Quote Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis View Post
I'm saying I'd be willing to pay for the extra effort put into something they wouldn't normally invest their time and money into because I'm a graphic snob. I don't buy into micro-transactions, I've only done it once, ever.
HD textures don't cost anything; graphical artists typically work in high-resolution anyway. What we get in-game is downscaled versions of the textures designed by the artists.

That said, I think the old 'SE sucks balls at coding' issue is at fault here. From what I understand, FFXIV's engine is incredibly inefficient when it comes to texture streaming. I can't find the Reddit thread where I saw a discussion of this, unfortunately. I realize that certain mods have produced a selection of HD textures, but they don't come anywhere close to re-texturing all of Eorzea - and my guess is there'd be a significant performance hit associated with it.

Frankly, though, I'd also appreciate HD textures. I wish SE would just take a year off of content updates (yes, an entire year), and spend that time resolving all the god-awful inefficiencies on the back-end, from FFXIV's graphics engine to the badly imbalanced server-client relationship. Done properly, this would enable them to create better content faster - and implement far cleaner functionality for things like the atrocious Glamour Dresser. I know this'll never happen, but I think it would result in a better experience at the end of the day.