Increase of Assets on maps

[Saimeren]

The devil is indeed in the details and adding so much further contributes to lag and killing any kind of immersion and playability for a lot of people.

I've heard they would actually like to have the cities be one whole zone at some point, but something like this would be a step backwards from that goal.

I have a question. What causes some games to be able to do this and other not?

Why is it that a game like WoW can have entire continents with multiple major cities on a single load screen free insurance, but other games can't even have an upper and lower level of a single city be connected without separate instances? Let alone going from zone to zone without loading in.

And you can't say that WoW is simply a bigger game with a bigger budget, because they've had this in place from the beginning.

[StriderShinryu]

I have a question. What causes some games to be able to do this and other not?

Why is it that a game like WoW can have entire continents with multiple major cities on a single load screen free insurance, but other games can't even have an upper and lower level of a single city be connected without separate instances? Let alone going from zone to zone without loading in.

And you can't say that WoW is simply a bigger game with a bigger budget, because they've had this in place from the beginning.

FF14 was originally constructed to work on the PS3 and as such many of it's original limitations (and some of the limitations that still exist) are tied to what was imposed by the PS3 architecture. The PS3 wasn't even just a "weak PC" in it's time because it actually had a weird processor architecture which makes it hard to emulate completely on even todays PCs. Given the constraints in it's creation (not only in terms of consoles but in the rework of the game from 1.0 to 2.0), it also wasn't likely built with the sort of scalability in mind that WoW was.

[Deveryn]

I have a question. What causes some games to be able to do this and other not?

Why is it that a game like WoW can have entire continents with multiple major cities on a single load screen free insurance, but other games can't even have an upper and lower level of a single city be connected without separate instances? Let alone going from zone to zone without loading in.

And you can't say that WoW is simply a bigger game with a bigger budget, because they've had this in place from the beginning.

WoW was made to be simpler and more accessible from the start. The aesthetic was never one of great detail, so it's always been less resource intensive.

[kaynide]

I have a question. What causes some games to be able to do this and other not?

Why is it that a game like WoW can have entire continents with multiple major cities on a single load screen free insurance, but other games can't even have an upper and lower level of a single city be connected without separate instances? Let alone going from zone to zone without loading in.

And you can't say that WoW is simply a bigger game with a bigger budget, because they've had this in place from the beginning.

You can’t really compare them as this game has a hard cap of hardware due to console play.

Additionally, it really boils down to how efficient the code of the game is.

Different games, but for example, my PC can run Conan Exiles at top specs and it looks beautiful. To this day, a game of similar genre, Ark Survival Evolved is incredibly laggy and runs like it has a massive memory leak somewhere.

Or, like, I can run Horizon Zero Dawn or Witcher 3 at top spec, but Nier Automata barely runs.

To OP: while I like this, it really needs actual dubbed audio to work well. Guildwars 2 does a good job of this, and I just don’t think SE is up to that kind of a task…
Though stuff in the distance like airships and ships could work theoretically. It’s not more complicated than a bird or the sharks in ruby sea.

[Packetdancer]

To this day, a game of similar genre, Ark Survival Evolved is incredibly laggy and runs like it has a massive memory leak somewhere.

To be fair, that's because it does have a massive memory leak. (Actually, it has several massive memory leaks. I used to be an ARK mod author; I have seen things in that codebase... things that cannot be unseen.)

But I mean, I've seen more than one "How Buggy Is This Game" rating systems where the system is like "For a beta, this is better than many full releases." up through various levels like "Numerous bugs, but none show-stoppers." and so on, with the buggiest rating just being "ARK: Survival Evolved". I love that game, don't get me wrong, but I'm not 100% certain it's the best yardstick to measure anything by.

[kaynide]

To be fair, that's because it does have a massive memory leak. (Actually, it has several massive memory leaks. I used to be an ARK mod author; I have seen things in that codebase... things that cannot be unseen.)

But I mean, I've seen more than one "How Buggy Is This Game" rating systems where the system is like "For a beta, this is better than many full releases." up through various levels like "Numerous bugs, but none show-stoppers." and so on, with the buggiest rating just being "ARK: Survival Evolved". I love that game, don't get me wrong, but I'm not 100% certain it's the best yardstick to measure anything by.

Agreed! Love the game, but man what a hot mess.

But that said (and to others), this is why it's important to keep in mind when you say "well X game did Y, so why can't FFXIV?"
There's a good chance FFXIV can, and there's a good chance the code that needs editing to make Y work is Ark levels of borked.