything seems the same, it is harder to form seperate memories since it all seems to mesh together into the same thing.

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Quickly, paragraphs are your friend lol. Anyways, i think many people would agree with this. telling people routes, remembering certain spots and making your way around the world in general is so much easier with smaller separated zones. I think the last Dev had it too big in his head that "bigger is always better" and that the new way to do things was to make them huge. Like most of FFXI, good idea, terrible execution.

Changes of scenery and some solid landmarks help big time with people not getting super bored with the world so quickly. Since a big part of this games community came from FFXI, they can all give plenty of reasons why FFXI zones where more memorable and better paced.

At this point they could honestly cut the zones in half and most people would not care, not only because its just tons of copy paste wasteland, but trying to run through it just feels like a hassle, especially when 80% of it has no use and is littered with what feels like random mobs that feel out of place (too much feels like they just tossed them in to take up space before the game launched)

Seriously Devs, cut the zones in half....heck in thirds and most people wont care a bit, as long as you make that space you have useful for some reason. You dont buy a gallon of water when you only need to fill a cup.

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Poll: Seamless+CopyPaste VS. Zones+Variety

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what are you talking about? the current zones ARE NOT seamless....... did i miss something here?

Judging by the roadmap to 2.0, the dev team is taking the direction that most of us apparently want.

http://wdl.square-enix.com/ffxiv/dow...Outline_EN.pdf

Good job folks, for voicing your opinions so clearly. The only thing I regret is doing the very first "poll" thread which undoubtedly spawned so many more of these annoying threads :)

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The current maps in FINAL FANTASY XIV
are not only massive, but allow for seamless
passage across wide expanses of the realm.
In order to maintain this seamlessness,
however, we were forced to heavily reuse
assets, resulting in static, repetitive areas.
To provide our users with areas that feel
fresh and dynamic throughout the extended
lifespan of the game, we are both revamping
and redesigning area maps. We hope that
this, in turn, will equate to increased
opportunities for adventure.

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・Abolishing seamless areas to allow for more dynamic map design

・Implementing at least three unique themes to each area

・Complete overhaul of enemy and object placement using revamped development tools

We will continue to balance and improve existing maps to ensure an exciting,
stress-free experience while playing during the months leading up to the unveiling
of the new Eorzea.

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/cheer

The devs seems to listen pretty good not only on this point but on much of what they have planned.

Good result :D