Realm Reborn = downgrade?

[Inanna]

While the animations were nice, the development team's number one focus in A Realm Reborn is on gameplay so even though they were nice animations, the team made the decision to remove them.

Well, I like the animations. It's part of how FF looks good and stuff. But gameplay is an important factor. I hope the dev team can find a way to do both.

[Orophin]

I don't care for the backpedalling thing when not locked onto a monster; that part feels awkward to me and I didn't care for it in WoW. That would be my only gripe about the animations changing though.

[Jynx]

While the animations were nice, the development team's number one focus in A Realm Reborn is on gameplay so even though they were nice animations, the team made the decision to remove them.

Dear god please, don't cut out the animation if anything at least leave it for us in Passive mode.

[Caedeia]

While the animations were nice, the development team's number one focus in A Realm Reborn is on gameplay so even though they were nice animations, the team made the decision to remove them.

I'm finding it hard to not be let down by this information. You say their number one focus is gameplay, but that certainly doesn't limit their focus elsewhere, as we've clearly seen from the talk session. So was the decision to remove these animations temporary; resources were needed for a timely release and they'll likely be added back later? Or was it a more permanent deal with the engine swap and something they're not looking to use at all in the future? Or could they re-tool more detailed animations from scratch further down the road?

These are our characters, not automatons. During the early days, the attention to detail was one of the only things that gave FFXIV a presence. To say "sacrifices must be made somewhere" isn't only insulting to the animation team, it's a slap to the players that were hooked by the (I don't want to say "little things" because I feel it's more important than a lot of folks believe) level of craftsmanship that went into those certain areas.

This stinks of XI's "PS2 limitations" all over again. Options - we need them. Give me some kind of hope.

[Elexia]

This stinks of XI's "PS2 limitations" all over again. Options - we need them. Give me some kind of hope.

Don't put PS2 Limitations in "", it was limited by a piece of 1999 hardware, something your Ipad is far superior to. It stinks of nothing other than making this MMO fit in with the rest of the MMOs on the market.

[Nabiri]

Character movement in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6bi4RP25o
just looks very stiff and unrealistic.. and yes, awkward. (Watch specifically at 0:26 - 0:29, he's kind of slide-walking sideways and backwards). I really really hope this is not what it's going to look like in 2.0. They have to improve this, right? >.>

I was really looking forward to 2.0, but honestly, for me my CHARACTER is the most important thing in game for me, (second being storyline, and third how the world looks.)
If something isn't right about my character, how they move, look, feel.. I just don't play the game. It's as simple as that.
This is actually a game-breaking thing to me. It looks really bad. I'm disappointed and worried.
I will be really sad to see my characters ruined if it's not fixed.

The backpedaling, sideways-walking, and slide-walking is such an eye-sore.

I would gladly wait an extra month (hell, or two) to play the game if they would make character movement look as nice as it does in the current game.

[lololink]

i still don't understand why people wants to have too much realistic games , it's a game it's not real it will always seems fake because it is !
If you want realistic there is your real life ...

[Zumi]

They removing them to make gameplay better so who really cares. A lot of these animations made character movement clunky. Probably your character will move much more responsively in ARR.

[Elexia]

i still don't understand why people wants to have too much realistic games.

It was the one thing going for it, now it will be painfully hard for XIV to stand out when it's just a prettier generic MMORPG lol. Why choose XIV when you can choose a vast library of 120+ MMORPGs from 1996 - 2011 and get the same gameplay?

[Fensfield]

I'm finding it hard to not be let down by this information. You say their number one focus is gameplay, but that certainly doesn't limit their focus elsewhere, as we've clearly seen from the talk session. So was the decision to remove these animations temporary; resources were needed for a timely release and they'll likely be added back later? Or was it a more permanent deal with the engine swap and something they're not looking to use at all in the future? Or could they re-tool more detailed animations from scratch further down the road?

These are our characters, not automatons. During the early days, the attention to detail was one of the only things that gave FFXIV a presence. To say "sacrifices must be made somewhere" isn't only insulting to the animation team, it's a slap to the players that were hooked by the (I don't want to say "little things" because I feel it's more important than a lot of folks believe) level of craftsmanship that went into those certain areas.

Nemy, I hope you add this one to the starting post as well, because frankly it sums up my feelings better than I've been able to so far.

Thanks Caedeia.