Lifeless world ?

[Elexia]

What's the point complaining about "Alpha" game....?

That's exactly the point. You're supposed to complain and show concerns. That's what Alpha and Betas used to be about until the western developers turned them into early demos.

[Tsubarta]

If there's one thing FFXI did well, it was making a "world" instead of just a "game". Currently ARR is just a game, like WoW is. It's a side effect of being a theme park MMO, and I hope they balance it out with a lot of open world content hidden away in the deep and dark places of the world.

[HiirNoivl]

I don't know, the towns DON'T seem lively at all for me, though that might be more related to the fact that the design of the Black Citadel is awful in making it seem like it is a city and less a wide open field with people here and there, maybe. Gridania seemed more lively than this.

Maybe you should turn your volume on Skies.

FFXIV has the whole company behind it. And it's a company that has way more experience with making MMOs than ArenaNet could ever hope for. It shouldn't be a big deal to add a lot more NPCs and to make them move around. It's not too much to ask and it makes a big difference.

This should be in at launch. Lots of people want it, and it will make the game way better than it's empty prequel.

[Soukyuu]

I don't know, the towns DON'T seem lively at all for me, though that might be more related to the fact that the design of the Black Citadel is awful in making it seem like it is a city and less a wide open field with people here and there, maybe. Gridania seemed more lively than this.

Divinity's Reach or Lion's Arc is what I was talking about. Most of the atmosphere comes from the sound, followed by NPCs running around (kids chasing each other) or chatting. Those kind of things.

The Black Citadel is... full of sweaty packmates, "BOOM", "KLANG" and "Help, my tail is on fire!" :P

[Vanguard319]

we are not talking about quest NPC's only god damn..

there could be the old granny who is going for a walk with her dog over the bridge and around the town.. and maybe in the evening is going back into her house.

i dont care about "loop" npcs if the world seems a -little- more livier.
NPC who have no important role can roam around and nobody would have a problem with it. my opinion.

i mean in FFXI from time to time there was a circus in the sandorian city.. which was a nice goody i think. caravans or whatever.


in FFXII you also have NPC who walk through the cities.


and even with some of the quest npcs you can do this also.. how about a mysterious quest npc who just appears at night in a forest glade.... a lake or somethin... if you implement roaming npc it does not mean that all npcs have to be affected by it..

No need to rage, I just made an observation, nor did I completely dismiss the idea of roaming npcs. My point was that you have to devote a lot of memory resources to give multiple npcs in a game world AI that mimics human behavior, and don't forget that the server has to be robust enough to track these npcs, along with all the players that will be moving around as well.

Let me put it this way: If they had put roaming npcs in 1.0, you would have seen far more disconnects due to the additional stress on the servers. We know ARR will have new regional servers, and that will help, but the devs probably won't know for sure how well they'll handle those kind of loads until they do some large population stress tests, probably when the game goes into beta.

[HiirNoivl]

Yeah but Uni, we're talking 800 people should be able to be in the same place and viewable. Servers are not the same as 1.0. 1.0 server structure was so broken you couldn't even display more than 20 people at a time. You had to split the city across servers it was so horrible.

I don't think it's going to be nearly as big of an issue as people are making it. If the server structure is not capable of playing a couple dozen NPC behavior on a loop, I'm not optimistic about the games future.

[Freyane]

I think this is a good illustration of 1.0 problem. Take a look at the Introduction of Uld'ah. And then at the town itself during real game.

During the intro, you have people browsing market, girl buying flowers, children running around, mother buying vegetables. You have "car" carrying travelers, gates are opening, lalafell laughing all together, etc. Mercants carrying their stuffs...
And when it switch to real, game, everything disappear.

[Vydos]

I think this is a good illustration of 1.0 problem. Take a look at the Introduction of Uld'ah. And then at the town itself during real game.

During the intro, you have people browsing market, girl buying flowers, children running around, mother buying vegetables. You have "car" carrying travelers, gates are opening, lalafell laughing all together, etc. Mercants carrying their stuffs...
And when it switch to real, game, everything disappear.

Not exactly the best example to take to be honest. Considering Ul'dah had a festival going on during the cutscene. Not to mention a large accident. Basically, it would have been weird if the festival was still on-going for ages.

That said, it certainly would have been nice to see people buy stuff from the merchants or the likes.

[HiirNoivl]

Not exactly the best example to take to be honest. Considering Ul'dah had a festival going on during the cutscene. Not to mention a large accident. Basically, it would have been weird if the festival was still on-going for ages.

That said, it certainly would have been nice to see people buy stuff from the merchants or the likes.

Actually it's a great example. But if you want another one, try the Limsa Intro from when you put in to port. This is not a festival, it's supposed to be a normal day in a port city. Something that really disappointed me in FFXIV 1.0 is that the ships never moved. You couldn't even really get on them.

[Shougun]

Actually it's a great example. But if you want another one, try the Limsa Intro from when you put in to port. This is not a festival, it's supposed to be a normal day in a port city. Something that really disappointed me in FFXIV 1.0 is that the ships never moved. You couldn't even really get on them.

While I know we will have zones so not 100% applicable I would like the general philosophy that if you see it you can do something with it lol

Hate seeing docked ships 2 inches from the pier and I cant get on the damn thing XD (no guards around even to stop me!? lol).

With the addition of sea, sky and the jump feature maybe it will be so.