What's makes an MMORPG fun? - 4Gamer chats with the Producers of FFXI, FFXIV, and DQX

[3Jane]

Yeah, that was definitely a great read. Yoshida definitely deserves more positive feed back from the community. Him and his crew did an excellent job at restoring FFXIV and bringing it to what it is now. It's sad some people in the community are too selfish about their own needs and don't understand what they are going through trying to please everyone.

Quite the opposite. The people who stood by FFXIV 1.0 from launch instead of walking away as many of you did and watched it grow into the wonderful game it grew into by 1.23, are simply showing their concern for a game they had such a high regard for and want to see it survive and prosper. It is not, certainly on my own part anyway, simply complaining from my own partisan position as regards game contend and overall development.
He would do well to pay attention to criticism, not to pander to every personal preference but just to listen to people.

[Zumi]

I think Yoshi P did a great job with 2.0. I played 1.0 and I much prefer 2.0 over it.

A lot of the negativity sometimes comes from a small minority that played 1.0 and like it better then 2.0 and basically devote most of their posts to how the game should be like 1.0. If you look view all of the most negative posters you can see a trend basically they only post negative stuff about what they don't like 2.0 and how they x, y or z should be like 1.0. The other problem is if you unsub you can still post.

[illuminapanic]

Quite the opposite. The people who stood by FFXIV 1.0 from launch instead of walking away as many of you did and watched it grow into the wonderful game it grew into by 1.23, are simply showing their concern for a game they had such a high regard for and wan to see it survive and prosper. It is not, certainly on my own part anyway, simply complaining from my own partisan position as regards game contend and overall development.
He would do well to pay attention to criticism, not to pander to every personal preference but just to listen to people.

I did leave shortly after playing 1.0. I got 2 classes to 50 and my blacksmith to 49 because I couldn't handle the limits on exp. So did a lot of people. Enough people left that even with the changes they made, it wasn't enough to bring back revenue to keep the game going. But ARR, 2.0. came and it's where it's at because of more changes.

My post wasn't directed to you or any supporters with "criticism", it's to a majority of the threads on the forums which are just plain negative feedback. There really isn't a need to bring up arguments about which is which because it's already discussed in another thread on the same page as this one. Why you took this on attack on you, I have no idea. Obviously all the developers pay attention to criticism, they pay attention to everything that goes on in forums, some people just don't understand that there is a variety of players in this game that it has to tend to and not everyone can or will be satisfied and they are doing the best they can do fix it. Yoshida just simply stated that it would be nice to see more positive feedback instead of negative.

[Mcshiggs]

His paycheck should be all the praise he should expect, I would like to see this game do well and thrive, but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend or stranger right now. The game was getting lots of praise after Yoshi took over, up until 1.23, but then they pretty much shot themselves in the foot, they promised more than they could deliver, there were countless delays, and with all the extra time they took to release, how could you expect to not have plenty of negative feedback after nearly a year of not following through on what they said. In the interview Yoshi says often times they can't tell us the reason why they do or don't do things, I understand that, but he needs to understand when they say we told you we were going to do something, but now we aren't, and can't tell you why there is going to be some vocal members of the community. I can only look at this game from one perspective though, as someone coming from the old XIV, and when they started talking about ARR, we were told not only would it be welcoming to new players, but there would also be plenty for returning players, well there isn't. A big chunk of my playtime in the beginning was redoing things I did before, like job quests, almost all were really close to the same, only now they are watered down solo versions of what we had.

The other thing that stood out at me in the interview was Yoshi's stance on playtime versus reward, and he said they plan to release more content that gives meaningful rewards that takes more time to complete, but I am curious to see if they actually follow through with this, and to what extent. Right now I struggle to log on for an hour or so a day to do dailies or a treasure map and whatever, coil once a week, most the time I can't even make it through a full CT each week thanks to the wonderful players in there, and after that, it just feels like I am wasting time, because even though I could do something like grind out the rest of my luminaries, why should I, the durability loss on them is almost meaningless. But still I pay, because I can justify an hour of entertainment per day for under 10 bucks a month, but I could easily see myself moving on if another game releases could offer more, I hope it doesn't come to that though, I have said before, I really hope they are holding out on us, and have tons of surprises for us in the next couple months.

[Ryios]

What's positive to say about this game? A world no one explores with no reason to do so. An ah system for a market that doesn't exist. Counter Productive RMT mechanics that do nothing but hurt the player base and fail to deterrent rmt (e.g. the counter rmt stuff should be removed imo). And a Duty Finder for everything leaving no reason to go anywhere.

Once you burn out on 8 man content, there is little in this game I would consider fun.

Now I will say this game has great graphics with a fantastic soundtrack. But that stuff is just eye and ear candy, I don't pay 15$ a month for pretty pictures and cool sounds. I pay 15$ a month to have a good time, and I just don't anymore.

[YoseiTakei]

Thanks OP for the translation. It really is a great read on the development perspective from back in the old days to modern game development. As someone working in a similar field and played old school MMORPG I 100% agree on what Yoshida said about the difference in modern player expectations. I hope there will be more articles like this that talks about development decisions.

[Swagcity]

Personally, the issue is not so much the game itself (although it could use work), but more so my play-style and preferences. I could not imagine playing XI without bst, nin, sam, drk, or blu (I like rdm, pup, and cor also). Perhaps this is why I struggle to find enjoyment in 14; I hated blm, mnk, drg, and pld. Smn was okay in XI (Have no idea what happened to the summons in XIV; considering ps2 limitations and all). This may sound bizarre, but when they add bst, sam, nin, musk, or blu, I will play more often, lol. There were several jobs in XI that I did not touch (Sub job reasons), but enjoyed the game nonetheless. Game play is pretty decent, nice animations, but the current jobs do not appeal to me (Lack of economy and crafting relevance also hurts). decent/pretty good game, but not for me; atm at least.

[Nekodar]

Personally, the issue is not so much the game itself (although it could use work), but more so my play-style and preferences. I could not imagine playing XI without bst, nin, sam, drk, or blu (I like rdm, pup, and cor also). Perhaps this is why I struggle to find enjoyment in 14; I hated blm, mnk, drg, and pld. Smn was okay in XI (Have no idea what happened to the summons in XIV; considering ps2 limitations and all). This may sound bizarre, but when they add bst, sam, nin, musk, or blu, I will play more often, lol. There were several jobs in XI that I did not touch (Sub job reasons), but enjoyed the game nonetheless. Game play is pretty decent, nice animations, but the current jobs do not appeal to me (Lack of economy and crafting relevance also hurts). decent/pretty good game, but not for me; atm at least.

BST, NIN, SAM, DRK and BLU were all added in expansion and were not part of the original release iirc.

[Sygmaelle]

The only gripe I could have in this game is that you pretty much need a good FC to do all the content, runs with Duty Finder and all the like for extremes and such are just plain terrible and its pretty sad.

Surprisingly enough, sometimes I find myself more wastin gils to repair my gear than actually downing content and its pretty frustrating. Not enough good players

Other than that, most magical game director. He know where it's at.

[Stanelis]

Praises shall be given to the game once it deserves them.There isn't currently enough stuff to do at 50 to make the game praiseworthy in the long run.