Bring the world to life...

[Anty]

The strange thing looking at ffxiv, there are so many things, especially characters, animations done with so much detail and <3.
the light of a fire reflecting on the character etc. looks amazing.

Then... you are in the forest, or in the desert, wherever and the sun is shining. But...
The only thing with a shadow is you and your companions and npcs and mobs.
there is no shadow on the ground, no tree, no rock really has a shadow. (they have some sort or shadow on themselves where the sun isnt atm but the ground is still without).

looking at other (sometimes much older) games you can see that its really is making the world more realistic and gives atmosphere a lot. when im in Uldah and the sun is almost gone, i still have a massive shadow, but the huge walls of uldah dont cover the city in more or less darkness, which they should. you have static light sources that sometimes dont even match a lantern ...

The other thing that kills the atmosphere is the, i might say, most ugly way of putting textures with the look or 1985 in the - not that far - distance. then being replaced by HD textures when you are closer (depth of field doesnt help here either).
I prefer a bit of a "fog" or 3-4 steps to make it look smooth. Thats a way of killing the HD feeling a lot for me.

the water looks like pudding as well btw.

Cosidering that this game is the most hardware hungry game it offers not much in return. And the engine is still not optimized a single bit. Even in areas without 1 single mob my rig sometimes cries for help - which it doesnt in crysis, aoc, rift, or any other game i played so far. The fact they dindt get the ambient occlusion to work properly -
even lotro has a pretty decent looking AO with 5% performance hit max- is a slap in the face. Its SE, not 1 man company. the options in the menue for graphic should as well be in the game, not before... and there have to be many more tweaking options.
Atm the only thing you can do to increase the performance is.. make the game look like ffxi... that isnt even the standard it was 5 years ago.

and well the other things are said in the former posts

[Munba]

For the eviroment shadows it needs directx10 i presume and right now FF14 running on directx9 stuff (but surely expandable to 10 like said developer time ago). Hope they'll add directx10 features in the near future. Water effect is ok imo, it needs only more 'splashes' when you walk/run in it.

[Anty]

you can do almost everything on dx9 you can do on dx10 its just not as effective as far as i know- im no programmer but ive seen it in lots of dx9 titles (rift makes a great job on that with dx9).

It may be not that important compared to the content and class / battle issues , which is true, but it still kills the fantasy-realism the game has to offer in many other parts.
and its just sad since they put soooo much efford in the races, looks, animations, physix, really amazing!!!!

I think the reason why im so picking on these details is... considering the way the game looks atm, the few things goin on at one time in this game - if theres no npc or pc it is nothing - ok perhaps wind - the few eye candies you get... it should run on a rig that costs half the prize of what i payed, just to play this game decently...

poor programming feels like a big rip-off to the playerbase. Well in the end they lose the subscribers cause ppl cant run it.
And i think THAT is a major issue they should work on it a lot.
I have many friends willing to play it, with ok rigs, but cant play it at all, not even with worst settings, at least not enjoyable. Some couldnt even get it to work - ok that might have been some too old rigs, but still...

I know ppl hate the "WOW" (never liked it and barely touched it) word but.. take the wow playerbase and increase the hardware recommendation the way ffxiv does... i think i dont have to say more. Nobody wants to play a game in a tiny window without AA and see the desktop picture while playing...

This game lacks options:
detail options, grass density, level of detail for far away objects, level of detail for different things like npc, pc, mobs, view range, npc, mob view range, item view range,
etc... also different textures, not just ugly and beautiful. something in between would be nice as well so people can
tweak around (in game) and test out as much as possible.

I want the game to succed asap but the huge hardware recommendation even with good content might be a problem even then.

[Dingleberry]

Yeah, also beastmen attacking cities randomly would be nice.
So also to have more players around Gridania and Limsa for example (already almost dead city sadly). And about it, cities should have more important places inside to attract players to come back in it (something like the -future- casinò in uldah). Something players need or can enjoy in every city.

good ideas, and I bet you they will add events where monsters attack towns, but i predict that to be a later addition to the game

[Xeno]

Completely agree. We're at a time of war yet there are no signs of it at all

[Gennosuke]

good ideas, and I bet you they will add events where monsters attack towns, but i predict that to be a later addition to the game

I gotta agree, i've always thought how cool and thrilling of an idea it would be if they have beastmen attack cities where it's usually peaceful. That element of surprise and thrill is what we need in this game, to expect the unexpected.

But going back to topic, i agree strongly with OP, this is one of my biggest issues with this game. The landscape is ultra bland and boring and is copy pasted all over the place, i feel no sense of adventure when exploring and there isn't much to explore for that matter. Every place looks like the other, and most caves look similar too, not only that but they need much more life in them and sense of adventure and danger, have some dragons roaming around killing massive amount of people at random times like Guivre in FFXI, just crazy stuff to keep it fun and lively. Bring back the Orcs !!!

Also Camps are so disappointing, surely they can be livened up alot. Make each one of them look different from the other, not duplicates and do some drastic changes to their design and surroundings, a camp by a warzone, a camp by ocean-side, camp in a dungeon, camp in a jungle, and make each one look absolutely unique, not the same tent-style camps we have at the moment.
My idea of a camp is something for eg. like Rabao area in FFXI. Make it a pleasant experience to go to a camp since we are bound to them most of the time. Use your imagination and creativity. Only takes peek at FFXI to get an idea of how bad FFXIV world is. Lots of changes and additions need to be implemented on the landscape.

I feel if they had only got the landscape/atmosphere right, it would still give reason to play the game for those who lost interest. FFXI had an amazing landscape and sense of adventure in comparison, from ronfaure to valkurm dunes, to qufim islands, yhoator jungle, Zitah, CoP areas, and the list goes on and on. Every area and stage in the game had something unique and thrilling to offer. This is completely non-existant in FFXIV and it's completely ruined the experience. What's the point of grinding to 50 when there is no sense of adventure and landscape is an eye-sore. it beats the point of an MMO focused on fun and adventure.

The world of Eorzea does need to be brought to life, i think this should take top priority before fixing the minor things. This is a make or break deal for many. I'm willing to put up with minor annoyances so long as the big picture is sound and good. Please focus on the big and important aspects first then move on to smaller things. I'm losing more interest every passing day. I really hope SE will focus on World and Battle/Classes first and foremost, then the rest. They're the backbone of the game. without them there is no game.

[Kailan_Eidyia]

This is a wonderful suggestion! When I think of what makes Final Fantasy games great, I think of:
1) Great graphics
2) An immersive world
3) An epic engaging plot

Right now FFXIV has #1 in spades, but #2 and #3 are still lacking. The basic zones I think are quite good, but adding little touches like those mentioned above would really help me feel like I'm immersed in the world around me.

[tymora]

Cue "The Witcher"'s level of immersion...NPCs take cover from the rain, curse at the cold, talk about the latest gossips, WALK to their homes to sleep for the night...etc

NPC's roaming the streets of the the three City-States interacting with one another, stores closing for the nigh

You can be sure half the game populace will QQ about this when they can't find the quest NPC.

[Munba]

I remember time ago they mentioned also the wet-dress feature when rain (seen also in some videos). Who knows they'll implement in the future. It would be neat.

[Madrox]

I would love more life breathed into Eorzea.