should not westernize FFXIV

[Cairdeas]

They already said they wanted to give a Western developer the tools and let them build their own FF from scratch for possibly FF15. I dunno if this will actually happen or who would actually do it. But I think it would be interesting. And forcing Tanaka to sit in on the project as an observer and or ideaman would probably give him a humbling experience he would need to retake the reins as a full producer for the FF series.

[Azureos]

i think it s true that FF14 lack a bit of visual identity even hough it s far from being the worst part of the game.
it would be more immersive i think with better colored lights and shadows and some particule in the air who would give a more dreamlike and fantasy effect.

[Seikninkuru]

just need some trance and stop the jpop imo.

[Azureos]

lol i feel like if i was in an elevator when i heard Ulda s theme lol

[Rhianu]

Basically my beef with CoP was that you couldn't really enjoy anything it had to offer unless you had an LS full of people who all wanted to do it too, and it was extremely difficult to convince people to go through the missions again if you weren't among the first few waves of people to play through them.

With ToAU, there was plenty of stuff for everyone to enjoy, even if they didn't have a consistent static party to do everything with.

Also, ToAU felt like it added more content than CoP.

[Linnear]

Basically my beef with CoP was that you couldn't really enjoy anything it had to offer unless you had an LS full of people who all wanted to do it too, and it was extremely difficult to convince people to go through the missions again if you weren't among the first few waves of people to play through them.

With ToAU, there was plenty of stuff for everyone to enjoy, even if they didn't have a consistent static party to do everything with.

Also, ToAU felt like it added more content than CoP.

The main difference I noticed in the various expansions of FFXI were the changes in philosophy. Zilart was all about the BIG alliances and massive parties with dynamis and sea being the end point of that logic. This required large LS groups and people with similar time tables and basically a lot of Zerg action going on (similar to WoW vanila).

CoP was a bit more focussed on smaller parties, the COP missions where all party focused with a couple of smaller encounter to boot. The CoP Dynas were smaller (18 man) and sea could be tackled by 18 at release easily enough with the obvious exception fo AV. Gear got more involved, different states starting showing up and the some jobs were changed based on who people were currently palying them (nin,sam).

ToAU wanted to make things a little more westernized "I guess is a term you could use, personally I wouldn't," but was based with more instanced content like salvage, nyzul and einherjar, once again with content being released for smaller groups, 18 man einherjar, 5 man nyzul etc and the missions could have be done with 3-5 people generally.

WoTG went a step farther in that path with the missions being completed with 2-3 with the exception of a few, and campaign could be enjoyed by groups of all sizes or just solo if you wished. This was more geared towards solo play or 2-4 man groups with DNC and SCH shinning in such groups.

I am not sure which one of these philosophies is the most eastern or western but there is a significient difference in the way SE went about adding content. Personally I think every expansion was an improvement ont he experience as a whole for different reasons. I also think CoP was my favorite one with story missions/rewards and difficulty being where I liked it, but the instanced content like salvage and the charges for entering nyzul for missions and such was a Great idea, just not challenging enough. If CoP and ToAU came out together at the beginning when I had a lot of friends IRL playing the game I think XI would of been the beter for it.

Basically which expansion you prefered is based on what philosophy you prefer. I like 5-10 man content, more than that and it feels meaningless to be there, 1 tank 3-4 heals and a lot of people half assed hitting something doesn't do it for me.

What do you guys prefer?

[Randis]

Can you guys at least TRY to stay on topic?

[Issachar]

If you're playing MMOs for the graphics, then your priorities are off by a mile.

[Mikita]

If you're playing MMOs for the graphics, then your priorities are off by a mile.

That's a bit harsh.

People enjoy things for many different reasons.
No reason to imply that one set of priorities should override all others.

[Malakhim]

Well if by "western" you mean looking at innovations and cool things that development teams operating in Europe/NA have done with their games and figure out how to integrate them into the game in a way that fits, then by all means do that.

If by "western" you mean turning everything into generic Arthurian fantasy and/or turn everything into bald space marines, then no.