Final Fantasy XIV Ultimate in Copy-Paste Map Design
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Sep 11, 2010 17:40 JST
- Tags: Comparison, Final Fantasy, MMORPG, Production Controversy, Square Enix
Final Fantasy XIV beta testers are becoming increasingly concerned about the extreme “copy-paste” nature of the environments in Final Fantasy XIV, as the above diagram illustrates. Little wonder the developers don’t want players playing too long.
Perhaps the only thing more amazing than Square Enix’s apparent inability to create proper environments in its recent games is the fortitude of the player responsible for creating the diagram above.
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There are more shapes that are copied too that aren't marked yet...
Yeah totally, lets just keep the guy that almost killed Square with his little movie adventure, and not change it for someone that could actually make a game.
Not really defending Wada since he pretty much ended up killing the spirit of Square, but keeping Sakaguchi was not the solution either.
In short Square was doomed since they made that bloody movie.
Soooooooo, they first put a 8 hour limit on the game, then they make redundant maps to make sure players get bored easily and stay within the 8 hour time limit....GENIUS!!!!...or it would just piss off the players and have noone play this game after a few weeks.
They dont have time to do this
They have to count the fucking money M$ is paying them for Final Fantasy Versus 13
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!.......
...oh wait, it's just another Sankaku Complex Final Fantasy hissy fit. Move along people, nothing to see here.
I actually enjoy these articles. So few sites in the West are accurately pointing out the plethora of issues with this game, everyone who's in beta notices them first hand.
So much undeserved hate. I play the open beta, and I'm enjoying it a hell of a lot. The battle system is more immersive than any most other MMORPGs I've played, due to the fact that you can't just rely on tick based repetition. The crafting system is very good as well, and even the 'Botanist' class is pretty fun.
As for map design, to each their own I guess, but I've yet to notice any issues whilst in the game. OK it looks pretty copy and paste from the map, but when you're actually playing in the environment it's yet to be an issue for me. I can't speak for others on that though.
I'm surprised this kind of thing is coming up when there are actually some big issues that are more deserving. First of all, the UI is absolutely abysmal as it is designed for a console gamepad. Secondly, there are huge technical glitches. The client is hideously unreliable, on my main computer it wont even run, game crashes are frequent, input lag is horrendous, and so on.
I kind of resent the witch hunt against XIV that this site in particular seems to be employing, especially when it's picking on parts of the game that don't deserve it. If you must hate on what is otherwise a very fun game, even taking into consideration the limited beta content, hate on the features that are actually a problem.
Oh, and the Fatigue system is not one of them. Head over to Eozeapedia and there's a thread detailing how long it takes to run into fatigue and the effect of it. For 99% of gamers it is a non-issue. The limitation of 8 guildleves per 48 hours on the other hand, is a real issue, so feel free to rage about that one.
Nice try sucking up to squeenix. Next!
Even Zelda for the NES has more creativity in the map.
it's beta
what you expect from it
Ah, the age old beta card defense.
We're 11 days to the launch of the game, not 11 months.
this is what happens when the man responisble for all the creativity of a company leaves. and an ass takes over. Too Bad Sakaguchi is considering retiring. that sux.
You people will hate every last thing made won't you? Must really SUCK having no reason to live huh. As for me I've played the beta, yeah I noticed it my self without a emo-hater site telling me yet another game isn't glowing with the power of god him self and won't blow you away with it's pure epic awesome-ness. I really REALLY don't want to make anyone kill them selfs with this but there will never be a a perfect game, so stop bitching over everything and play the tainted games, you know....enjoy life for onces and stop hating. Well anyway as for the beta yes it can be spoted but in some ares more then others. the forest zone (as the map above is) is a great place to find those as it's just alot of open-top tunnles throu trees. But the other two starting zones are big and open and spoting copy paste takes 1. I longing to find brokening parts of this game to bash it and use that as a reason to not play. or 2. 5 years of play, at what point you won't really care.
As a side not why is everyone so jumpy about endgame? it's not even out and already everyons only wanting to get to the 3 hour monster fights for 2 items to drop and be lotted by someone else. -_-
I know I'll get rated down and have some elitist think he can put me right, you won't, but I am really tired of all this video game hating lately, it's no wounder they all "suck" you people can't be pleased. Even if SE had done no copy paste at all you'd just target the menu, or combat, or chat system, or something but you'd find it and hate it like it killed your bestfriend.
Damn my IQ is lowering while reading these comments, do you guys even know anything about creating games? Almost, every fucking game uses same stuff all over the place. You notice it when you TRY to find those occurrences. That tells something about the hate for this game.
This game is pretty good for a MMORPG actually, it has nice battle system and crafting mechanics. Atleast it tries to be different than Lineage 2 clones. And does not suck on it.
Wait, how is this surprising people? MMORPGs have been doing this forever. WoW has one or two variation of the same cave, Aion has copy paste landscapes.
Name one MMORPG that has completely unique landscapes. You won't be able to because there is none, at least for ones that are large scaled. Why is this a big deal now? Just because it's FFXIV?
I'd like to point out that those same coordinates while looking at the open beta in game map, is an entirely different map.
In fact, there is nowhere on this entire map that I can see that looks like the above picture. Nowhere.
Because people who hate this game and/or SE are pretty much doctoring whatever they can to make it look bad.
Like in the last post here about FFXIV where they posted some doctored pics, and then quickly took them down, that tried to take the same town and replicate the map over and over while claiming each one to be a different identical town.
oh well way to go sqaure. maybe you shouldn't have let wada became president and sakaguchi quit.
though only few games that are actually worth while like Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve, Tactics Ogre, The World Ends with You, and Lord of Vermillion/Arcana.
maybe if you make a new Valkyrie Profile that would be awesome. heck i don't even know why they didn't used the fortress game as the MMO. it looks awesome :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjKhWP99YQ
still im giving the crystall novallis project a chance to shine Versus XIII FTW :D
well at least it will be easy to navigate
god what no diversity you know maybe some
mountains
hills
fields
RIVERS!
geez dude do you get a boner from poking fun at SE?
and this is new in the game world how ?
Meh FFXI was all about story. kinda weak for an MMO but what kept it afloat this entire time. I can't really knock their in game cinematics.
Square-Enix needs to learn a thing or two about world building from the good folks over at Bestheda. Those guys (and possibly a few girls) know a thing or two about making huge gorgeous worlds that are worth exploring.
seriously did square just hire a bunch of nubs to do the map work o.o'
More like anyone who actually cares about making quality games (which most have to, considering how little money they're likely to make personally) knows to avoid SE like the plague these days...
Aren't there any other games you people can shit all over?
This obsession with FFXIV can't be healthy...
Sure. Name a game you like so I can poop on it.
who cares about the copy and paste I just want to PLAY it! D:<
lets hope the future patches changes some of the enviroments
Fuhk Sankaku Complex
Blizzard does and did this with World of Warcraft as well by using template building and area types they copy and paste and reuse over and over with some minor cosmetic adjustments to the template.
It's certainly nothing new in the MMO world.
are you really that fucking stupid? i dont play wow but i can tell you hell no its not the same. its not the same as copy pasting the same land mass over and over and over and over and over again.
go to any subdivision in america, all the houses look similar, but go inside them and you can tell where you are by the interior alone.
same with mmo. and again, i'm using 11 year old everquest as the 3d mmo standard.
WoW recycles the 'cave design' a few times, other than that everything seems to be fairly unique.
They at least applied a different texture to it though, going by the screenshots of a previous comparison on FF XIV square enix considers this to be too much effort.
can yo elaborate on what you mean?
i wont assume until i know what you are talking about because you could mean tons of things by that, and most are perfectly ok, and ill explain why, but before i run my mouth i need to know.
In WoW, the cave shapes repeat themselves, but themed differently. For example one cave is forresty while the other is icey.
It's the same general area but they at least tried to make it look different.
Nice try, but if there is anything that WoW can't be blamed for, it is map design and scenery - both of which are well crafted and you do not even need to play the game itself since a quick look at the game maps reveals it.
I've seen Pokemon maps more varied and complex than this FF14 sham.
Seeing areas like that on the map doesn't mean the actual areas don't look different. That is something you will find in any MMO. They happen to use a hill more than once, big freakin deal.
People have already posted in game screenshots of these areas verifying that they all look identical.
Is that really enough to not play a game over? The maps aren't exactly tiny ya know.
If they're lazy with the map design what makes you think they won't be lazy with the most important aspect of the game: content. It sends the message that they aren't spending enough time, or aren't giving it enough budget. Again, this is likely to be reflected in other parts of the game. You tend to cut corners more than once if you do it at all.
THIS IS AN MMO
THIS IS A GAME YOU SINK LARGE QUANTITIES OF TIME INTO.
i myself has sunk over 6-9 months, of PLAY TIME into mmo games, the environment is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.
lets say that the game takes 3 hours a level, as in every 3 hours you play the game on average you gain a level. and hunting grounds last 5 levels, and i don't know, is the max level in ff14 50 or is it higher? ill assume 50
now if i have to stay somewhere for 15 hours, over the coarse of 2 weeks to level, and it all looks the same every time i go to a new ground, if get so fucking sick of the game i would never make it to end game.
im assuming that every teir of hunting ground is different, but god damnit, if they all have this level of copy paste, i wouldn't fucking care.
i said it before, there are 3 forest zones in the original everquest, greater faydark, lesser faydark, and kithacore forest. each one has its on distinct look and feel that you know where you are if you spend minimal time with he game. and this is a 11 year old game at fucking launch.
---edit---
i forgot to mention this, but before there was a map system, in grater faydark where i spent the most time killing, i could navigate the zone by tree positions alone.
Except almost every MMORPGs has varied locations that makes it worth exploring. If every place looks the same, WHAT IS THE HOOK towards adventuring? The varied environments are THE hook for MMORPG adventuring aside from different monsters and drop-rate of rare items.
Wait, wait.
Let me get this straight. People are surprised that Square Enix is re-using things in Final Fantasy? Is everyone else in the World just slow?
its not that they are surprised, its how often they are doing it. i assume that map above is one place, and probably a relevantly safe one, but come on, THAT MUCH?
Can the CEO of SE be fired now? get someone to make good game decisions. I miss when they just use to be squaresoft.
They can't fire him until they stop getting COMMERCIAL success, something that can only be done when all game-buyers reach a concensus on how far S-E has fallen. For all the shareholders care(considering their votes decide who sits on the CEO chair), if the company gets profit, which in turn generates lots of dividends for them, the CEO did a good job.
And who's to say and PROVE that the shareholders didn't have a shred of influence in all the shit that many have been complaining on S-E over?
Hint: Shareholders are the real bosses. Even CEOs are just servants.
Or we could just have FF Spirits Within 2, that would instantly fire the boss, like it happened before.
Then again they will never repeat the same mistake, Wada has his seat secured anyways whenever he sees that his position is becoming endangered you will see FF7 Remake announced and then SE will be rich again.
+1000000000 to Anon above.
For me doesnt matter if its copy paste. cant blame them it's hard to do 3d models, map designs,make textures and etc. for the game. as long its playable I wont whine.
They didn't have this problem designing maps in FFXI, why do they have a problem with it in FFXIV?
Rhetorical question.
ed modeling is hard... ok ill give you that... now lets go and say this... they have at least a team of 400 people on this game, minimum. with a significant portion of them being art and model only. they went to school for modeling, they know how to do there shit, and were trained for the task.
ill put it this way, i am able to 3d model, im not good and im not going to pretend that i know everything, but i will tell you this. MODELING AND TEXTURING LAND IS THE EASIEST FUCKING PART OF IT. if they cant even do that right...
How hard is to do map design?
I've read about terrain generators 10 years ago that look good and have hardly any repetition what so ever. A huge company like Squeenix could spare one designer for mapping and it would have looked much better, they did it in they older RPGs they can do it for their flagship product.
The map here looks blocky and bland.