can someone explain the whole 1.0 graphics > 2.0?

[Moqi]

I agree with OP somewhat. I have seen a couple of 1.0 cutscenes: camera work and voice acting was much better, but they all look plastic-y and shiny, I really can't stand it. Overall I prefer 2.0 graphics, but I hope they will reach the quality of 1.0 when it comes to camera work/action sequences and voice acting. They are improving with every patch though.

[micheleuno]

i´d never pllayed 1.0 but my biggest complain with the 2.0 world is the lack of connection betwen zones, everything is fragmented in more little zones, from the world map to the raids, i think this breacks all the illusion of exploring.

[Elazu]

The lighting was better in 1.0, IMO. It had more personality to it.

Models looked better.

The animations looked better.

The cutscenes had better quality camera work.

Miqote tails didn't just clip through all the things and sometimes even had armor on them.

This.

And characters had butts.

[MageBlack]

I only really miss Papalymo's voice from 1.0. other than that I'm glad to be rid of the poor lighting bloom, the terrible copy pasta terrain, and wooden character animations. I'm excited though for the DX11 Client as I see this will bring back a lot of nice little features to the game to bring it to life. I do admit the textures were nice on cloth and such in 1.0 but the metallic shine in 2.0 looks much sharper. Also... Dat Grass!!!

Below is the DX11 Comparison part of the Tokyo Fanfest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRqW3qlYYfE

[Cailae]

There were, unfortunately, a lot of trade offs that had to be made in moving to 2.0. One of the things promised with 1.0 was PS3 support and it's pretty amazing that Yoshi-P stuck to that promise. However, to make it happen on that machine (and reduce the ridiculous PC system requirements) a lot of changes had to be made. Zone lines, Reduced poly counts, flatter textures, and canned animations are all signs of this. While some things about 1.0 were damn beautiful, 2.0 is by far a better, more playable game. While environments in 1.0 may have been huge, they were also empty, useless, and not very diverse. There was precious little to do in game, and the fixes thrown at it were band-aids at best.

In the end, I would much rather a good game than a pretty one.

[raelgun]

And I would like to see people try playing the game with 1.0 graphics in 24 man content, I will never play a game where the graphics horsepower determines the actual gameplay mechanics and as a result guts it and I stopped playing the 1.0 version due to this, and this is coming from someone with a powerful machine.

Theres a reason why 1.0 failed and this was one of them, do not get me wrong, I like to crack up the settings where I can, but I am not a fan if the development side of things take a turn for the worse in favour of image quality.

If you want sheer eye candy, play crysis 3.

[Bluejay]

Graphics were far more detailed back in 1.0 but it had a cost of requiring a F load of system requirements that can make a PS3 over heat.

Just look at the detail for 1.0 cutscene compared to now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXSHLPB1aM

It's a shame we had to give up all of that quality to get a playable game. Those cutscenes are MUCH better than what we have now. The NPC's are way better too. Thancred is a bad ### from the very start instead of comic relief, the Songstress of Uldah is a substantial improvement over the 2.0 version, etc...

though I am ok with simplifying the flower pots

[Kietsu]

From what I've seen, 1.0 had a lot of needless detail, and ran on a pretty poor rendering engine. So it ran poorly and looked bad. Terrain textures did have better quality, but when you've just got the same models and textures hewn across the entire landscape you don't have to worry about memory usage.

I'll remind everyone that good cutscene coreography is not 'graphics', too. That cutscene with our badass Admiral would work just fine in 2.0 - but her face wouldn't look awful and the lighting wouldn't be washed out. The problem with 2.0 is that nobody on the team gives two shakes about cinematography; When one considers the amount of time they had to make a completely new storyline, though, I wouldn't blame them.

[Velhart]

I only really miss Papalymo's voice from 1.0.

Isn't it the same voice actor? I believe all scions reprise their role from 1.xx. Minfilia and Urianger did not have voice actors in 1.xx.

[Kaizlu]

I spent so much time trying to defeat Garuda back in 1.0 that I started to appreciate and love the opening scene for the fight. When I saw the same scene in ARR I was totally dissapointed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_R56msMZW8

I'm still angry about it lol