Ffxiv's Zones Looks Extremely Bad and Outdated

[Gabadabs]

Here's the thing about WoW (which I think you're hitting on): they've always - even from the very start - been extremely focused around vignette, or scene-style, zone design. The idea is that, no matter where you stand in a given region of the game, you're overlooking-and-a-part of some small 'story' that's being told somewhere; an old, haunted barn; the edge of a canyon with an abandoned mine in it; a beach with a haunted lighthouse; a broken-down keep destroyed in an ancient battle. There are also even smaller scenes-within-a-scene, like little sheds full of tools (and perhaps a random skull), or an outhouse with a door cracked half open. It doesn't matter that there are no actual stories associated with much of this filler; it's the implication that they have their own little narratives and tales to tell that makes the world feel lived-in.

Whatever praise I can heap on FFXIV - which is substantial - for its lightning, dynamic weather (especially thunderstorms and wind), amazing housing interiors (not so much the developments, which again feel sterilized), music, etc. - WoW (even the oldest of zones) completely destroys this game when it comes to the essential quality of making an area feel like it is a part of a living world (especially now that FATE-grinding parties have basically vanished from the 1-60 zones, thus depriving FFXIV of the one inherent leg-up it had on WoW in terms of making the world feel lived-in: big mobs of player characters running all over the place).

Maybe that's what makes this game feel like a bunch of plastic toys sometimes. As cinematic and amazing as it *can* look, the zones don't feel lived in or real.