It’s been close to a month since I last posted, with my sunset villa design in Final Fantasy XIV going up just before Dawntrail early access started.
Since then, I’ve been rather absorbed in the latest expansion, though I have to say I have some…opinions about the story itself that I’ll share soon.
What I have been enjoying more than I thought I would, however, is the graphics update that came with the expansion, and for probably not-so-surprising reasons.
A massive graphical undertaking...
In the lead-up to Dawntrail, the dev team at Square Enix made no secret that for them, one of the biggest lifts was going to be a massive graphics overhaul for the game. And it was a huge project, no doubt about it: They were revising and upgrading everything from 10 years of gameplay.
Just think about how many glam items there are, how many hairstyles, dungeon drops—even how many unique models inhabit the maps of our main cities.
At first, I was just looking forward to the overhaul because it meant my Miqo’te could finally have nice makeup.
...but the housing was the best part.
I don’t know why, but I never really put it together that the level of overhaul they were talking about would end up affecting housing, too. I don’t think I processed it any farther than eyeliner for catgirls.
But I have to say, my favourite part of the graphics update has hands-down been what it did for housing designs. And rather than try to explain why, let me show you with some before-and-after shots from my forest cottage build.
QUICK NOTE
I did have to rework some of this build because apparently the graphical overhaul also changed the frame structure for phasmascapes, so my window frames were all out of whack! You can actually still see one in the second photo because I was mad and didn't want to float things over the stairs at the time.
You may also notice a few slight design changes. Those are a sneak peek at another post to come!
Honestly, all this has done is made me more excited for the possibilities in FFXIV housing design. So keep an eye out, because I have all kinds of new ideas now!
