Technology in FFXIV + Visual Style

Does anyone else feel like the medieval theme has been milked way too much in mmos? doesn't anyone else feel like something new and refreshing?

I know the empire in FFXIV has technology but we have yet to see that technology and how it will shape the world. I personally LOVED FFX and FFXII's blend of Advanced Technology and Fantasy. It was the perfect match and i hoped FFXIV would do the same. I have to say i was rather disappointed that they decided to go with the same them and style as FFXI.

There is still a lot of areas sealed off and we haven't seen enough of the empire yet so maybe theres still a chance that we will get a high-tech city or something.


Visual Style

Am i the only one to see how FFXIV went in a different direction then it's art work? Not only that but FFXIV doesn't even look half as cool as the other stuff Akihiko Yoshida did before. Everything looks overly simplified, boring and is lacking color and life.


Adventurer's guild from FFXIV's artwork

http://users.telenet.be/kerlesh/Aoshi/FFXIV banner.jpg


In game adventurer's guild

http://i1033.photobucket.com/albums/...1285540140.jpg

Compare the character's clothing in both pics, look how detailed, beautiful and colorful they are in the artwork and look at the in-game screenshot how everything just look SAD. Everything is either black or brown or beige..... no vibrant colors, no life and everything seems to lack detail.. it's just plain and simple.


Gridania artwork

http://ffxivonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/gridania.jpg Simply beautiful


Gridania in-game

http://www.ffxivorigin.com/content/attachments/227d1282007650-gridania1-jpg/

Like everything else in the game... it's lacking life. Where's those huts we see in the arwork, built in those big trees. Where's those huge 1000 years trees? Those beautiful lights guiding your path?

when comparing the ingame screenshot to the artwork it looks like they didnt have enough time to finish the main building... the 2nd and 3rd floor are missing. It's also missing lights, decor and paint...


Can we realistically hope all this will be fixed? I would love for FFXIV to turn more like it's artwork. To me it seems that they didn't understand Yoshida's art and couldn't reproduce it or they just lacked the time to do it? I hope one day we will see Eorzea come to life and maybe have a world resembling FFX and FFXII's worlds.

I'd like to see a magically developed city with great advancements in technology as well, but also not have it been destroyed eons ago and is now in ruins and mostly lost technology like how a lot of games like to put them :/

Getting to the topic, I've done comparisons and even posted the adventurer's guild art in another topic about how Eorzea currently looks. It feels bland, empty and lacking in life. Even the Rapture demo that was posted looked like it could have been a more lively Limsa from the way it was laid out.

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

I'd like to see a magically developed city with great advancements in technology as well, but also not have it been destroyed eons ago and is now in ruins and mostly lost technology like how a lot of games like to put them :/

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I agree. I think FFXIV's main/central city should look like Rabanastre.

http://gallery.burrowowl.net/index.p...image/6779.jpg

But i know it will be ishgard and from what it looks like on the outside, it will be a plain old castle with grey brick walls all over the place... another depressing scenery.....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

Getting to the topic, I've done comparisons and even posted the adventurer's guild art in another topic about how Eorzea currently looks. It feels bland, empty and lacking in life. Even the Rapture demo that was posted looked like it could have been a more lively Limsa from the way it was laid out.

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I'm not too familiar with video game development but i hope all this can be fixed in the future. I know WOW re-designed the whole world and cities in Cataclysm and Aion also had some graphical enhancements but i'm not sure if it's doable in FFXIV due to the engine not being very flexible.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

I'm not too familiar with video game development but i hope all this can be fixed in the future. I know WOW re-designed the whole world and cities in Cataclysm and Aion also had some graphical enhancements but i'm not sure if it's doable in FFXIV due to the engine not being very flexible.

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That we'd have to see on. They didn't touch the FFXI towns in the 9 years the game has been out, and only added minor things/objects to pre-existing zones (and started to just reuse areas instead).

It's certainly a possibility in the future, a couple years down the road with an expansion release an upgrade to the main cities. It's VERY do-able. As a current fix, it absolutely is unlikely to happen there's just more issues on their plate than to fix art style and direction in existing locations. But i'm in complete agreement with you all, the textures, models, graphics look superb, the art direction is very boring, empty and bland.

As far as worlds go, i'm probably a minority here but I loved the world and art direction in Final Fantasy 9. The characters were a little too animated looking and cartoony, but the world and environment was that perfect balance of fantasy and midieval

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Originally Posted by RedAffinity

It's certainly a possibility in the future, a couple years down the road with an expansion release an upgrade to the main cities. It's VERY do-able. As a current fix, it absolutely is unlikely to happen there's just more issues on their plate than to fix art style and direction in existing locations. But i'm in complete agreement with you all, the textures, models, graphics look superb, the art direction is very boring, empty and bland.

As far as worlds go, i'm probably a minority here but I loved the world and art direction in Final Fantasy 9. The characters were a little too animated looking and cartoony, but the world and environment was that perfect balance of fantasy and midieval

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You're not alone, FF9 was one of m'y favorites. They really captured the Final Fantasy essence in that game and everything about the game reminded me of the old FF games like FF3(6 in japan).

I hope they will put a bit of FF8 in there somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

You're not alone, FF9 was one of m'y favorites. They really captured the Final Fantasy essence in that game and everything about the game reminded me of the old FF games like FF3(6 in japan).

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This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

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Not only am I in complete agreement with what you said above, but I also chose Lindblum Server for the exact same reason =]

i allways thought that FFXIV was allready a bit ahead of FFXI with all the garlean empire stuff and such, heavy airship fleets etc.
but i agree, i wish we'd be able to see all this stuff allready!

I just remembered something from when I got into open beta!

Now I was testing in closed alpha/beta and only got to see Limsa and Los Noscea at that time. I remembered reading something about "large seamless zones" and thought maybe the zone layout would be similar to how it is in WoW, you have your different areas and they try to seam together as you go from one to the other (I know some of this is crap in WoW, you can clearly see the visible line between areas).

When open beta started and you could see the other areas, I was expecting going from The Black Shroud to Thanalan to see a bit of transition going from a forest to a desert. Nope, hit a zone line and saw instead what FFXI did and you couldn't tell you were gradually going from one region to another.

This isn't quite the same as what we're just talking about with what the world is lacking is detail, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon;165178Gridania artwork

[URL="http://ffxivonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/gridania.jpg%20Simply%20beautiful"

http://ffxivonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/gridania.jpg Simply beautiful [/URL]


Gridania in-game

http://www.ffxivorigin.com/content/attachments/227d1282007650-gridania1-jpg/

Like everything else in the game... it's lacking life. Where's those huts we see in the arwork, built in those big trees. Where's those huge 1000 years trees? Those beautiful lights guiding your path?

when comparing the ingame screenshot to the artwork it looks like they didnt have enough time to finish the main building... the 2nd and 3rd floor are missing. It's also missing lights, decor and paint...


Can we realistically hope all this will be fixed? I would love for FFXIV to turn more like it's artwork. To me it seems that they didn't understand Yoshida's art and couldn't reproduce it or they just lacked the time to do it? I hope one day we will see Eorzea come to life and maybe have a world resembling FFX and FFXII's worlds. [/B]

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Gridania is pretty disappointing when comparing the concept art. But this usually happens in all games. Concept art always looks better than the 'real' thing.

That said, the gridania we have in-game is not really living up to potential. But I guess that's what happen when you use an engine that can't render shadows! It would have been interesting to see the concept art for gridania brought to life using different engines.

And can SE please fix Depth-of-field already! The sharp line separating low and high res textures is most irratating. Most!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

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They forgot to add landmarks everywhere on the map. You can't tell where your characters is simply by looking at the surroundings, everything looks the same.

Does anyone else think that the areas that are still off limits, are being redesigned from scratch? They look like they were almost finished when the game launched and 8 months later they are still closed.

Digging up this thread because I'd like, as many others, get a dev comment on this. Are we getting more technology (Like in many previous FF's) as in a new continent(s), enemies/bosses, equipable gear, etc?
Is this something that is still planned (short or long term)?

Onidemon, not trying to troll, but your posts are hard to read when you type everything in bold. It's like you're shouting. I got halfway through your OP before I gave up.

I will say that one of my biggest points of excitement about this game was that Tanaka originally said it would be inspired by FFVI, which was set in sort of a steampunk world of technology mixed with magic. I'd like to see more of that emerge.

I personally don't like the technological aspect of some of the FFs, but I did think the Garlean's technology can lead us to some stuff. Obviously they already tried to appease fanboys with gunblades and such.

I personally like the approach they've taken thats a mix of technology and magic, similar to FFXII (same art director). However I agree that its just bland right now, hopefully in the future they might try and jazz the cities up a bit. When we have airships going in and out in the future that might also help make them feel a bit more alive too.