Final Fantasy 14 Gold Saucer Development Has Begun Follow

Stahp it puhleez, jus stahp. How many weeks did "such a polished game as ARR" go without being able to sort your inventory? Please remind me again...


They changed the battle system what, like 3 times? The fourth iteration still has flaws. Adding quests? You can't level 2 jobs solely on quests so I'd say they're still a bit short. I did enjoy the dungeon content and I wish there was more of it to offset the lack of questing so I agree there, but the story?

So as not to ruin it for anyone who may not already know...

SpoilerBahamut decides to take a vacation in Eorzea. He tries to secure a mog house for the time he's there, but they hadn't even finished building the inn yet. He tries to get souvenirs for the friends and family but it takes too long trying to find anything of value with thousands of retainers peddling junk. He tries to fly around Eorzea and look for a good place to camp for the night but gets lost because every time he turned around, the landscape looked exactly the same.

He gets fed up, shouts "You call this bullsh*t a Final Fantasyâ„¢ game? START OVER!" and proceeds to attempt to reduce Eorzea to ashes. My Hero

Everyone forgets everything. How... original




Edited, Mar 8th 2014 6:53am by FilthMcNasty

Filth explain it pretty well:

People have a disdain for it because no company bothers to do it new or better or even expand on the basics so it's not a simple carbon copy. Hell, 1.0 tried to be innovative as hell it just wasn't finished and they chose a preexisting inhouse engine that was new but not suited for MMOs. If they made their own engine like they did for XI for example, we wouldn't have had to ever worry about them rebuilding ARR into yet another generic fantasy MMO.

XI was an EverQuest clone, yet did you honestly feel like you were playing "the same MMO" every minute of the day? Did it feel like every aspect of XI was the same MMO you played back in mid 90s or even earlier? As in did it feel like Square tried absolutely nothing new with XI's approach? Have the people who say "ARR is so new and unique!" ever even touched another MMO besides ARR? Ever actually analyzed or thought about the MMO they're playing? Elder Scrolls Online does the standard way better than ARR does, that's the problem. Every "new" MMORPG is still the exact same MMORPG that I can guarantee your routine in ARR will work in any MMORPG you choose to pick up in the next few years UNLESS companies innovate.

Obvious the people who defend this game tooth & nail will say: "Oh? Where's my Bahamut's Coil in Wildstar? My Myth tomes? My (insert job)?", logically, it wouldn't be the same content in name sake. 1.0 was ambitious and 1.23 was pretty amazing as it shows what FFXIV could have been even if I disliked the game, 1.23 was truly starting to feel like a true successor to XI.

...Only for him to throw it all away and just keep vague hints of what XIV used to be. Realistically, it was already explained pretty well:

If you're going the tried and true route, at least do it differently...or something new to the table. You can't even say the class/job system is unique because there's been plenty of MMOs in between XI and XIV/ARR that also utilizes it, but they do it more wisely (didn't design themselves into a corner for class additions later), and as much as people want to try to deny it, "Games that use similar elements aren't MMOs" is more of a point that the system in itself isn't unique, so the "unique features" out of the flood of "industry standard that isn't even 100% accurate" isn't really much to say ARR is a unique MMO. When you get down to it, ARR is a F2P MMORPG that you pay to play, even 1.x had higher production value in certain areas. If they were time crunched, why did they waste time removing stuff instead of building off of it?

In the end, ARR is successful, it's a generic MMORPG and brings absolutely nothing new to the table. People like that and that's the current trend of MMOs, whether you like or hate that is up to personal opinion, but it's more the fact people were expecting more out of SE, especially because this is a FF title. Like I said, look at FFXI, it's an EverQuest clone yet I'm damn sure a lot of what I played in XI, how it played and it's presentation was far beyond what EQ did, even in the basics they did their best to show they had creativity. It just feels like we're definitely going to have to wait to see ARR's "Creativity" if at all, because I said it before and I'll say it again: PSO2 shows far more creativity in many similar areas even while doing the standard grind, and that game is F2P/Cash shop fodder.



He didn't exactly state that he was throwing out everything they did in 1.23 since a lot of requests we had and issues raised we were met with:

"It will be fixed in 2.0!"
"In 2.0 it'll be even better!"
"We can't fix this until 2.0!"
"Once 2.0 hits you can rest your weary head for the lag will be gone"
"The new UI of 2.0 will be new and improved over 1.23." (as said, how is it they forgot/removed auto sort when XIV 1.x even had it?)

However we answered pretty loaded questions in the polls, so it was essentially a bait & switch when you look at it, people wanted a better far superior 1.23 and if you hated XIV 1.x and even 1.23 of course you'll always say ARR is 100% better in comparison, I disliked 1.x because they could have done...so much more with it and ARR was that chance, but I've played MANY MMOs that I guess I can just easily see ARR for what it is. Yoshi kept no secrets, that much is true and very obvious but at times, it feels like they have zero experience in the MMORPG field and chose to copy an MMO for their first project.

I think people whether you like or hate this game feels that SE could do more and they know this which is why saying FFXI and Innovation tend invoke ire in the community since it's more like: "While XI had issues, look at the creativity they put into it, the varying systems that eventually came out. While it was 10 years worth of work, why in all of the production of XIV/ARR did they not even look at re-imagining them for their next FF game? Make it better? Do what they couldn't do with the 2001 PS2 MMORPG?"

Also: PSO2 plays beautifully on my Vita...so I don't think even ARR has that as it's 'Unique one of a kind!" feature.

Edited, Mar 8th 2014 6:14am by Theonehio

To say people here have a disdain for innovation is false. There is only the crowd that doesn't mind that SE played it safe with ARR, and those who wish SE would have taken more chances. Let's stop pretending that people are anti-innovation.

And Filth, the reason why they changed the battle system so much in 1.0 is they couldn't fix all of its problems in one shot. Remember, the coding for much of XIV was outsourced to China (horse bird!) and came back in a jumbled mess. That's why the scrapped the game and replaced it with ARR. There was literally no saving the old game. Point stands that SE was treating 1.x and ARR as totally different games from development standpoints. The only thing about ARR that launched in 2010 is the FFXIV trademark. If that constitutes the launch of the ARR to you, well, then we are destined to disagree forever.

And yes, for a game that was developed almost from scratch for two very different platforms in three years, ARR is very polished. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but the only legit problem was SE didn't plan on so many people wanting to play. I'm aware that "polish" is a very subjective term, but my opinion is backed by most of the significant mainstream reviews from ARR's launch. You're free to disagree, but you're in the minority here (which is OK, but probably not what you're trying to portray).

Edit: Kind of ironic given all the claims of SE being anti-innovation, but the fact that ARR even exists is among the biggest innovations in MMORPG history.



Edited, Mar 8th 2014 8:44am by Thayos

Edited, Mar 8th 2014 9:30am by Thayos

Thayos, they didn't toss the engine out the window and start over. They watered it down by using reasonable texture resolution so it didn't take all day(or all of your processing power) to render a reasonable amount of objects. They did this for the sake of bringing us the only MMO(read: not the only MMO) that is featured on the PS4 and Vita. They did this because they created the first engine for PC and way overshot what was reasonable to expect a PS3 to handle. 2 1/2 years later, PS3 gets a version that's been nerfed and still doesn't perform on the level it should.



To me, polish is what happens to a game when it's already finished. It doesn't really fit MMOs because they're constantly evolving, but things like voice-over for cutscenes and QoL changes would qualify to me. Polish is something you do when you know your product is ready, but you want to add little things to push it over the level of just being satisfactory.


GTFO

You completely and totally missed my point; try reading everything before replying. I'm talking about gameplay innovation here. Being able to play the game on a handheld is nice and all but it's not gameplay innovation. Is it really that hard a concept to grasp? Technical innovation =/= design innovation. Ugh this stuff is so basic, I can't believe I have to explain it I'm not talking about hardware or cross platform this and that. I'm talking about the experience of playing the game itself, no matter the platform..



"the argument for innovation is a misnomer" please explain what you were trying to say there, because it doesn't actually make sense in english. Ok i understand after re-reading and some context clues. You are saying that innovation actually has hurt the MMO genre. Okay, I actually somewhat agree with this. The innovations that led to the modern mmo model were mostly of the streamlining sort. Making the user experience less time-sinky, more QoL things, etc. And as a side effect of this innovation, much of what made MMORPGs fun and immersive was lost. If that's your point, I agree. I disagree with your conclusion that innovation and change is bad.





The crux is either there or here. It can't be therin here. Just write what you mean, please. I think what you re trying to say here is "SE made up campaign/besieged and those were innovative, and FATEs are like those, so they should get credit for being innovative with FATEs", but it makes no sense. I actually agree that campaign was an innovative, if somewhat poorly implemented event, that was later popularized by games like RIFT, that streamlined it. I don't see how any of this makes the FATE system innovative. Whether they re-borrowed from RIFT or not, SE's FATE system is just another variation of an old theme. It not even done particularly well. They don't get extra credit in this context for innovating the theme in XI, because this discussion is about XIV.




Again, can't give them credit here for innovation, since this has been done before. By SE themselves. XI job system. Please understand that I think the armoury system is a great and fairly unique thing. It's unique but not necessarily innovative. An argument could be made that the decision to marry a job system to a modern theme park mmo is somewhat innovative. I could concede to that if i had a couple drinks in me i suppose..



Except that it won't. Kinda blows, but there's little to no actual job customization in this game.





This paragraph again makes little sense. Taking a few old ideas and combining them with some modern ideas doesn't equal innovation. Again, i can kind of bend on the armoury system thing just because it is unique to the FF mmos, but i still feel like that's a stretch. "The constant throw away mentality looking for something new should be found withing the atmosphere..." what does this sentence even mean? People should look for graphics and sound and lore if they want something new, and to hell with mechanics? People shouldn't want something new at all? Your wording is masking your point.






That's great and heart warming and i actually agree with most of it. Unfortunately it has no place in this discussion, which is about innovation, ie doing something new and exciting and fun within the context of MMO design. Since you would rather play something familiar, i'm not even sure why you are weighing in. Your post was pretty confused in general.






What? No no it isn't. It is unprecedented for an MMO to make such a comeback from the dead for sure. 100% awesomeness to SE for pulling this off. Doesn't make it innovative.



Edited, Mar 8th 2014 2:44pm by Llester

Edited, Mar 8th 2014 2:48pm by Llester

Shadows and lighting.

You're welcome to your opinion of which you prefer, but one of these images clearly makes better use of shadows and lighting than the other.

Everyone knows that you don't make the decisions Thayos. I think we're good


If you scaled the shadows all the way down in most games you get a shadow puddle directly underneath your character instead of a shadow that reflects your own actions.

Take a closer look at the images. The 2.0 image has hardly any shadows at all while the 1.0 image is covered in them. You can also see the texture detail. As I said, you're welcome to your opinion. It's fine if the image without shadows appeals to you, but it's not higher quality than the original engine. The shadows and texture detail are much better defined in the first iteration.

Your video doesn't make sense without something for comparison. Use this as a reference for 2.0 and use this as reference for 1.0 version. Ignore the shadows on the ground and focus on the shadows that players cast on themselves. In 2.0 you're fully illuminated at all times. The characters have shadows on the, but they look like they're just painted on. They're not dynamic and don't change with the environment. The character's appearance barely changes at all when she moves through light to dark and back to light.

1.0 on the other hand is noticeable immediately. Look at her gear as she she leans forward during her emote. Her lower torso darkens as the light from above is obstructed by her... udders. She's darker when standing in dark areas like the tunnel and lighter out in the open. On top of all that, the textures are much more crisp and defined.

None of that can be said for the video showing ARR's shadows. Not sure if you're just not paying attention to those details or if you've got your hands over your ears screaming lala... fell. Was pretty obvious to me. Guess you'll be 'that guy'


OOPS!!! MEANT TO EDIT MY POST, ACCIDENTALLY EDITED YOURS... THINK I DELETED EVERYTHING.
Edited, Mar 8th 2014 4:39pm by Thayos

Edited, Mar 8th 2014 4:42pm by Thayos

Static? After you just watched them shift across the character as she moved? The only thing that's static is the volume of light on models in 2.0 Thayos.



Yeah, well... everyone looks bright and lively under a spotlight with 3 suns in the sky.


Third time now, opinions aren't important. Clearly you prefer painted shadows and low res textures. It's crystal.

The textures they had were rendered at lower resolution and reapplied. They did create new landscaping to fill out some new areas and clear up the copy pasta issue, but those got the exact same treatment. 'From the ground up' is about as inaccurate as you could get. They recycled just about everything available from the mainstream 'extremely casual' MMO genre. You really think they didn't re-use textures?

You've been licking those frogs again, haven't you...?



I had a pair of the first Fermi GPUs running in SLI prior to 1.0 going into alpha. I'm not bragging, but it made me one of the few people had the capability to see the game perform well at full settings. Just so you realize I'm not bullsh*tting, one of my personal benchmarks. For the sake of comparison, the top benchmark scores from the BG kids.

I guess I forgot I was arguing with someone who had never seen what the graphics were supposed to look like.



Edited, Mar 8th 2014 10:10pm by FilthMcNasty

I don't argue against anyone's opinion here. High resolution is higher quality. That's just a fact. It's definitely the reason why the engine was nerfed, but you seem to think it was replaced completely rather than just adjusted from what was already there. I explained the process to you and you don't get it. I showed you visual proof, but apparently you've got selective vision.

My only suggestion would be for you to research exactly how lighting works in this game. It might help you understand exactly all the characters in 2.0 look so bright. Outside that suggestion I don't think I can help you because I don't have a phoropter

Edited, Mar 8th 2014 11:16pm by FilthMcNasty

The irony is that I finally have a graphics card that would have been capable of playing 1.x on max and I'll never get to test it out.

Whatever you say Thayos

What is your working definition for superior in this context?