Shocker

[DanteMog]

Wow gotta say the Cutscenes were 1000x better than this version, now i feel like i'm playing the $10 market version of FF14.... our characters actually made noises...and are not just bobble heads..

Also everytime i see a Early FF14 video it has this odd music in the background that sounds like the singer is singing in a sewer or a cave under ground or something, some one should let her out of there to sing her song...

[Lisotte]

idk as a controller user i would take the "clunky" 1.0 controller setup again in an instant over the current.

That's just it. Same as in FFXI; with mouse and keyboard the UI and controls were quite clunky, but on pad they got the job damn well done (considerably better in FFXI than XIV 1.0 though; FFXI was a slower game and most of the macros you had to hit were mostly gear swaps).
My main issue with the UI was how godawfully slow everything was... you'd click the button to sell an item, you'd wait a few seconds, you'd click the button to sell something else... etc.
Game ran like shit on my pc, but I really love the lighting from the screenshots of players who had better comps.

[Shioban]

From a marketing point of view, do you have;

A game that runs like crap for the vast majority of your market, but has a slightly higher edge on graphics.

or

A game that still looks good, but doesn't achieve the bleeding edge on graphics, but runs nicely for the vast majority of your markets PCs.

GFX

The game has been designed with 'scalability' in mind, so its easier for the development team to adjust the game overall, such as new platforms;
PS3, PS4, PSVita.

The reason I mention the PSVita is because it's completley possible for this game to be scaled to work on a PSVita, but on the otherside, the game can be scaled to display a higher degree of "graphics" too in a future update.


You can be rest assured that the upcoming February Major Patch will update the overall look of the game, most definitely including higher resolution textures and even better lighting and shadow casting.

Cutscenes

1.0 had some REALLY nice cutscenes, but the development team spent SOOOO much time fussing over the certain details that things got dragged behind schedule, things wern't regimented to be 'done' by set time, which led to the problem in which we only ever had around a small number of decent cutscenes;

I.E Job Quests, Opening Cinematics and 'That one fight sequence'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...k6-MwWls#t=219

Where'as in 2.0, the cut scenes wern't great but they saved a lot of time in the process, we got some 'decent' cutscene and a solid feasible and understandable story-line unlike 1.0 which took major updates to 'scrobble it together'.

[nekochen]

I never played 1.0 but if you were to compare DX9 vs DX11.. it's obvious DX11 would have better graphic, tessellation makes graphic enormously better... unless your graphic card doesn't support DX11 then you wouldn't be able to see it anyways.

.. Then again, I dont know if 1.0 had tessellation, but it looks like the 2.0 has SAO in DX9 so it would be weird to be using DX11 without its key feature of tessellation in the first place.

I can't wait to get DX11 update soon enough.

[mouseno4]

I wont deny that 1.0 looked like it played like a steaming pile of crap, and i dont ever want to have to wail about in that game at all.

But, quite plainly, it looks better graphically.

You say there were so little cutscenes in 1.0. I cannot comment on the quantity, but from what ive seen of the few cutscenes there were, they are better than the ones in 2.0 by far. There is more soul, more heart and more vibrancy to them. The characters in them felt ALIVE. All my character ever does in cut scenes in nod her head up and down, pull faces and draw her staff out. That is IT. Flat out BORING. Hell, the ONLY good cutscene in 2.0 is the opening one with the crystal. I refer to MY character only, not all other npc's. If that video i posted is only one of a total of 3, then that is quite sad as the cutscene was just amazing. And whats with my character being totally mute? I never hear a single thing, much less even a grunt or a sigh (not including the female tennis player Archer class of course).

[darkstarpoet1]

That's just it. Same as in FFXI; with mouse and keyboard the UI and controls were quite clunky, but on pad they got the job damn well done (considerably better in FFXI than XIV 1.0 though; FFXI was a slower game and most of the macros you had to hit were mostly gear swaps).
My main issue with the UI was how godawfully slow everything was... you'd click the button to sell an item, you'd wait a few seconds, you'd click the button to sell something else... etc.
Game ran like shit on my pc, but I really love the lighting from the screenshots of players who had better comps.

yes, but we also dealt with the slow response because they stated those were parts of the issues with the servers and part of the reason they were adding regional servers. in 1.0 i played the game completely on the controller unless i chose to switch to mouse/keyboard, but in arr there are many times in which using a mouse/keyboard are so much better. in 1.0 you could completely set the game to run whatever is most effective for your tastes while in arr they set your keys and if you change one you pretty much change everything related to the controller. this comes from the fact so many keys are used in the multiple button presses required to do a simple action in arr. the 1.0 setup was more efficient in that aspect by far in being able to customize the controller to work the correct way for you.

the controller setup and usage in arr is vastly inferior. if you want one example just try swapping items in your fc chest back and forth between the chest and your inventory and have to go in and manually scroll back to where you were after each transfer compared to just drag and drop.

[Shioban]

All my character ever does in cut scenes in nod her head up and down, pull faces and draw her staff out.

I forgot about that!

The took out the facial animaitons in cutscene, REALLY bizzare.

There was no need to remove this, that was a corner I really didn't like them cutting.


80% of cutscenes in 2.0 would've been improved just by that simple change in animation for your face, just like in the Gridania opening in 1.0 when you find Palaymo and Yda, your characters face is 'shocked and trying not to laugh at them', in 2.0 is "I HAVE NO EMOTION"

Now THAT irk'd me, D:

As for the no talking on your characters part, I prefer that honestly. It would be hard to implement multiple personalities (or maybe not).

[M4Fade]

ARR's character/armor textures are shit compared to FFXIV 1.0's. My "new and improved" Warrior AF/White Mage AF looks like fluffy mashed potatoes when you zoom in about half-way. FFXIV's 1.0 were much more crisp, detailed, and smooth. Makes me sad. And yes, I play the game maxed out. SweetFX too.

Gotta admit though, the environments do look overall better in 2.0.

I'll always miss 1.23's battle system.. but hey, I guess I can live with it. What bothers me most is that they got rid of the stop-and-go animations when running. Ugh! That was real neat. Your walking/running actually felt like it had some weight to it. No other MMO really had that, I think.

Damned PS3...

Anyways, I am hoping DX11 brings more graphical options and minor improvements. At the moment, the options are pretty limited.

[Virtuso]

I do miss the old versions character models but the trade off was well worth it in the end. I do hope we'll get the old quality models back when the new DirectX11 version is released. Only thing I really miss most from the old version was my cat girl adventuring companion. I wonder what ever happened to her... ;_; be safe.

[Datu]

There is no question that 1.0 was graphically superior. The fate trains would not be possible if the graphics were not downgraded.

Copy paste terrain aside , 1.0 was beautiful. I don't have my screenshots right now or I'd post. I remember the individual chain mail links glistening when hit with light. The sky and cloud lighting effects were dynamic and had intense glare. Everything felt like it had volume and substance.

Again though, with the kind of game ARR is now, the graphical heaviness of 1.0 had to be sacrificed.