Fixing FFXIV Means Basically Redoing the Game, Says Square Enix

[Logan Westbrook]

Fixing FFXIV Means Basically Redoing the Game, Says Square Enix

Square Enix's CEO says that problems with Final Fantasy XIV had done a lot of damage to the Final Fantasy brand.

Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada says that the amount of polish and work that MMO Final Fantasy XIV [http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-XIV-Pc/dp/B002I0JJ2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317130051&sr=8-1] needed to get it up to snuff was so great, that it basically amounted to remaking the game from scratch.

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Wada said that the Final Fantasy brand had been "greatly damaged" by the problems with FFXIV and that work on the game was ongoing. "We'll continue with our reform work," he said, "and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released." Final Fantasy XIV was notoriously broken when it came out late last year. Square Enix extended the free trial period, initially for a month, and then indefinitely [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106013-Final-Fantasy-XIV-Free-Trial-Extended-Indefinitely] while it tried to get the game working. Square Enix even reorganized the development team under new director Naoki Yoshida, who had previously worked on the Dragon Quest franchise.



While it's all well and good for Wada to be contrite now, it does beg the question as to why the game was released in such a sorry state in the first place. Comments [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105408-Square-Attempts-to-Explain-Final-Fantasy-XIVs-Foibles] from former producer Hiromichi Tanaka suggest that the Square Enix was unwilling to move or delay the game's launch, which resulted in a rushed product. If that is the case, it would seem to be a very short-sighted move on Square Enix's part.

Source: Andriasang [http://andriasang.com/comyby/]


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[manythings]

Well it's their own fault for not making it in the first place. Not to mention they have done a lot of stupid things not limited to FFIV... are people still playing it? I haven't heard anything in a long time.

 

[go-10]

I wanted to like/play XIV but I'll wait for DQ X instead

 

[Grey_Focks]

Yea, I agree. I played a little of it when it first came out and it just had nothing going for it. Had some neat ideas, but none of them played out well. They really need to just give up on the MMO front, take this as a learning experience and move on.

....and does anyone still even play it? Anyone?

 

[masticina]

Yup rushed out of the gate

Missing half the functions one expect and so on. Sure they beat World of Warcrafts Expansion but at what price. Don't get me wrong it isn't a terrible game.. it does a few interesting things and offers a few interesting quests. It has a better story to tell then many MMO's

It is not a bad MMO but it should definitely have been given at least 6 more months before it was brought out. A big problem indeed for Square Enix. A serious problem...

Right now they still have to run it free and you know better so for it. Lets hope they learned something [eyes FF XIII-2] ..or not.

 

[v3n0mat3]

FFXIV should be made from the ground up. I know they want to make it unique, but, there are things that they should take from WoW. For instance: Combat and trading, which are my two biggest complaints about both XI and XIV. They make the combat needlessly confusing and godawful slow for a more cinematic approach. If falls flat on its ass, in this instance. Make it more like WoW. Speed it up. Let US decide where the camera should be instead of locking it on the enemy. It just looks weird and jittery when I try to move in close. The trading system? HORRIBLE. Bartering in any MMO should be: RIGHT CLICK: BUY/SELL. SHIFT+RIGHT CLICK: BUY/SELL AN X AMOUNT OF WHAT YOU WANT. It should not take me 5 mins to sell things out of my inventory. Questing? Horrible. I was lost in the first 5 minutes of the game. I had no idea where to go, and the guy in front of me wasn't a newbie quest-giver, so I had no clue where I was going or what I was doing. I managed to stumble into one, after 20 mins of looking. Patching... was the worst thing I have ever experienced. I almost wanted to not bother with the game at all. A waste of 10 hours. Yes. 10 hours. Why? WHY?! All I'm saying is... keep the class system, because that's cool, but get rid of or fix everything else.

 

[Stall]

I like it how every other article discussing this press conference has been something along the lines of "FF Brand Damaged by XIV." The article on Gamesutra doesn't even MENTION this, nor does the article on the much less reputable, yet still more renowned than this site Massively. It's rather odd how the priority of two websites when reporting this are identical, yet on this site it appears totally different (at least in title only).

I guess this title just brings in the hits more, eh?

-snip-

Sounds like someone is a Wrath baby . Not that is a bad thing or an insult, but it just sounds like you don't know what to do when you try and play an MMO with some actual complexity instead of the simplified-to-the-point-of-near-insult design mentality like WOW. It really isn't the game's fault if you are lost because you were expecting something almost patronizing in terms of simplicity.

 

[Nami nom noms]

"While it's all well and good for Wada to be contrite now, it does beg the question as to why the game was released in such a sorry state in the first place."

Because Squeenix are a MESS these days, it's like they have no structure, and no one knows what they're doing.

Plus FF14 has not damaged the brand as much as they think... no, its actually FFX-2 onwards that has damaged the brand.

The only good thing they have left is Tetsuya Nomura.

 

[Sabrestar]

If indeed this was entirely a business/marketing decision on Square's part, it was boneheaded beyond belief. The game's already a laughingstock. Know what happens to buggy laughingstocks that eventually get polished into decent games?

They stay laughingstocks.

Once you've broken your reputation, it stays broken, and fixing the game won't stop it being a joke. The only thing you can do? Can it, and move on. Start learning from your mistakes.

There has been a lot of damage to the FF brand in recent years, but it's not fair to pin it all on 14. It should be pinned on general mismanagement of the brand by Square itself.

 

[bakan]

FFXVI has nice ideas and I like the story but they should have taken their time, maybe 9-12 month more time and they would have had a good product.

 

[LeonLethality]

They really need to just give up on the MMO front, take this as a learning experience and move on.

They don't need to give up, it's not like they can't make a good MMO, FFXI was amazing (though it did have its share of issues that I was HOPING XIV would fix, I was wrong), they just need to properly develop new MMOs and not rush them because rushing a game never makes for a good thing, especially when it's something like an MMO which is a huge investment and can't really afford to be screwed up.

 

[TheLastSamurai14]

Final Fantasy doesn't do nearly as well with an MMO as it does with the singleplayer games. FFXI did well, but they've left that game to die. And with XIV, the monthly revenue, however small or large it may be, still doesn't justify just how bad the MMO might be. I think they should just abandon the concept and move on.

In other news, Square becomes the next Valve. Where the hell is Episo- I mean Versus XIII!?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

FF's name was damaged WELL before XIV. The only talented they have left are the Tactics team, and they pretty much require Yasumi Matsuno (who's over at Level 5 right now) to make a good narrative.

Anyway, at least Square is admitting that XIV was a total disaster. Now if only they would admit that Motomu Toriyama is a worthless hack and fire him.

 

[Epona]

You have to admire the effort they are putting into fixing this game but a bad MMO launch is usually fatal and eventually Square Enix will throw in the towel and make Final Fantasy XIV free to play with microtransactions.

 

[Scrustle]

Is it just me or does Squeenix seem to be more interested in making trailers for games more than making games the games themselves?

 

[Siege_TF]

Is it just me or does Squeenix seem to be more interested in making trailers for games more than making games the games themselves?

The Jimquisition sure seems to think so as well.

Remaking the game from scratch is what 90% of the beta testers (that's original beta testers, not the ones playing right now who are essentially beta testers) were telling them to do, but the arrogant bastards didn't listen. As Extra Credits (another example of mismanagement getting brass fired, lol) said; a MMORPG needs to have a spectacular launch to crowbar MMO players out of whatever MMO they're currently playing (WoW mostly at the time) because the audience for MMO games is more or less capped.

Maybe that was the problem, being a not-Japaneese game SE might have just plain ignored WoW and considered it's only real competition to be Monster Hunter. In FFXI after NA release a lot of the JP players had in their search comments, hell it was even in a few dojin okkekais (I think that's what those non-canon vertical comics in the back of manga are called) I've read!

 

[Raika]

....and does anyone still even play it? Anyone?

I do. Quite a few people do. The Japanese player base seems to be fairly satisfied with it. I myself think it's perfectly serviceable now that it's been patched to high holy hell and back. The next patch is bringing in airships and chocobos! I'm hype!

In all seriousness, Final Fantasy XIV isn't worth paying for yet, and Square-Enix knows that for a fact, so what they're doing with this 'indefinite trial period' is all they can do to salvage their product. It's well on its way, and if it keeps this up, it'll be a premium-quality MMO within another year or so.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

The last game i enjoyed from them was FF XII and that was a while ago. I hope Versus is good enough to turn Square-Enix into a relevant company again.

 

[Nu-Hir]

Squenix released FFXIV waaaay to early, and it makes me wish I would have actually had a PC that could play the beta before committing my money to getting the Collectors Edition. I mean, I like the added stuff in the Collectors edition, and I think it was worth it just for that, but if I had known that the game was going to be as bad as it was, I wouldn't have even thought of buying the game.

I think the only real way to "fix" FFXIV will be to completely overhaul it and make it an HD version of FFXI, so you get rid of the "PS2 limitations" crowd. It's kind of heading that way since they took I think it was the Chains of Promathia Team and shipped them over to work on XIV, which is both good and bad. Good because XI has been able to stay afloat for almost ten years now. Bad because XI is what is keeping XIV running. They should have just held off for another year or two before even thinking of releasing XIV. Pushing it out before Cataclysm was a stupid move.

Is it just me or does Squeenix seem to be more interested in making trailers for games more than making games the games themselves?

No, I think they're more interested in making movies than they are video games, at least that's what Final Fantasy X - XIV have taught me.