Comments from the Devs

[Alkar]

um my understanding servers will still be in Japan. why did he say Japan AND international servers? are they planning to have servers hosted according to regions for ping issues?

Yoshida hinted at European servers in the past to solve the latency issue there considering it's the worst one so he's probably confirming that.

[Niiro]

I don't see how EU is worse than NA, at least not for the east coast.

[Oreth]

This lol, I really cannot wait to see proof of this.

Proof of what?

As it is FFXIV still looks better (graphically) than GW2 and that is currently brand new. I have played both btw. Bar some horrible lighting effects (inb4 FFXIV has and was terribly designed) FFXIV has much more beatiful graphics. I wont argue the fact that GW2 has a much more prefound world that is very beautiful and unique (Major factor of FFXIV's downfall & the copy & paste environment) FFXIV stands out ahead of GW2 in my opinon. I was quite dissapointed after i made my char in GW2 he end up looking much more blocky or squared off.. This is just my opinion ofc

[Cichy]

^ completely agree. I played both also and like you said the only downfall of XIV is the repetitive environments which are mostly outside zones.

[Takiwaki]

You guys are really defending a claim to the best graphics engine in the world? You do realize that a graphics engine is much more than just pretty graphics right? Just wow lol especially when you have not even seen it in action yet?

That's pretty bold seeing that the graphics engine in 14 at the moment is pure shit hence the reason for having to replace it.

Laying claim as having the best of anything in the world is pretty huge when there isn't any proof shown at all. Don't get me wrong I would love for it to be true, this is why I am waiting for it to be proven.

Also comparing it to guild wars 2 is pretty silly as its known, the devs stated that it wasnt built to be the best or most realistic, but to support the artistic direction of the game and run on older machines.

[Cichy]

Yeah, I'll claim that animations are much better also. All the character movement and abilities look natural and not like epileptic seizures like in GW2.

[Spira]

there has never really been any doubts about FFXIVs graphic capabilities as one of, if not the best looking MMO on the market. but its current problem is that only those with very high end PCs can experience this, and those anywhere below will see graphic problems like artifacts and lag unless they turn it down accordingly.

also maybe international servers will be hosted in a different location for the beta?

[Takiwaki]

Yeah, I'll claim that animations are much better also. All the character movement and abilities look natural and not like epileptic seizures like in GW2.

Thats cool and all so.. back to talking about the best graphics engine in the world? since that was my point. I really do no know how GW2 fits into that.

[xopher]

Thats cool and all so.. back to talking about the best graphics engine in the world? since that was my point. I really do no know how GW2 fits into that.

Because it's your obvious GW2 boner fueling every one of your arguments.

[Takiwaki]

Because it's your obvious GW2 boner fueling every one of your arguments.

No, someone claiming to have a best graphics engine in the world without any proof. wake up.

what are you talking about? did I mention GW2 in my original comment? cmon now. Tera and 14 both have higher quality graphics than GW2 thats fact. I have no clue wtf you on.

[Celeras]

I don't think people even know what they're arguing, because 14's graphic engine is epically bad. Everything from general capacity, to the static physics, to the transition from low->high textures in the distance. All laughably horrible, and that doesn't even take into consideration things like the still-broken shadows, horrible texture streaming, or low quality animation.

If you're trying to talk about character models in screenshots that hide broken shadows/lackluster physics, then you may have an argument dependent upon personal preference. Only problem is that wasn't anyones point, so you're just shitting into the wind.

My only question is when did this game cease being terrible enough for people to white knight.

[Lordender]

I don't even know what that means, now, perhaps we've never seen anything like the graphics engine 2.0 is going to show case, either way, graphics don't mean a fucking thing to me. Just make the game fun, only bad gamers won't play a game because the graphics don't blow them away anyway. FFXIV 1.0 was the perfect example that graphics cannot carry a badly made game.

I blame graphics whores on why so many bad fucking games come out. A shit ton of devs now put so much emphasis on graphics that the entire core of the game suffers, this is why we get great looking games but horrible gameplay, shitty story, crappy ass mechanics. Nothing pisses me off more than a beautiful game(especially RPG's) that have shitty stories, crappy systems and the worst offender of all, shitty music.

If I'm going to play x RPG for 80+ hrs, it better have a nice story, cool systems and some epic music blasting while i'm killing dragons, behemoths, adamantoise's etc.

[Spira]

time to play the good, bad, subjective, people have different standards card lol.

while it's a pretty sweeping/bold/stupid statement for Yoshi P to make, I don't think he's missing the mark too far by saying it. Considering ARR essentially ports over a lot of what already exists in legacy FFXIV, you can't rave about it without considering the merits of the existing graphics in place.

when FFXIV first marketed itself, people were generally pretty impressed by the graphics, and still are.
bear in mind, the existing graphic engine may be poorly optimized and isn't the most efficient thing around, but those are technical specs, not graphics. they aren't necessarily mutually paired.
Graphics is about the visual, aesthetic appeal, fluidity of motion and by extension, the artistic direction as well.

XIV fails on none of those counts, even if it may not be perfect.
character and monster models are detailed, well sculpted and built. gear design is varied, altho maybe too fanciful. zones are generally well textured. environment effects are fine except that theres too much shine and bloom lighting.

the major problem with the graphics is that it affects and places huge technical limitations on gameplay - such as the max number of character models being displayed - which really shouldn't be the case. but this is due to the fact that the engine originally being used was never designed with an MMORPG in mind.

apart from that, increasing graphic efficiency is useful for lowering the technical barrier for people to play, in effect increases the number of people who are able to feasibly play the game and increasing its potential outreach (think why any Blizzard game and something like Minecraft is able to spread so widely).

Yoshi P knows this, which is why they've said they're balancing graphics down and improving on the gameplay and story aspects. He's stated since E3 about his focus on the 3 pillar approach to FFXIV, so its a bit baffling why he would still put this much emphasis by mentioning graphics this much.

[miokomioko]

bad gamers

what is this i dont even

[Thiefami]

Honestly, what producer wouldn't make the same claims while hyping his game, be it true or not?

[Alkar]

Or it's a small mistranslation. Considering it's from a chinese guy who spoke to a japanese and translated into english I'd say the chances are quite high.
And can we please stop with the name calling?

[Churchill]

Will the best graphics engine in the world cause me to lose control of my character when opening a map or changing gear?

[Sephiroth]

Q: When will Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 launch?
A: I expect the first Closed Beta for the Japan and International servers to be held end September or early October, entering Closed Beta 2 this winter and Open Beta in January next year. We will be talking to Shanda Games about the China server, with features such as PvP, blocking 3rd party programs and localization, hence the Chian server will launch later

This confuses me. (from the interview posted earlier).

I was expecting to be playing V2 non-beta by about November. This suggests the game won't be released until around February at the earliest. Surely patch 1.23 isn't meant to keep us going until then? Unless the lettered patches have a lot of content which is doubtful.

[Oreth]

Maybe he is talking about launching in China? Maybe that is slightly behind the official 2.0 launch? But worrying if not....

[Tearshang]

That timeline suggests to me that they are keeping to their word about adding/fixing things in beta based on player feedback in beta. Or giving themselves a safety net just in case.