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[Bebpo]

Since I don't include import games:

Yeah, I forgot about Wild Arms 3. Make that 3 rpgs with an actual fucking world. Add in Suikoden V and yeah, you got 4. Woopty doo. Point and click is the future of rpgs! Not actual immersion!

Haven't played ToL yet.

That's what you get when you're in a young hardware phase.

PS1/N64/Saturn? You could do whatever you wanted because nothing looked realistic anyways with the weak graphics so believability and realism wasn't an issue.

PS2/DC/Xbox/GC? Suddenly you could do realistic believable looking humans and environments. Now keeping everything similar and keep believability becomes an issue. Yet the hardware is extremely limiting for large scale environments.

PS3/X360? Now you have the ability to make areas many times the size of what you could do last gen. Streaming has become common-place and you have much, much more ram to deal with. You are still limited a bit due to having to create 4x as detailed textures and keep them in memory, but you should still be able to make worlds larger than ever before and keep the believability throughout.


Wait for next-gen (and the few high budget rpgs [remember big worlds = lots of development cost]) for your realistic 3d fully explorable rpgs. Next-gen rpgs are almost here, just have a little more patience.

If Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey doesn't have a world map though, next-gen is fucked too ^^;

 

[RaijinFY]

Wait for next-gen (and the few high budget rpgs [remember big worlds = lots of development cost]) for your realistic 3d fully explorable rpgs. Next-gen rpgs are almost here, just have a little more patience.

I have the impression it won't happen but I hope I'll have totally wrong on this though...

 

[Bebpo]

I have the impression it won't happen but I hope I'll have totally wrong on this though...

I'm betting we're going to see more and more stuff like, [EM]Enchant Arm and Rogue Galaxy.

Where there are no click and point maps, but there's no overhead "see the whole world" stuff either. Basically in these games the entire world is connected in a realistic manner like PC rpgs.

 

[thetrin]

I'm betting we're going to see more and more stuff like, [EM]Enchant Arm and Rogue Galaxy.

Where there are no click and point maps, but there's no overhead "see the whole world" stuff either. Basically in these games the entire world is connected in a realistic manner like PC rpgs.

I'd be fine with that, as long as there's a map I can look at to see where I am and where I've been. If that's the case, I'm just fine with that.

 

[Reilly]

The point and click map is a sacrifice that is being made to keep the realism and believability.

:lol OK

 

[momolicious]

sweet

 

[Diablos]

This graphics for the field map argument is irrelevent anyways as we've said the airship doesn't have to use the same amount of textures or anything drastic like that to get the job done. They easily allow you to board the airship and zoom it out to a less textured version of that part of Ivalice with airships flying the skies. The fact that there's a fucking island in the sky would have made traveling to there an adventure already. Now we're going to have to watch them fly there. Fuck that, I wanted to fly to that sky island myself.

Yes they do because the textures are simplistic to BEGIN WITH. Scaling them down is easy. The overall size (and bandwidth required) for the world map is much smaller compared to what FFXII will need, regardless of if some people think it looks "MEH", it still uses textures with far greater detail. What part of this do you not understand?

Stop being so stubborn. PS2 cannot handle what FFXII as a game is fully capabile of. It's old hardware. You're acting like FFXII is gonna suck because you can't fly an airship with the pretty song playing in the background.

 

[Diagol]

I think its safe to say that after all these complaints, 99% of the people who posted in this thread are still gonna get the game on day 1 anyways (myself included).

 

[My Arms Your Hearse]

I really miss the old overworlds too, but jesus fucking christ, IT IS NOT THAT BIG A DEAL.

There are soooo many more important things that add to the enjoyment of an RPG, all of which FFXII seems to nail.

 

[robertsan21]

Reason why I got hooked on RPG´s like Final Fantasy

Huge worlds to explore
hundreds of hours of gameplay
Leveling up your characters
Customizing your wepons

Exploring the world map to find, HIDDEN AREAS, SIDEQUESTS, SECRET SUPER WEPONS for the characters and so on.

The world map is fun to explore and it´s to bad that once again we have to choose from a list what destination we want to travel to, I miss the times when I could just jump up on a chocobos back or navigate my Airship to explore the world map.

Hope next-gen let´s me experience that feeling again.

but to me the most important thing to FF is SIDEQUESTS that you dont have to do but if you manage to do them you get rewarded with Special Items that kick ass!

But I still think FF XII is going to kick major ass !

 

[Bebpo]

but to me the most important thing to FF is SIDEQUESTS that you dont have to do but if you manage to do them you get rewarded with Special Items that kick ass!

Yep.

FFX didn't have a world map yet it had tons of these. Final weapons, hidden summons, hidden substories, etc...

There's no reason to believe FFXII will be any different.

 

[birdchili]

FF:X may have had lots of sidequests, but they were terribly integrated/highly illogical and more-or-less inaccessible until the very end of the game. I wouldn't hold it up as an example of how to do sidequests well. I'm pretty certain that XII is going to be worlds better that X on the sidequest front.

Rather than suggesting that XII is going to be terrible because of the restricted airship, I'll just say it's *really* disappointing. It won't wreck the game or anything, but it takes a bunch of the anticipation away as the airship won't be this nifty new gameplay/exploration device that it was in pre-X FFs.

To compare to DQ:VIII again (and in the great tradition of many JRPGS)... there's this natural progression: first continent on foot, boat, airship - with each step providing a new way of moving around and thus providing new areas to explore. DQ:VIII is the king of taunting you with anticipation as you get close to acquiring a new transport method: it strings you along forever before you get a boat, and again for the "airship" - the anticipation is great.

If the airship amounts to not much more than a good teleport spell, that's going to be disappointing - it doesn't matter if it was "necessary" because of the massive textures required or whatever. I'd call it a bad design decision, but we'll see how it turns out.

Given all the delays, it seems likely this game was a technical nightmare for the team.

 

[robertsan21]

Yep.

FFX didn't have a world map yet it had tons of these. Final weapons, hidden summons, hidden substories, etc...

There's no reason to believe FFXII will be any different.

YES and that makes me happy, but it´s hard to wait so damn long until FFXII is out in the states

I have to buy DQVIII this week so I can start feeding my "leveling up" addiction

 

[Diablos]

Reason why I got hooked on RPG´s like Final Fantasy

Huge worlds to explore
hundreds of hours of gameplay
Leveling up your characters
Customizing your wepons

Exploring the world map to find, HIDDEN AREAS, SIDEQUESTS, SECRET SUPER WEPONS for the characters and so on.

The world map is fun to explore and it´s to bad that once again we have to choose from a list what destination we want to travel to, I miss the times when I could just jump up on a chocobos back or navigate my Airship to explore the world map.

You can still do that. It's only when you are on the airship that you use the map to instantly transport to a destination. If you want to spend hours exploring you are entitled to do so, by foot.

 

[Bebpo]

FF:X may have had lots of sidequests, but they were terribly integrated/highly illogical and more-or-less inaccessible until the very end of the game. I wouldn't hold it up as an example of how to do sidequests well. I'm pretty certain that XII is going to be worlds better that X on the sidequest front.

Ummm, weren't all the sidequests, ultimate weapons, ultimate bosses, etc... not accessible until the endgame in every FF before it? I dunno, I had no problems at all with FFX's structure. It would've been nice if it had been a bit less linear and had a world map, but otherwise it felt like every other FF except done with awesome modern visuals and sound.

 

[Diablos]

Freedom on ground is a plus, but I want the whole deal. This whole damn generation has been nothing but exploration null rpgs. I was HOPING that FFXII, especially with the emphasis on airships, would go past the mold and deliver. Nope. So it's a big blow for me atleast because this point and click bullshit has been the number one reason I haven't enjoyed rpgs as much this gen.

For the millionth time I am sure Square would've let you fly over everything if the hardware could do it.

I agree that it sucks, 100%. It sucks that you just highlight the name of a town on a map and that's how you "fly" there. But I can ALSO understand WHY it sucks.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

But that's what you do.... You're paying for licenses to use new spells/skills/weapons/whatever using License Points you acquire in battle...

it's too convoluted (spelling, I never spell that damn word right, fuckers)

I don't like this idea

 

[Bebpo]

Well it's just a small complaint. This is still Mats fucking uno so there's lots to ebe excited about. I'm just pissed that the one game I expected to deliver the most epic feeling ever and had the potential to do so based on all of these delays, doesn't cast itself away from the rest of the rpgs released this gen in terms of limiting the player. I hate limitations. Granted, it was my fault because I had such expectations in the first place, but one of the reasons FFX didn't have a world map and such like that was because the limitations. But it has an excuse since it was released so early in the ps2's lifecycle. FFXII DOESN'T have an excuse. They could atleast try. So even if I had expectations, they weren't UNREASONABLE expeectations either.

And I like how everyone is getting all disappointed about this NOW, when they should've known for YEARS already that FFXII wasn't going to have a big 3d map to fly around. Square would've made a big deal about that even back at E3 2004 either in the trailers or huge 6 area gameplay demo.

FFXII also isn't "oh it's a bleeding edge end of PS2 tech" game. The delays haven't changed the visuals one bit. What we will be playing next month is a game that should've been out in mid-2004 and tech-wise it's gonna be at mid-2004 level of limitations.

 

[teiresias]

What the fuck Bebpo? I love genre progression, but limiting travel to a fucking point and click map isn't progression, that's regression. The simple fact that I've only played 2 rpgs this genre with traditional world maps where I can fly, sail, and walk about as I please is just disappointing. You'd think with next gen hardware they'd be able to continue the trend but not uh. Now we only have point and click maps.

How is a point and click map in FFXII any different than the old-style overworld maps that had maybe 30 points of interest on it that was either a town or a dungeon? On the FFXII map each of those "points" is a full-fledged zone with alot of area to explore and potentially full of secrets. When it comes down to it, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if FFXII ended up having MORE explorable world area than DQ8 does.

IMO, the zones in FFXII (or any zoned MMORPG) are no different from the continents and islands in DQ8. It's just that FXII saves me the headache of having to sail my ship to each one once you gain access to the teleportation system. It's the EXACT same setup, you just don't have to sail the ocean manually. I really think people are not understanding the fundamental design principle of how this system works. What it might lack in "hidden zones" will be made up by hidden features within the zones. Hell, there may be hidden zones for all i know, I HAVEN'T PLAYED THE DAMN THING YET TO KNOW!

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Then it wouldn't be a Yasumi "your 10 foot tall broadsword is doing 0 damage against these bats because your flying/beast weapon affinity is too low and the hilt is made out of oak instead of ivory" Matsuno game

so damn lame!

 

[Bebpo]

Why would they dude? It's a fucking world map, there's nothing to make a trailer about.

Considering that FFX didn't have one and that the game is about "exploring the skies", it would've been kinda a big deal if they were planning on a world map.

 

[Bebpo]

Use your imagination.

I think this can go right back to you in regards of "I hate point and click".

 

[teiresias]

Why would they dude? It's a fucking world map, there's nothing to make a trailer about.

You cannot be serious. I'm not even going to spell out the difference for you if you don't what people like about actually traveling around the world and seeing the sights compared to point and click maps. Use your imagination.

All "the sights" you're seeing are on the continents and landmass, there's practically nothing in the ocean to see. Continents are zones in DQ8 and the mechanic is the exact same thing.

 

[Diablos]

And once again for the millionth time I call bullshit. It could be a seperate map. It doesn't even have to be the same texture work or quality as it is seen on foot. That's just an excuse to limit the players and make us go on point and click bullshit fests instead of actually progressing the established tradition, which DQ8 did in spades.

It doesn't HAVE TO be the same map, true. BUT IT IS because of the nature of the game. The argument about texture work/quality (you're disregarding polygon count for the environment btw) is somewhat seperate, but obviously Square's goal was seamless or bust. And unfortunately they couldn't do what they wanted to with the airship, but they could with everything else. So they made the airship map/menu-based.

And DQ8's boat and overhead map isn't a DIFFERENT map, it's just presented differently, which explains all of the SCALING DOWN OF DETAIL. The argument here is that FFXII's environment is TOO DETAILED to BEGIN WITH, even if you scale it down, for a decent enough framerate when looking at the world from above at high speeds. Texturing isn't the only issue, FFXII's world will also have an insanely high polygon count compared to DQ8's.

 

[teiresias]

In the end perhaps one of the greatest RPG's of all time proves the complainers wrong anyway. Chapter 2 alone of Baldur's Gate 2 had more sidequests and exploring than probably every FF and DQ I've played combined and that game has a damn point-and-click map so I really see no problem here.

 

[Bebpo]

FFX is hardly about flying the skies. Machina is forbidden and frowned upon. In FFXII, you see literally thousands of armies, troops in airship battles. There is much BIGGER emphasis on airships in this game than all of the Final Fantasy's combined.

I was talking about FFXII there....

 

[teiresias]

You're in Chapter 2, at that point you'd only been in the main city, you can then do as many side quests as you want, or not want, so every single side quest took you somewhere new and you could explore as much as you wanted, going off the boundaries of each area to see what was west or east.

 

[cvkpaladin]

Teirasias knows what he is talking about. Baldur's Gate 2 had a point-and-click map and the game rocked. Heck, DDS1&2 and SMT 3 both have point-and-click maps and both are praised. Now, while I would love for a totally seamless world ala Oblivion/Morrowind, World of Warcraft/every other MMORPG, and Dragon Quest VIII, I'm just happy we're finally getting the game. It looks to have a complex battle system, no more random battles, excellent graphics (for the PS2), and probably the best storyline to ever grace the Final Fantasy series. So, unless you only play games that have 'world maps', why don't you just wait until reviews start coming out (or actually play the game) before bashing it.

 

[Diablos]

I was talking about FFXII there....

He won't listen to anyone, there's no point. FFX didn't even HAVE a world map, and it didn't stop him from liking it so much. FFXII actually HAS ONE and he's moaning about not being able to fly an airship over it. What he's saying makes no sense. I tried explaining the hardware limitation bit to him (as did you, earlier) but it just doesn't sink in. Oh well.

 

[Diablos]

That's because FFX had an excuse. It came out at the beginning of the system's hardware cycle so it was reasonable. FFXII however....I just refuse to believe that they couldn't do it because of hardware limitations.

:lol

NOT IF FFXII'S ENGINE IS MORE SOPHISTICATED THAN FFX'S, WHICH IT LIKELY IS!

 

[teiresias]

You people act like just because someone is making a complaint about something they're bashing it.:lol I'm not bashing FFXII. I can't fucking wait for the game. It's just that the one series I expect to get away from this point and click bullshit fails to do it, yeah I"m going to be disappointed as I'm just simply tired of the whole thing. Something that may not be a big deal to you, is a big deal to others. But no, it won't ruin the game for me as we have a huge world to travel on foot, but to me the real meat of exploration comes from airship travel. That's why it's such a low blow to me. I won't continue this so this will be my last post about this whole thing.

You're talking as if FF has been "mired" in point and click maps for its entire gestiation when it has only had point-and-click for one game in the series so far. I hope FFXIII has only subway travel just to spite you.

 

[Diablos]

You're talking as if FF has been "mired" in point and click maps for its entire gestiation when it has only had point-and-click for one game in the series so far. I hope FFXIII has only subway travel just to spite you.

:lol