Official HD Textures pack?

[Omymy]

If I am going to lose content so things look "better" I have absolutely no interest. Also, WoW still looks terrible. I don't see how you can even make any comparison.

Yes and no.

They're different types of graphics. WoW's are more cartoon and still have their charm even with the passing years. So "terrible" wouldn't be the word.

[noxen]

That's a bit like saying wow would never update any models, especially the player ones. (Hint, they did)
It's not impossible to do HD textures from scratch, player models and hair need it most, but they reuse a lot of texture assets for like leaves, tree bark, rocks, etc so updating those would result in updating a lot of the world with very little work.

One of my biggest gripes with the game has to be generic ground textures, though. They look just as bad, if not worse, than games released around 2005.

WoW has, does and will always look like utterly hot garbage. It's a product of the times still hells bent on running on a modified WC3 engine. You can polish a turd so much, but the cracks will come through soon enough. Updating their character models on a solid 80% of 'vanilla' assets in the game world makes it look like an eyesore. Not to mention the armor sets are gharish.

While not impossible to update to HD textures, it is a resource cost and frankly I don't want time taken away from plot, content and events to 'pretty up' the game. It looks fine as it is. It's not great, it's not terrible. It's just. Fine.

[Nora_of_Mira]

I know that there's probably reasons for not including HD textures in the base game.

yep, yoshi p gets asked this in almost every interview and has given the same reasons to everyone. They'd rather work on future content than spend the manhours creating HD textures for the millions of assets they have in game. He doesn't believe in staying competitive in the market "because the game is the prettiest" but rather staying competitive with its content.

[Nedkel]

PS4 limitations man, this console should be at the junkyard 3 years ago but they somehow still run this crap.

[Omymy]

WoW has, does and will always look like utterly hot garbage. It's a product of the times still hells bent on running on a modified WC3 engine. You can polish a turd so much, but the cracks will come through soon enough. Updating their character models on a solid 80% of 'vanilla' assets in the game world makes it look like an eyesore. Not to mention the armor sets are gharish.

While not impossible to update to HD textures, it is a resource cost and frankly I don't want time taken away from plot, content and events to 'pretty up' the game. It looks fine as it is. It's not great, it's not terrible. It's just. Fine.

Nope.

It's still normal for WoW to have those graphics. They could do like FFXIV and instantiate all the maps separating them by teleports, making everything much less immersive.

And the truth is that their graphics are not bad or uncomfortable. That you like them more or less is a matter of taste.

[DenzelVilliers]

PS4 limitations man, this console should be at the junkyard 3 years ago but they somehow still run this crap.

I don't think this is Ps4 fault at all, even why Ps4 has Games ( and MMOs ) with better textures than FFXIV.

[Sebazy]

Artistically and technically, WoW was both a work of art and the work of a genius imho.

The cracks aren’t going to show soon because they were right there in plain sight from day one. Going with a simple style with very basic shader use and an asthetic that went as far from realistic as they could manage has kept it looking charming and fresh to new players for far longer than it’s peers. Everquest 2 was comprehensively superior from a technical standpoint but it’s style was lacking. Compare the two now and WoW is massively more pleasing on the eye simply because it doesn’t look so dated.

As far as HD textures for FFXIV goes. I’d never say no but in honesty, I’d rather have a better renderer implimentation that trades that dull grey/brown wash for a richer lighting implimentation and actual decent HBAO. This game can look absolutely incredible with some reshade tinkering. There’s no reason SE can’t get it looking as good themselves outside of the usual small indie company routine.

[Missbone]

To be honest i don't see the need for an HD Pack. Especially not for PC Users.

This game already looks amazing. Just turn everything to max and use Reshade with a nice Preset. Also using 4k instead of 1080p as resolution also makes a big difference.

[Lacan]

Well, an alternative for me at least, is to just play the game with my glasses off. My astigmatism makes everything a little blurrier so I don't notice the blocky textures as much.

So if you wear glasses, I'd give that a go! Because Yoshi isn't gonna give us hd textures, we ask him every year and he keeps saying no in different more obtuse ways. :v

[Shougun]

Sometimes I get a bit sad when I see some of the newer WoW art and feel the texture resolution is better and free (er) of pixels, at least in my mind FFXIV should be on top for stuff like that. WoW, at least for newer areas, seems to also do a pretty good job smoothing jagged stuff from the models themselves.

I still get twangs of nostalgia when I see certain WoW areas, and some of the older areas haven't aged as well, I am occasionally impressed at how well the art style has held up (and the lack of easily discernible pixels). Though to be clear I do prefer FFXIV's art vision (and do think our game looks /very/ pretty), particularly I love the environments- in all the FF game's, FF environment and non-character art is one of the main characters for me (locations, airships, etc).

Hilariously impossible at this point, and not really point of the thread, but I'd love to see an open world mmo from SE (launched right though lol). Combined that with like a high fantasy low tech FFIX theme, hankering back to some of that propeller airship nostalgia. Doesn't have to be an mmo I suppose, and while a bit risky I would love to see a more Elderscrolls (Morrowind) game approach where it's open, free, yet strong on story, and importantly has open mod tools (the whole editor). Wow that was a tangent... SQUIRREL.. XD