People put way too much importance on graphics. The truth is, graphics mean diddly-squat. What matters isn't graphics, it's aesthetics. The latter is far more important to immersion. If the game has clashing styles, then no matter how detailed the models are, it won't look like anything but a very detailed pile of dung. This was in fact, 1.0's biggest failing with, as others have already pointed out, landscapes that were pretty much copy-pasted terrain everywhere. I remember finding a mesa in thanalan 1.0, finding you could go inside it, and going "oh, wow, this is neat". Then I saw another mesa 500 yalms away... that was exactly the same. and another. and another.


2.0 rectified this, BIG TIME. I remember Yoshi-p saying there would be around 3 major "points of interest" in each zone, but in reality, each zone i've gone through has had dozons, from the sylphlands, to urths font, to the wanderer's palace entrance, to the various hamlets, to the burning wall.... the list goes on and on. Honestly, even ffxi's zones don't hold a candle to ffxiv as far as diversity goes, although I doubt even 1.0's black shroud can hold a candle to the convolted pathways of the yuhtunga/yhoatar jungles.

Graphics only need to be sharp enough in a game for information to be conveyed in a clear manner, and considering we did just fine playing games like ffvi without issues, it doesn't take much to do so. Aesthetics are the true soul of a game, conveying it's story using art styles, and you can do so regardless of whether your game is ffxiv, or something low key graphics wise, such as Patapon.