SE should talk with Lionhead Studios about licencing their "Mega Mesh" terrain tools

[Abriael]

I highly doubt that Milo's cancellation had anything to do with it's engine though, although I agree that third-party integration might be a pain in the ass(also expensive for licensing and screw that).

I agree with the fuck Kotaku part though. Incidentally that was the first thing I read from Kotaku in about 2 weeks.

Let's not forget the 30 hertz part. I'm quite sure everyone with a fairly decent gaming PC here would be SO happy to see the game limited to 30 fps because of this oh so "revolutionary" engine

[Randis]

The repetition in the FF terrain has nothing to do with the tools. The SE artists or those who were comissioned to create it (maybe it was 3td party) for sure are fully capable to create one without repeating elements.
I can only think of 3 reasons

- saving time
- saving budget
- Performance issues

I think the terrain is not made of a large mesh but rather of a series of smaller tiles.
Those tiles are not connected and the engine simply does not calculate/render the parts that are not visible.
There are various ways and tricks used in game development and every engine has different limitations and features.

I am sure that the guys working for SE are capable people, the team probably had long discussions about the repeating tiles and for some reason they choose to go this way.

[Betelgeuzah]

But honestly, I do think SE should seriously look into improving the way they go about creating terrain, as FFXIII and FFXIV both have horribly bland and unimaginative environments, which I suspect may possibly be the result of an inefficient development pipeline.

Just... what... just...

I give up.

[Abriael]

Just... what... just...

I give up.

I especially laughed at the notion that "FFXIII has horribly bland and unimaginative environments". That sure was awesome comedic relief for the day.

[Xquiel]

SE don't need another program or technology to create a better terrain and maps, they are repetitive, but they can change it with the same technology they have. I was looking the FFXI's maps and it has much more cool environment, nice places, etc... SE might do the same with her own technology

[Rhianu]

and it's unsurprising that the article is from kotaku, since they overly drool over anything and everything that comes from microsoft's mouth

Uh... we're talking about Lionhead here, not Microsoft.

Again, when another engine will produce better results *in a MMO* than the crystal tools, we'll talk. As of now, none did

Actually, pretty much *ANY* other modern MMO has better environments than FFXIV. Seriously, all the zones in this game are very monotonous completely lacking in variety.

I especially laughed at the notion that "FFXIII has horribly bland and unimaginative environments". That sure was awesome comedic relief for the day.

Well it does. Unless you want to try to say that the repetitive tunnel environments of FFXIII are actually interesting? But seriously, the last FF game to have interesting environments was FFX-2. The three FF games since then (FFXII, FFXIII, FFXIV) have all had terrible environments.

SE don't need another program or technology to create a better terrain and maps, they are repetitive, but they can change it with the same technology they have. I was looking the FFXI's maps and it has much more cool environment, nice places, etc... SE might do the same with her own technology

Hmmm, I suppose you could be right in that their existing technology could solve the problem just fine, and it might simply a matter of using their current tools more efficiently.

Though something I noticed in FFXI was that the older environments were much better than the newer ones. For example, I can navigate the original cities in FFXI without ever looking at the map, because their layout makes it easy to recognize where you are at any given time, due to the unique landmarks they each have all around. But in Aht Urghan Whitegate, I constantly have to keep looking at the map just to navigate, simply because everything looks the same from every angle.

[Cairdeas]

The repetition in the FF terrain has nothing to do with the tools. The SE artists or those who were comissioned to create it (maybe it was 3td party) for sure are fully capable to create one without repeating elements.
I can only think of 3 reasons

- saving time
- saving budget
- Performance issues

I think the terrain is not made of a large mesh but rather of a series of smaller tiles.
Those tiles are not connected and the engine simply does not calculate/render the parts that are not visible.
There are various ways and tricks used in game development and every engine has different limitations and features.

I am sure that the guys working for SE are capable people, the team probably had long discussions about the repeating tiles and for some reason they choose to go this way.

You are thinking of Occlusions and Pre-Fabs. Render 5 Items 100 times,turn them off if they are out of the bounds of line of sight of the player.

[TheCastle]

Se already is using a form of megatextures in FFXIV. The only way they were able to maintain normal maps and specular on the terrain was to use prefab world geometry...

[Nephera]

I especially laughed at the notion that "FFXIII has horribly bland and unimaginative environments". That sure was awesome comedic relief for the day.

I'm hoping he meant terrain design. XIII has some nice settings yes, but it is so on rails(largely due to terrain) that a lot of people call it a movie, there's no world map, the terrain doesnt branch out until late in the game and a lot of the dungeons dont have side rooms to look in.

I kind of feel like the map designer got ahold of crystal tools and was like "Aaaaaaah what do"