Infantilized Aesthetics

[HyoMinPark]

I second Vidu and recommend a personal blog. You clearly don't want to discuss opinions different from your own, nor do you truly want to stand behind what you actually think or say. That much is evident by your constant need to delete and edit posts. I wish I'd quoted your OP in its entirety now so that others could see all the nonsense in it, but I think enough of it still remains throughout the thread.

If you aren't going to stand behind the things you say, or if you don't want to debate others challenging your opinion with their own, don't post them on a discussion forum on the internet.

And calm down with the condescension.

[MomomiMomi]

I wish I'd quoted your OP in its entirety now so that others could see all the nonsense in it, but I think enough of it still remains throughout the thread.

Don't you just love the internet?

Disclaimer:
This is an opinion piece, please take it with a grain of salt.

I think the visual styling and art direction of the game has swung so far in the direction cartoonish literalism that it could be effecting the world immersion/ suspension of disbelief for some players.

What I mean by cartoonish is a lack of realism and relate ability to the fantasy world. While I understand the fantasy world is not meant to have exact parity with the real world I think loosing all association with it cheapens the experience and lessens immersion.

What I mean by literalism is the lack of visual nuance, sophistication and significance of items. Example: an axe isn’t made significant by its inherent meaning, or contextual meaning it’s quite literally just made larger (absurdly so), or it glows and flashes.

My definition of inherent & contextual meaning is an item in the game value/ significance because the community at large is aware of A) inherent: not many items exist that look like that. B) contextual: as a player I know that it took several hour to obtain that.

What I think the game does well is maintaining a solid balance between fantasy and realism when it comes to the broader world and things like buildings, materials and surfaces, non-player usable objects. Where I think its gotten overly cartoony is in player usable things such as mounts, weapons, and attire.

I wonder if a lack of visual realism (or even consistency?) would contribute to a decline in communal buy in on the game mythology.

I.e. Are people less likely to “believe” they’re in “Eorzea” if there is no consistent physics or style guide.
I.e. How do I know when something is important if everything looks important?


What I’d like to know is if anyone else thinks this is an issue, or what peoples preferences are regarding the exaggerated visual elements. I’m specifically referring to “glowing”, “oversized”, “cartoonish” items… almost all of the new mounts would fall into this category.

I’m also curious what other people attribute this visual shift to. Whether you like the exaggerated aesthetics or not, I’d like to know why you think the game has progressively gotten “more cartoonish” as it aged.

Stream of consciousness:
For example, to me riding a dragon should be significant and not something everyone would have access too. To me it seems that the creators have decided everyone should be able to make their character look anyway they want and ride any mount they want regardless of any social/ communal connections. Each player is a visual island unto themselves and their appearance is entirely at their discretion. This provides great freedom to the individual but undermines any semblance of a cohesive world narrative that we’re all in on.

It also opens up an avenue for the trolls to flout the conventions. If you want to dress your character up like a clown because now you can, that’s a quick and easy path to negative attention seeking. I don’t think it’s good for the anyone.

I seen this decline in previous MMO’s where as the game aged the creators loosed the strings on what players could make their characters look like and it always marked the beginning of the end for that games “prime”. I contend that the abandonment of the world order like that actually hastens the games death. I remember logging into my Ultima Online shard one day and there were 2-3 players at the Britain Bank wearing neon-pink and green robes over their armor and I knew the shard was dead. It’s like ok we’ve decided that “you” the core player are dwindling and we need to cater to “the casuals”, or IMHO the younger or less mature players now.

Another thing that occurred to me while writing this was a hidden benefit of being able to loose items in the game to being PK’d. It would force players to either “guard” certain items and created an enhanced sense of value around things that were difficult to obtain. If you obtain something once and have it for life I think your treat it differently. I don’t know that there is a way to do this in the new world of theme park MMO’s but it was something I hadn’t thought of before.

[Sigma-Astra]

Don't you just love the internet?

You are a saint.

[HyoMinPark]

Don't you just love the internet?

Well, they do say “Be careful what you put on the Internet, because once it’s out there, it’s always out there”.

[Sigma-Astra]

A part of the thread topic title might actually suit the OP...considering all things.

[Genoreaper]

A part of the thread topic title might actually suit the OP...considering all things.

Was rthinking the same thing

[Genoreaper]

Did you wayback machine it?

I was gonna try but was at work.

Agreed you're a saint

[Genoreaper]

Did he leave entirely? His pic is gone

[InkstainedGwyn]

Did he leave entirely? His pic is gone

If you mean OP, they're still there for me. If you blacklisted them, however, you won't see their icon if you "show" a message from them, only when they're reblogged by others. Otherwise it might be just a bug. I'm not sure, even if someone deletes, whether or not their icon will disappear.

[HyoMinPark]

If you mean OP, they're still there for me. If you blacklisted them, however, you won't see their icon if you "show" a message from them, only when they're reblogged by others. Otherwise it might be just a bug. I'm not sure, even if someone deletes, whether or not their icon will disappear.

If the character they are posting with is deleted, then they will not have an icon. OP still shows up for me, so it was probably a bug for Geno, unless, as you said, he has OP on ignore.