Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Munba]

I noticed the fire effect (on the bracers) in the istanced dungeons is nicer and better animated than the actual/old one in the fields/campfires.

[KitCat]

The graphics are decent for the most part. Some of the textures are lazy, and everyone knows how repetitive the landscapes are but that won't change unless they draw solid zone lines a-la-ffxi.

As someone posted above, the shadows do kinda suck but there isn't much that can be done about it. Half the planet is *****ing about the game being so hard to run, putting in real-time shadows from a moving lightsource + multiple stationary lightsources would just make it even harder to run and make people whine more. Besides, PS3 would just melt.

My main concern is most of the terrible magic effects (some are cool) and the repetitive, weak, omnisex/omniclass combat animations, which apparently are going to be fixed at some point anyway.

[Gramul]

This is an important discussion which needs to be addressed.

The world is being redesigned, we already have a bigger, better and less Belgian Rofl thread about it.

[DAOWAce]

The game engine is just bad, regardless of what anyone says about how adding shadows would require higher system requirements.

The texture quality in FFXIV is standard in present time. The water quality is below standard and the water animation is very poor (in places). The model quality is above standard and the model animations are way above standard. The shadow quality is below average for things that actually have shadows. The density of grass doesn't exist. The LoD is horrendous.

It's a bad engine, either not meant for a PC game, or the creators of it have no idea how to properly develop PC games compared to companies like Blizzard, Epic, Valve, or most importantly, Crytek.

Look at games like Crysis (all), Bad Company 2, The Witcher 2.. look at the amount of graphical options in those games (even DX9 only options), then look at what FFXIV lacks. (The game of choice to compare FFXIV to is Crysis 2 for the PS3.) I'm not even mentioning games coming out in the future for a reason, else I'd throw Battlefield 3 in there with its massive landscapes, comparable to MMORPGs. (that's not to say games from years ago didn't have massive landscapes, but BF3's detail on them is incredible.)

We can all assume it's due to PS3 limitations, but the reality of it is: Square can create different clients for the platforms. They don't want to, just as they don't want to add regional servers despite there being HQ's in the US and EU.

They are a bad PC game company and a poor multiplayer game company. That's all there really is to it, and it's very sad. We'll have to deal with their incompetence until they face reality.

Edit: I meant to bring up things like multithreading, but forgot. Pretend I said stuff about it.