Is most of FFXIV's failings due to their choice of engine?

[gifthorse]

After looking at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgaAJ...eature=related

I can't help but wonder why a game by SQUARE ENIX of all companies doesn't really even compare to the environmental visuals of a Korean Grinder.

It seems small, but individual shadows really adds a lot of detail to the environments, not to mention wandering NPCs, voice-overs, swaying grass and trees, and the ability to jump!

[yukikaze_yanagi]

A korean grinding game don't run on a fuming pile of crap tecnology like ps3. Thread over.

[Munba]

The enviroment shadows give a lot of atmosphere, yes (hope to see something for the new ff14 zones in dx10 in future). Pity this is a korean game..

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Geez how many MMOs do the Koreans have and why do they all look the same?

[Jinko]

A korean grinding game don't run on a fuming pile of crap tecnology like ps3. Thread over.

Blade and Soul was announced for PS3 as well, has that changed ?

Geez how many MMOs do the Koreans have and why do they all look the same?

Well they may look samey but at least they don't have barren copy and paste landscapes FFXIV does.

[Neogohan1]

Cause koreans and japanese have different levels of coding.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Well they may look samey but at least they don't have barren copy and paste landscapes FFXIV does.

Well it's a good thing the devs are going to fix some of those barren landscapes with the next patch.

[Gramul]

Most of the failings of XIV seem to be more design based. The engine itself should have little to do with it.

The fact that Square has been using heavy copy paste environments with the crystal tools engine sense XIII is mostly coincidental and I can only assume it's another STUPID executive decision to cut on development time.

[Jinko]

Cause koreans and japanese have different levels of coding.

This, Korean devs are mostly PC orientated wheres as Japanese are more used to console limitations, of course its not just limited to coding, SE lack the understanding of PC UI and controls as well.

If I was SE I would seriously consider employing some western or Korean devs, hell why not even use some of the devs at Edios.

[ChiefCurrahee]

So what do you want them to do GH? Abandon their inhouse engine and recreate from the ground up and pay licensing fees to a 3rd party? not to mention it would take years to convert their assets over to a new engine.

They will do much better implementing new and improved versions of crystal tools and updating the client if possible.

and to answer your question more directly,
No it's not their choice of engine that ended FFXIV in such a sad state. It was the production team, and lack of direction and proper system implementation.
They coded this version of crystal tools to their needs, and they can continue to change it. I hope we see improvements and optimizations to the code so it preforms better on lesser PCs. In the future I think we'll see more detailed animated environments.
I think the real question is what happened during production of this game?
there was 4-5 years of development, and it just doesn't show.
My money is on they abandoned a project 1/2 way through and started over to create FFXIV to- close to a deadline to really fully envision the game they wanted to create. I mean 4 years of dev time and you have closed "alpha" tests?
We've seen more changes in the past 5 months since Yoshi-P took over than we did from the 8 months alpha-Tanaka dismissal period.