Thread: Why did they changed this from version 1.0 ?

Originally Posted by Saziel

I didn't even play 1.0, but from what I've seen in screenshots and videos, I want those areas. ARR areas are NOT well crafted. They're miserable, boring, lifeless, and bland. There's no sense of adventure. Hop on your chocobo and get to ANYWHERE you want in a zone in 2 minutes or less. That's not an adventure.

Going back to FFXI. Some of my fondest memories of FFXI was just getting lost in Xarcabard for hours. That can never happen in ARR, and I hate it. I want it to be possible to get lost. I want there to be a snowstorm so intense that it's hard to see where I'm going.

NO, the areas in 1.0 were absolutely horrible. It took 9 minutes running from Gridania (the city itself) to the first Camp to the west of the city...ON FOOT, 9 minutes! With Chocobo, it was 5. The areas were VERY bland; everything looked the same, and I hated it. ARR is well crafted and a lot of the people who did work on FFXI helped with ARR's development, such as the outdoor area zones. Seriously, La Noscea is just as well-crafted as Rolanberry Fields with the scenery. ARR has more life than 1.0 ever had in the field zones, I'm serious. 1.0 looked like a lunar landscape with some foliage here and there, ARR is not like that.

At the time with FFXI, they had the assets to make big areas because the graphics were not cutting edge at that time. Plus they could reuse some assets (such as the towers in Sarutabaruta, the rivers there, etc.) to save some time.

From what I herd a lot of the ground texture was copy and pasted, if you walked in a line the land would start to loop.

Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

NO, the areas in 1.0 were absolutely horrible. It took 9 minutes running from Gridania (the city itself) to the first Camp to the west of the city...ON FOOT, 9 minutes! With Chocobo, it was 5. The areas were VERY bland; everything looked the same, and I hated it. ARR is well crafted and a lot of the people who did work on FFXI helped with ARR's development, such as the outdoor area zones. Seriously, La Noscea is just as well-crafted as Rolanberry Fields with the scenery. ARR has more life than 1.0 ever had in the field zones, I'm serious. 1.0 looked like a lunar landscape with some foliage here and there, ARR is not like that.

At the time with FFXI, they had the assets to make big areas because the graphics were not cutting edge at that time. Plus they could reuse some assets (such as the towers in Sarutabaruta, the rivers there, etc.) to save some time.

Are you suggesting ARR's graphics are cutting edge? The game looks like plastic.

Originally Posted by Saziel

Are you suggesting ARR's graphics are cutting edge? The game looks like plastic.

It has more life and is more believable than 1.0 ever was. Go to Coerthas and look at the snowdrifts there. Trees shed heavy snowfall just like in real life. I did not see any form of realism in 1.0's landscapes. 1.0 was almost like a lunar landscape with foliage (especially La Noscea). I survived 1.0's launch and stuck to it because I believed FFXIV could do better in it's re-launch. The landscape in ARR has as much magic as FFXI's. 1.0's landscape lacked soul and life. Period.

More believable? Have you seen the crap that defies physics and logic after the calamity? I'm glad trees shed snow; it makes it all better. I will suspend my desire to see the real world (which i can see by going outside) if it means that things will look better instead of act better. My favorite scenery in ARR is the stuff in the background where we can't even go. Like the tower by lake tahtotl.

Originally Posted by Holyhunter

You couldn't jump ever in 1.0, it wasn't just the beta. The zones weren't built with jumping in mind. While I did enjoy no loading screens (although the zones in 1.0 were phased anyway so it was pretty similar) the amount of repetition in zones was beyond awful.

How are the smaller, instanced zones still not repetitious? They all look similar besides a few off-shoot generic desert areas. It was the first thing that struck me while leveling as bad design. In other MMO you each area you progress through is more or less themed.. could be hell / volcano themed, tropical, cities underground. So many ideas. All the areas in this game are 80% the same. It might not be copy pasted technically but it all reads the same in the end. I was frustrated leveling continuing to go back to the same areas over and over.. it was so bland. The one area that was a nice change of pace was Dragonhead. That is at least a decent example of changing it up but even that was not too impressive. This games "world" is so extremely boring especially compared to most other mmo games.

Originally Posted by Felis

Sure, the zones could be bigger, but they are still much better than the regions we had.

I'm not saying the zones aren't "better" than 1.0. They are. I'm saying they need additional improvements.

one picture shows the entire zone because it was copy/pasted.