This is rather frustrating...

[Biggs]

The following was taken off the ffxivpads main page. Much love to PV and the crew for getting this out:


"VentureBeat.com got chance to sit with Yoshi and see FINAL FANTASY XIV 2.0 running live on a Laptop, after he posted online his thoughts and explained a bit about the detail.

The first thing we noticed was the high degree of photorealism in the title. There are dynamic lights, shaders, shadows, natural foliage, and beautiful scenery. Screenshots showed us Chocobo mounts and Moogles aplenty. The game looks and feels just like other massively multiplayer online games, with a third person perspective that Yoshida rotated around his avatar character, zooming in and out to show us the high level of detail.

This is very good news, and its great to see the press impressed!

We were unable to take photos of the live demo, which mainly consisted of Yoshida’s avatar running through the forest, near some NPCs and a large castle. His avatar had a tail and fuzzy long ears, features of his particular avatar’s race.
* * *
There will be a way for players to train their own Chocobos from birth, giving them unique abilities for taking a support role in-game, like a mage chocobo or an item-storage chocobo.
* * *
He was less willing to share when the subject of a release date came up. More generally, said Yoshida, he hoped to bring an early alpha test online by late September, which will roll directly into a much larger beta test. He hopes to have the game out sometime in winter (“ish,” he said) of this year"

[Leira_Raine]

I am absolutely THRILLED about the new graphics. Honestly, I didn't even notice the downgrade, but instead the new visual art style. It is crisp and it blends well, rather than juxtaposes itself, which I've noticed with some areas like 1.0 Thanalan. When I further glanced at it, it seems to have this hint of an acrylic style, which I fell in love with. I cannot, CANNOT wait for 2.0 after these screenshots. The game seems to take on a new beauty, one that speaks out to those in a positively aesthetic manner.