Square Attempts to Explain Final Fantasy XIV's Foibles
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
Once again, SE proves they care more about how pretty their game is as opposed to the mechanics behind it. And that's coming from someone that voluntarily played FFXI for six years. FFXIV came out way too fast... the longer an MMO gets pushed back, the better. Old Republic got pushed back from their tentative Spring of '11 date, and as far as I'm concerned it's all for the better
So now thanks to FFXIV, I have to get another 36 levels (counting sub-job) in FFXI, because their new game is so horrendous I have to go back to the old one.
So now thanks to FFXIV, I have to get another 36 levels (counting sub-job) in FFXI, because their new game is so horrendous I have to go back to the old one.
UI mods are kinda necessary for any mmo success. this is one time where copying blizzard would have been a good ideaJamboxdotcom said:
Ok.
Before I start this I must say. Yes, FFXIV IS broken and unfinished without question or debate.
But seriously there are some other major factors that have nothing to do with the game that are related to its failure.
WoT
Honestly the only way to "fix" this, is to finish the game, Announce what has already been released will basically become Free to play in order to try to lure people in, then apply the rest of the content as the games first expansion and make that a payable service. Do the right thing and give that content free to those who bought the game and paid subscriptions through their paid beta period and even with all that Honestly they may have to ditch the notion of monthly subscriptions all together with how they botched this release and move more toward a guild wars type model. There is something worth salvaging there, but honestly the reputation that has been built by the company and the game may be something that is impossible to overcome.
Before I start this I must say. Yes, FFXIV IS broken and unfinished without question or debate.
But seriously there are some other major factors that have nothing to do with the game that are related to its failure.
WoT
First off Square Enix is long since out of touch. If you need proof, they sit down and say, here we will start to address what went wrong.. We wont mention the fact that the game is tradeskill based, We wont mention that the game is severely lacking in combat classes or advanced classes, We wont mention that most of the classes basically have little or no ties to FF lore, we wont mention that we didnt finish putting in all the narrative content we wanted to.. No we will point out the problems relating to the control interface, cause even though it was the same team who dev'd FFXI which utilized a controller and was on multiple consoles, We couldnt work out the logistics of a controller for consoles. Seriously, its this out of touch thinking that SE seems to get worse about yearly that is making people feel like they have completely lost touch with their demographic as well as what it takes to make an enjoyable game experience.
Secondly is the timing. Honestly, had the product they released in September been released before FF13, the backlash would have been no where near as bad. People still had a bad taste for SE thanks to what they got out of 13 and it was only made more sour with the release of 14. Again, the game IS broken and incomplete, but honestly people HAVE made it out to be infinitely worse than it actually is.
Next is the people. Its funny Ive came across so many people spouting opinions on about how the game was doomed to failure, or how the game is broken who inadvertantly admit they never actually played it and based their opinions off of second hand information. Again, the game is broken and incomplete, but people have made it into something far worse than it actually is.
Square Enix got massively confused by their own trending. It seems pretty clear that with the heavy emphasis that was placed on tradeskills in 14 came directly from seeing how much time people in XI invested into trade skills. So they thought, people are doing this, so we expand on it. What they missed is the fact people were doing so much tradeskills in XI out of need and the fact that without proper gear/money to drive leveling and how forcibly XI required grouping that your only left with either making money or trying to level and if leveling is dictated by your gear, then you have to invest time into securing it. Tradeskills can be enjoyable for some. Hell Eve Online proves this. But even tradeskill people dont want to spend all their time doing nothing but tradeskill related activities. Tradeskills are a means to an end, not the other way around. They made a massive error in judgment by thinking otherwise.
Honestly, I played the game and I was surprised by its potential. It really DOES have the potential to be a great MMO. But as ive said multiple times, the game is not finished and had no reason to be released yet. Once they get a proper level of content in the game, and expand the combat classes to be more in line with a traditional MMO the game might have had a chance to compete. Problem is, even if they fix it, people wont care and wont give it a chance, thanks to this games ruined reputation, as well as SE ruining their own reputation. People simply will not give it a chance.
Secondly is the timing. Honestly, had the product they released in September been released before FF13, the backlash would have been no where near as bad. People still had a bad taste for SE thanks to what they got out of 13 and it was only made more sour with the release of 14. Again, the game IS broken and incomplete, but honestly people HAVE made it out to be infinitely worse than it actually is.
Next is the people. Its funny Ive came across so many people spouting opinions on about how the game was doomed to failure, or how the game is broken who inadvertantly admit they never actually played it and based their opinions off of second hand information. Again, the game is broken and incomplete, but people have made it into something far worse than it actually is.
Square Enix got massively confused by their own trending. It seems pretty clear that with the heavy emphasis that was placed on tradeskills in 14 came directly from seeing how much time people in XI invested into trade skills. So they thought, people are doing this, so we expand on it. What they missed is the fact people were doing so much tradeskills in XI out of need and the fact that without proper gear/money to drive leveling and how forcibly XI required grouping that your only left with either making money or trying to level and if leveling is dictated by your gear, then you have to invest time into securing it. Tradeskills can be enjoyable for some. Hell Eve Online proves this. But even tradeskill people dont want to spend all their time doing nothing but tradeskill related activities. Tradeskills are a means to an end, not the other way around. They made a massive error in judgment by thinking otherwise.
Honestly, I played the game and I was surprised by its potential. It really DOES have the potential to be a great MMO. But as ive said multiple times, the game is not finished and had no reason to be released yet. Once they get a proper level of content in the game, and expand the combat classes to be more in line with a traditional MMO the game might have had a chance to compete. Problem is, even if they fix it, people wont care and wont give it a chance, thanks to this games ruined reputation, as well as SE ruining their own reputation. People simply will not give it a chance.
Honestly the only way to "fix" this, is to finish the game, Announce what has already been released will basically become Free to play in order to try to lure people in, then apply the rest of the content as the games first expansion and make that a payable service. Do the right thing and give that content free to those who bought the game and paid subscriptions through their paid beta period and even with all that Honestly they may have to ditch the notion of monthly subscriptions all together with how they botched this release and move more toward a guild wars type model. There is something worth salvaging there, but honestly the reputation that has been built by the company and the game may be something that is impossible to overcome.