For those that already do. Thoughts? opinions? Prohpetic utterances?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Don't buy this game. Ignore your lemming propensities. Don't buy this game. It is a shoddily produced MMO that will wear out quickly.
If you buy it, you will almost without fail be dropping out not too long afterwards. You'll probably say something like 'I tried to like it, I really did!' and/or 'all my friends quit so I had nobody left to play with!'
Save your money.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
haha, well i was mainly asking because i already did buy the game and wanted to see what others thought about it. I figure i have a month free before i have to start paying for it (other than the initial buy). I really really really liked FFXI but sadly after a few days i have to agree with you. I feel like im playing a beta still the game doesn't seem to be thought out at all and there doesnt seem to be any direction to what little story i've seen.
On the good side it looks and sounds fantastic.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
The beta was sufficient for me to get my fix and realize I didn't want to spend money or time on the game down the road.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I bought the CE, and to tell you the truth, I can't get enough. There are the usual issues with MMO launches (Lag, unfinished zones/towns, etc) but I expected that.
The game is a huge time sink. I started leveling up both Botany and Mining as well as Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Woodworking. Then I needed certain materials off monsters so I leveled Maurader. I realized last night that I can't do all of that at once.. Its simply too much. I have given up mining and blacksmithing for now. I'll come back to them later. I'll level up Alchemy to 15 since some Carpenter recipes require it.
That will leave me with Carpenter and Botany to focus on. I'm physical level 20 with Botany at 13 and Capenter at 12.
The game is amazing, the people I have met are very nice and respectful, and I see a lot of potential for the game.
I play on Lindblum in a LS called "Drunken Chocobos." We already have about 80 members, and for the most part they are all pretty fun to talk to.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ecthalion: haha, well i was mainly asking because i already did buy the game and wanted to see what others thought about it.
Awh :/
Yeah, I am just trying to get the message out to as many people as possible. No player interactivity is polished. Many things aren't even seaworthy. The UI is amateur hackwork. The gameplay is staler than Aion, which should be the minimum benchmark for grindy asian-style MMO's. Everything about this game is emblematic of a production release which is not ready for primetime in the MMO market.
Square is a mediocre studio at best these years. They just didn't have the chops for an MMO.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I bought the CE, and to tell you the truth, I can't get enough. There are the usual issues with MMO launches (Lag, unfinished zones/towns, etc) but I expected that.
The game is a huge time sink. I started leveling up both Botany and Mining as well as Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Woodworking. Then I needed certain materials off monsters so I leveled Maurader. I realized last night that I can't do all of that at once.. Its simply too much. I have given up mining and blacksmithing for now. I'll come back to them later. I'll level up Alchemy to 15 since some Carpenter recipes require it.
That will leave me with Carpenter and Botany to focus on. I'm physical level 20 with Botany at 13 and Capenter at 12.
The game is amazing, the people I have met are very nice and respectful, and I see a lot of potential for the game.
I play on Lindblum in a LS called "Drunken Chocobos." We already have about 80 members, and for the most part they are all pretty fun to talk to.
Hmmm, maybe i just ended up on the wrong server. Nobody, and i do mean nobody is will to even talk to you on Fabul. Shouts are ignored, directly asking someone a question is ignored. Maybe i should remake my Char and send it to Lindblum.
I do kinda get the feeling that Square wants you to do everythiing. I have Pugalist, Lancer, Miner, Botonist and Weaver to 11 with varying skills almost to 10. I really only wanted to do leather/weaver but found that since nobody was willing to talk or trade or help that in order to craft anything i had to level something else up and get it myself.
I am still confused about what the guilds are there for if i can't actually join one though. And there is no intuitive way to know what to do in this game, even the tutorials suck. I literally went to every NPC in Lomsa and nobody have mentioned anything useful.
So far my experience hasnt been as good as yours but like i said i'll give it a month.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Ecthalion: haha, well i was mainly asking because i already did buy the game and wanted to see what others thought about it.
Awh :/
Yeah, I am just trying to get the message out to as many people as possible. No player interactivity is polished. Many things aren't even seaworthy. The UI is amateur hackwork. The gameplay is staler than Aion, which should be the minimum benchmark for grindy asian-style MMO's. Everything about this game is emblematic of a production release which is not ready for primetime in the MMO market.
Square is a mediocre studio at best these years. They just didn't have the chops for an MMO.
Yea, i would have to say that the interface was one of the reasons i liked FFXI over othe MMo's of the time (WOW, ragnarok, Everquest, even EVE which i play now has a difficult interface to get used to). This game needs another year of development.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
I suppose since i asked for people's opinions i should put in my own. ive only been on 4 days (since it opened) and my experience may not be typical of others and it may change over time.
Pros: Amazing graphics, Amazing musical score, Customizability and flexibility. I like choosing my stat upgrades and i like being able to switch jobs (though the job System of XI was far better). Huge huge areas with no loading points (except the ferry).
Cons:
The Interface is bad. It takes a few seconds for any menue to load, and even longer to make any selections in it.
All the buttons on the keyboard are used up. I used to run all character/camera controls with my right hand, and all macros/interactions wiht my left. This game requires alot more moving around the keyboard wondering what to do.
No respond macro that I know of. Used to be if someone sent a /tell i coul ctrl+R and boom, i could respond back. Now i have to type the person's name every time.
No clear class specialization. I really dont understand the party dynamics of this game yet. Used to be you needed tank=healer, Damage and buff/debuff. I have no idea what jobs do what or what anyone's real role in a party is, so far my experience has been "everyone mash the attack button".
The synthing minigame makes no sense. I get that you need to get a product to 100% before the item durability reaches 0, but what is all the other stuff for? What does the item changing color mean? Does the timer mean anything? what does the Quality mean if it doesnt help your chances of +1? I had made a hempen tunic with a quality of 423 and it didnt +1, meanwhile i made hempen gloves with a quality of 61 and got a +1. None of this is explained.
There is no in game-recipe list. The guilds are (so far) unjoinable and give you no help.
The check function is gone. All enemies now have a little dot next to their name, if its blue it should be easy to kill if its red it'll eat your face (blue-->green-->yelllow-->orange-->red). Problem is this doesnt really seem to be the case. My lancer seem to have a hard time hitting anything, even with accuracy= gear and with high dex. MyPugalist will kill yellow and orange mobs solo.
Quests are nonexistant. I dont mind the guildleve idea but the idea that i can only do 16 (8 local, 8 regional) quests every 36 hours is pretty lame. Especially since those 16 quests have so far not taken me more than 2 hours to complete. So far all the NPC's are only there to take up space, none of them are important in any way.
Retainers... For keeping my stuff when my pack is full they are great. For selling stuff.... its a really stupid idea. Bring me a market or an auctionhouse. I dont see why i need to go to a ward, wait for 10 of the 500 retainers in the ward to load and then have to check every bazaar to see if i need anyhting and if i accidentally move an inch all the wards have to re-load. I have no idea what gear i should go for or how to develop my charachter. With a market or an auctionhouse you can plan for what you need and its easier and more organized.
Where is the story? I've recieved only 2 storyline quests so far and i have no idea what activates them. i thought originally it might be time, then i thought it was the levequests, unless the time/leve amount gets exponentially bigger between stories this isnt the case. I am thinking now that it is based on main level. I'll be able to chek that theory after classes tonight (i hope). Even the story that i have been given is muddled and uncompelling. I get that there's a mysterious man with no shadow... but that is it...
So far this is my first impressions. if you see something I didnt understand (like if you could explain the synthing dynamics, or what the guilds are for etc.) please feel free to tell me.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I wrote this in the run-up to the APB launch:
quote:The MMO market is a morass of corpses. Anything that can't keep pace quickly heads to the boneyard — you become a backwater Station Pass style entity, or you are shuttered and stripped for parts. MMO launches used to be completely chaotic, and granted little insight into the title's future potential, but that's all changed now. Today, your quality at launch tells people whether or not you are going to succeed.
The industry now presents an established market, saturated competition, minimum acceptable standards for attracting a profitable audience, and industry knowledge about how to successfully launch, by people who you can hire and who have participated in the successful launch of games. There's no longer much room to rebound from a poor-condition launch, to fudge it and promise to patch the fun in later. Players stop playing when their friends stop playing, since 'power relative to peers/community' is the primary appeal that keeps people interested in grinding for their Slightly Better Foozle. When all your friends evaporate back to World of Warcraft and you're left staring at a grey friendslist, you burn out quick, since nobody is around to care that you have a crazy cool new foozle +1 that glows.
Some diehards will stick around for (invariably) promised improvements, and they will almost always be disappointed.
There's a simple lesson to be learned from 2008 and 2009: the studio that can't get a title in shape for launch is the studio that can't fix the title post-launch. You can always hold out hope that they'll buck the trend, but this rarely ever happens. The launch now tells you everything you need to know about whether or not you'll be impressed with the game's promised improvements at the six month mark.
Since most gamers have figured this out by now, that makes the failure cascade even more intense. You get an immediate sense that "any time I spend grinding in this game will be for nothing, because in two months the server will be vacant." And there's always, always better things to go back to. So more and more people drop out faster and go back to where their MMO accomplishments will be (relatively) meaningful.
For the most part, this applies to FFXIV, but the odds of FFXIV being shuttered are very low. Square Enix is 'clingy,' and has a base of diehards who will linger. The most likely outcome is that FFXIV becomes a moulderer similar to MxO, with server merges.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
A lot of the interface issues were solved whe I plugged in an Xbox 360 remote and mapped most of the keys to it. Now it is a lot easier to do everything. I also mapped my CTRL-Macros to my left bumper and wrote macros to make class changes a snap.
To solve the Leve issue, I team up with my Linkshell. The other night we had a full 15 man group and we did probably 20 leves in a row. We each earned about 60k gill and some items. I don't usually go with battle leves though. I focus more on gathering so I take 8 Botany leves. That usually takes me 3 hours alone.
The game has issues, but it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. People said the same thing about other MMO's that have done just fine. Every MMO has launch issues. I remember not being able to log onto WoW for 3 days the week it was released.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
well, i think might just start over and jump to lindblum if you think your linkshell has room. I'm really annoed by the lack of help that Fabul is showing...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I focus more on gathering so I take 8 Botany leves. That usually takes me 3 hours alone.
Is that fun?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Every MMO has launch issues. I remember not being able to log onto WoW for 3 days the week it was released.
Every MMO has launch issues. Not every MMO launches in a state that will be unable to keep and hold the growingly fickle MMO populace. I mentioned explicitly how titles' stability and quality at launch used to not be an indicator of the title's future potential for success, and how this has changed.
Also worth mentioning is that WoW had a launch that was plagued with stability issues, but not critical game quality issues. The game itself was ready to go at launch, so it did fine once the servers cleared up.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I focus more on gathering so I take 8 Botany leves. That usually takes me 3 hours alone.
Is that fun?
I like it. I think part of what keeps me doing it is the mystery of what I am going to get, what I am going to be able to do with it, how close I get to leveling the class, and when I can start harvesting higher grade trees/shrubbery. I actually enjoy it more than farming mobs.
Gathering professions level me up pretty quickly, and I don't have to worry about dying.
I am also liking that I can mix abilities from different classes. I was having a bit of trouble killing Dodo birds at level 11 Maurader. I leveled CONJ to level 4 and got cure. Then I switched back to Maurader and equipped cure. Now I can take them on without a problem.
Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
Its also not a good idea to compare WoW to the current market. Yes, WoW had a number of problems upon its initial launch...in 2004. What is acceptable in MMO's 6 years later has drastically shifted, and having problems on launch now is much less accepted than it was back then.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I got to take a look at the infamous collector's edition cup today. It was scratched up and moldy and apparently too fragile for anything but water.
My friend is already hoping to recoup his losses on the CE. I don't know what he's considering — asking for a refund, or reselling on Ebay? — but he said straight up that his game experience flat up cured him of any interest in future square enix titles.
In other news, it turns out that the game releases with a critical infinite XP glitch that players have already used to max out their skill levels, bypassing that silly little fatigue system entirely. :3
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:In other news, it turns out that the game releases with a critical infinite XP glitch that players have already used to max out their skill levels, bypassing that silly little fatigue system entirely. :3
The best thing Square can do is to ban everybody who is at max level. It'll needlessly anger those who are not cheating but it's a price they will have to pay for game integrity!
edit: Or hot fix it, which apparently they did.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
They did fix it, and put out a statement saying that those who voluntarily report themselves as having exploited it will face a rollback but will not face a ban. If you do not report yourself however you face the ban hammer.
Over the past week I have noticed the input lag getting better. They have been working on stability and it really shows. Now it looks like in the next week they will be releasing improvements to the Retainer system that will enable you to search for certain items, and in the next month or so the ability to buy an item from a retainer without actually having to find the retainer in the game world. I think it is a step in the right direction.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
You should not have infinite xp glitches being hotfixed post-release. This is like discovering readily accessible gold spoofs post-beta.
Apparently, their bug addressing system was a vanishingly small QA pseudobranch locked away from analysis of beta reporting. It's surprisingly identical to the way RTW worked ('worked') during the production of APB, only ... more insular.
I will bet money that the infinite XP bug got through on account of an egregious case of stomping on an alpha or post-alpha build and there was no structure in place to become aware of it until an obviously impossible skill level growth became apparent.
It's so weird. For some reason, Japan got stuck half a decade behind the curve in game development, and it's hard to get them to change their ways. That's practically a topic all its own.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
There have been other MMO's with infinite XP glitches as well.
Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2 both infinite XP glitches. In Asheron's Call 2 I was part of a invitation only testing team that worked directly with the developers on each patch before it was released onto the retail servers. We spent two months testing a particular patch prior to the rollout of their Hero System that raised the level cap from 50 to 150. We tested everything we could think of in an attempt to break it. The team had about 10 people on it, and we thought we had worked everything out.
The day after the patch went live onto the retail servers, someone hit 150 by exploiting some strange glitch/bug. None of us had found it during our testing, and the player had actually found it by accident. Things like this happen in both Japanese and American MMO's.
At the beginning of Wow there were glitches that allowed you to freeze your HP so that you could never die, allowing you to solo anything in the game. Those were fixed pretty quickly as well.
FFXIV has something APB did not have. The Final Fantasy name has been around for more than twenty years, and there is already a large amount of people that played FFXI.
The infinite XP bug in FFXIV worked by getting a large group of Conjurers that were at least level 4, and going into a leve. All the Conjurers would do is continually cast Cure, and they would gain skill points for it. They could quickly reach level 50 by doing this.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: There have been other MMO's with infinite XP glitches as well.
You need to please step back and try to incorporate what we've already said about how things have changed in the industry since, in the case of AC, literally a decade. Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call II were released in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Have you looked at what both myself and Jenos have pointed out to you in terms of how things have drastically changed since then in terms of what is acceptable for a game at launch?
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: There have been other MMO's with infinite XP glitches as well.
You need to please step back and try to incorporate what we've already said about how things have changed in the industry since, in the case of AC, literally a decade. Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call II were released in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Have you looked at what both myself and Jenos have pointed out to you in terms of how things have drastically changed since then in terms of what is acceptable for a game at launch?
Sam, I understand what you are saying, but no matter how far along the software industry has progressed in the last decade, bugs exist. They will always exist. When you program a game that takes up 12-15 GB of hard drive space, you are looking at millions of lines of code. It is almost impossible to iron out every bug and glitch that exists.
I could have 10 people looking for game breaking bugs and they may not find any. If I have 50,000 the chances of finding a glitch or bug increase significantly. The more people you have looking at something, the higher your chances someone will find something wrong with it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Sam, I understand what you are saying, but no matter how far along the software industry has progressed in the last decade, bugs exist. They will always exist
haha. Okay. Evidently, you need a lot of help to figure out what I'm saying. I'll try.
I am not saying "An MMO release with bugs is unacceptable." I am not saying MMO's can, or do, release without bugs. This is very, very far from anything I'm saying, or any criticism of FFXIV I would levy as an industry insider. I have noted that the MMO environment is not the same as it used to be, and it doesn't readily tolerate the same mistakes that it used to, way back when. Such as, for instance, when WoW launched. I mentioned that Japan seems to be stuck half a decade behind in game development. You then compare XIV's launch issues to two games which launched well over half a decade ago, the more recent of which was a failure. Can you see why that matters, re: my argument?
I can also assure you, that as a quality assurance and control engineer whose job for months has been, specifically, managing the testing of bugs for an international release MMO and making the lives of programmers very, very miserable when they push shoddy systems to a live environment, that I understand how these things work in great detail. You should not have infinite xp glitches being hotfixed post-release. If the game is operating with a continuous 'post-wipe' environment and players are already spoofing or glitching the power progression system (both urgent-A bugs), your QA system has critically failed. This sort of stuff was par for the course in, say, 2001-2003. Now, after a series of purges and evidence of market saturation in the 2008-2009 period, even games that aren't even close to being this doofed up on launch day are collapsing and being sold for scrap or mouldering away as a system pass title. A company which still does this is woefully unprepared to launch an MMO.
When you have a game moving to continuous environment with urgent-A's in them, this is emblematic of poor quality management, poor time management, or both. In this case, it appears to be both. Square's QA was oblivious to Beta exploit finds, and the game appears to have been rushed desperately to fill a time niche before the release of Cataclysm. Remediable glitches like this one won't end up affecting the end-users too much; I don't claim they're the reason the game sucks. I consider them divinitory, telling aftereffects of a studio that has just pushed a sucky title to release. It grants some insight into in what ways Square has devolved from an AAA game studio, releasing a shoddy, inferior MMO, which I predict will hemorrhage playerbase critically between now and its milestones.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
Its launch day. All servers are down for emergency maintenance, and Kotaku hates the game.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
Yea i can't say i "Hate" it cause i could certainly see this game entertaining some poeple. But im definitely out once the free month is over.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
Sam, I'm sorry but that isn't always the case. It may be for the company you work for, which is fine. I am sure you do everything you can to ensure the MMO that you work on doesn't contain these bugs.
I disagree with you regarding bugs in MMO's in 2003 compared to 2008-present. For almost 9 months in World of Warcraft, I couldn't fly over Dalaran without getting a fatal WoW error. It happened right after a patch. Every single time I would mount up and fly in Crystal Song Forest, I would get a WoW error.
I started cruising the forums and saw that hundreds of other people were having the same issue. Blizzard gave us the usual crap about deleting our cache folders and even reinstalling. None of that worked. I tried switching back to XP from Vista, trying a 64 bit OS, nothing worked. Nine months later there was a patch, and it has been fixed ever since.
I do not know if the exploit in FFXIV was reported in beta, and if it was then it should have been fixed prior to retail release. I will say that the method used to exploit this bug was VERY simple to replicate and it should have been obvious to the testers and programmers. I'll give you that. It isn't always so simple.
I know you don't care for the game and that is fine. I am enjoying it quite a bit. I love that I don't have to fight a thing. I can walk around and chop trees all day long, contribute to the global warming of Eorzia, and level up from it all at the same time.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:I disagree with you regarding bugs in MMO's in 2003 compared to 2008-present. For almost 9 months in World of Warcraft, I couldn't fly over Dalaran without getting a fatal WoW error. It happened right after a patch. Every single time I would mount up and fly in Crystal Song Forest, I would get a WoW error.
That's not a release bug, nor was it what they call a show-stopper or an urgent-A. It doesn't speak at all to what the industry would forgive in a launch then versus now. While it would be nice if they didn't happen, the vagaries of individual hardware platforms ensure that some users' computers will experience errors. A bug wherein a percentage of users will experience a crash far into the third expansion at a specific point sucks but isn't the kind of glitch that they'll pull a rollback or server shutdown for. it is also not a launch issue. It's got nothing to do with talking about stuff a game should not do at launch that used to happen all the time.
quote:I do not know if the exploit in FFXIV was reported in beta, and if it was then it should have been fixed prior to retail release. I will say that the method used to exploit this bug was VERY simple to replicate and it should have been obvious to the testers and programmers. I'll give you that. It isn't always so simple.
Apparently people tried to report it, but Square's QA/C was just ... locked away. Somewhere. There was no response to it until their internal stats tracking showed people figaroing in days.
it isn't always so simple, but .. here it is! it is that simple. Remember that I'm not using this bug (or whatever else has forced them to shut down every single world server on launch day) to say that the game sucks, just as an observation of the dysfunction of the studio. It's not an attack on the fact that you like the game, you just are providing irrelevant defenses of the game which had nothing to do with what was actually being said.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
this game won't tank no matter how bad it is, because people obsessed with final fantasy enough will make themselves love it. Also the ps3 release might be better, this one lags even on high end systems.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
This is an MMO. MMO's can always tank!
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I appreciate the response Sam. I understand what you are saying a little more clearly now that I go back and read your posts.
I guess one upside to all of this is that even though the standard edition was released yesterday, I didn't notice any additional lag in the middle of the city I was in. I guess that is a plus.
My main complaint right now is how long the display takes to show certain NPC's on your screen. At one camp I waited 5 minutes for the NPC to show up on my screen. I have a very high end system, but looking at some of the forums, it is happening to everyone, so it seems it is server side. I experienced the same thing to a degree in World of Warcraft when flying on my 310% mount, but never to this extent.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Sam, can you think of any MMOs that launched within the past couple years that launched unbroken and succeeded?
I don't disagree with your basic premise that the MMO market has changed, but I'm not certain that the idea of not having enough QA at launch is the real explanation.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:I don't disagree with your basic premise that the MMO market has changed, but I'm not certain that the idea of not having enough QA at launch is the real explanation.
Before I respond to this: The real explanation of what?
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
Sorry for not being clear. I'm referring to the failure of many recent MMOs. You attribute it to changing standards for quality at launch.
There are certainly plenty of examples of MMOs that had bad launches and failed, but I'm hard pressed to think of any recently launched MMOs that had good launches and have faired well.
Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
What exactly is faring well in an MMO launch? Compared to WoW, its hard to think of any recently launched MMO's that have fared well, period. And a big part of the problem is that people expect high quality straight out of the box, now. Why play a game that's somewhat buggy when you can go back to the not-buggy WoW? The fact that WoW was like that in 2005 is not one that crosses peoples minds, all they do is compare it to the existing, functioning games and drop it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
WOW also refunded your money when it was down for an extended period of time. It was also Blizzard's first foray into the MMORPG market, and people were a bit more forgiving since this is Blizzard we are talking about. The vast majority of WOW players had not played an MMORPG before so the experience was still new and gripping.
Once they settled on the weekly Tuesday morning maintenance schedule I can't think of any major problems in the game save queues, which they responded to by adding truckloads of servers so as to thin out traffic. Most gamers have now played an MMO in some form or other, so their expectations for what they get out of the box are higher. I expect that whenever Blizzard's mystery MMORPG project comes out you will see a marked improvement at launch over WOW.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: Sorry for not being clear. I'm referring to the failure of many recent MMOs. You attribute it to changing standards for quality at launch.
There are certainly plenty of examples of MMOs that had bad launches and failed, but I'm hard pressed to think of any recently launched MMOs that had good launches and have faired well.
Exactly. The field is now so saturated and competitive that it'll even chew up and spit out titles that don't have unstable launches. It'll even fail games that don't start in a massively incomplete, rushed and unstable state. You can have a 'good launch' and still fail if your game doesn't have qualities that appeal it to players enough that they'll leave present MMOs for it.
As for the QA issue: not having enough QA is always, always, always a bad thing, but they don't seem to be systematically any more or less responsible for the bog of questionable design decisions and poor implementation than any of the rest of the studio.
Posted by Jenos (Member # 12168) on :
quote:Most gamers have now played an MMO in some form or other, so their expectations for what they get out of the box are higher.
Gamers compare new games with existing games, and unfair or not, its what killed a number of other MMO's because people switched, found the game flawed compared to WoW, and switched back.
I've heard numerous reports of players switching to newer mmos, and finding it much more flawed than WoW switching back to it. Admittedly, this is just anecdotes from my time in WoW, but it always seemed that poor launches were just unacceptable when compared to the juggernaut that is WoW.
I am expecting Bioware's TOR, though, to compete with WoW, for the simple reason that the majority of Bioware games are very good straight out of the box. If they keep the same production value it will be interesting to see how many people switch to it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
To kind of retread this, it's wide-ranging, wide-reaching issues of quality that are worth criticizing in this game's release. It's just legitimately a bad product! The UI, in particular, is so bad that nobody's willing to make excuses for it. The gameplay is weak and uninspired in most areas. The crafting economy is blind and completely unmanaged and will leave 15+ crafters unable to unload their goods when item saturation kicks in. Inventory management is a complete failure. This game is a complete mess of terrible design decisions. It's stuff like this which make the game a disaster that most players won't stick with. The positives, such as they are, can't compensate for this.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jenos: I am expecting Bioware's TOR, though, to compete with WoW, for the simple reason that the majority of Bioware games are very good straight out of the box. If they keep the same production value it will be interesting to see how many people switch to it.
I'm really, really, really, really hoping that SWTOR bucks the industry trends and manages to carve out a non-niche chunk of the industry. The franchise ably has the capacity, but I can only guess if they're going to pull off the particulars necessary to do so. If it doesn't, then, oh well. I guess it's another four or more years of blizzard supremacy.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
Yea, I don't think Square should even get the pass that many MMO developers get for launch failures for two main reasons.
The first reason is that they already made a successful MMO, which was competing with WOW until they screwed it up. The problems with FFXI that made people leave it were not launch problems, it was customer service/quality, initial lack of pvp environment and their seeming apathy towards RMT trade. In fact you were just as likely (if not more likely) to get banned for reporting RMT.
The second reason is that like it was mentioned about BioWare, Square used to be a premier game producer. I used to buy games just because of the Square logo. I saw who produced it and went with it because as i saw it, "all the other games from Square that i've played are good, so this one must be good as well" Square should have the resources, the talent and the knowhow to put a good, workable game on the market.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
That touches on why I'm definitely going to be involved in the aftermath of FFXIV's release.
Here's what interests me: Square Enix botching this like it has allows us to cut out many comorbid factors that help tank MMO's: we can be sure they weren't limited in funding, or backing, or name recognition for the franchise, or availability of expertise, or inexperience in the genre. That leaves the state of the product in its current form entirely attributable to terrible design and development processes.
Get enough info from the developer postmortem, and it can be put to good use making sure that your own studio doesn't clownboat it up quite the same way trying to make it in the MMO world.
(seekrit disclaimer: I put our MMO success potential at vaguely 50%).
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: To kind of retread this, it's wide-ranging, wide-reaching issues of quality that are worth criticizing in this game's release. It's just legitimately a bad product! The UI, in particular, is so bad that nobody's willing to make excuses for it. The gameplay is weak and uninspired in most areas. The crafting economy is blind and completely unmanaged and will leave 15+ crafters unable to unload their goods when item saturation kicks in. Inventory management is a complete failure. This game is a complete mess of terrible design decisions. It's stuff like this which make the game a disaster that most players won't stick with. The positives, such as they are, can't compensate for this.
quote: The first thing you should know about Guild Wars 2 is that, this time around, there’s no question that it’s an MMORPG. It’s an enormous, persistent, living, social world, filled with a wide variety of combat and non-combat activities. There’s so much depth here that you’re never going to run out of new things to discover.
So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.
Here is the Game's home page where you can see the gaming manifesto.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Guild Wars 2 I'm pinning a bit of hope on. But i still reserve most of my hope for SWTOR; I don't think anything else is as primed to crack WoW's market share significantly.
By late beta, I'll know for sure. The betas of war, aoc, lotro, aion, and ffxiv were enough to let me know that, in spite of claims otherwise, it wasn't happening with them.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
SE is bringing down the servers for a long maintenance period tonight (The longest since the game was released) so I hope they are going to address some of the issues.
Many people are thinking that there are going to be some massive changes to the game as well. Square asked reviewers to wait two to three weeks before reviewing the game, but didn't tell them why. I am hoping this means there will be a massive patch to add content and fix the issues, but I'm not holding my breath.
That being said, I'm still having a lot of fun. There are small issues inside cities (the amount of time the game takes to load NPC's and players makes me angry) but while I am crafting and doing gathering I have no problems. I picked up a Bronze Hatchet, a Chocobo Tail Saw, and some crafting / gathering gear, and I've seen a lot more success in making things.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Since things like doors were not handled client-side I imagine they're a nightmare by now too.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Since things like doors were not handled client-side I imagine they're a nightmare by now too.
Actually they aren't too bad. The doors usually stay open in more populated areas since so many people are coming and going. In less populated areas they open right up since there isn't much lag. I believe there was only one time where the population caused the door to lag, but even then it only took about 2 seconds before it swung open.
Still frustrated with the server not populating all of the NPC's and players around me though. Sometimes I have to wait 3 minutes before the vendor shows up.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
best idea: some other poor fools play the game's story to completion then you can watch the highlights on youtube. No grinding required!
Posted by michaelspar (Member # 12404) on :
"The game is amazing, the people I have met are very nice and respectful, and I see a lot of potential for the game."
Yes, the game is really amazing I really enjoy the game every time I am playing, I have also the feeling that I am the character in the game. LOL
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by michaelspar: "The game is amazing, the people I have met are very nice and respectful, and I see a lot of potential for the game."
Yes, the game is really amazing I really enjoy the game every time I am playing, I have also the feeling that I am the character in the game. LOL
Perhaps you could rephrase your sentence, because what you posted makes no sense. Were you using sarcasm?
Oh, and welcome to Hatrack Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
wow, that board is like looking back at the HGL boards a month after launch. Or a month before closing.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
If i were a stock-holder id have sold it...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Things ain't looking good for SWTOR either
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I gotta say when I watched preview videos of SWTOR it didn't blow my socks off.
But hey, I'd be nice to be wrong.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Oh, the preview videos only scratch the surface. The only subject of concern they can show off are visual things, like how apparently Bioware Austin cannot hire capable character animators.
Under the surface, the insider scoop is grim.
Posted by Ginol_Enam (Member # 7070) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Oh, the preview videos only scratch the surface. The only subject of concern they can show off are visual things, like how apparently Bioware Austin cannot hire capable character animators.
Under the surface, the insider scoop is grim.
Like what, in your opinion? I mean, I peruse the SWTOR official boards every once in a while and there is certainly some negativity. I can even understand some of the concerns from primarily MMO fans.
However, I think SWTOR is shaping up to be pretty fantastic looking. That is, an online single player RPG with multiplayer elements. Again, I can understand the concerns from people who were hoping (not without reason) for a better Galaxies, but I think it'll do well as something other than a typical MMO and match the tastes of fans KotOR fans (such as myself) who would have preferred to see a KotORIII or whatever than a typical MMO.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
When half your forum is people talking about how bad the game is, and the other half is people saying "omg why r u crying about this if you don't like the game just stop playin" you are in hot water.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:When half your forum is people talking about how bad the game is, and the other half is people saying "omg why r u crying about this if you don't like the game just stop playin" you are in hot water.
Isn't that every game, everywhere?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:When half your forum is people talking about how bad the game is, and the other half is people saying "omg why r u crying about this if you don't like the game just stop playin" you are in hot water.
Isn't that every game, everywhere?
I doubt chess forums have that dynamic.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:When half your forum is people talking about how bad the game is, and the other half is people saying "omg why r u crying about this if you don't like the game just stop playin" you are in hot water.
Isn't that every game, everywhere?
Um, no. When you have forums that are actually pretty much like that, the game's legit bad.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
Guild Wars 2 is looking really good. It looks like they are going for a different take on the MMO with more random events and quests. And still no monthly fee.
I think that the non-WoW MMO market will not be sustainable unless gaming companies quit rehashing the same formulas of every other RPG. Speak to an NPC, kill X of a mob, gain experience, rinse and repeat. Gaming companies need to be innovative and original. FFXIV attempted this but it was poorly implemented. Guild Wars 2 looks promising, I just pray it can deliver.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ginol_Enam:
quote:Under the surface, the insider scoop is grim.
Like what, in your opinion?
I don't have a personal opinion. I haven't played the game, or been privy to the happenings of the studio where it is being developed. I have, however, a consistent opinion by those who have worked on the game and/or have had a chance to test it out in depth.
- at present you wouldn't even recognize it as a Bioware game. It has none of bioware's hallmarks of quality. - it's run by rampantly uncreative sorts and idea poachers, and is mismanaged to the point of implosion. - people are trying to leave the project in large numbers. - the game itself is horrific; the testers hate it, and the devs know it. - it is massively over-budget (they may even be verifiable openly). - as noted in the expanding EAlouse drama, it appears a lot of remaining EA mythic employees have been poached to try to salvage the game.
I'll continue to hope that this doesn't end up nearly as bad as it could end up. I want to be optimistic enough to say that the game is certainly salvageable at this juncture. I also can't lie; if they don't even manage to at least overhaul the character and combat animations, it wouldn't matter too much to me whether or not they fixed the combat mechanics and gameplay. If insider rumors and the various airings-of-dirty-laundry from EA employees past and present are to be believed, the game's in sorry shape right now, and development cycles coming back from that brink are exceptional.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Also, in FFXIV news: to quote Sankaku, 'So Bad They Gave Players Another Free Month'
Goodness. What is wrong with new MMO's these days? I'm sure it's really hard to make one that's good... but don't they have a list of what they need to do by now? And don't these huge companies have the money and manpower to do those necessary things?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
MMO's and their longitudinal development offer scads of opportunities to express and display dysfunction on the part of designers. There also seems to be a distinct trend with the mentalities and the shortsightednesses of people who manage to pole-vault themselves onto the lead design and developmental direction roles of MMO's — they tend to be overexuberant dysfunction personified. This I have seen in person. So profoundly, in fact, that I was amazed.
Here's two comments by others that I believe sum it up nicely:
quote:I think entire industry deserves to be replaced by Packaged Goods people that can at least produce something, given tried-and-true formula. I don't even expect innovation at this point, just don't repeat the same mistakes year after year after year...
Here are seems to be typical failure modes:
1. Have no plan/vision until late into development, then panic and try to badly clone WoW 2. Have overly-ambitious plan, then end up cutting ENTIRE GAME to meet deadlines/budget constrains 3. Release early and extra-buggy 4. Try to clone WoW from the start, succeed at it to a large degree then fail because people could just play WoW that has more content and polish
quote:Let's not forget to add the simple fact that today's MMO public is vastly different from the pre-WoW MMO public. The masses are no longer uninformed and easily pleased.
Posted by Ginol_Enam (Member # 7070) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Ginol_Enam:
quote:Under the surface, the insider scoop is grim.
Like what, in your opinion?
I don't have a personal opinion. I haven't played the game, or been privy to the happenings of the studio where it is being developed. I have, however, a consistent opinion by those who have worked on the game and/or have had a chance to test it out in depth.
- at present you wouldn't even recognize it as a Bioware game. It has none of bioware's hallmarks of quality. - it's run by rampantly uncreative sorts and idea poachers, and is mismanaged to the point of implosion. - people are trying to leave the project in large numbers. - the game itself is horrific; the testers hate it, and the devs know it. - it is massively over-budget (they may even be verifiable openly). - as noted in the expanding EAlouse drama, it appears a lot of remaining EA mythic employees have been poached to try to salvage the game.
I'll continue to hope that this doesn't end up nearly as bad as it could end up. I want to be optimistic enough to say that the game is certainly salvageable at this juncture. I also can't lie; if they don't even manage to at least overhaul the character and combat animations, it wouldn't matter too much to me whether or not they fixed the combat mechanics and gameplay. If insider rumors and the various airings-of-dirty-laundry from EA employees past and present are to be believed, the game's in sorry shape right now, and development cycles coming back from that brink are exceptional.
Well, I hadn't heard any of that. It'll be a real bummer if the game turns out awful... I was just starting to get really excited for it...
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Hey guyyyyyyyyys
In light of the solidly abysmal reception by fans, critics, and players alike AND S-E giving all subscribers a free month to try to taper off dropouts and unsubs, I wanna put some over-unders on this.
Bet for/against:
FFXIV has CONTRACTED THEIR WORLD SERVERS by at least HALF by April 31st, 2011
FFXIV has GONE FREE TO PLAY by April 31st, 2011
FFXIV has GONE OFFLINE by April 31st, 2011
Place wagers on date:
Date for MAJOR FFXIV SERVER CONTRACTION
Date for FFXIV going FREE TO PLAY
Date for FFXIV going OFFLINE
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Does FFXIV have the equivalent of a /who?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I guess, someone came up with these peak hours figures recently.
Those numbers seem alright for the moment. They look to be about on par with your average WoW server. It'll be interesting to see what happens when that free month ends.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
wait, wth is the wow server average? Is it down that far?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
The peak (averaged between servers) looks like about 950 for Alliance and 900 for Horde.
Are the servers you listed for FFXIV NA servers, or is that worldwide?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Today I learned that Square is actually in such bad shape that XIV is likely to lead to it being 'restructured.' So, thread necro.
quote:Compared with the previous year, sales at Square Enix were down 25%, operating profits were down 56%, ordinary profits were down 71%, and net income was down 36%. Sales of Final Fantasy XIV were actually the biggest positive contributer, with 630,000 copies sold (190,000 in Japan, 260,000 in North America, and 250,000 in Europe). However, FFXIV may now also prove to be the company's biggest problem.
Wada was reported to have been deluged with questions regarding the status of FFXIV and the maelstrom of negativity surrounding the game. On stage, Wada did admit that, "the customers are not satisfied with the state [of FFXIV]." Current plans include big updates in November and December, and of course, the PlayStation 3 release coming next March. While other details were not to be divulged at the time, Wada stated, "We must put our full effort into regaining the user's trust."
However, the CEO was not let off easily. Attendees continued to bring down tough questions and harsh criticisms. When asked about user numbers, Wada dodged by saying he could not predict how things will change once FFXIV ends the free trial period and institutes the monthly fee. Another attendee asked, "Do you test your games to make sure they're complete?" to which Wada admitted, "There may be some areas of testing that were lacking or too rigid," before quickly bringing it back to, "In the short term, we're working hard on restoring user trust."
I also want to do a SWTOR thread soon.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
To be honest Square games have felt stagnated for a very long time, and yet it seemed to take so long for players and reviewers to pick up on it.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
I gave up on Final Fantasy after XII, which I thought was brutal, worse than IX. The fact that it was a critical success only enraged me more.
Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII and X... 4EVA.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
It's the miracle of branding. Get a rep as good as Square had it for years, and you can coast on it for a long, long time.
Square also has the 'advantage' of appealing to the Japanese market, which is a bit culturally imperious (The average japanese gamer will say something like 'japan game good! western game bad!' despite the fact that if you put them in front of a more sandboxed western game, they're literally boggled and amazed that they're playing what they expected was a cutscene) and whose studios are in rapid quality decline for reasons that mirrored the development of the "lost decade."
There, you can coast for a while just by being japanese, even if your games are mediocre.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: also want to do a SWTOR thread soon.
I'd like to see that. I've been following the game closely and was put off by the info you posted in this thread. Hopefully something with that much money invested into can be pulled back from the brink.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
I liked 12 more than i liked 10. the problem with 10 and 12 is that you really just dont have the replay value that the 6-9 (and 4) group gave you. That and 12 was just Star-Wars in FF universe...
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I haven't really enjoyed a JRPG since FF9. I purchased XII and XIII and I have just been extremely underwhelmed. I can distinctly remember very early in XIII's development there was an IGN interview where they asked the program lead if there was going to be an option to listen to the Japanese voice track instead of English. The lead's response was in essence, "Do people want that?" XIII shipped without the Japanese track as an option. They really need to get a clue.
I think Blue Dragon was the only JRPG of this generation of consoles that I completed, and only just because I adored the music, and Akira Toriyama's drawing. Also, I was trying to support a JRPG from a company with great artists who weren't working for Square and were attempting to court the US market.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
yea i dont think i've played a truely good JRPG. Like i said i did like 12, but it wasnt the greatest game ever.
I actually think that Square's move from a deep fantasy structure might be hurting them. I remember an article when 10 came out that they were looking to make more futuristic and adult oriented games. Cant say that 12 or 13 really succeeds in that. 7 is still the most "adult" one, though 4 does have less "kid" themes than most of them.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
12 was fine, and the last really inspired entry in the series. Even if 'inspired' in this case means 'let's totally make this one star wars,' that's okay. It's not like star wars was original either. The end result was still a fun game with a story that was worth paying attention to, in a gameplay engine which did away with the tired mechanic of monster encounters popping you off of the game map what that you might listen to the same fight music again what you have heard already nine billion times.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
As far as I got in the story it seemed achingly cliched and simple, and the characters all felt much the same.
The new fight system changed the game from turn-based strategic combat using your whole party, to wildly running around after your enemy with one character while the rest go on pre-programmed auto-pilot. It didn't really feel like FF any more.
To be fair, I'd say I only got about 10-15 hours into the game, but it didn't grab me at all.
Posted by Dr Strangelove (Member # 8331) on :
I really enjoyed XII personally, though it was the first Final Fantasy that I dumped the requisite 60+ hours into, so I didn't have the reaction against the new system that a lot of people did. Since then I've played X, IX, parts of VIII, parts of VII (really want to play the whole thing) and one of the old old ones, though I can't remember which one (IV maybe?). And while I certainly enjoyed them all, especially the story in IX, XII remains my favorite (forgive me for the heresy).
Edit: I haven't played XIII or XIV after hearing from Ecthalion and others that they weren't worth it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Chrono Trigger for the most part ditched the random battles and it was a good idea then. Secret of Mana completely ditched random battles and that was a fantastic game as well. Why did they ever bring them back? I don't think anybody liked them.
FFXII had a good fighting system. I never got bored with it, so that's a plus. I liked the grids where you could go in any direction and unlock better and better things the deeper you got into a corner. The characters didn't really have fantastic personalities, and that was probably my biggest turn off. I just didn't like the main character at all. I like Ashe just fine, and even the chic in the playboy bunny outfit with actual heels for feet had an interesting voice, but Vaan just annoyed me whenever he was talking.
[ November 12, 2010, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by Happy Camper (Member # 5076) on :
I'm not completely sure why, but XII was the first modernish (PS or later) FF that I set down and didn't bother to go back to till weeks or months later to just power through to the end and see what happened. Haven't played XIII, since I don't have a platform for it. XIV, I beta'd briefly and thought it was awful. Would never pay to play that kind of grindfest.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:The new fight system changed the game from turn-based strategic combat using your whole party, to wildly running around after your enemy with one character while the rest go on pre-programmed auto-pilot. It didn't really feel like FF any more.
You can emulate the old FF system by setting the battle speed to slowest and then manually entering all commands for all the party members each turn and forsaking Gambits. But if you do this even for 20 minutes you realize how tired it is.
quote:I just didn't like the main character at all. I like Ashe just fine, and even the chic in the playboy bunny outfit with actual heels for feet had an interesting voice, but Vaan just annoyed me whenever he was talking.
Vaan's story is actually kind of refreshing for the FF series. He has to be taught through most of the game, mostly by balthier and fran, what he lacks in terms of perspective as well as class.
[ November 13, 2010, 06:39 AM: Message edited by: Samprimary ]
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:The new fight system changed the game from turn-based strategic combat using your whole party, to wildly running around after your enemy with one character while the rest go on pre-programmed auto-pilot. It didn't really feel like FF any more.
You can emulate the old FF system by setting the battle speed to slowest and then manually entering all commands for all the party members each turn and forsaking Gambits. But if you do this even for 20 minutes you realize how tired it is.
quote:I just didn't like the main character at all. I like Ashe just fine, and even the chic in the playboy bunny outfit with actual heels for feet had an interesting voice, but Vaan just annoyed me whenever he was talking.
Vaan's story is actually kind of refreshing for the FF series. He has to be taught through most of the game, mostly by balthier and fran, what he lacks in terms of perspective as well as class.
I agree with Sam. Vaan was unique in that he wasn't really a hero. Though he could be considered the "main" character, there wasn't anything special about him. The main storyline didn't revolve around him, there wasn't any secret past to him, he was just along for the ride.
The only other FF that had this was FFVI. Each character in your party was just a person that joins up with others to stop an evil clown man.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
quote:The main storyline didn't revolve around him, there wasn't any secret past to him, he was just along for the ride.
Which, while different, is hardly an interesting feature in a main character.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
i think thats why i find 4, 7, 9 and 10 to be the most compelling. Each character has their own story that usually unfolds as the game goes along. With 7 you could have broke the game down into chapters by character. Some of the characters arent very interesting granted, like The twins in 4, Qiina (sp?) in 9 etc.
Those old jrpgs arent built to stand up to fast-paced gameplay or generalised archetypical plots. The characters really moved the games along and made them worth playing.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by jebus202:
quote:The main storyline didn't revolve around him, there wasn't any secret past to him, he was just along for the ride.
Which, while different, is hardly an interesting feature in a main character.
It allows him to actually evolve into something. You're watching him learn how not to be a dolt, and you get to view the more interesting non-adolescent story of adults from his perspective until he figures it out and picks up a role in his own right. I'll take it over being an underwater football player who was invented by ghosts which were the dream of a dead civilization's dream and then sent through time to kill his dad who has become satan.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
Somehow you're not seeing the level of unbelievable awesome in your description of FFX.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
I kind of got the impression that both Tidus and his father were real when sent through time, but because the energies of Sin were eventually destroyed that link could not hold him in the same reality as the others.
Overall i felt that the story for 10 was one of the better ones. What i didnt like was the ease of the combat mechanic. It got boring to simply associate a specific enemy to a specific character. 10 was also the first very linear game with no real world exploration which took away from the experience.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I liked 10, I just think 12 is better. Either way, I suspect that 12 will be the last good one they ever make unless the studio is drastically reformed.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
with Nier and infinite undescovery being pretty bad games id have to say 12 is going to be the last good game for quite a while....
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Sigh. How depressing. What ever happened to the guys who made Chrono Trigger, anyway? Enix and Square are the same company now, after all... (I don't mean Akira Toriyama, I mean the other guys)
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
yea i remember in the 90's i'd buy any game with the squaresoft name branded on it....
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
To be fair, back then they tended to make good games...
Posted by Sa'eed (Member # 12368) on :
I remember back in the summer before I started middle school (summer 97) I had somehow come to acquire Final Fantasy III (also known as VI). Before that, all I had ever played was Super Mario/Donkey Kong Country games/Super Mario Kart/MegamanX. I didn't have any experience with RPGs or was any familiar with fantasy storytelling.
Anyway, that was the most intense gaming I've ever experienced. Everything in the game had the optimum impact on me, from the dreariness of the town of Narsh (where you start the game) to the single most epic moment of gaming at the midway point of the game (the onset of the World of Ruins.) The creatures, the towns, the music, the characters, the grand storytelling, the humor, the emotion -- all were splendid and brought together perfectly and I think it brought me to tears several times.
One thing I like about the game in retrospect is its art style and 2d graphics (which are very well done and don't look cheap.) It somehow engages the imagination more and allows the creators to get away with gaming mechanics and humor that don't seem to be compatible with 3D.
A year later I played FFVII and had nearly as a good a time. Squaresoft however lost me with FFVIII. By that point they had the infrastructure to churn out another FF title for the PS and (apparently) none of the eagerness and ambition to make another great title. All their subsequent titles followed this path.
I unfortunately missed out on "Chrono Trigger" in the late 90s. Maybe I'll get around to it one of those days on the DS...
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
I've always found it confusing that people seem to hate 8 so much. To me 8 has always been the easiest one to re-play. The world is created well, with plenty of side areas and dungeons. I thought the characters were well done and advance significantly over the course of the game. The plot would (and probably has) make for a great book/movie with a few exceptions (mainly that i never bought the amnesia gimmick)
The game mechanics didnt really bother me, i rather enjoyed the junction system. Of course the menue is convoluted, confusing and really big. And spending hours drawing magic or playing cards for items to refine is annoying. Other than that i never really understood the ire it brought from people.
That being said i thought 9 was a much better game. It remains my favorite of the series and the last one that I considered "great".
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
I couldn't get into IX when I played it. Perhaps a revisit is in order.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Hey, if anyone is still playing this, I'd like an update for when (.. if?) the game runs out of free months. The game's peak hours is down below 20,000 so I want to see what the census shows happening between the last day of free play and the first day of paid subscription play.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I'll keep you updated. I logged in yesterday after about a month, and I will say I was fairly impressed by the changes they have made. The input lag and inventory lag has been resolved, and the UI has been improved drastically. They have also lowered the amount of SP and EXP needed to rank up.
I will probably play it for another week, but when Cataclysm lands I'll probably never boot it up again.
Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
unless it goes free to play im not gonna touch it again
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
Nobody is. Whole game only has lingerers left saying they have faith for the "miracle patch".
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:First of all, I would like to apologize for our inability to fully satisfy our users with the initial release of FINAL FANTASY XIV. I take full responsibility for the game's current situation, and have therefore made the decision to step down from my role as producer. A number of concerns that have been voiced by users, such as the design of the user interface, availability of tutorials and game content, and battle system functionality, represent key issues that must be addressed. While improvements are already well underway in many areas, we were unfortunately not able to incorporate player feedback as quickly as we would have liked. We are aware, however, that in many cases, addressing these issues will call for a reworking of game elements. As these changes are our first priority, they will be commanding our full attention and efforts. It is to that end that we have put a new organizational structure into place for the development team. Under this new system, FINAL FANTASY XIV will see changes and additions in line with the desires and expectations of players. Though no longer producer, I will be continuing to support the development team in other capacities, and personally hope that you will continue your adventures in the realm of Eorzea.
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