Did squenix make a mistake by investing too much in graphics and not enough in

[nasomi]

The graphics are "available", but you can easily play the game on low settings with an 8800gts 320mb. These cards go for $25 on craigslist, not much more elsewhere. And the game still looks pretty good on lower settings. Personally, I love eye candy, so I upgraded my 8800gts 320mb to a gtx280, still far from the top, they go for $100-150, not much either. And quad core computers with 6+gb of ram are coming way down in price. Dell sold a brand new inspirion quadcore with 4gb of ram for $400 that included a 17" monitor and 1tb hd. I slammed my 8800gts in there and bam, i have 2 computers that run ffxiv.

So you can do it for $400-500 on low settings, or if you want the ooh and ah, spent a few hundred more and get the goodies.

[Coldfire]

SE only invested in the graphical design and not the engine. That's the main problem. Without a properly and efficiently running engine it's impossible to make a good mmorpg. Still SE insists on spamming us with small ideas from other mmos instead of fixing horribly broken stuff.
And this game is definately not playable on a $25 gpu. You can start the game but as soon as the scene gets full your framerate will be at the bottom.

[Dreadnought]

The graphics are "available", but you can easily play the game on low settings with an 8800gts 320mb. These cards go for $25 on craigslist, not much more elsewhere. And the game still looks pretty good on lower settings. Personally, I love eye candy, so I upgraded my 8800gts 320mb to a gtx280, still far from the top, they go for $100-150, not much either. And quad core computers with 6+gb of ram are coming way down in price. Dell sold a brand new inspirion quadcore with 4gb of ram for $400 that included a 17" monitor and 1tb hd. I slammed my 8800gts in there and bam, i have 2 computers that run ffxiv.

So you can do it for $400-500 on low settings, or if you want the ooh and ah, spent a few hundred more and get the goodies.

ive always been saying this in FFXIV forums. i have a cheapy comp which i only upgraded its GPU to a $125 dollar GPU and i can run the game on near max. i had to save up for two months to get that cash and its lasted me about 2 years now flawlessly.

the thing i dont understand is why we cant have top notch graphics as well as tons of content and great gameplay. is this planets technology so archaic and sloppy that this is impossible to achieve? i have yet to see ONE SINGLE MMO even come close to this.
just once it would be awesome to hear of two massive game companies join to make such an MMO. or a super billionaire willing to invest his own cash to achieve this.