Considering people still play old nintendo 64 games with the most blocky and simple models and colors, you could argue that the graphics don't need updating.

But most people have a wide screen now and at least 1080p is a common minimum resolution, yet the textures are designed for a much lower resolution and therefore look pixelated to most people. For whatever reason, even Clive from FF16 was made to have pixelated gear in this game on a 1080p monitor. If you fly to the moon and look at the surface you will notice some textures there look stretched to a degree that looks... not good.

Quote Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza View Post
But I'm wondering if it was needed and is it a solid selling point for the game?
The graphics used to be one of the best in the MMORPG category when it was new, but then we started getting games like New World and Ashes of Creation and Lost Ark, so this is the response. If you don't know what those games are, look up a few videos of them on youtube and you'll see.

Maybe I'm entirely ignorant and I've been living in a cave - but was the update a big ask in the community?
Definitely, yes. A very large percentage of the community uses custom shader software to enable graphics effects that the game doesn't normally allow. I mean a very significant percentage - probably over 50%. Information about it spreads socially and also because it's done for many other games so people just know to do it.

A lot of gamers have high-end gaming computers and want to make maximum use of their investment. They do not want to settle for lower graphics. If I were to tell you the average specs of people who ask for help in the tech support forums, they are very high-end computers as opposed to an old computer from 10 years ago!

Additionally, a lot of players do something they shouldn't, which is increase the resolution of the textures anyway. That isn't allowed, but if you know how many people do this, it's a very large amount of players. The graphics update is a response to this as well.

Balmung, the world you're from, is going to have a higher percentage of players doing all these things than almost any other world as well.