Is most of FFXIV's failings due to their choice of engine?

[Ava]

I think what they are getting at, is how do low budget companies, with very little achieve so much visually, and this game doesnt seem to (with regards to environmental over all design) the op think it maybe the limitations of the engine, I personally think it is just poor design, reusing assets isnt the problem, its how they reused it. Gridania has overhangs and top and bottom levels, with clearings and streams here and there, these are fine, but instead of designing an area with all these tools, they designed one repeating pattern of these building blocks and used them over and over. Instead of using the building blocks to make the area, over all, interesting.

It's because there's a difference between taking an engine, making a level (or world in this case) with already created units and creating your own engine (or heavily modifying one) to make a unique experience. Ever wonder why so many Korean MMOs look the same? A lot of it is because they probably only make minimum modifications to their engines. Western MMORPG developers heavily modify their engines to make a unique experience for their games because their programmers are capable of such a thing. But I mean, even I could go download an engine and make a game world that looks beautiful by myself.

I don't think everyone posting in this thread fully understands what an engine actually is. It's not hard to make something pretty. It is hard; however, to make something unique, pretty, and well programmed.

e: Anyone interested, here's UDK: Unreal Development Kit (Unreal Engine 3) http://www.udk.com/ You can try it for free.