The Old Intros of Final Fantasy XIV ("1.0.") for those who just played ARR

[Tonkra]

Just as a little Retroperspective for those who "just" experienced ARR. Not all was good about "1.0.", but i personally enjoyed the old intros very much.

See how we met characters like "Yshtola", "Papalymo & Yda" and "Thancred" for the first time. Before the "Crash" (Rendering Intro ARR).


My personally favourite is the Gridanian Intro (quiet fun), followed by Limsa Lominsa and the least favourite .. the intro of Ul'dah

>>Limsa Lominsa Intro - ARRR* pirates... and Yshtola<<


>>Gridania Intro - First meet with Yda & Papalymo<< (most funny)



>>Ul'dah Intro - A Fairy Tale about a Gobbue... and Thancred.. ah and.. flowers for all<<



EDNINGS:


GAIUS


NAEL van Darnus (final story cutscenes before "crash")

[RyujinUzikin]

I was pumped watching these back when the game first came out, though I waited till ARR.

[Kerwin]

The amount of time it took to make these cut scenes. The real life motion capture, amazed me. The tacky riding in on a chocobo cart/ship intros we have with the old geezer is nothing compared to these. Thanks for sending me back into 1.0 nostolgia.

[Vilhem]

The amount of time it took to make these cut scenes. The real life motion capture, amazed me. The tacky riding in on a chocobo cart/ship intros we have with the old geezer is nothing compared to these. Thanks for sending me back into 1.0 nostolgia.

They still use motion capture, but of course 1.0's epic failure was due to the graphics being too intense for an MMO.

They were able to use proper lip-sync as well since they only had to worry about one language: English. There was no split between 4 audios. Very nice cutscenes yes T.T

[Tonkra]

I remember getting a whole new computer for 1.0...and then replacing THAT one when ARR came out due to...different reasons.
IMO a game can look as pretty as pretty will allow, but that's all worthless if the game isn't fun.
1.0...wasn't very fun in the long run. There was one reviewer back at launch that really highlighted the game's problems: those gorgeous cutscenes segued into some of the most boring, slow, and tedious battles in MMO history.

Well as someone coming from FFXI.. and having in mind that FF had turn based combat battles.. i myself enjoyed the battles really much. Now we have a more or less standard gameplay.

a little pitty, that most of the players seem to enjoy the same combat system over and over. I mean i am fine with what it is like now.. but i enjoyed battles in 1.0. also. (if you blend out the enormous lags it had)

being forced to fight jellyfish with a pickaxe wasn't.

haha that was stupid yes *rockthrow* at gobbuue for example^^ these crafting and gatherer classes werent made for combat it wasnt good that you could start as a crafter, too.. where you had to fight through the tutorial battles like any other fighting class.

The amount of time it took to make these cut scenes. The real life motion capture, amazed me. The tacky riding in on a chocobo cart/ship intros we have with the old geezer is nothing compared to these. Thanks for sending me back into 1.0 nostolgia.

yup we have to admit, that Yoshi P. and his team had much less time to make these intros.. in contrary to the 1.0. team.. which i think had about 4 years(?) to develop the game...

Yoshi P. had just 2 years.. for that they did a really great job. lets see what "Heavensward" can offer

[Lanceton]

and yet they insist the 'graphic quality' is better in ARR

[Averax]

That limsa opening....Gridania too.... hell, they were all wonderful.

and yet they insist the 'graphic quality' is better in ARR

Who insists that? I've never seen anybody insist that because they had to dial it way back so PS3 could run it.

[Ryuko]

The graphic quality isn't better, just more efficient AND accessible. Aka, you don't need an amazing computer to run the game. I did like the graphics in 1.0 but I understand why they were changed. I DEFINITELY miss the real life motion capture, though. And it makes me sad that every race holds weapons the exact same way, now. Although your appearance can differ, and so will your emotes, your actual 'motions' don't differ that much from others.

[Enkidoh]

Yet, even the much lauded graphic quality of the cutscenes was just all smoke and mirrors - Crystal Tools was so badly optimized it could only render a handful of characters on screen at once (the Ul'dah opening showed that all to well, for what is meant to be a parade in a crowded street, notice how there was only a handful of people in the immediate foreground and yet the background area was completely empty, as the engine simply couldn't render more. It was these kinds of short cuts and limitations that contributed to 1.0's demise before it was even born.

I agree though that they did grab the player in narrative wise though, but everything was so convoluted, nothing really made sense (how many players realized at the time that all the original opening scenes were actually in the Echo (and weren't even taking place in 'the present', but were events that had happened a decade before? Not many I'd wager - it was only Ferne actually revealing that fact here on the forum did it now make sense.)

At least ARR's openings, as subdued as they are, do fit into the greater scheme of things and don't overload the player with a ton of narrative stuff they're only going to forget ten seconds later. I guess it's one of those times you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[File2ish]

Crystal Tools was so badly optimized it could only render a handful of characters on screen at once (the Ul'dah opening showed that all to well, for what is meant to be a parade in a crowded street, notice how there was only a handful of people in the immediate foreground and yet the background area was completely empty, as the engine simply couldn't render more.

This and the fact that they made everything look as good as possible, not just the character models.

Just as an example; a simple flower pot in 1.0 had something close to 1,000 polygons and had 150 lines code for the shading, which was about the same count for both as a player character model had.

The graphical quality got dropped because 1.0 was meant for very high-end PCs at the time it was out, which caused a lot of players (myself included) to be left in the dust...

And yeah, this. I played a bit of 1.XX, but my computer (laptop) could barely run the game at 6-9FPS (depending on population) on minimum settings and resolution (which made the game look significantly worse, ARR doesn't look nearly as bad as 1.0 did at bare minimum everything AND it runs better). It also remains the only game to make the computer overheat and cause the CPU/GPU to force shut down the computer so it doesn't damage the components.

They dropped Crystal Tools for a new in house game engine made specifically for ARR so they can reach a broader audience on PC as well as make the game playable on the PS3 (which was promised since 1.0). A very wise decision in my opinion, it certainly helped get more people to play the game. And ARR is still very pretty to look at, but it's clear which version had a ton more investment in graphical fidelity (especially when looking at certain textures).