Realm Reborn = downgrade?

[Ixmo]

Okay, it seems some people simply do not understand why this choice was made. I understand why there is so much defence for keeping the current animations but what people need to realise is that the current animations do not work in a proper MMO. Before you go crazy on me, you need to understand that even though this is Final Fantasy, it's an MMO first. In an MMO the franchise itself means NOTHING if the gameplay is shabby and poorly developed, hence 1.0 and its failure (also notice SWTOR).

For example, take the classic 'move out of the fire' scenario. You're a caster. A fire appears underneath you. You need to quickly move out of the fire and then continue damaging the enemy. As it stands, to be able to quickly run out of the fire and properly reposition yourself, you need to switch off the targeting, press the movement keys, let go of the movement key and then wait until the character reaches a complete halt before you start casting again. You simply can't allow these kinds of aesthetics to affect combat and gameplay in such an inferior way compared to what's known as 'the standard', or it won't be in any form a success. It's this situation where the animations are affecting core gameplay and shouldn't exist.

As much as people hate others bringing up WoW, there is a BIG reason as to why it's such a success. And no, it's not because it's Warcraft, out of the hundreds of people I've played with not one of them cared about lore (even though I know there are lore-lovers out there), it's because it's the ONLY MMO since its release to be strict to a cast time and not care about animations. You press a movement key and you run, you let go you stop. Everything is instant, and it's fluid and smooth. Is it realistic? Not really. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Not really. The point is, when you're playing an MMORPG, the combat, movement and gameplay have to be fluid, smooth and have the player fully in control of what the character is doing.

As long as these types of animations have NOTHING to do with combat or gameplay, it's okay for it to be implemented. But seeing as there's no animation lock for 2.0, having the movement animations of 1.0 WOULD affect gameplay. I'm trusting the devs on this one because they honestly seem like they know what they're doing and they're being vastly underappreciated for the amount of dedicated work they have put into this game. It's like you guys are wanting another 1.0 failure. You can throw as many realism arguments around as you like, but you need to realise the people who would rather settle on 'realistic' movements and aesthetics over core gameplay are in the minority and are being ignorant at the fact this is not how MMO's work. The rest of us actually want fluid movements and combat, because that's the main importance in an MMO over graphics and animations. I don't mean to sound disrespectful because I can see why people would want the animations back, but they just don't fly well in an MMORPG.

[Nemy]

As long as these types of animations have NOTHING to do with combat or gameplay, it's okay for it to be implemented. But seeing as there's no animation lock for 2.0, having the movement animations of 1.0 WOULD affect gameplay. I'm trusting the devs on this one because they honestly seem like they know what they're doing and they're being vastly underappreciated for the amount of dedicated work they have put into this game. It's like you guys are wanting another 1.0 failure. You can throw as many realism arguments around as you like, but you need to realise the people who would rather settle on 'realistic' movements and aesthetics over core gameplay are in the minority and are being ignorant at the fact this is not how MMO's work. The rest of us actually want fluid movements and combat, because that's the main importance in an MMO over graphics and animations. I don't mean to sound disrespectful because I can see why people would want the animations back, but they just don't fly well in an MMORPG.

Needless to say i disagree with you since you do pose the same dilemma almost everyone on your side does, but that last paragraph seems like a decent and collected presentation of that argument (although i consider it to be a fallacy) and i quoted you in my OP.

I suggest you read Zai's post that i quoted above, and also see the video.

[Nemy]

Thank you very much for your application to be a FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn alpha tester!

All good.

[Velhart]

Okay, it seems some people simply do not understand why this choice was made. I understand why there is so much defence for keeping the current animations but what people need to realise is that the current animations do not work in a proper MMO. Before you go crazy on me, you need to understand that even though this is Final Fantasy, it's an MMO first. In an MMO the franchise itself means NOTHING if the gameplay is shabby and poorly developed, hence 1.0 and its failure (also notice SWTOR).

For example, take the classic 'move out of the fire' scenario. You're a caster. A fire appears underneath you. You need to quickly move out of the fire and then continue damaging the enemy. As it stands, to be able to quickly run out of the fire and properly reposition yourself, you need to switch off the targeting, press the movement keys, let go of the movement key and then wait until the character reaches a complete halt before you start casting again. You simply can't allow these kinds of aesthetics to affect combat and gameplay in such an inferior way compared to what's known as 'the standard', or it won't be in any form a success. It's this situation where the animations are affecting core gameplay and shouldn't exist.

As much as people hate others bringing up WoW, there is a BIG reason as to why it's such a success. And no, it's not because it's Warcraft, out of the hundreds of people I've played with not one of them cared about lore (even though I know there are lore-lovers out there), it's because it's the ONLY MMO since its release to be strict to a cast time and not care about animations. You press a movement key and you run, you let go you stop. Everything is instant, and it's fluid and smooth. Is it realistic? Not really. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Not really. The point is, when you're playing an MMORPG, the combat, movement and gameplay have to be fluid, smooth and have the player fully in control of what the character is doing.

As long as these types of animations have NOTHING to do with combat or gameplay, it's okay for it to be implemented. But seeing as there's no animation lock for 2.0, having the movement animations of 1.0 WOULD affect gameplay. I'm trusting the devs on this one because they honestly seem like they know what they're doing and they're being vastly underappreciated for the amount of dedicated work they have put into this game. It's like you guys are wanting another 1.0 failure. You can throw as many realism arguments around as you like, but you need to realise the people who would rather settle on 'realistic' movements and aesthetics over core gameplay are in the minority and are being ignorant at the fact this is not how MMO's work. The rest of us actually want fluid movements and combat, because that's the main importance in an MMO over graphics and animations. I don't mean to sound disrespectful because I can see why people would want the animations back, but they just don't fly well in an MMORPG.

Beautifully written. The most important thing in "any" game honestly is the game play itself. Miyamoto from Nintendo has said several times that how they make games is that they build the core game play and make sure it is solid, then they will make a story around that game play. This is the same thing with MMO's, and even Blizzard did this. They made sure the game play was solid before adding the world, lore, and neat animations in later.

The new development team for FFXIV is going by these ideals, they want to make sure that the game play is as solid and fluid as possible, and one of the things to do was cut down on the animation. You can be disappointed all you like, but on a technical scale, you should understand the situation.

[Nemy]

Beautifully written. The most important thing in "any" game honestly is the game play itself. Miyamoto from Nintendo has said several times that how they make games is that they build the core game play and make sure it is solid, then they will make a story around that game play. This is the same thing with MMO's, and even Blizzard did this. They made sure the game play was solid before adding the world, lore, and neat animations in later.

The new development team for FFXIV is going by these ideals, they want to make sure that the game play is as solid and fluid as possible, and one of the things to do was cut down on the animation. You can be disappointed all you like, but on a technical scale, you should understand the situation.

Technically, its not a year and a half into development, since they had so much content from FFXIV, and working on an engine that should be compatible with Crystal Tools in many ways. Also nobody forced them to rebuild the game from the ground up, instead of heavily patch and expand the current one.

From a player's point of view, you have to also realise that we're not just potential customers, we are people who invested in this game in many different ways so taking away core elements of it shouldn't be made so lightly in my opinion. I really don't want to sound like a self-entitled idiot, but there is a difference here worth pointing out.

[Xmbei]

Technically, its not a year and a half into development, since they had so much content from FFXIV, and working on an engine that should be compatible with Crystal Tools in many ways. Also nobody forced them to rebuild the game from the ground up, instead of heavily patch and expand the current one.

Yoshi actually addressed this in one of his earlier letters to us. They problem with the current engine was the code was such a jumble of a mess to decipher it was decided it would be easier to just build a new engine and game off of that from the ground up. Since they determined fixing the current coding would cause more problems then fix anything >.<. I seriously want to know who they hired for the initial coding job to make such a horrible speghetti knot mess of the original engine and game to make it hard to improve upon it correctly.

[lololink]

Yoshi actually addressed this in one of his earlier letters to us. They problem with the current engine was the code was such a jumble of a mess to decipher it was decided it would be easier to just build a new engine and game off of that from the ground up. Since they determined fixing the current coding would cause more problems then fix anything >.<. I seriously want to know who they hired for the initial coding job to make such a horrible speghetti knot mess of the original engine and game to make it hard to improve upon it correctly.

sometimes i think the original FF dev team didn't care at all of this game .

[Lirion]

sometimes i think the original FF dev team didn't care at all of this game .

When you have Tanaka who seems to have only played the games he have created, this what happens. http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fi...asy-xiv-online

[Nemy]

Yoshi actually addressed this in one of his earlier letters to us. They problem with the current engine was the code was such a jumble of a mess to decipher it was decided it would be easier to just build a new engine and game off of that from the ground up.

It was still their decision though. Its not like they had to do it.

Also, if the lack of the current quality of animation is due to their decision to build a new engine, then the word easier there, takes a whole new meaning.

[HiirNoivl]

It was still their decision though. Its not like they had to do it.

Also, if the lack of the current quality of animation is due to their decision to build a new engine, then the word easier there, takes a whole new meaning.

Yeah but if enough of it is rotten it's not worth saving. That's the whole premise of 2.0. Even if you're not a game developer, the year of f2p, the public apology, the Legacy discounts are all saying how rotten the game was. They're not supporting that game any more. They're burying the copies of it in the Arizona desert. I would never support them trying to zombie FFXIV. It's too limited, too clunky. There was so much people wanted that "couldn't be done with the current client", "couldn't be done with the current servers and structure", "couldn't be done with the current UI".

Every time I sell something on a retainer I'm reminded how crappy 1.0 is. No amount of pretty, realistic animation would make me want them to stop rebuilding the entire game.