Quote Originally Posted by Aistaraina View Post
Unreal 3.
Sure is awesome having everything in a game look like a pile of feces for several seconds before the game decides to load a good texture.

More seriously though, while Crystal Tools might not be the most advanced engine out there in terms of technical specifications, the results SE has produced both times they've used it feature artistry miles ahead of anything that uses Source or Cry3 or whatever. FFXIII may not be a good game, but the graphics blow almost every other console game out of the water, all without the noticeable texture popping or severe clipping issues most games made with third-party engines do. FFXIV may be behind PC games in general, but no other MMO out or soon to be out looks as good, and that's an important distinction.

Just because it doesn't have as many modern features does not mean it isn't the tool best suited to the people who are using it. So far they've shown that it works for them, and it's not a commercial engine so that's all it needs to do.

This all has very little to do with what the OP is saying though. The server dependency is unrelated to the graphics or the engine they were designed with.