[Engine related] Glass and transparency

[Elexia]

I thought glass was pretty simple to produce, its just transparency with a refraction shader isn't it ?

It's much more stable and efficient to do in offline titles/smaller online titles (i.e FPS) than it is in MMOs. That video, like the FFVII PS3 demo, was a tech demo to test the hardware, nothing more so it's more than possible to produce great transparancy effects (Look at XIII-2), it's not viable in an MMO unless the engine can do it flawlessly, which is why most MMOs lacks it in a major way. (Usually only tied to water effects if anything.)