Shocker

[M4Fade]

Actually, I agree.

I played 1.0 and the thing that hit me the most when I came back to ARR was that my clothes, my gear and every monster I saw was bland and felt very badly designed.

I wish they at least kept the option FOR higher quality textures in game as it drives me insane looking at these cardboard looking cotton shirts.

Yep. I immediately noticed this when I logged into the ARR Alpha Test 1. I figured it was just because it was Alpha... boy, was I wrong.

[Capita]

Sir I respect your opinion but all I see you someone showing off their graphics card. I know you when through alot of trouble to replicate each screenshot but graphics are easy enough to adjust. We know the lighting in ARR is better but the over-all graphic from 1.0 was superior hench the critique on how expensive it was to play XIV back then uptil now. Technology has improved and hardware is cheaper for upgrades.

BTW, nice work on those Screenshot! ^^

Umm, it's not his opinion, it is a fact. Use your eyes, FFS. You can easily tell how much more detailed ARR is in comparison, down to the bricks on the wall. The cracks between the wood panels are much more visible, the textures are less muddy, and the lighting is a lot better.

Seriously, if you can't see all that, you're completely blind. ARR's graphics are far superior.

The only place it's inferior is in the character models and armor.

[Teraluna]

TSW is actually pretty god-damn hideous. Also, the combat in that game absolutely blows chunks.

SW melee combat was likened to a bunch of string puppets having a fight. I played a healer -- blood/fist. After reading that post in the game I couldn't get it out of my head. Gave up after a while.

[KiriA500]

The only place it's inferior is in the character models and armor.

Aside from LOL GIRL BUTTS, I see no difference in character model or armor quality (they weren't that great in 1.0 anyway). We lost some animations, but we also gained some, so it's an even trade.

[Gramul]

No. They weren't.

Actually, they where. At least with lighting (specifically hard shadows), texture resolution, and amount of polys.

What you're pointing out Dr.B, is that they added more flags, lanterns, nicknacks to bring more balance to the environment, dynamic bloom on lit textures, and greater overall contrast for lighting.

The design is improved upon to make up for the very real loss of fidelity.

[Jocko]

Sorry, but 1.0 was far, far superior in the armor model and texturing departments, and completely blows ARR away with it's weighty and motion captured animations. Just look at the armor and movement here:

http://youtu.be/gYKmJQoWJew?t=48s

God I miss it. ARR feels like lifeless in comparison

[Gilraen]

I'll be honest, the graphics in 1.# were better than now. So much so that my laptop couldn't go past 'Normal' settings without loss of framerate, and it's an Asus G53SX. One of the better gaming laptops of last year. March forward to 2.0 and same laptop is running the game on max settings like a boss. Things I noticed is more than just a reduction in graphical quality, they also reduced the size of everything (not data size, literal size). It was immediately obvious in the early Beta that every model was scaled down to fit a scaled down world (elezen got the worst in the scaling with their smaller-than-proportional heads, something they gladly fixed). And the user interface wasn't bad, I prefered it's style over the new style though I am so glad they didn't use the style from the early 2.0 promotional shots, but it was saved server side so sometimes your interface would have to be rebuilt if you made any changes.

Still, despite all that, I don't miss it one bit.

[Illya]

Texture detail had to be reduced to make the game fit on PS3. There was no way 1.0 ever had any hope of running on PS3, whereas ARR actually runs and is even not awful on PS3.

The dramatic improvement in ARR's lighting and shadowing system more than makes up for it IMO.

[Drakzen1]

Wait till direct x 11

[Drakzen1]

Also the graphic were cut back by a long shot. To be honest that not even up for debate check any of the past letters from the producers or any review of the game. Its one of the points they mentioned over and over again.