Infantilized Aesthetics

[Genoreaper]

So.. rather than add to the conversation you wanted to have, you chose to only address the parts that put you in your feelings. I don't need to think im clever to feel special I made an honest statement about how your whining edgelord posts looked, if you're used to parroting reddit rhetoric yourself I guess that explains alot. The likes on my posts came solely from people who agreed with what I said, not because they were hoping to like something out of "solidarity" that day.

If you've been labeled as all of that perhaps you should put some thought into the image you're putting out. But then again you're "woke" so that explains plenty.

Enlighten me on why you felt so strongly about this to stumble through your overarticulated op, yet when met with any opposing view, you were unable to even add to the discourse? People have all given you counter arguments, and rather than addressing them... you chose to only pick those lines to highlight?

[Genoreaper]

The usual house cleaning when I get bored with an idea.

Also .. this is just bad form. You dug yourself into a whole and had to hide all your drivel and then pretend it is normal to delete all your comments in what could have been a fair debate on your complaints. Might as well just deleted whole thread or not replied and let it fade into the abyss.

[Vidu]

Serious suggestion: If you're not intrested in debates and oppositions to your... "ideas" and opinions anyways, have you considered using the blog-feature on the Lodestone instead of the official forums and a place thats called "General Discussion", which should be a hint towards what to expect here?

You dont seem intrested in discussion your ideas, so a blogpost might be better suited for them. Afaik you can delete blogs or at least hide them from public view, so this might be a better place for your opinions, if you dont want them discussed or questioned.

[HyoMinPark]

I second Vidu and recommend a personal blog. You clearly don't want to discuss opinions different from your own, nor do you truly want to stand behind what you actually think or say. That much is evident by your constant need to delete and edit posts. I wish I'd quoted your OP in its entirety now so that others could see all the nonsense in it, but I think enough of it still remains throughout the thread.

If you aren't going to stand behind the things you say, or if you don't want to debate others challenging your opinion with their own, don't post them on a discussion forum on the internet.

And calm down with the condescension.

[Sigma-Astra]

A part of the thread topic title might actually suit the OP...considering all things.

[Genoreaper]

A part of the thread topic title might actually suit the OP...considering all things.

Was rthinking the same thing

[MomomiMomi]

I wish I'd quoted your OP in its entirety now so that others could see all the nonsense in it, but I think enough of it still remains throughout the thread.

Don't you just love the internet?

Disclaimer:
This is an opinion piece, please take it with a grain of salt.

I think the visual styling and art direction of the game has swung so far in the direction cartoonish literalism that it could be effecting the world immersion/ suspension of disbelief for some players.

What I mean by cartoonish is a lack of realism and relate ability to the fantasy world. While I understand the fantasy world is not meant to have exact parity with the real world I think loosing all association with it cheapens the experience and lessens immersion.

What I mean by literalism is the lack of visual nuance, sophistication and significance of items. Example: an axe isn’t made significant by its inherent meaning, or contextual meaning it’s quite literally just made larger (absurdly so), or it glows and flashes.

My definition of inherent & contextual meaning is an item in the game value/ significance because the community at large is aware of A) inherent: not many items exist that look like that. B) contextual: as a player I know that it took several hour to obtain that.

What I think the game does well is maintaining a solid balance between fantasy and realism when it comes to the broader world and things like buildings, materials and surfaces, non-player usable objects. Where I think its gotten overly cartoony is in player usable things such as mounts, weapons, and attire.

I wonder if a lack of visual realism (or even consistency?) would contribute to a decline in communal buy in on the game mythology.

I.e. Are people less likely to “believe” they’re in “Eorzea” if there is no consistent physics or style guide.
I.e. How do I know when something is important if everything looks important?


What I’d like to know is if anyone else thinks this is an issue, or what peoples preferences are regarding the exaggerated visual elements. I’m specifically referring to “glowing”, “oversized”, “cartoonish” items… almost all of the new mounts would fall into this category.

I’m also curious what other people attribute this visual shift to. Whether you like the exaggerated aesthetics or not, I’d like to know why you think the game has progressively gotten “more cartoonish” as it aged.

Stream of consciousness:
For example, to me riding a dragon should be significant and not something everyone would have access too. To me it seems that the creators have decided everyone should be able to make their character look anyway they want and ride any mount they want regardless of any social/ communal connections. Each player is a visual island unto themselves and their appearance is entirely at their discretion. This provides great freedom to the individual but undermines any semblance of a cohesive world narrative that we’re all in on.

It also opens up an avenue for the trolls to flout the conventions. If you want to dress your character up like a clown because now you can, that’s a quick and easy path to negative attention seeking. I don’t think it’s good for the anyone.

I seen this decline in previous MMO’s where as the game aged the creators loosed the strings on what players could make their characters look like and it always marked the beginning of the end for that games “prime”. I contend that the abandonment of the world order like that actually hastens the games death. I remember logging into my Ultima Online shard one day and there were 2-3 players at the Britain Bank wearing neon-pink and green robes over their armor and I knew the shard was dead. It’s like ok we’ve decided that “you” the core player are dwindling and we need to cater to “the casuals”, or IMHO the younger or less mature players now.

Another thing that occurred to me while writing this was a hidden benefit of being able to loose items in the game to being PK’d. It would force players to either “guard” certain items and created an enhanced sense of value around things that were difficult to obtain. If you obtain something once and have it for life I think your treat it differently. I don’t know that there is a way to do this in the new world of theme park MMO’s but it was something I hadn’t thought of before.

[Sigma-Astra]

Don't you just love the internet?

You are a saint.

[Genoreaper]

Did you wayback machine it?

I was gonna try but was at work.

Agreed you're a saint

[HyoMinPark]

Don't you just love the internet?

Well, they do say “Be careful what you put on the Internet, because once it’s out there, it’s always out there”.