Final Fantasy XIV Free Trial Extended Indefinitely

[Logan Westbrook]

Final Fantasy XIV Free Trial Extended Indefinitely

Square Enix has restructured the Final Fantasy XIV team in the hopes of getting the ailing MMO back on track as quickly as possible.

Final Fantasy XIV still isn't fixed, but it still doesn't cost anything either. Square Enix has extended the free trial period for the game for the third time, with no word for when the game's monthly fees are likely to kick in.

In a statement on the Final Fantasy XIV website, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada said that the game still hadn't reached the levels of enjoyment that the company wanted. Because of this, Square Enix was extending the trial period indefinitely, until it had a clearer roadmap of how long it would take to fix everything. In an effort to speed this process along, Naoki Yoshida has taken over as the game's director and producer, with a reorganized team behind him. Wada described Yoshida as charismatic and passionate man, who made customer satisfaction his top priority.

Wada also announced a delay for the PlayStation 3 version of the game, saying that Square Enix didn't want to simply convert the PC version in its current state. Instead, he said, it wanted it to be the same, fixed experience it had planned for the PC, which meant ditching the scheduled March release date. Wada didn't offer a replacement date, presumably because it's so dependent on how long it takes to fix the PC version.

You have to give Square Enix credit for both owning up to its mistakes, and not making its fans pay for them. At the same time, however, being contrite doesn't really excuse releasing the game in such a sorry state in the first place. The game's now-former producer, Hiromichi Tanaka commented [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105408-Square-Attempts-to-Explain-Final-Fantasy-XIVs-Foibles] in the past that the team ran out of time, suggesting that Square Enix was unwilling to move the release date. You have to assume that this was for some financial or logistical reason, but there will be a point where running the game for free stops being more cost effective than simply delaying it would have been.

Source: Final Fantasy XIV [http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=c499e4c5df4f3f0fde1fb47a28574cb9c3991c9f] via CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=279986?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-News-RSS]



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[Daystar Clarion]

I wonder how much money Square Enix will lose if this game flops.

 

[Centrophy]

Hmm, I'm just waiting on them to finally officially say "Yeah, uhm at this point we're just going to go with a F2P model." It's doubtful but at this point it's basically what it is... well that and free beta testing.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Might as well convert it into a free-to-play...

They won't, though.

 

[EmzOLV]

Might as well convert it into a free-to-play...

They won't, though.

Its a shame though, they're already losing money on it as it is. What else are they going to do with it?
I can't imagine how much stuff they have to fix :S

 

[Abedeus]

Too bad you still have to PAY for the box itself.

Not worth it.

 

[sunami88]

If you've got about a billion hours (I watched this when recently house-locked due to a cold that seriously kicked my ass), this is a really IN DEPTH explanation of why this game fails for just about every single reason ever.

Seriously, watch at least 1 or 2 parts. [http://www.youtube.com/user/BlueXephos#p/c/561514793F6CB99F/0/aF7vrQ04_q4]. Who the hell green lit this game?

 

[GiantRedButton]

console interface for a pc mmo? never going to work. Dc universe tries the same thing, to make the pc game more like the ps3 version, to bad this is going to flop on pc too.

 

[viranimus]

Well its really not in that bad of shape.. I mean yes its in bad shape but its not like there isnt something salvageable there.

Biggest thing I think needs to happen is a major expansion of the combat class system. The game literally has twice as many non combat classes as combat classes and given that combat is what MMOs are generally built on, basing an MMO on tradeskills is not logical.

They also need to up the ante with the level of content. What they made was good, and at times even compelling, but there simply wasnt enough of it.

Also, having the quest system even at low levels being relegated to the equivilent of dailies is just bad. It basically means that the whole questing system has no sense of unique char and becomes just a repetitive grind through similar events.

Honestly, when you have a staff (well i guess its had now)to work on these things, that would not take long.

Make those improvements, Leave what exists in the game as a F2P extended demo to lure people into trying it, then take the repairs and apply it as an expansion and leave the content in the expansion as P2P model and moving forward and they can turn it into something viable.

The biggest problems was they rushed the game out the door in the hopes of getting the jump on cataclysm and ToR and the game reflects it as it feels completely unfinished. Focusing entirely too much of the content on tradeskill type exp and honestly, the system specs were a little bit high for widespread access. The prior two can be fixed. the latter... well time will fix.

My question is given that it is in this state, should they not open it up to free registration and use this opportunity to try to garner some legitmate interest in the game while they are working on the extended beta period?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ah deadlines...

I wonder how much money Square Enix will lose if this game flops.

If? I think it's already on it's back gasping for air.

Much as I deplore Valve's "Soon", you have to admit that it's better than Square's "NOW!...oh, hold on....no...don't do that."

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

I can see this struggling under its own weight then promptly collapsing when Square Enix get bored and move on.

 

[viranimus]

console interface for a pc mmo? never going to work. Dc universe tries the same thing, to make the pc game more like the ps3 version, to bad this is going to flop on pc too.

I dont know if that is exactly a fair comparison. In the XIV section your seeing someone selling items selectively, choosing what is to be sold, and specifying the number of each. Where as in the WoW section not only is everything already organized its not selling stackable items. Ill grant you it is slower in XIV, but still well within an acceptable threshold given the more specific nature. The video seems more like someone who is purposely trying to accentuate the negative of XIV and the positive of WoW with a very clear bias. As for it never working, The selling and AH system in XIV is fairly close to the one from XI and it has worked for XI just fine on both console and PC. And neither are all that different or more time consuming than what is present in WoW, or hell basically any MMO Auction system outside of Everquest 1s archaic "you must leave your toon logged in to allow sales" system.

 

[megs1120]

How did they go from Final Fantasy XI, which, forgiving its consolized controls, is at least decent, to this unmitigated disaster? Is the FFXIV team made up of completely different people?

 

[The Rockerfly]

Good, after Final Fantasy X Square Enix has been doing nothing but give the fans shit. I honestly couldn't care less about the company than I do now

Stupid MMO's I hate the lot of you

 

[DarkRedLion]

I don't know. Between WoW: Cataclysm, Guild Wars 2 and the Star Wars MMO, I don't see FFXIV recovering from this blow anytime soon.

I assume the level of players have decreased a lot in this recent month?

 

[GiantRedButton]

console interface for a pc mmo? never going to work. Dc universe tries the same thing, to make the pc game more like the ps3 version, to bad this is going to flop on pc too.

I dont know if that is exactly a fair comparison. In the XIV section your seeing someone selling items selectively, choosing what is to be sold, and specifying the number of each. Where as in the WoW section not only is everything already organized its not selling stackable items. Ill grant you it is slower in XIV, but still well within an acceptable threshold given the more specific nature. The video seems more like someone who is purposely trying to accentuate the negative of XIV and the positive of WoW with a very clear bias. As for it never working, The selling and AH system in XIV is fairly close to the one from XI and it has worked for XI just fine on both console and PC. And neither are all that different or more time consuming than what is present in WoW, or hell basically any MMO Auction system outside of Everquest 1s archaic "you must leave your toon logged in to allow sales" system.

In wow you select item by pointing on them with your cursor, he did just that. If the items were different it would work just as fast, but the player didn't think he should sell his gear so he bought the cheapest thing possible for demonstration.
Also note that he is vendoring stuff, not auctioning.
This is done better in almost every f2p mmo.

 

[viranimus]

console interface for a pc mmo? never going to work. Dc universe tries the same thing, to make the pc game more like the ps3 version, to bad this is going to flop on pc too.

I dont know if that is exactly a fair comparison. In the XIV section your seeing someone selling items selectively, choosing what is to be sold, and specifying the number of each. Where as in the WoW section not only is everything already organized its not selling stackable items. Ill grant you it is slower in XIV, but still well within an acceptable threshold given the more specific nature. The video seems more like someone who is purposely trying to accentuate the negative of XIV and the positive of WoW with a very clear bias. As for it never working, The selling and AH system in XIV is fairly close to the one from XI and it has worked for XI just fine on both console and PC. And neither are all that different or more time consuming than what is present in WoW, or hell basically any MMO Auction system outside of Everquest 1s archaic "you must leave your toon logged in to allow sales" system.

In wow you select item by pointing on them with your cursor, he did just that. If the items were different it would work just as fast, but the player didn't think he should sell his gear so he bought the cheapest thing possible for demonstration.

Not arguing that wow is a degree faster. What I was trying to say that was a clearly biased comparison, because just like the example given in the XIV portion, In WoW you can spend a lot of time trying to find the item you want to sell having to look in each respective bag for it and for items that have similar icons then mouse over them to get the tool tip description for it to differentiate. Ive played XIV, WoW and XI, I know how their interfaces work and I know from practical experience in all 3 that the interfaces are not that dissimilar and this video is purposely trying to make it look worse than it actually is.

Im not saying theres not a load of problems with XIV.. Im just saying give credit, or in this case, discredit where it is actually due.

 

[Lilani]

I wonder how much money Square Enix will lose if this game flops.

They sort of intended it as a new home for current Final Fantasy XI players, so I think unless they can't get this to work for the next couple of years, failure isn't an option. I'll be starting it after Christmas and joining my buddies who already switched. At this point they're sticking with it and seeing how far it goes.