Alpha First Look: Video 3 - The Black Shroud

[Elexia]

I just mean for myself one of the major let downs of XIV was it was basically only 5 zones, 5 huge barren copy pasta zones..

Don't play MMOs, especially ones by SE because they're not going to release 720 areas at launch, they'll release 20 areas at launch, then 20 in first expansion then 20 in second and so on with 4 new areas in between in patches based on content addition.

but I'd like to see some screenshots or something to know how the rest of the world is coming along, and I hope some places don't exude a lot more polish and redesigns than others.

All MMOs suffer in world design after awhile...but if you look at even FFXI you could see that they do just fine with world design and don't "slack" on it even if you only ever see one city. XIV 1.0 was just lazily done compared to its predecessor.

I don't know about High Quality, it looks pretty bland and washed out to me, maybe they are playing on a PS3?

Don't sugar coat it..the graphical direction of ARR is bland in the sense it really does look like a generic MMO now. So there's a chance due to missing shaders it looks like that..or it's simply how the game will look.

[Esk]

Here are the start times for each area:
0:00 Walking from Gridania to Bentbranch
1:37 Bentbranch
2:50 Waterfall area north of Gilbert's Spire
3:24 Hyrstmill
4:30 Spirithold/Warren Prison

Loving the music and how the camps are actually full camps and not just a tent!

100% with you on this, the zones were fine before imo, but these are looking amazing, though i still think the world is a little static..
Personally i would love to see things like:

Passive mobs moving away from you
curious mobs back, but with a lesser follow then they had before

NPC's Channing from day/night,
NPC's walking off so they are not their every day all day unless they need to be.
NPC's movign around town's camps (just for show to make them feel more alive)
Changing of the city/camp guards (maybe groups walk to a camp, swap and the old npcs walk back)

It's the kinda fluff that won't make or break the game, but it would give FFXIV something over other mmo's atm, yes its not something you pay attention to, but it could really ad to the Emerson level and make it stand out..

[Elexia]

100% with you on this, the zones were fine before imo, but these are looking amazing, though i still think the world is a little static..
Personally i would love to see things like:

Passive mobs moving away from you
curious mobs back, but with a lesser follow then they had before

NPC's Channing from day/night,
NPC's walking off so they are not their every day all day unless they need to be.
NPC's movign around town's camps (just for show to make them feel more alive)
Changing of the city/camp guards (maybe groups walk to a camp, swap and the old npcs walk back)

It's the kinda fluff that won't make or break the game, but it would give FFXIV something over other mmo's atm, yes its not something you pay attention to, but it could really ad to the Emerson level and make it stand out..

You do realize making XIV stand in in the whole purpose of ARR, right? Making it stand out is going to take a lot more than mobile NPCs.

[KiriA500]

I just mean for myself one of the major let downs of XIV was it was basically only 5 zones, 5 huge barren copy pasta zones...

Yah I get that it's only the Black shroud in the Alpha, but I'd like to see some screenshots or something to know how the rest of the world is coming along, and I hope some places don't exude a lot more polish and redesigns than others.

Well, I recall reading that we'll have 40 zones in A Realm Reborn (Source). We'll still have the 5 regions to my knowledge (based on the official Final Fantasy XIV page), so that'd be about 8 zones per region.

Final Fantasy XI launched with 55 zones (source), some of which are very small, like Horlais Peak, Altar Room, etc.

That means we'll have 15 less zones (given the "40 zones" thing is accurate, as there's no source cited on the Wikipedia page), we don't know how big they'll be in A Realm Reborn. Going off of the Alpha footage we've seen so far of The Black Shroud, it appears at each part (2 shown so far) are quite large, I'd guess about the same size as Sarutabaruta from FFXI, only with more stuff littered around instead of vast open spaces of nothing.

I have no doubt that the zones in A Realm Reborn will be quite massive with plenty to explore.

[Endigiont]

Don't play MMOs, especially ones by SE because they're not going to release 720 areas at launch, they'll release 20 areas at launch, then 20 in first expansion then 20 in second and so on with 4 new areas in between in patches based on content addition.

Well aware of that, I've played XI since 04, and have knowledge of which zones were in the original FFXI and which were added in Zilart and the rest, however 5 really is a low number especially as you've said were so lazily put together.

[Esk]

You do realize making XIV stand in in the whole purpose of ARR, right? Making it stand out is going to take a lot more than mobile NPCs.

lol well Derp...

clearly, its just something i feel would add to it standing out in that one specific area.

[Endigiont]

Well, I recall reading that we'll have 40 zones in A Realm Reborn (Source). We'll still have the 5 regions to my knowledge (based on the official Final Fantasy XIV page), so that'd be about 8 zones per region.

Final Fantasy XI launched with 55 zones (source), some of which are very small, like Horlais Peak, Altar Room, etc.

That means we'll have 15 less zones (given the "40 zones" thing is accurate, as there's no source cited on the Wikipedia page), we don't know how big they'll be in A Realm Reborn. Going off of the Alpha footage we've seen so far of The Black Shroud, it appears at each part (2 shown so far) are quite large, I'd guess about the same size as Sarutabaruta from FFXI, only with more stuff littered around instead of vast open spaces of nothing.

I have no doubt that the zones in A Realm Reborn will be quite massive with plenty to explore.

Yah and 55 was quite a bit, considering the level cap was 50 at launch so you had more than 1 zone a level. Also think of how different all those field zones were and even the dungeons zones (Low level, and High level Beastmean dungeons, 1 for each of the 3 main beastmen races).

I guess my problem is I liked how different the zones (Even the zones in the same region) where in FFXI, from beaches to snowy mountains, to swamps and forests. Where as you just don't get all that geographical variety in 14 yet.

[KiriA500]

Yah and 55 was quite a bit, considering the level cap was 50 at launch so you had more than 1 zone a level. Also think of how different all those field zones were and even the dungeons zones (Low level, and High level Beastmean dungeons, 1 for each of the 3 main beastmen races).

I guess my problem is I liked how different the zones (Even the zones in the same region) where in FFXI, from beaches to snowy mountains, to swamps and forests. Where as you just don't get all that geographical variety in 14 yet.

Yeah. 1.0 really lacked in world design. Hopefully this will all be fixed with A Realm Reborn. I'm kind of glad we only get to see Gridania/Black Shroud so far, because I'd like a little more of the game to be a surprise to me when it's finally out!

[Delsus]

Well aware of that, I've played XI since 04, and have knowledge of which zones were in the original FFXI and which were added in Zilart and the rest, however 5 really is a low number especially as you've said were so lazily put together.

FFXIV launched with 5 zones because they wanted a seamless system, they wanted each region to be in it's own zone, if you look at all the zones in 1.0 they are in area bigger than the regions in XI, this however lead to very bland copy and paste zones.

With the system they are implementing with ARR, they can do a lot more, they can have transitions from forest to desert to swamps to beaches much better, with a zone system over a seamless system.

[Jouten]

To me...the music screams Final Fantasy Tactics, which by all means sounds amazing to me.