Why did they changed this from version 1.0 ?

[Teon]

Oh great, another "the areas aren't gigantic enough" thread.

For ARR, they opted for smaller, more-well-crafted areas instead of having giant areas that required lots of reuse of textures and terrain chunks to make ("copy-pasta"). There's no point in having a giant area when you don't have enough assets and content to fill it with.

You lost the point of this thread: we are wondering about why the actual, amazing designed, world is not a big single block without loading screen where you can see ppl running on capitals far miles from the gate, live.

Tell me, didn't you dreamt ff14 was something like this too? Well it's not gonna happen with actual wallmart Pentium 2 servers, for sure
And maybe never.

[Amyas]

Actually the reason the copy/pasted open world from 1.0 was scrapped was because even good pcs could barely run it without constant crashing... so yeah. Not just 'ps3 limitation'

[indira]

I still can't grasp how people can say 1.0 overworld was amazing with a straight face, did they only play for 5 minutes? The terrain way copy pasted to hell and way back over and over and over, caves? They were the same freaking cave turned around with three freaking moles in them, ramps in Thanalan? the whole section was copy pasted for every ramp, it was horrible and anyone who says 1.0 overworld is better than 2.0 either didn't play or barely touched 1.0 and didn't notice it.

Just a little reminder of what La Noscea was like back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La9nLBfH44c

That shit was EVERYWHERE.

not sure if you noticed ARR has a ton of copy & paste too.

Actually the reason the copy/pasted open world from 1.0 was scrapped was because even good pcs could barely run it without constant crashing... so yeah. Not just 'ps3 limitation'

i ran it fine and still using the same PC. even ran 3 screens 50+ FPS. people just had weak pc's who couldnt run it, some people cant even run this game maxed out and its way more forgiving.

[Eamil]

You lost the point of this thread: we are wondering about why the actual, amazing designed, world is not a big single block without loading screen where you can see ppl running on capitals far miles from the gate, live.

Tell me, didn't you dreamt ff14 was something like this too? Well it's not gonna happen with actual wallmart Pentium 2 servers, for sure
And maybe never.

1.0 just had really long, narrow hallways between zones that you had to walk through instead of loading screens. I wouldn't really say it was "better."

The capitals being split up the way they are is annoying though, I will say.

[Fawkes]

You lost the point of this thread: we are wondering about why the actual, amazing designed, world is not a big single block without loading screen where you can see ppl running on capitals far miles from the gate, live.

I think it was explained with that "Final Fantasy feel" reason, so that when you enter a new area you get a little title card so you know you're in a new zone. And the blue dots that mark the zone line are kinda like FF12.

And I think they recognized that some people hated all the running you had to do in 1.0, so they got rid of it.

Also, probably PS3 limitations. I mean maybe it could've run it, but what about several expansions later? That's kind of what happened with FFXI and the PS2, it was fine until they added a million things. Maybe it's more future proof this way.

[Norack]

It was a poll for the communty taken by the devs. in 1.0.

The community wanted zones that where richer and livelier, livlier, live-lyer? something. And after that option it was stated that if we select this option than there would be zones. and the community still picked it. It is still very possible to go zone less but with the type of environment in the zones you would need one hell of a machine to do it which i think was one of the downfalls of 1.0 only like what 5% of the population that wanted to play it had a computer capable of playing it.

[Teon]

I think it was explained with that "Final Fantasy feel" reason, so that when you enter a new area you get a little title card so you know you're in a new zone. And the blue dots that mark the zone line are kinda like FF12.

And I think they recognized that some people hated all the running you had to do in 1.0, so they got rid of it.

Also, probably PS3 limitations. I mean maybe it could've run it, but what about several expansions later? That's kind of what happened with FFXI and the PS2, it was fine until they added a million things. Maybe it's more future proof this way.

I doubt anyone hated the feeling of a real alive open world We hated copypasted trash over and over.
This game on a single block would have been such an awesome gem, with a real feeling of an alive world, a real solid huge space to run or teleport watching people running up and down from capitals
Obiouvsly requires better servers, way better coding, and no ps3 limitations haha
Million things may be added like expand the actual world (on an imaginary single block) not ruining the game, when a designer do his work properly as they did. Our game just lack of a proper IT management imho

[KiriA500]

I doubt anyone hated the feeling of a real alive open world We hated copypasted trash over and over.
This game on a single block would have been such an awesome gem, with a real feeling of an alive world, a real solid huge space to run or teleport watching people running up and down from capitals
Obiouvsly requires better servers, way better coding, and no ps3 limitations haha
Million things may be added like expand the actual world (on an imaginary single block) not ruining the game, when a designer do his work properly as they did. Our game just lack of a proper IT management imho

The world of 1.0 was NOT ALIVE. Good lord, what game did you all play?

[Joshyuchiha]

They redesigned the world in such a short amount of time compared to how long the original game was in development. You can't expect to have both unique/non-copy-pasted zones and have them be massive in that short time period. You could argue that they should have delayed release and spent more time on it but they simply couldn't afford to do so and had to get something good out in a reasonable amount of time to replace the absolute flop that was 1.0 and while it's far from perfect I think they did the best they could for the time they had.

Also the loading screens are obviously for performance issues, PS3 or not. In 1.0 you had to have at least a mid to high end system to even run the game effectively let alone on good settings so they had to tone down graphics just a bit (though I still say some things will look better with the DX11 update) and spit up the world into zones.

[Naunet]

For ARR, they opted for smaller, more-well-crafted areas instead of having giant areas that required lots of reuse of textures and terrain chunks to make ("copy-pasta"). There's no point in having a giant area when you don't have enough assets and content to fill it with.

You're creating a false dichotomy of options here. We do not have to pick between claustrophic, invisible-wall-infested zones with varied terrain and larger zones with copy-pasted terrain. It's entirely possible to have rich environment design without the annoying corridor-style layout and overuse of invisible walls that we have now (and had still in 1.0). They just need to stop blocking off 75% of the zone.