FFXIV and the graphics trap hole

[sindriiisgaming]

greetings, I am an artist, and though i have never worked for a company or made any concept art for a game, I have done it for my own Personal Projects. When i started playing XIV i noticed that it was lacking in a really definitive art style, and was instead going for the typical FFVII style high end graphics that make the game look like the people and world are real enough to compare to your own.

I personally think this is the wrong approach. looking at other Successful MMO i can see that they have a definitive artstyle that separates them from other games, where as ffxiv is only distinctive because it DOESNT have this art style. Because of this, they are going to be forced to constantly reevaluate there graphics to meet more demanding players and current day standards. in a way.. this is a trap hole they can never get out of.

I will show now, a small handful of games that have created player characters and unique artstyle-integrated graphics. to illustrate why the thing that matters more than anything, is not the graphics, but the artistic design.

Conton City - DBXV2


Grand Exchange - OSRS


Ashenvale - World of Warcraft


in all 3 of these examples. the worlds look vastly different. and graphics can stay at a stable point that would never ever need updated, so as not to betray the original artstyle. For the Budget and Future of FFXIV. it would do well to take a lesson or 2 from those games, and focus on creating something stylistically beautiful, instead of realistic, because that very hyperrealism is actually lifting me out the immersive experience and making ffxiv feel like another part of life. The characters look like people, they are not high fantasy or distinct unique races, the forests look bland and boring, there's no feeling of being in a magical realm. (the only zone that broke this mold was IL Mheg and elpis)

[Alice_Rivers]

Personally I quite like FF14's art direction but you do have a valid point. I think, if they wanted to change the art direction, that FF14 is fairly compatible with the art style seen in the Neptunia/Fairy Fencer games.

[Thurmnmurmn]

The realistic anime look is the final fantasy style. It always has been.
Just look at examples like FFX that came out in 2001 or the Advent Children movie in 2005. There's even examples prior to that but obvious graphic limitations kinda make it harder to see.
It's been said many times that this is a final fantasy game first and MMO second.

[Ilisidi]

WoW's graphics were updated. Supposedly there was some outcry about how terrible some races where done to. And, yes, the graphics are part of the reason why I play FFXIV and not either of your examples.

[CidHeiral]

Ashenvale - World of Warcraft


in all 3 of these examples. the worlds look vastly different. and graphics can stay at a stable point that would never ever need updated, so as not to betray the original artstyle

I'm not familiar with the first two but WoW famously had a graphical update that significantly changed the art style. The vanilla game and modern assets look very dissimilar.

For the Budget and Future of FFXIV. it would do well to take a lesson or 2 from those games, and focus on creating something stylistically beautiful, instead of realistic, because that very hyperrealism is actually lifting me out the immersive experience and making ffxiv feel like another part of life.

You must live a very strange life.










Just because something doesn't look like a cartoon doesn't mean it's not stylized. FFXIV is not lacking in stylistically beautiful models, dungeons, armor sets, etc. To try to argue that the game is too "hyperrealistic," the same game where you can ride a flying blue cactus alien on the moon and fight a giant haunted teapot, is pretty absurd.

[Vrankyl]

WoW's graphics were updated. Supposedly there was some outcry about how terrible some races where done to. And, yes, the graphics are part of the reason why I play FFXIV and not either of your examples.

It very much did. Honestly, by comparison the FF community's response to the graphics update was practically overwhelmingly positive compared to when Blizzard updated the WoW models. The rage storm that prompted on the WoW forums puts our community's reaction to absolute shame.

[UNDEAD10000]

greetings, I am an artist, and though i have never worked for a company or made any concept art for a game, I have done it for my own Personal Projects. When i started playing XIV i noticed that it was lacking in a really definitive art style, and was instead going for the typical FFV style high end graphics that make the game look like the people and world are real enough to compare to your own.

I don't know what Final Fantasy V graphics have to do with Final Fantasy XIV graphics when Final Fantasy V didn't even have high end graphics with realistic looking people and realistic looking backgrounds and Final Fantasy V graphics is nothing more then typical pixel art graphics that where widely used in SNES JRPG's.

[PassinLay]

FFXIV was absolutely beautiful until they decided to make it look like silent hill and to put fog everywhere with DT for some weird reasons in most areas.

Also no, the artstyle of this game is perfectly fine, stop trying to make FFXIV a different game than what it is.

[Tunda]

FFXIV has more clear direction it is FF direction which is similar to other FF single player RPGs with few exceptions like FF7 and it is kinda similar in some ways but not always

[Connor]

FFXIV can be criticised for many things, but honestly I’d say the art style and direction have been one of the most consistent and least criticised things in the game. I mean, part of why they’re so obsessed with graphics is that ‘bringing the art style to life’ has been a big part of ffxiv’s success, along with other things like incorporating elements of previous ff art into the game to create an easily identifiable ‘final fantasy world’