Quote Originally Posted by Naunet View Post
Also your assessment on WoW is dated. Blizzard has been steadily and significantly improving their graphics - both on the character models and in the zone design - ever since Wrath. The difference between a WoD or Legion zone and vanilla zones is incredible. It's also a GREAT example of a game dev doing something absolutely right. Blizzard recognized that the product they presented didn't look all that great compared to what else was out there and so they put effort into improving it.
Perhaps I wasn't quite clear enough, I was not criticising WoW for it's development process. I would agree and say that WoW has done a great job continuing to try and keep it's game relevant to the modern competition, but Blizzard has also completely rewritten the game's engine at least once, within it's lifetime of 13 or so years. In it's prime it competed (or rather, was tried to be competed with by) FFXI which took on the traditional SE mantle of "Premium graphics, and we'll swing the rest". Vanilla FFXI was gorgeous for the time period compared to WoW, but suffered in many other ways as a result.

Blizzard chose to upgrade WoW's engine and continue the game, SE chose to cut their losses with XI and start an entirely new game, which we well know had a very bad false start with 1.0. To what degree ARR suffered as a result, is up for discussion, but the begging question is will this development style continue. FFXIV has just received it's second expansion, and does that mean that the next FF MMO is currently being planned out in secrecy? ARR to some degree helped save SE's hide from financial strife, but that doesn't necessarily mean XIV has an open checkbook. Resources could be stipened for XIV because it is being diverted to the next FF MMO, which will use a completely new and up-to-date engine that XIV may never recieve.