Final Fantasy XIV Alpha Has "No Major Problems"

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Now, if you ask me (which you haven't), I would say that those are all the elements that eventually led to a degrading of what made the game unique in this hemisphere and my eventual departure from a world I had known and loved because it had become something else, along with the majority of my LS of course.

If they were to make XIV more tuned to how XI started I might just have to fire my old LS back up to get to the screen again.

This is one issue I haven't been able to work out how to solve.

In FFXI (and other MMOs of the EQ generation, in many ways) the main appeal was how hard it was to get anything done, which made your accomplishments feel more valuable, and also how much you were forced to cooperate with other people, which led to a tighter-knit community.

On the other hand, most people just can't put in that kind of a commitment. They have limited time to play or else they have other games competing for their attention, and so they want as few barriers between themselves and being able to actually play the game as possible. These people, who are much more common than those who can deal with such a game, dislike the hoops that FFXI forces them to jump through.

It feels like it's impossible to make a game like FFXI anymore, because the company would never get a worthwhile subscriber base. Gamers as a whole have moved past that style of MMO, and the ones who enjoy that kind of thing are already devoting their time to a game like it. And it really is impossible to play more than one game of that type, considering the time commitment it requires.

GW2 comes the closest to striking a middle ground, encouraging cooperation by not putting any barriers between you and other people (no mob-tagging, skill combos, instanced gathering and quest item spawns, no world PvP, etc.) but never requiring it unless it's a large event. I really enjoy it, but I still feel like something special has been lost with the death of the EQ/FFXI era of MMOs.

Captcha: can I love? I feel this is related somehow!

 

[Lunar Templar]

wow ...

they're still working on this? I'd thought the plug was pulled awhile ago.

eh, the relaunch should be better, not like it could be much worse then last time

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Now, if you ask me (which you haven't), I would say that those are all the elements that eventually led to a degrading of what made the game unique in this hemisphere and my eventual departure from a world I had known and loved because it had become something else, along with the majority of my LS of course.

If they were to make XIV more tuned to how XI started I might just have to fire my old LS back up to get to the screen again.

This is one issue I haven't been able to work out how to solve.

In FFXI (and other MMOs of the EQ generation, in many ways) the main appeal was how hard it was to get anything done, which made your accomplishments feel more valuable, and also how much you were forced to cooperate with other people, which led to a tighter-knit community.

On the other hand, most people just can't put in that kind of a commitment. They have limited time to play or else they have other games competing for their attention, and so they want as few barriers between themselves and being able to actually play the game as possible. These people, who are much more common than those who can deal with such a game, dislike the hoops that FFXI forces them to jump through.

It feels like it's impossible to make a game like FFXI anymore, because the company would never get a worthwhile subscriber base. Gamers as a whole have moved past that style of MMO, and the ones who enjoy that kind of thing are already devoting their time to a game like it. And it really is impossible to play more than one game of that type, considering the time commitment it requires.

GW2 comes the closest to striking a middle ground, encouraging cooperation by not putting any barriers between you and other people (no mob-tagging, skill combos, instanced gathering and quest item spawns, no world PvP, etc.) but never requiring it unless it's a large event. I really enjoy it, but I still feel like something special has been lost with the death of the EQ/FFXI era of MMOs.

Captcha: can I love? I feel this is related somehow!

It's the tight knit communities that I miss and the cooperative play requirements. I just don't see much of the point of MMOs that don't require group-work and encourage the individualism that single player games already deliver - except as providing an arena for a bunch of single player loose coalitions to brag about their accomplishments to each other which just isn't my scene.