Geographic Diversity Please

Although the graphics of FFXI were technically "not as good" as FFXIV I genuinely miss the WIDE range of geographic diversity found in it. There were so many areas that were vastly different from each other. We had deserts, snow regions, beaches, forests, mountains, plateaus, ruin-type dungeons, pyramid style tombs, to name but a handful. I am currently level 46 in FFXIV and find myself rinsing and repeating the same areas over and over again. I want my ronfaure, jugner forest, batallia downs, and tavzanian archipeligo back! It's sad more than anything and I really hope that, even if it costs a bit of graphical excellence, we see this diversity put back into ARR.

Judging from the various concept arts and the many times we've seen Gridania features in presentations, it looks like ARR won't be as "copy paste" as this version is. It's pretty much confirmed we'll have a snow area among ruin/tower type dungeons

Not only are they going to have more diversity in 2.0, but the diversity in FFXI is a lot greater just because it's been out 10 years, and has been expanded so much. I think a little patience is in order.

Was actually addressed at one point by a dev or Yoshi? (cant remember exact date or article, was maybe early spring?) that the current design is a repeat of features but smooth almost seamless transition from zone to zone (within each respected region) In ARR the plan is to have much more diversity but zoning more like in XI (as an example).

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Originally Posted by Scy

Was actually addressed at one point by a dev or Yoshi? (cant remember exact date or article, was maybe early spring?) that the current design is a repeat of features but smooth almost seamless transition from zone to zone (within each respected region) In ARR the plan is to have much more diversity but zoning more like in XI (as an example).

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I think I do remember this. I believe he was talking about how there will be "soft" zones and "hard zones" where the former are soft loads that you don't notice as you move around the map while hard zones will be those with transition screens. I hope they can split it up and compromoise

Yeah the soft zoning is pretty nice. Makes it seem more like a big world. I wouldnt mind the zoning though if it means the maps are more detailed and diverse. In a perfect world would be nice to have both. I can make sacrifices for certain benefits. Guess we just wait and see and hope for the best.

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Originally Posted by Scy

Yeah the soft zoning is pretty nice. Makes it seem more like a big world. I wouldnt mind the zoning though if it means the maps are more detailed and diverse. In a perfect world would be nice to have both. I can make sacrifices for certain benefits. Guess we just wait and see and hope for the best.

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Well said and I wholeheartedly agree. I would love FFXI style diversity with no hard zoning but I am willing to take it exactly like it was there. FFXIV 1.0's monotonous maps make that grind to 50 pretty brutal. In fact, it's so bad I often jump to another city just to do the levequests there for a change of scenery.

I was just looking at the alpha pics of FFXIV 1.0 and remembering how I used to look at those and think "OMG if that is how the starting areas look I can't WAIT to see what awesome terrain they have in store for us." That was , of course, when I was thinking it would be as geographically rich as FFXI. I progressed and progressed and progressed and it just never happened! It was more of the same same same same SAME!

A recent Yoshi-P interview said that the transition between zones was a lot shorter than they anticipated on the new server structure, so now they're trying to figure out how to make adjustments on the loading screens where needed.

I think since the zones are being segmented we'll see a lot of variety in the different areas.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

A recent Yoshi-P interview said that the transition between zones was a lot shorter than they anticipated on the new server structure, so now they're trying to figure out how to make adjustments on the loading screens where needed.

I think since the zones are being segmented we'll see a lot of variety in the different areas.

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That sounds promising. I am no MMO tech guru but one I thing I never understood was why so much has to be done on the server side? Can't my computer handle all of the content and graphics locally while the server simply keeps track of positions of characters, items etc? So basically the server tells my client that another player is approaching and my computer does all of the rendering of that event?

The fact SE still uses a pitch black loading screen says quite a bit too. Such a wasted opportunity to convey some lore. You know, once they figure out what that is lol

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Originally Posted by Tiberious

That sounds promising. I am no MMO tech guru but one I thing I never understood was why so much has to be done on the server side? Can't my computer handle all of the content and graphics locally while the server simply keeps track of positions of characters, items etc? So basically the server tells my client that another player is approaching and my computer does all of the rendering of that event?

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All the graphics and stuff are client side, but the server has to know where you are at every point in time since that information is tracked on their side. Otherwise there'd be nothing stopping you from using wall hacks and other such things.

Check out my write up explaining the UL'dah Concept art as well as some key differences between XI and XIV here:

http://boredom-inspires.blogspot.com...ah-reborn.html