Technology in FFXIV + Visual Style

[Onidemon]

It's certainly a possibility in the future, a couple years down the road with an expansion release an upgrade to the main cities. It's VERY do-able. As a current fix, it absolutely is unlikely to happen there's just more issues on their plate than to fix art style and direction in existing locations. But i'm in complete agreement with you all, the textures, models, graphics look superb, the art direction is very boring, empty and bland.

As far as worlds go, i'm probably a minority here but I loved the world and art direction in Final Fantasy 9. The characters were a little too animated looking and cartoony, but the world and environment was that perfect balance of fantasy and midieval

You're not alone, FF9 was one of m'y favorites. They really captured the Final Fantasy essence in that game and everything about the game reminded me of the old FF games like FF3(6 in japan).

[Shikaree]

You're not alone, FF9 was one of m'y favorites. They really captured the Final Fantasy essence in that game and everything about the game reminded me of the old FF games like FF3(6 in japan).

This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

[RedAffinity]

This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

Not only am I in complete agreement with what you said above, but I also chose Lindblum Server for the exact same reason =]

[Shikaree]

I just remembered something from when I got into open beta!

Now I was testing in closed alpha/beta and only got to see Limsa and Los Noscea at that time. I remembered reading something about "large seamless zones" and thought maybe the zone layout would be similar to how it is in WoW, you have your different areas and they try to seam together as you go from one to the other (I know some of this is crap in WoW, you can clearly see the visible line between areas).

When open beta started and you could see the other areas, I was expecting going from The Black Shroud to Thanalan to see a bit of transition going from a forest to a desert. Nope, hit a zone line and saw instead what FFXI did and you couldn't tell you were gradually going from one region to another.

This isn't quite the same as what we're just talking about with what the world is lacking is detail, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Onidemon]

This is why I picked Lindblum as a server, FFIX was a great game. I think Memoria was a great endgame dungeon as well.

Something else I don't see in FFXI/V are areas that present large objects that scales out the area more. I'm talking like 100+ foot high up giant overhead rock structures or very tall trees that make you able to see right up close, run around or under, and just say 'wow!'. I'm not talking how it is in Gridania, I mean somewhere more like Los Noscea or Coerthas. The land just feels very flat with a bunch of walls and maybe a level change that stays consistent for one side of the zone. Can't really call anything landmarks out there, it all looks the same.

They forgot to add landmarks everywhere on the map. You can't tell where your characters is simply by looking at the surroundings, everything looks the same.