Eorzea Then and Now

[Naunet]

I do not miss the 1.0 maps, yeah they were a nice size, but as mentioned before: soooo much was a copy/paste job. Not just the odd tree, like entire lil sections of tree/small pond etc. It was just too much. Too obvious.

And why can't we have both decently sized maps (though, please, no more of the stupid canyons funneling you from one place to the next - actual, open zones, please) and interesting terrain? Plenty of other MMOs manage it. It's not like asking for bigger maps (and again: more open ones!) automatically implies copy-pasta terrain.

[SirSaber]

I hope you all remember the Copy Paste in all those wonderful places yes ?

Specially La Noscea.

The Maps were big and all but lots of lots of the places were reused over and over again.

Here, have a look at what I'm talking about :

Part1:
http://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c
Part2:
http://youtu.be/CA7GGnyNwEs

And this was present in almost every single place (besides cities) in FF14 1.0
It's the reason why I disliked the game's maps, I prefer them small and unique than big and repetitive.

And why can't we have both decently sized maps (though, please, no more of the stupid canyons funneling you from one place to the next - actual, open zones, please) and interesting terrain? Plenty of other MMOs manage it. It's not like asking for bigger maps (and again: more open ones!) automatically implies copy-pasta terrain.

Why not bigger ?
The bigger the maps the longer the loading time, in 1.0 it took me minutes to load a map when I teleported and the more crowded the map was the worse it got.

And how long would it take for PS3 player to load those bigger maps?

I think the Devs made them so that they're neither to small nor too big.
You might like big butt maps but I can imagine allot of guys whining about the map being to big when they have to go from one point of it to the other just for a quest.

The Devs tried to please the majority of players, it's a choice they've made.

I'm okay with the maps now.

[Shori]

I prefer how diverse the landscapes and buildings are now, but a part of me does miss the seamless (yes i know techincally just a logn walk while you connected to next part of the world) transitions and little nooks hidden away in the map like in the southern part of la noscea and an area high-up with five close-together trees in the shroud. Theres not much hidden away to discover in 2.0

[lol123]

id rather have quality over quantity.

[Mysteltain]

From what I can tell, 1.0's fields had more vibrant colors and seemed much more expansive, but this came at the cost of being incredibly repetitive and bland. Although I do quite like that there were open-world 'dungeons' you could just waltz in to--I know if I played 1.0 I'd be spending a lot of time in those, haha! I always enjoy finding hidden locations in lost corners of maps.

But digression aside, even knowing all that I much prefer 2.0's style. The fields may not be as expansive nor as vibrant, but they make up for that with a wider range of colors, a uniqueness to each, and much better lighting. Each map of Limsa is very distinct, each map of Thanalan has something different about it, each Black Shroud map...uh, well, maybe if I spent more time in them I could tell them apart, but you all get what I'm saying.

[Kittra]

If I had my way, had unlimited resources and was producing the game, my personal preference would be something like:

1.0's Character Design, lighting, and quality

2.0's Level/Area Aesthetics, Dungeon design, Structure Design

1.0's Macro Textures

2.0's Leveling System (Dungeons)

1.0's NMs (Fast spawning NMs)

2.0's Market Wards

1.0's Crafting/Materia driven Economy

A mixture of 1.0 and 2.0's area layout (Right now 2.0's areas are "unique" but every single area is that way which pretty much makes nothing special at all really.)

1.0's Battle System (without skill lock) (I'm sick to death of fighting with the camera zoomed out and with global cool down in every single MMO ever created simply because that's how the battles are designed.)

2.0's 3rd person camera system

1.0's Awesome First person camera system


There's more I'm forgetting (I know I am) but most of these points are what I would put into the game if I had that kind of power.


The major failing of 1.0's area layout was due to a couple facts that have been stated in the past:

First, they needed to conserve memory on the PS3. This is the main reason we got copy pasted areas in 1.0 (although after they dropped the idea of releasing 1.0 on the PS3, the level of detail to content released later became top notch).

Second, the game was pushed out extremely early. I remember reading back in 2009 that FFXIV was originally slated for release in the Q4 of 2013, and I was extremely shocked when they changed that to late 2010.

Even though the game was rushed, if you actually took the time to explore 1.0's landscape, there were quite a few "unique" areas to be found hidden in far away places. It lent a certain "enchanted" feeling to those areas and I have quite a few pictures/videos of my linkshell just hanging around some of them for fun.

That's what adventuring is all about right?

[Naunet]

The bigger the maps the longer the loading time, in 1.0 it took me minutes to load a map when I teleported and the more crowded the map was the worse it got.

Having played GW2, which also has instanced zones and which has significantly larger zones than ARR, I can't imagine why it took you minutes to load a map - unless your computer seriously needs a cleaning.

But really, the maps don't even need to be expanded so much as opened up. Take the North Shroud for instance:



Look at all those bottlenecks and little "fingers" of inaccessible land protruding into the zone. The result is a claustrophobic maze of canyons with zero opportunity for exploration. The yellow line would be the theoretical boundary of the zone if those inaccessible spaces were filled in (and that includes all that nonsense in the middle of the zone).

I mean, really, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to jump down here and do some exploring:



But nope! Invisible walls everywhere. Insurmountable cliffs everywhere. Canyons and tunnels funneling you from one node to the next. It takes all the vibrancy from the zones.

[Artamie]

Is it just me or are a lot of the "then" screenshots really really pretty compared to the "now"?

If I had my way, had unlimited resources and was producing the game, my personal preference would be something like:

1.0's Character Design, lighting, and quality

I'm so upset that the leatherworker's hats stopped bouncing

[Mishakai]

Don't be getting no nostalgia glasses for 1.0. Aside from a few, any people you see here posting 1.0 stuff still playing in 2.0 are here because the game is leaps and bounds better than it was. I can toss up some closeup SS from late in 1.0 (got some cool pics of dalamud and some magitek stuff flying over ul'dah), but don't be fooled by the textures.. Things are way better now than they were overall.

[Kittra]

Don't be getting no nostalgia glasses for 1.0. Aside from a few, any people you see here posting 1.0 stuff still playing in 2.0 are here because the game is leaps and bounds better than it was. I can toss up some closeup SS from late in 1.0 (got some cool pics of dalamud and some magitek stuff flying over ul'dah), but don't be fooled by the textures.. Things are way better now than they were overall.

Other than the copy paste mostly being eradicated, a lot of the problem plaguing 1.0 remain in 2.0. One example is positional delay lag, where your character is out of range of an attack or ability and still gets hit by it because the server claims you are standing in the danger zone when clearly you are waaaaaaay out of range.

If I had to compare 1.0 (aka 1.23) and 2.0 side by side, I'd say that what really happened was we traded some game aspects for others, which makes them about equal when you factor in all the problems that transferred from 1.0 into 2.0.

We lost zone size and a semi-open world, but gained great aesthetics and original area design.

An Improved lighting system for the world was added, but we traded dynamic character lighting for that.

We traded an original battle system for one that has worked with every other MMO on the market (I don't consider this a good one actually...).

There's a lot more that was changed, modified or lost on the road to 2.0, and at the end all I really see is the same old problems with a new face.
The biggest problem I have with this is the fact I don't like how the face turned out, but that's my problem.