Am I the only one disappointed a little with the maps?

Bloodaxes

The maps are great as far a visuals but since I played 1.0 I know how maps where in the previous version.

Every starting areas had places where you could "explore".

In Uld'ah you had abandoned mines with monsters like bombs etc, in Limsa lominsa underground caves with some sea creatures that only inhabited those areas and in Gridania tunnels which sometimes were dark and also had specific monsters that weren't outside.

Most maps had 3 levels, underground, normal level and higher level in the newer version there are no caves, no mines, no tunnels...... No were hidden to explore which is something that really leaves me disappointed a lot by SE.

Where did all those parts of the maps gone? Did they really discard them?

What a waste

JeroKane

They completely redesigned the maps from scratch for 2.0 (except the cities)

The outdoor areas are way more open and explorable now, compared to the terrible funnel design in 1.0.

Especially the Black Shroud has improved immensily. I hated the Shroud zones in 1.0.

Electro057

Nah, I'm rather disappointed with them myself Especially with the fact that they're covered in invisible walls, like slathered with the fucking things.

JeroKane

Originally posted by Electro057
Nah, I'm rather disappointed with them myself Especially with the fact that they're covered in invisible walls, like slathered with the fucking things.

There are far less invisible walls now then there were in 1.0 tho!

The maps in 1.0 were extremely funneled and linear, forcing through narrow paths in the landscape via Mazes as a cheap trick to make you think the maps were large.

Was one of the main complaints, which Joshi P immediately agreed upon right in beginning and why redesigning the outdoor areas was his number 1 priority.

The maps are really open now, compared to 1.0.

Electro057

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Electro057
Nah, I'm rather disappointed with them myself Especially with the fact that they're covered in invisible walls, like slathered with the fucking things.

There are far less invisible walls now then there were in 1.0 tho!

The maps in 1.0 were extremely funneled and linear, forcing through narrow paths in the landscape via Mazes as a cheap trick to make you think the maps were large.

Was one of the main complaints, which Joshi P immediately agreed upon right in beginning and why redesigning the outdoor areas was his number 1 priority.

The maps are really open now, compared to 1.0.

I agree wholeheartedly, though the fact that they still exist at all does irk me to some degree.....It is much better than the original incarnation, I remember being funneled in the shroud and almost screaming in anger and disbelief.

Bloodaxes

I'm mostly disappointed on the fact many caves, tunnels and mines in 1.0 were scrapped to never be used in arr.

I mean in Ul'dah maps there are entrances to mines but you can't enter them.... I mean what the hell? There wasn't even a need to map them you had them already!

Same for Limsa and Gridania's underground areas.

So many parts of the maps scrapped when they could have been left there for higher level or something.

TheDarkrayne

You seem to be confused about this remake. They didn't reuse the old environments, they rebuilt everything. It's not code from 1.0 that they used and cut bits away from. They rewrote the whole thing.

Electro057

Originally posted by Bloodaxes

I'm mostly disappointed on the fact many caves, tunnels and mines in 1.0 were scrapped to never be used in arr.

I mean in Ul'dah maps there are entrances to mines but you can't enter them.... I mean what the hell? There wasn't even a need to map them you had them already!

Same for Limsa and Gridania's underground areas.

So many parts of the maps scrapped when they could have been left there for higher level or something.

Agreed once again....And though I've not gotten far in ARR I fear I might get tired of seeing the same zones over and over unless they unlock some new ground. I mean....I unno but it's always nice to have that hunting ground where the big boys play right? Which leads me to a topic I poked my guild about.

JeroKane

Originally posted by Bloodaxes

I'm mostly disappointed on the fact many caves, tunnels and mines in 1.0 were scrapped to never be used in arr.

I mean in Ul'dah maps there are entrances to mines but you can't enter them.... I mean what the hell? There wasn't even a need to map them you had them already!

Same for Limsa and Gridania's underground areas.

So many parts of the maps scrapped when they could have been left there for higher level or something.

It´s because the maps have been redesigned from the ground up in a brandnew engine!

The only assets they moved over are the City Zones, because that´s an insane amount of work (and thus really expensive) to recreate from scratch.

It doesn´t mean they gonna add them back in in the near future tho. Especially if enough People ask for it on the official forums.

But the PS3 might also be a deciding factor here that limits their ability to expand much on existing zones and keep amount of assets to sertain Maximum per zone, as to not kill performance on the PS3.

So far the performance optimization in this game is nothing but amazing. Especially compared to the horrible Resource hog Version 1.0 was. Hence why they couldn´t release it on PS3 back then.

Bloodaxes

Sure ps3 might have been a factor but honestly with all the instances between maps being able to go in the depths of the earth trough a loading screen as a "new" map could have worked too.

Yes I know they are using a new engine I'm at lvl 40 atm and I see plenty of stuff from 1.0 so I'm certain porting maps into 2.0 wouldn't be as hard as you can think.

Electro057

Well it could be that they're using the mesh and texture maps from the original incarnation, which wouldn't really translate any of the shit optimization....That's just 3D rendering really, it's pretty much the same as long as the kept the same degree of quality and file types...But cleaned up the horrid engine and coding. In other words the objects in the game would be the same but the maps as in the regions are different.

 

Voqar

I feel the zones kind of lacking.

 

Some are interesting looking as a whole.  The graphics are pretty and that easily distracts some from seeing how simple the zones actually are.

 

There is zero sense of exploration since the zones are so small, contained, corridored, and purely vehicles for quest-related content.

 

There's nothing interesting to find that's out of the way, no little nooks and crannies, no little caves.  No remarkable features that aren't directly tied to some quest or something.

 

Invisible barriers are lame too.

 

I find the cities to be kind of bleh too.  They are all very corridored, multi-zoned (which is brutal), and not so epic.  Limsa is at least partially outdoors so you get the impression of being in a city and some sense of scale.  In Ul or Gr you could be in a tunnel or a city and wouldn't know the difference.  Compared to cities in SWTOR, WoW, Aion, EQII, or especially GW2, just to name a few - games with EPIC cities that feel like cities - the cities in FFXIV are pretty sad.  When you visit the human capital in GW2, you're like, holy freaking crap, this place is insanely huge (and highly detailed, and bustling, and packed with cool crap to see, way, WAY beyond pure function).  FFXIV cities don't really wow that way.  If anything, having a loading screen every time you port within city or hitting zone transitions within city wow you in the wrong way - wow, I have to load AGAIN...kill me.

 

Again, as with all the zones in the game, FFXIV's cities exist purely to be supportive of game and questing.  I don't think I've seen even a façade for a residence or anything like that in them.  There are some decorative features but for the most part every little piece of the city is tied to a quest or vendor or game feature.  I don't think I've even seen anything like a tavern or anything like that other than the adventurer's guilds...which again, aren't really taverns, they're service counters for game features.

 

It is what it is.  The game has essentially duplicated TERA style zones (first major game I've played WITH the style of pretty but not much to them zone design) including the blah faux cities.

 

I would guess a lot of it has to do with PS3 being so limited which sucks because there's no reason at all to ever do a MMORPG for console.  It's a gimmick.  MMORPGs are PC games at heart, most suited to PCs, and limiting your MMORPG to make it available on an outdated and screwy platform seems really whacked.

 

Xiaoki

The zones in 1.0 were absolutely terrible, possibly the worst designed zones for an MMO ever.

Heres a piece of the map of Black Shroud from 1.0(and remember this is the outdoors map, not a dungeon)

The only one that would enjoy exploring that mess is a rat seeking cheese.

Bloodaxes

Again some people are making assumptions without reading.

I'm talking about the caves, mines, tunnels etc etc that 1.0 had and ARR has NONE not the surface and how maze like it is or copy paste rocks. 

obsolete5

that zone looks awesome like an ac1 dungeon , im missing 'bastok mines' style large zones but its still good, 

Yaevindusk

 

There is no excuse to be had if one does not like invisible walls.  There were a lot in 1.0, and a lot in Alpha and early beta.  They actually reduced the invisible walls significantly during beta, yet there are still some instances whereby they missed on, or it just jumps into deep water or the abyss.

 

The only light ahead of the tunnel would be that they want to add adequate swimming in the game, so the invisible walls barred by that will probably be eliminated.

 

@OP

 

They seem to have discarded some of them.  I guess they were redundant, especially the trot down from Limsa and onto the field.  We likely see some of the same assets in some of the dungeons, though.

Oziius

Originally posted by Bloodaxes

The maps are great as far a visuals but since I played 1.0 I know how maps where in the previous version.

Every starting areas had places where you could "explore".

In Uld'ah you had abandoned mines with monsters like bombs etc, in Limsa lominsa underground caves with some sea creatures that only inhabited those areas and in Gridania tunnels which sometimes were dark and also had specific monsters that weren't outside.

Most maps had 3 levels, underground, normal level and higher level in the newer version there are no caves, no mines, no tunnels...... No were hidden to explore which is something that really leaves me disappointed a lot by SE.

Where did all those parts of the maps gone? Did they really discard them?

What a waste

What are you talking about? I was in two caves today and tunnels as well. Perhaps I'm playing a different game?

vellron

I agree as well, i never played 1.0 but I would have loved to see the caves and vertical map zones as well. Sounds amazing, To be honest though I think there is much to be seen as far as whats coming in updates, I hear awesome things are coming, so be prepared, you never know if an entire underground network appears in a patch. sit back and enjoy the ride. Im lovin it so far. Only thing that irks me is the whole central/northern/lower/ upper etc.. coulda been a little more creative with the zone names besides just one huge overhead name.

Oziius

Originally posted by Voqar

I feel the zones kind of lacking.

 

Some are interesting looking as a whole.  The graphics are pretty and that easily distracts some from seeing how simple the zones actually are.

 

There is zero sense of exploration since the zones are so small, contained, corridored, and purely vehicles for quest-related content.

 

There's nothing interesting to find that's out of the way, no little nooks and crannies, no little caves.  No remarkable features that aren't directly tied to some quest or something.

 

Invisible barriers are lame too.

 

I find the cities to be kind of bleh too.  They are all very corridored, multi-zoned (which is brutal), and not so epic.  Limsa is at least partially outdoors so you get the impression of being in a city and some sense of scale.  In Ul or Gr you could be in a tunnel or a city and wouldn't know the difference.  Compared to cities in SWTOR, WoW, Aion, EQII, or especially GW2, just to name a few - games with EPIC cities that feel like cities - the cities in FFXIV are pretty sad.  When you visit the human capital in GW2, you're like, holy freaking crap, this place is insanely huge (and highly detailed, and bustling, and packed with cool crap to see, way, WAY beyond pure function).  FFXIV cities don't really wow that way.  If anything, having a loading screen every time you port within city or hitting zone transitions within city wow you in the wrong way - wow, I have to load AGAIN...kill me.

 

Again, as with all the zones in the game, FFXIV's cities exist purely to be supportive of game and questing.  I don't think I've seen even a façade for a residence or anything like that in them.  There are some decorative features but for the most part every little piece of the city is tied to a quest or vendor or game feature.  I don't think I've even seen anything like a tavern or anything like that other than the adventurer's guilds...which again, aren't really taverns, they're service counters for game features.

 

It is what it is.  The game has essentially duplicated TERA style zones (first major game I've played WITH the style of pretty but not much to them zone design) including the blah faux cities.

 

I would guess a lot of it has to do with PS3 being so limited which sucks because there's no reason at all to ever do a MMORPG for console.  It's a gimmick.  MMORPGs are PC games at heart, most suited to PCs, and limiting your MMORPG to make it available on an outdated and screwy platform seems really whacked.

 

The problem with these large open worlds you all seem to love is dead space. The large maps become a barren wasteland of useless space. Ever play Vanguard? If they had large open "explorable" worlds, people woul complain that there wasn't enough content to fill the areas. It's fun to run up a large rock to stand on the tip......once. 

Oziius

Originally posted by vellron
I agree as well, i never played 1.0 but I would have loved to see the caves and vertical map zones as well. Sounds amazing, To be honest though I think there is much to be seen as far as whats coming in updates, I hear awesome things are coming, so be prepared, you never know if an entire underground network appears in a patch. sit back and enjoy the ride. Im lovin it so far. Only thing that irks me is the whole central/northern/lower/ upper etc.. coulda been a little more creative with the zone names besides just one huge overhead name.

The vertical maps in 1.o were one of the most complained about features. I payed it. They were AWFUL. Painful to navigate would be putting it gently. The new maps are way better. Much more open...even if there are a few less caves.

Nanfoodle

Will start by saying so far I love this game. Second, WoW came out in 2004 and by far has a better map. GW2 map and WP system is 100% better. The arthernet inside the cities are so badly labeled I foten just run over trying to figure them out. Why we cant click on the map when at a arthernet stone is really poor design. You can figure them out but they are far from user friendly. I dont care if they are better then 1.0, they need to be much better.

Bloodaxes

@ ;Praetalus 

There's a difference between a cave which leads to another part of the map or small caves which ARR has and 1.0 Caves which were HUGE!

They were not simply "caves" they were underground maps.

To me they were like you are exploring the depths of the world to some extent. Sure now that I am in coerthas central highlands there are some caves but don't confuse the fissures it has with caves because those fissure areas once you go in the bottom lead to no where.

In 1.0 the mines in Ul'dah were very big and in detail.

In 1.0 Limsa Lominsa caves had water springs, tunnels leading to more caves and had a lot of detail it was a very good sight to behold.

In 1.0 Gridania The tunnels started as small corridors then opened in several paths always getting more dangerous. 

The more you ventured deep the harder they become, that's also something I liked about them.

But yea some were turned into dungeons but not all of them.

(Tried searching on this site and even on google but seems I can't find any screenshots I remember seeing in this site for example)