should not westernize FFXIV

[Elkwood]

I'm sorry, but that comment makes me extremely angry. No seriously, I find it highly offensive for you to even suggest that. Please, just stop talking now.

You should be offended, the vast majority of crap spewed from these forums are ridiculous. There are so many other things need to be put into this game and people do nothing but whine and complain. Just look at the last week the first few days after the tragedy in Japan, people were complaining about servers down and how SE had no backup plan in place, People complaining about Jumping, Terrain, lack of content, the graphics, copy pasta crap, how rift is better, how wow is better, how this game should be more like wow, etc etc. Out of 20 posts on this forum yours excluded because I have not seen many by you, most of them are just complaining and offering no solutions. You cannot deny the vast majority of the NA community wants wow with XIV graphics, and they will continue to troll until it is done. Keep in mind a good portion does not even come to said forums.

[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.

[Chardrizard]

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

its one of my the upper priorities.

i wont play game with shitty graphics even if it has very good gameplay,
but i wont play game with shitty gameplay either even if it has very good graphic.

the only reason i am still on FF14 is because i have high hope for this game and Yoshida's direction, if this game doesnt have "Final Fantasy" on its title, you bet i won't be playing already.

[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?

[viion]

...I hope you're joking.

nowai the graphics are badass, such detailed textures, makes RL look lame.

[Punxsutawney]

You should be offended, the vast majority of crap spewed from these forums are ridiculous. There are so many other things need to be put into this game and people do nothing but whine and complain. Just look at the last week the first few days after the tragedy in Japan, people were complaining about servers down and how SE had no backup plan in place, People complaining about Jumping, Terrain, lack of content, the graphics, copy pasta crap, how rift is better, how wow is better, how this game should be more like wow, etc etc. Out of 20 posts on this forum yours excluded because I have not seen many by you, most of them are just complaining and offering no solutions. You cannot deny the vast majority of the NA community wants wow with XIV graphics, and they will continue to troll until it is done. Keep in mind a good portion does not even come to said forums.

People want this game to be WoW? HMMM, I guess you haven't been reading the posts I have. Just because people want a working UI, better battle animations, jobs with a unique feel, and a better targetting system, translates in FF14 being like WoW? Hahaha.. I vote Elkwood for troll of the decade..... Clown

[Cendres]

I missed the memo on where or when SE expressed concern over their art style not being western enough and wanting to appeal to western mentality? First of all western mentality is a lot more diverse then you will get the impression from reading any forum, second FF style of graphics has been popular here for years anyway. Those who really don't like anime just have to deal with it or haven't even tried the game past open beta.

I've seen a lot of criticism on these boards on the environment and honestly I just don't see it. To me the world is beautiful and will only get more diverse as time goes on, Adding more shrubs in Limsa and Uldah I could see but I can understand why they went light on the clutter considering how demanding this game can be on some systems. They could have went with lighter graphics and more flowers and detail but that's not the decision they took.

As far as detail goes this is still one of the most carefully crafted MMO I have ever seen along with FFXI. You can literally look at the merchant stalls, libraries and so forth, and take note of all the little objects there with all their detail, in other games that kind of clutter usually looks like a pixelated mess because 90% of people don't care about it. Not so with SE's design philosophy, if it's there it's meticulously done. That's why I love, love their style.

Because this is an MMO designers have to balance aesthetics vs playability, so far I am pleased with FFXIV and I know that with time and people's machines getting better they will add even better detail to the extra content, like FFXI progressively got prettier.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

i'm with cen What I seen in vids I don't see it. And I can zoom in on my ps3. If you are looking for stuff you will see it. And no game has perfect graphics. Plus you gotta remember ffxiv still gotta fit on the ps3. So that was taken into account. As for battle animation, personally ppl forgot that this game was motion capture created read acter/actresses acted every animation out much like Avatar. If that tacked in some artificaly created animation the game wouldn't look good. You can see the difference between motion captutre and pc generated. I personally like the effects. It fits the theme of the game. Unlike ffxi, ffxiv isn't a magic based realm. Only a light dusting of it. Personally, I think ppl just being too complainy with some graphics. You honestly need to be really looking that the terrain or your character to really see this stuff. Plus this is just the start. We haven't even started to be "epic" yet. Skill effects and ws animations didn't become awesome looking till 60+.