Did squenix make a mistake by investing too much in graphics and not enough in

[syntaxlies]

i dont think so, SE made the mistake in the past of Having their finished product out of date by release more then once. They wanted to make sure the graphics would be tolerable for years to come. Their mistake was not adding content. Imagine if they pushed the release date back one year being this month how much could have been done. Another mistake was putting tanaka in charge. The graphics don't have anything to do with the terrible battle system or UI.

[Winterclaw]

I don't think it's a mistake

Good graphic is not a mistake

They need to create a game with good graphic and good gameplay

That's not my argument.

Consider you are building a new PC. You sink all your money into SLIing 4 top end GPUs and don't have any money left over for any MB. Those GPUs aren't going to do you any good. IMO SE should have diverted about 25% of their efforts from graphics and put that into content. Let's say that's 5 million (random number). If it were, that's 500 designer months of content creation SE could have afforded. In one year, ten extra people adding content (or dynamic content) might have had a larger result on the end product at the original release. And as someone mentioned, SE could have updated or added to the graphics later.

[Ilean]

This game doesn't have great graphics. It simply has high polygon count player character models.

Everything else, the world, the visual effects are standard, at best.

[Rydin]

That's not my argument.
Consider you are building a new PC. You sink all your money into SLIing 4 top end GPUs and don't have any money left over for any MB. Those GPUs aren't going to do you any good. IMO SE should have diverted about 25% of their efforts from graphics and put that into content. Let's say that's 5 million (random number). If it were, that's 500 designer months of content creation SE could have afforded. In one year, ten extra people adding content (or dynamic content) might have had a larger result on the end product at the original release. And as someone mentioned, SE could have updated or added to the graphics later.

or the could have just taken the extra time needed.... so no part of the game would have to suffer... but all is well that ends well... and all aspects of the game are clearly being dissected and reevaluated...

This game doesn't have great graphics. It simply has high polygon count player character models.

Everything else, the world, the visual effects are standard, at best.

That's more of an aesthetic choice though... games that offer far less in terms of graphic quality have been called beautiful... personal I think the visual effects suffer from a lack of dynamics in the world.... Eorzea is very static at the moment but all of that is changing soon...
The lighting is way too bright everywhere no matter what time it is.... you need the dark to really compliment the light

[koolya749_20400]

I think SE knew that the one thing a new game could not do without is graphics. Gamplay, content and immersion are secondary, they can be changed to please their consumers and mold it into something great over time (sorta like xi, or so I hear).

[Coldfire]

ffxiv looks like Zanzarah... just with more polygons xD

[GreatLeviathan]

Nah i think they have let too many Enix devs do the work..
They should have let Squaresoft do more..

[GreatLeviathan]

This game doesn't have great graphics. It simply has high polygon count player character models.

Everything else, the world, the visual effects are standard, at best.

This game has stuiing graphics..
Try playing it on High ;-)
Bad or standard graphics is WoW with their cartoony low graphic game..

[GreatLeviathan]

I was just watching the Jimquistion on pc gaming (NSFW) and I was wondering, did sqaure make a mistake by over investing in graphics instead of gameplay and content?

Jim makes a great point. Consider Eve. It's one of the older MMOs (people are still playing UO and EQ though) and despite its age, it's still growing and save for server lag, runs well. Or take the old infinity engine games (all 9000 of them), despite looking old, those games are still fun to play. People still love planescape and I was even thinking of playing the BG games again for the nostalgia of the glory days of bioware... before they turned to the dark side... before they joined EA.

Yes, some PC games can benefit from hardcore gfx, but a lot of them (doom, ultima 4 which is free on GoG, retticlear, the two MOO games, the earlier civ games, etc) don't look all that great anymore. But who cares? They are fun and you can still play them.

If you have played FF when it came out and you play it now.. It looks like 2 difrent games.
The way the game is now is already pretty perfect.. Will only get better and better.

[TonyMontana]

I think SE knew that the one thing a new game could not do without is graphics. Gamplay, content and immersion are secondary, they can be changed to please their consumers and mold it into something great over time (sorta like xi, or so I hear).

I wonder if the quarter million+ people who quit the game feel the same way.