Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Sinzfeldt]

Level of detail distance slider {Yes please.}

[Smashington]

Typical trolling strategy. Selectively ignoring posts.

Yeah, gave him some awesome troll titles including Gaffle Master and I got nothing. /sigh

Entertainment... value... fading...

[h2o]

The reason why FFXIV's graphics aren't as good as a single-player game's graphics is because it's an MMO.

SO, OK! Let's go!!!!

Dragon Age II ("BEST" RPG) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3JuINpKgXA
FFXIV ("Worst" MMORPG) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT1r6Uux6Vk

Brutal guy with big sword VERSUS children! Who win?

i say you - advertisement only.

PS
Ya. FF XIV more RPG style game that many of current games, but forget it cz you never read it ;-)
Most important issues are: jumping, water, INTERFACE! What next? Bahamut shoelaces untied?
This is a circus, and you know why =\

[BelgianRofl]

I've lost faith in humanity. Abigale is either successfully trolling me by persistently taking the position that the 2005 tech demo is pre-rendered, or he is just really, really dumb. I hope to God he's just trolling.

[Abriael]

I've lost faith in humanity. Abigale is either successfully trolling me by persistently taking the position that the 2005 tech demo is pre-rendered, or he is just really, really dumb. I hope to God he's just trolling.

Unfortunately for you, the fact that you cannot (or don't want to) accept the truth (and can't even learn to spell people's names), doesn't mean that such truth doesn't exist.

[gifthorse]

The only things I dislike about FFXIV's graphics are the rendering of water and how there are low-res textures in the background which make a distinctive line as you move around.

[gifthorse]

@ the OP:

The reason why FFXIV's graphics aren't as good as a single-player game's graphics is because it's an MMO. An MMO requires loading large numbers of character models in addition to scenery in a timely fashion that won't drag down FPS. You would have to have pretty much the best computer on the market to run a game that looked like crysis and had multiple people running around. It just can't be done without lowering some other aspects of the game, whether it be repeating textures or lowering poly-count of player models and scenery.

That's not entirely true. Many MMO's are being developed on Cryengine 3 and Unreal and maintain a good level of quality. ArcheAge, Blade & Soul, TERA,and an unamed MMO from CHangyou are some examples of games with excellent graphics. Maybe they aren't to the standard of Crysis as a single player game but they are on par with FFXIV I would say. The engines I mentioned above are also much more stable and run more efficiently than Crystal Tools does. I don't know if you've seen any videos for those games but they don't suffer the same problems as FFXIV do and also have seemless environments and can be run on computers with lower specs than the minimum for FFXIV.

I like the graphical style of FFXIV but the quality of the engine is not so great.

[Shelia]

I mean you're probably right as far as engines go. Some of them run MUCH more efficiently than others. However, I am correct in the sense that MMOs take more CPU than a single-player game due to loading more character models, scenery and what-have-you.

[gifthorse]

I mean you're probably right as far as engines go. Some of them run MUCH more efficiently than others. However, I am correct in the sense that MMOs take more CPU than a single-player game due to loading more character models, scenery and what-have-you.

Yeah that's true, but it doesn't really excuse FFXIV's ineptitute at rendering water and such. Especially on the boat which is merely an instance anyway.

[Abriael]

That's not entirely true. Many MMO's are being developed on Cryengine 3 and Unreal and maintain a good level of quality. ArcheAge, Blade & Soul, TERA,and an unamed MMO from CHangyou are some examples of games with excellent graphics. Maybe they aren't to the standard of Crysis as a single player game but they are on par with FFXIV I would say. The engines I mentioned above are also much more stable and run more efficiently than Crystal Tools does. I don't know if you've seen any videos for those games but they don't suffer the same problems as FFXIV do and also have seemless environments and can be run on computers with lower specs than the minimum for FFXIV.

Using an engine instead of another doesn't automatically make for better graphics. Engines can be and have to be downscaled considerably in order to fit a game or a platform, and all the games you listed run on extremely downscaled engine, and feature a much lower level of detail and field of view than FFXIV.
They simply don't push the graphical envelope nearly as much as FFXIV.

Games with absolutely crappy graphics like Magna Carta 2 run on unreal. So no, running on a certain generic engine isn't any guarantee of higher level graphics. Quite the contrary, the more genric an engine is, the more third party companies will have to struggle to adapt it to their needs.
Using the Cryengine won't make the game automatically look like Crysis, and using the Unreal Engine won't make the game look like Unreal. Engines are a basic canvas, but each game requires different specs, enables different effects, and ultimately (besides extremely low budget games) run on a version of the engine purposedly customized for that game's requirements.
Even Crytech games and Epic games don't look nearly as good, in their finished status, as the engine tech demos. That's because even for their main games the actual developers of the engine itself have to considerably downscale the engine in order for it to run on commercially available machines.

Most companies that use generic engines like Unreal or Cryengine do so not because they are necessarily better, but simply because it's way cheaper than developing their own.

There isn't a single word in what Shelia said that isn't perfectly true.