FFXIV Flame Wars Thread: because ten threads is not enough threads

[Kaylia]

You arn't sure how it is relevant?....we're talking about graphics, art direction, art styles here. It's not a "unique" art style at all, unless you label a child's crayon drawings as "unique" compared to a Monet. The Diablos, Starcrafts, Warcrafts 1, 2 and 3 all had some up to date graphics at their time when they were launched.

Not a worthwhile artstyle?...cool

Spoiler: show

While Warcraft style is not "unique", it's easily recognizable for sure. You will never confuse warcraft art with a aion/ffxi/halo/GoW art. If you're talking about the gaming industry in overall, you won't find much originality anywhere...especially not in mmo like WoW or FFXIV.


Why the fuck would you disagree with my first post and every subsequent post if you repeat all the same shit I already said. In my first post, I said that investing time and money in top notch graphics is not worth it, because it doesn't prevent you from making a beautiful game with interesting visual. Lesser graphics allow you for more diversity and liberty in the design. What you lose in a place, you get it back somewhere else.

[Shaskoru]

Why the fuck would you disagree with my first post and every subsequent post if you repeat all the same shit I already said.

Seems to be the new cool thing to do.

[miokomioko]

What you lose in a place, you get it back somewhere else.

Do you think sacrificing graphics for gameplay is always a good choice?

[Nevex]

While Warcraft style is not "unique", it's easily recognizable for sure. You will never confuse warcraft art with a aion/ffxi/halo/GoW art.

Actually, when I saw Aion's screenshots for the first time, I thought they were taken from WoW. Most MMORPGs have incredibly stereotypical races (i.e. elfs), ambientations (i.e. generic gloomy forest) and design style (fantasy/medieval). FFXI managed to distinguish itself from the mass because you could tell it was a Final Fantasy... FFXIV not so much, especially when you replace FF classic jobs with generic MMORPG classes among other things.

Lesser graphics allow you for more diversity and liberty in the design. What you lose in a place, you get it back somewhere else.

Absolutely false, especially when you have a brand new graphic engine (hello Crystal Tools).
Graphics didn't take anything out of FFXIV, it was everything else that was poorly done.

Also, let's be honest: name me a recently released successful game that has bad graphics. As meaningless as they can seem at first glance, graphics do matter and can make or break a game.

[Meresgi]

Not a worthwhile artstyle?...cool
While Warcraft style is not "unique", it's easily recognizable for sure. You will never confuse warcraft art with a aion/ffxi/halo/GoW art. If you're talking about the gaming industry in overall, you won't find much originality anywhere...especially not in mmo like WoW or FFXIV.
Why the fuck would you disagree with my first post and every subsequent post if you repeat all the same shit I already said. In my first post, I said that investing time and money in top notch graphics is not worth it, because it doesn't prevent you from making a beautiful game with interesting visual. Lesser graphics allow you for more diversity and liberty in the design. What you lose in a place, you get it back somewhere else.

Why are you showing me this video? That's not even in reference to what I was saying. The art style in that game is not good, as its a video showing physics..NOT..ART.

Why would I disagree with your first post? Because art and graphics are what drives most game sales nowadays. Because showing a customer how interesting your product looks from visuals is a lot easier then trying to get them to sit down and play a demo.

Looks are the first thing anyone notices about a game, you can't even argue that fact, though i'm sure you will try by saying how holier then thou you are when it comes to game purchases blah blah blah.

Lesser graphics allow you for more diversity and liberty in the design.

What...the...fuck? I don't even know what you are trying to say. They don't allow for anymore diversity/liberty in a game..at all. A stick figure game can be absolute shit, or amazing...and a game with top edge graphics can be either of those two.

You're an imbecile. I was talking to Hyan. Again, way to reinforce (third time now) your ignorance.

You made a post, on a new page, directed at someone without so much as even quoting them...so when I refreshed after my own post I saw that and commented. I'm so sorry your majesty.

Practical: Does anyone know what the fuck this means?

You're right, its not impossible..nothing is impossible. Your point is still null.

2. I worded this poorly, but I referring to the fact that technology is progressing at an extremely fast rate and unless it (technology) slows down, FFXIV's visual appearance will be considered outdated in 5 years without a doubt (unless, as it has been pointed out, they upgrade the engine).

Yeah, they will be outdated somewhat in 5yrs...but that wasn't the point to begin with. WoW STARTED outdated at launch. I'll be honest, the beta of WoW looked better in some regards to what WoW became at launch as well.

[Shaskoru]

Looks are the first thing anyone notices about a game, you can't even argue that fact, though i'm sure you will try by saying how holier then thou you are when it comes to game purchases blah blah blah.

Do you know what a fact and an opinion is?

You don't?

What...the...fuck? I don't even know what you are trying to say. They don't allow for anymore diversity/liberty in a game..at all. A stick figure game can be absolute shit, or amazing...and a game with top edge graphics can be either of those two.

How about budgets?

No?

You made a post, on a new page, directed at someone without so much as even quoting them...so when I refreshed after my own post I saw that and commented. I'm so sorry your majesty.

Following arguments/conversations?

No again?

You're right, its not impossible..nothing is impossible. Your point is still null.

Evolution of systems?

Still no?

Yeah, they will be outdated somewhat in 5yrs...but that wasn't the point to begin with. WoW STARTED outdated at launch. I'll be honest, the beta of WoW looked better in some regards to what WoW became at launch as well.

Congratulations, you stated what everyone else stated and what I already knew. At least you didn't sound completely ignorant here.

[Alderaan]

Do you think sacrificing graphics for gameplay is always a good choice?

There should be a balance. Out of the 2, i believe gameplay to be more important.

Even if XIV had a bajillion options in game to tweak graphic settings like it should, we'd still be left with subpar gameplay. The focus on gameplay being secondary by SE is the problem.

GW2 i think is the perfect balance from what i've seen so far. The poly count isn't ridiculously high but the art style takes that over and makes it look better than it should, while maintaining fluid combat. I mean hell, you can cast while running around. Who wouldn't want that freedom in XIV at the cost of some poly's?

Edit: This is what i'm talking about. The game looks fucking fantastic to me while not sacrificing the fluid gameplay. This comes down to Anet having great programmers that know how to build a great engine.

[Kaylia]

Do you think sacrificing graphics for gameplay is always a good choice?

It's very possible to have uneeded and excessive gameplay feature that eat a lot of development time (let's say an interactive world with 2000 npcs that have unique AI and walk around the place like players).

It's however not very common for developper to have excessive gameplay instead of excessive graphics.

Absolutely false, especially when you have a brand new graphic engine (hello Crystal Tools).
Graphics didn't take anything out of FFXIV, it was everything else that was poorly done.

Do you really think the crystal engine was lying around ready to use? It probably required a crapload of tuning and additional programming to make it works for a mmo.


Secondly, the engine will only let you do what it's meant to do. Some are powerful but incredibly hard to use. Other might be good for certain things, but do poorly in different expect. No one here knows anything about the current engine, and speculating about the technicality would be retarded.

What we do know however is the game had a large budget, and came with shitty server code and shitty gameplay. So, who ate the money exactly? Based on what you hear from the industry, the culprit probably is related to the graphics. It could be terrible decision all around and a shitty team too, but that's not really better.

.

Also, let's be honest: name me a recently released successful game that has bad graphics. As meaningless as they can seem at first glance, graphics do matter and can make or break a game.

Any genre? Minecraft, New super Mario bros, Persona, disgaia, crapload of handheld title, WoW, Starcraft II, every goddamn casual game on the planets from rock back to wii sport...etc


There is a line between "Bad graphics" and "next gen" graphics. What you need is game with solid artstyle, not a game that has the best water effect and 1000 unique grass shape per square meter.

[Kaylia]

There should be a balance. Out of the 2, i believe gameplay to be more important.

Even if XIV had a bajillion options in game to tweak graphic settings like it should, we'd still be left with subpar gameplay. The focus on gameplay being secondary by SE is the problem.

GW2 i think is the perfect balance from what i've seen so far. The poly count isn't ridiculously high but the art style takes that over and makes it look better than it should, while maintaining fluid combat. I mean hell, you can cast while running around. Who wouldn't want that freedom in XIV at the cost of some poly's?

Edit: This is what i'm talking about. The game looks fucking fantastic to me while not sacrificing the fluid gameplay. This comes down to Anet having great programmers that know how to build a great engine.

Oh man, this game look shitty. Did you see the loss of realism when he jumped above the fence and saved a 2 minutes walk. That's so fucking casual it makes me puke.


[edit]
You know, october release is starting to make sense for FFXIV. Even if GW2 sucks, not even 6 months or 1 years of development could have matched this.

[bruiser]

Edit: This is what i'm talking about. The game looks fucking fantastic to me while not sacrificing the fluid gameplay. This comes down to Anet having great programmers that know how to build a great engine.

I agree with you that Anet has amazing programmers, but that has absolutely nothing to do with why the gameplay is "good" (assuming it even is). Good gameplay comes from good production / design.

[erish]

holt crap that is epic, roll on GW2

[Kaylia]

Why are you showing me this video? That's not even in reference to what I was saying. The art style in that game is not good, as its a video showing physics..NOT..ART.

Crayon physics is a puzzle game, and every review I've seen praised the simplistic artstyle. you are allowed to hate the artstyle, but shit, arguing with someone who doesnt even understand his own opinion is pointless.

What...the...fuck? I don't even know what you are trying to say. They don't allow for anymore diversity/liberty in a game..at all. A stick figure game can be absolute shit, or amazing...and a game with top edge graphics can be either of those two.

Try to render a room filled with lava, water, trees and ice using shit graphics. Look at your framerate. Repeat the same experience using hi-res graphics. It's obviously going to drop considerably, probably beyond playability. If you're working with limitation (ps3, or minimal pc requirement), you will be forced to give up on your idea because it's too ambitious for the engine. There is always solutions, but it takes time and usually involve new inferior design instead of good old reusing copy paste (reusing texte save a great deal of time when it can be done).

If you try to destroy a battleground in real time, if you want to add 3d movement (a floating platform zooming accross the sky over an area) or random shit like this, you will often get blocked by these limitation because you're working with a finite amount of ram and processing power.


So yes, graphics do limit what can be done to a certain extent.

[Meresgi]

Do you know what a fact and an opinion is?
You don't?
How about budgets?
No?
Following arguments/conversations?
No again?
Evolution of systems?
Still no?
Congratulations, you stated what everyone else stated and what I already knew. At least you didn't sound completely ignorant here.

There have been studies showing that the human brain registers looks and appearance first without you even being conscious of it.

Budgets? Most of a games budget is put into MARKETING. Much like movies, that's where a ton of the bankroll goes to.

You're covering your ass saying it's not impossible to do, but no one will do it.

Crayon physics is a puzzle game, and every review I've seen praised the simplistic artstyle. you are allowed to hate the artstyle, but shit, arguing with someone who doesnt even understand his own opinion is pointless.

These praises were based on what? Link them. Were they talking about how the artstyle of a crayon physics game looks like....crayons. Then yeah, they did a great job at that.

[Shaskoru]

There have been studies showing that the human brain registers looks and appearance first without you even being conscious of it.

We first register what we visually interpret? Alert the fucking press. However, I wouldn't mind seeing these studies to see if you interpreted them correctly, since you seem to take everything at face value.

Budgets? Most of a games budget is put into MARKETING. Much like movies, that's where a ton of the bankroll goes to.

Where do you think the money goes if there is little to no marketing for something? I admit, I don't know the specifics behind FFXIV's budget, but I seriously doubt any good portion of it was spent on marketing.

Edit: I just realized that this quote was referencing games in general. My point still stands, and even more so since you have a smaller subset of the budget used to balance the implementation and optimization (if any) of the game systems.

You're covering your ass saying it's not impossible to do, but no one will do it.

Shit a brick and fuck me with it. Do you really not know what impractical means? Did you really not understand when I typed that systems will evolve? Why are you trying to argue against something that you clearly don't understand.

[Elrina]

Budgets? Most of a games budget is put into MARKETING. Much like movies, that's where a ton of the bankroll goes to.

I'm not really looking to get into this argument, just felt I'd point out that this wasn't really the case with FFXIV. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of the budget was put into marketing, honestly.

Maybe they're just saving it to do a big push come PS3 release, but if they are then I'm totally interested in seeing the marketing campaign they roll out with that will convince people to try it after the horrible PC launch, despite the fact that it will surely be a much improved game by then.

[Meresgi]

I'm not really looking to get into this argument, just felt I'd point out that this wasn't really the case with FFXIV. I'd be surprised if more than a fraction of the budget was put into marketing, honestly.

Maybe they're just saving it to do a big push come PS3 release, but if they are then I'm totally interested in seeing the marketing campaign they roll out with that will convince people to try it after the horrible PC launch, despite the fact that it will surely be a much improved game by then.

Did they do anything Japan-wise for marketing? Ive seen a few ads in magazines for FFXIV but that's really about it. A couple advertisements online too but really not much at all.

[Hyan]

Edit: This is what i'm talking about. The game looks fucking fantastic to me while not sacrificing the fluid gameplay. This comes down to Anet having great programmers that know how to build a great engine.

Yet the stupidity behind the whole "MMORPG" concept is still there.

LET'S DEVELOP A HUGE WORLD... in which you can just teleport anywhere you want.

If that's not a waste of money, I don't know what is. At least the gameplay doesn't focus on instances.. yet?

[Shaskoru]

Was the video using a developer build or did they specifically say that you can teleport wherever you want?

[Hyan]

It would be inconvenient otherwise.

Obviously you prolly have to visit that place first. So much to develop for so little to gain...

[Kaylia]

Where do you think the money goes if there is little to no marketing for something? I admit, I don't know the specifics behind FFXIV's budget, but I seriously doubt any good portion of it was spent on marketing.

Sage sundi ate the money.