Seasons

[Shioban]

This is a huge technical challenge, look up the development video for The Sims 2 Seasons, and you'll see exactly why.

[Allyra]

This is a huge technical challenge, look up the development video for The Sims 2 Seasons, and you'll see exactly why.

Eh. I think it depends on how far they take it. Weather was rather important in FFXI, and it had 4 seasons. But all that did was increase chances of certain weather statuses appearing in certain areas (and I think affected the spawning conditions of certain NMs).

[Tupsi]

This is a huge technical challenge, look up the development video for The Sims 2 Seasons, and you'll see exactly why.

Nope. FFXI has seasons and even some object changes based on said seasons - For example winter months rl/game time it is more likely to snow in Rolanberry/Batallia downs and even Rolanberries scattered around changes colors iirc.

Heck even some mob based spawns/weakness/strengths based on seasons/weather patterns, so it's not a technical challenge if a 2002 PS2 game can do it.

[Shioban]

Nope. FFXI has seasons and even some object changes based on said seasons

I completely understand your point, and also that it'd be nice to see more varying weather, sometimes more really is better.

But, from an assets point of view, FFXI had considerably less in terms of assets that needed to be produced/edited to suit any changes they wanted to make.

FFXIV has a lot of assets, lets assume there are at least three seasons, that three new sets of textures, sounds, particle effects and more that would require a tremendous amount of effort to go back and reapply simple for the sake of 'changing the weather'.

The development team did a good job of adding in weather effects for each area;

Sagoli Desert = Windy/Heat-wave
Coerthas = Sunny/Blizzard/
The Black Shroud = Thunder/Rain/Fair/Fog

It's safe to say it would be unfair to have to go back and re-design The Black Shroud assets for the sake of 20 minutes of snow.