This is awesome... Why couldn't we have this?

[Jynx]

I loved 1.0 it had alot of problems no doubt about it, but I really wish they were a little more true to the original game and design when they went to 2.0.

The biggest issue the game had was the engine, not the content.

[Zojha]

The biggest issue the game had was the engine, not the content.

Are you implying people left en masse over the engine? Because I can hardly imagine that.

[Jynx]

Are you implying people left en masse over the engine? Because I can hardly imagine that.

Did you play 1.0?

The UI took FOREVER to even load anything, things such as basic menu interactions became laborious. The engine and it's slipshod optimization was the cause of the vast open world maps being the way they were. Hell 1.23 was miles better than what we started out with in Alpha and 1.0, the game was shoved out the door before it was ready and the bedrock (Engine) was faulty from the starting line. The game started out with little content and janky mechanics due to the limitations of the system in place so much so they threw it out and started anew. Sadly they threw more than just the engine out.

[Zojha]

Did you play 1.0?

Yes. And the reason I left was certainly not the engine. I followed the MSQ up to the point where I couldn't anymore because I needed more levels (Which was very soon). Since I couldn't find enough quests for my level, despite searching far and wide in the Shroud, La noscea and Thanalan, I tried leves, but only had 3 a day, so after that I tried grinding mobs instead, up to the point where I needed better equipment because I got my ass handed to me by equally leveled mobs (also, my equipment was broken). And then I couldn't find any affordable gear and tried making it myself. Took up a pickaxe, ran out to the desert, then got crushed by a random Ant while trying to find a node. Eventually I made it, did some accessories as goldsmith and was happy to at least have gotten *something* done in this game (I still keep those on my retainer). My highest level at this point was like 11, about three weeks in.

Then I logged out and conveniently forgot to log in again.

[Catwho]

Are you implying people left en masse over the engine? Because I can hardly imagine that.

"The engine" being a representative example. The entire back end made the game almost unplayable on the front end.

Tanaka wanted to make XIV hack-proof, so he had the idea to do EVERYTHING server side. Every. Thing. There was a one second delay for every action you took on your UI, and what the game did in response. Auto-attack was not a thing; your character did not make any attacks at all unless you performed the hotbar actions. Crafting was okay, but gathering was a painful mini game that is now where it rightfully belongs in the Gold Saucer, as a MINI GAME.

I played during 1.23b when Yoshi P had taken the train wreck of 1.x and transformed it into a decent game, but it was still crippled by its own poor back end infrastructure, a bad UI design, badly optimized graphics. It was actually a fun game, but the massive nasty UI lag persisted up until Bahamut blew everything up.

I'd say 75% of the rewrite work on XIV 2.0 happened on the server end, not the front end, since many art assets were ultimately recycled. Now instead of asking the server for every request you put into the UI, it only does the important ones (e.g. crafting RNG, damage calculations, etc) and lets the server and client do pull notifications every 15 seconds for other less important updates (syncing your inventory) and lets the client handle actual menu generation. (Yes, 1.0 pulled all menu requests from the server. Bleagh!)