I suppose it is pertinent to ask if there is a precedent. I.e. did XI ever get a graphics overhaul or not?
I suppose it is pertinent to ask if there is a precedent. I.e. did XI ever get a graphics overhaul or not?
I don't think so? They did an overhaul on the player models, and stuff has been getting progressively nicer looking every expansion, but I don't think they ever went back and did a full graphical overhaul beyond blowing the old world up in Cataclysm.
My error then. I assumed the player model upgrades applied to all content.
Honestly it probably should have, I haven't played in years but players have also been asking them to update the textures on some of the older model gear or replace the skyboxes, tree models, creature models etc. in older zones for years.
I suppose in a weird way that's a plus for XIV. Even though some textures might look like barf up close, it's not a jarring change going between Shadowbringers and ARR zones in texture quality. I'd still like an optional texture pack though, but it'd definitely be a massive undertaking.
Definitely, but sometimes they don't update a model even though they have a newer one available, which is a bit baffling but with how many models are running around it'd be a lot of busywork to make sure each is using the newest model.They've sort of steadily done it over time in many regards. Some of the older, less polished enemy/critter models were completely remade. Sometimes more than once - and it was applied retroactively throughout prior expansion content. A lot of areas also received touch ups at various points.
Yeah, Hien's attire is especially bad because they're selling it for real money. I could get on board with them starting with items like that.
Honestly WoW's new character customisation still doesn't look that good to me. They're definitely doing some cool stuff compared to how restrictive it was, but the quality between what the races get is wildly inconsistent.Character customisation, however, would be welcomed for improvement. Especially when multiple rival MMO's are tackling the problem in their respective games. Personally I'm hoping that both WoW's next expansion and the overhauled PS02 do very well for themselves. FFXIV could use some major competition to remain healthy and focused.
WoW probably still has more players, but I definitely agree FFXIV could use some more major competition so they actually feel like competing again though.
Last edited by Yencat; 08-25-2020 at 08:18 AM.
They've sort of steadily done it over time in many regards. Some of the older, less polished enemy/critter models were completely remade. Sometimes more than once - and it was applied retroactively throughout prior expansion content. A lot of areas also received touch ups at various points.
I don't think it'd be a terrible strain for the FFXIV development team to take a similar approach on a smaller scale. There's some key issues that could be fixed - such as the fuzzy textures on Hien's attire - but pretty much every enemy model is of a high quality.
Character customisation, however, would be welcomed for improvement. Especially when multiple rival MMO's are tackling the problem in their respective games. Personally I'm hoping that both WoW's next expansion and the overhauled PS02 do very well for themselves. FFXIV could use some major competition to remain healthy and focused.
It's been getting increasingly better in bits and pieces since WotLK or more noticeably since Cataclysm, around the original XIV's release, rather than having any single "major overhaul".
Wrath greatly improved the bounds of texture quality, though it didn't go ham with the added capacity at first despite doubling the minimum RAM requirements at the time to 1 gig. Cataclysm, which featured an underwater zone, most noticeably entirely redid how water was rendered; it also added Dx11 support, most noticeably through sun-shafts and dynamic lighting, and improved character models. Mists greatly improved shadows and lighting, without which the expansion's Sha enemies likely would have seriously lacked visual punch, and further improved on character models and animations, especially for key NPCs. Legion provided further optimization and some more nuanced forms of glow, and just generally spent a bit more time on the floor textures and doodads to really bring out the gritty pseudo-realism of the "viking" lands' slopes, the glow and glint of snow in High Mountain, the magical-but-none-too-gaudy appearance of the plants in Suramar, etc, and further graphical features support. Battle for Azeroth then polished characters even further, while Shadowlands will be providing a plethora more character customization options alongside revised UI and deeper Dx12 support to really nail the feel of its zones without bogging frames, it would seem.
Honestly, at this point, WoW's graphics generally leave fewer obvious points of disappointment or anything obviously jarring than do XIV's.
Outside of certain areas of vanilla zones, the terrain is less sharply cut, patchy, or pixelated than a typical XIV zones, and forgoes any obvious repeating textures across wide spans of the same terrain. Modern WoW armor generally looks fine from afar and fine from up close, rather than looking realistic at a distance and then horribly pixelated when zoomed in tight. Heck, if I judge the two experiences holistically, XIV today (as expanded July 2019) feels to me much like Mists did then (Sep 2012), but somehow less... artistically-cohesive.
You can say much of that is because of WoW's more "cartoony" art style from the offset, but honestly it just seems to be due to a lot more attention to what will matter for what they next want to produce, what improvements can be steadily made without getting in the way of content creation, and a general interest in making the experience look more polished and artistically striking and cohesive whenever they can. Both games have struggled with engine limitations and old spaghetti code. But while XIV uses those excuses like an unsurmountable limitation, WoW has been consistently working to overcome each and has actually made progress with no content droughts owed specifically to doing so (each has been due, instead, to "preemptive salvaging").
Last edited by Shurrikhan; 08-25-2020 at 02:55 PM.
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