Quote Originally Posted by gahoo View Post
People are complaining about the grass, and complaining about the complaints about the grass, and complaining about threads about complaints about the grass, but has anyone really analyzed the grass? I mean really analyzed it. We are all just throwing comments around about what it is, what it might become and what it should be. However, without the proper analysis we are all just blowing smoke (no pun intended).

For starters, what kind of grass are we talking about here? There is more than one kind of grass (Poaceae) out there, and exactly how round the grass is, or more precisely, should be, will certainly depend on the type we are discussing. And that assumes that we are even looking at "grass" itself, as in graminoids, and not another form of similar vegetation. Certainly if we are looking for bamboo (a grass), then what SE has done with ARR is a terrible representation of such a grass. Indeed, were that case I believe that the best thing to is probably start over and aim for FFXIV 3.0, since the inability to more closely depict bamboo (over other forms of grass), suggests that other representations will not be close enough to their intended visuals for the 2.0 version of the game to survive.

That said, I do not believe that SE was aiming for bamboo here. How do I know? Well the locale for starters. We are in what appears to be the forests of Gridania, and these forests do not appear to be bamboo-type forests. Granted, there are many types of bamboo, and bamboo can survive in a wide variety of climates. That said, bamboo would make for a very difficult terrain for adventuring and for the slaying of animals. The killing in FFXIV appears to be less of a hunting simulator, and more of a roaming-the-lands type of activity.

We can also probably rule out cultured grass lawns as well as what SE was attempting to represent here. That doesn't seem to fit with the forest motif either. Certainly, as was the case with bamboo, if SE was trying for a manicured lawn in this shot I agree with the OP that a ton of work needs to be done before release. I think we can all agree that this does not look like a cultured lawn.

Or what about cereal (a type of grass)? We know that there are at least two cereals in Eorzea - Sunset Wheat and Rye. Could it be these grasses we are looking at? I don't think this stands up to scrutiny. We can rule out Rye, since that is only found in the higher elevations of Mor Dhona and Coerthas. And we can rule out Sunset Wheat as well - as it is only harvested in La Noscea and Thanalan. We can also assume based on it's very low price that it would be cultivated and not found in such conditions as shown in the picture used by the OP.

So that leaves the grasses typically found in grasslands - maybe we are looking at a some of the tall prairie grasses - say a mixture of indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) or little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). These average about 6 feet tall, however, and if we assume the Hume of average height, I don't think that's what we are looking at.

I am not sure we are really looking at grasses at all. SE may have been trying to represent forbs, sedges or rushes - none of which are grass at all. I am not sure that the OP really considered this possibility in his in-depth analysis.

Conclusion, we should be demanding that SE identify the specific plant that they are trying to represent in the image presented by the OP, so that the community can weigh in on how accurate (or not) the scenery looks, and so we can decide whether or not SE should continue to develop 2.0, or try again with 3.0
Best. Post. Ever.

+1