WoW Graphics vs FFXI Graphics

[Flaks]

Wow's graphics are PERFECT. It has a touch of 'cartooniness' to it and so I feel as though the game is really light-hearted (which is why I get flustered by people being all super serial about raiding and arenas and stuff).

[Biggayshammy]

I quit WoW so many times after I stopped playing FFXI... I hated the "questing bullshit" of WoW. Id go back to FFXI in a heart beat of my old Linkshell friends still played....

My favorite thing about FFXI was that countries weren't separated. I liked running into people from all walks of the earth... On wow it seems all I ever run into are French-Canadians and Portuguese players. I also liked the crafting system of FFXI... None of this 1-capped in 8 hours, it took hard work to max crafting on that game. Camping HNMs and rare spawns was also a blast.. getting a phone call in the middle of a night from one of my friends telling me to log on and help him kill something he claimed and kited around forever trying to find someone to help him kill it

[Lordender]

FFXI community>>>> WoW's by far even with the "JPONLY attitude from japanese people" just because there weren't many kids playing the game. In WoW you could be a complete jackass to people on your server with little to no consequence which is why the community is full of asshats, people who go out of their way to piss you off or screw you over. In FFXI you had to watch how you acted, what you said because if you were an ass no-one wanted you in their linkshells, you wouldn't get into parties, everyone knew who you were, most circles of people knew who the assholes of the server were and did not help them, avoided them like the plague basically ending the game for them until server-transfers got introduced.

You needed other people to advance in FFXI. WoW will never ever have the community that XI or even XIV will have. However, WoW imo is a much better designed game, it took the MMO market to the next level and showed that graphics didn't matter as much as everyone thought it did. I like both styles of graphics, WoW's graphics grow on you, you have to play the game to get a true understanding that it isn't as bad as people make it out to be. FFXI had the much better character models, its not even close, the gear looks way better in XI compared to WoW because WoW's gear is a running joke @ blizzard where big shoulders and belts = funny to them.

[Train Heartnet]

Seems that most of the opinions in this thread are way too superficial to be taken seriously.

WoW and FF 11 are both very beautiful games. With that said, graphically the games are identical. The only real difference is the art. The art seems to be higher quality/detail than their WoW counterparts in character models, however the art on scenery/ landscape is superior in my opinion in World of Warcraft. This comes from me playing the Final Fantasy games since Super Nintendo and the first Playstation console. The Final Fantasy series has always had a distinct style of art, as any game with a long history.

Honestly, I'm very sure that at least half of the WoW userbase, including the userbase on these forums don't really understand graphics or even have a computer capable of playing either games at their max capacity at a "High Definition" resolution.

Maxing video games at 1600 x 900 resolution is not hard or impressive by today's standards at all. (Looking at you, laptop gamers.)

Unless you're playing your games at maximum DX10 or 11 capacity, running 40 + FPS at resolutions at or greater than 1920 x 1080 (1080p), you seriously don't have enough information to even compare the graphics of any game capable of running at such resolutions.

You're kidding yourself, also considering the fact that almost every game made in the last 5 years runs on some sort of advanced technical graphics engine. Just because it doesn't look "lolreallife" doesn't mean the graphics are inferior by any means.

[MrSerious]

Considering how art design is the most important aspect of graphics, and WoW has some of the best art design in the business, I'd say most games.

are you joking? Have you even seen the art design in the latest games? they make WoW look even older than the already dated game it is.

[miguelcrespo85]

FFXI had better CHARACTER textures. The armor, the faces, the spells, etc were much more detailed. The landscapes and towns on the other hand were horrible and bland. Most of the game was brown or gray in the original expansions. The original reason I made the switch from XI to WoW in the first place was because of the difference in color. You can take a 5 minute flight path over Kalimdor and see more color in that one flight than 6 years of end game content in FFXI will show you. I'd know, I'm a 6.5 year vet.

The only thing I really preferred in XI was the armor designs. The fact that they actually had shape, as opposed to being spray painted onto the body, like every non-shoulder armor in WoW. That, I'll admit, I do miss.


instead of


Yes, the WoW version is still very detailed, but it has no shape. It's basically just crayons on the wallpaper.

wow looking at those 2 pics side by side made me want to cry.. if only blizzard would take the time to put the effect in making armor look good as ffxi....

[Fujisaw]

you do know wow was out 6 years ago and would have to change every single pixle in the entire game to do that. i would say they are using the same graphic engine but the water did get better. im just saying it would be a ton of work to regraphictize wow

[Train Heartnet]

are you joking? Have you even seen the art design in the latest games? they make WoW look even older than the already dated game it is.

Just because that's your opinion, doesn't make it true. The art design is fine. Just because you want all games to look like a cgi movie doesn't mean that the companies who can afford to do it, are going to do that just because you said to.

Games are different, deal with it or don't play them. You must have grew up in the X Box 360 age and you think all games should look like Halo Reach or they are old and out dated.

[Myzou]

FFXI by far.

Anyone who says FFXI's story was horrible... really never played FFXI. ANY expansion's storyline was so much better than the entirety of WoW's story.

Honestly, the only thing that "killed" FFXI was raising the level cap after 7 years, and telling everyone the hard earned gear was now useless. That, and the fact they thought making a game RELY on partying to level up, and doing pretty much anything was a good idea. Especially when half the gamers are Japanese, who despise North American players because they "stole their game".

I do have to say, I miss having 20 classes, who all played unique, aside from Scholar, who pretty much just copied White Mage, Black Mage, and somewhat Red Mage.

Dancer is by far still my favorite class in any MMO released. FFXI's Summoner was also amazing, though, slightly OP. But the struggle to get avatars and actually level up made it worth the OPness.

Not to mention the awesome Dancer Artifact armor. :3



And the later released sets for the class:



Every class had sets unique to them, Artifact Armor, AF2, and then Empyrean Sets. And ALL of them fit the persona that we have grown to know in Final Fantasy games. The white mage was red and white, the black mage had the pointy hat, etc. They even introduced a Final Fantasy class that was unique to FFXI, that being Puppetmaster.

They also had unique models that dropped off rare spawns that required a full group to down, etc, as well as crafted gear, etc. FFXI's Graphics are far better than WoWs. But sadly, due to the party-centric gameplay, it quickly fizzled out. I played for 6 years, and left after the avatars I waited for were very lackluster. Odin was amazing, but only using him once every 2 hours was fucking wrong. Same with Alexander. XD

[ewhenn]

The only thing I really preferred in XI was the armor designs. The fact that they actually had shape, as opposed to being spray painted onto the body, like every non-shoulder armor in WoW. That, I'll admit, I do miss.

Wow armors use an advanced formula of protective lycra.

[miguelcrespo85]

still cute

[SilkforCalde]

are you joking? Have you even seen the art design in the latest games? they make WoW look even older than the already dated game it is.

No, I'm not joking. A game like Gears of War had absurdly shitty art design. It was all bland color schemes and appallingly ridiculous character design. I'd give that game a 0 / 10 for graphics simply because it was so monumentally ugly.

Conversely, a game like The Wind Water had extremely charming, beautiful, and appealling graphics. Even now that it's been like 8 years or more, I still give it a 10 / 10 for graphics. Hell, I give Seiken Densetsu 3 a 10 / 10 for graphics and it's a SNES game that was released like 17 years ago.

Apparently you don't know what art design means. WoW has a charming, albeit simplistic art design that is very pleasing to the eyes. Sure, it's cartoony but that's great. Cartoony is awesome and is much better than realistic.

[Iceman2500]

sounds like you got one shotted by a little bunnie ^_^. too hard for ya =P

FFXI was one of the best gameplay out there. just because you fanbois love key bashing doesn't make the game terrible.

You claim FFXI had superior gameplay, but the subscriber numbers indicate otherwise; games with 12 million subscribers don't get there by being mediocre.

[Joey Ray III]

kinda silly question considering wow was designed to run on low-end machines (back when in came out is used to play it on Duron 800, Gefore2MX with 32MB and 256 megs of ram and it was perfectly playable).

besides i find artistic design much more important then amount of polygons, detail level and all the other technical shit. in mmos anyways.

[Ryurin]

you do know wow was out 6 years ago and would have to change every single pixle in the entire game to do that. i would say they are using the same graphic engine but the water did get better. im just saying it would be a ton of work to regraphictize wow

You do know that FFXI is an older game than WoW and has to support Playstation 2 players yet still manages to put out better looking armor and four times the armor selection for each class? Sometimes it's not about "regraphictize"ing everything.

Log into WoW, everyone's wearing the current tier gear of their class. All the same armor, all the same color.

Log into FFXI, you can probably identify which class a person is really easily, but every player is wearing something drastically different from another based on what they have been able to earn. It makes it a lot more visually interesting, and tons better when the art style of the armor is amazing.

Yeah the world textures suck and the character models themselves could use an update too in XI. I think both WoW and FFXI have the appeal they do art wise because they have art directors who have a focused vision and keep to that vision, making the games unique and visually interesting.

Things like AoC, Rift, Warhammer look really bland and boring because they tried to go ultra-realistic. I prefer an artist/art team with an interesting style to hyper realistic humans anyday.