Why another complex minigame that will probably die in 2 weeks?

[Berethos]

has anyone considered that this game might just Might be for the 'new' Chinese player base?

Did we consider that they added the Japanese Mahjong variation, popular/standard form in Japan, with the intent of appealing to a Chinese player base, who would likely be more interested in their own version? Nah, not really.

It's for the current playerbase, created by "just a few members of the dev team" (that's a quote from the digest for the latest live letter, so that's direct from them). They also had the following to say:

"We also wanted to give players globally a chance to experience a broad variety of types of gameplay. As we continue to create original content for FFXIV, we would also like to implement other various types of online game features not normally found in an MMORPG setting, so please look forward to them!

Originally we had planned to develop a poker game, but there are different legal rules with those kinds of games and how they are perceived in different countries, so we couldn’t implement poker as-is into FFXIV. We’re currently making some adjustments for this one!"

It's literally because they like Mahjong and decided to add it to the game because they want people to experience it and hopefully have fun learning and playing it.

[Alleo]

I mean, what's the alternative? Not offer any prizes at all for difficult achievements because someone, somewhere might want to collect it but be bad at whatever activity is required?

Offer something specific to Mahjong? Certain glamour looks for the "stones", titles. In the end its a mini game. Should a mini game really have big rewards? Isnt it already rewarding to play something if its fun? I mean this seems to be a popular game in asian countries, shoulndt the implementation itself not be enough already? And maybe some nice amount of MGP for the time on top of that.

[Kreyd]

[SDaemon]

Offer something specific to Mahjong? Certain glamour looks for the "stones", titles. In the end its a mini game. Should a mini game really have big rewards? Isnt it already rewarding to play something if its fun? I mean this seems to be a popular game in asian countries, shoulndt the implementation itself not be enough already? And maybe some nice amount of MGP for the time on top of that.

I'm trying to figure out the point you are trying to make. First is seems you are saying that an orchestration scroll, of all things, is too valuable a reward for a mini-game. Then it seems you are saying that enjoyment should be a game content's own reward, to which I'm left wondering what the point of any reward is in that situation.

What kind of content do you feel justifies getting an orchestration scroll from?

[Kewitt]

See how the story is they didn't spent a lot of company time on this, Just emplyess just worked on it and showed it to (YP). I would say it's a win. Anything that adds content that will bring in more people is worth it.
That being said most people in the west don't understand it.
And I would say 60 mins is a little long for some people.

[LalaRu]

Mahjong is surely a complex game, but it have been introduced just as another Saucer's tool, and have a completely optional challenge log of just playing it twice in a week.
I don't see any reason why people feels being "forced" to play it.
It is imho a nice attempt to bring in the game something more 'serious' as side game. Wish they make Chess next.

[Alleo]

I'm trying to figure out the point you are trying to make. First is seems you are saying that an orchestration scroll, of all things, is too valuable a reward for a mini-game. Then it seems you are saying that enjoyment should be a game content's own reward, to which I'm left wondering what the point of any reward is in that situation.

What kind of content do you feel justifies getting an orchestration scroll from?

Instances where the music plays. And if the music plays in gold saucer then let it be bought with MGP. IMO Mini games themselves dont need rewards. Playing them should be rewarding enough. And if you need to have some kind of reward to make the Gold saucer more interesting in the long run then do it like the mounts and stuff and put it behind MGP. This way people can get the rewards by playing the mini games that they like. Other content like dungeons do need more rewards because they need to be kept at least a bit alive because newer people need to run it too while mini games are just a nice spare time investment.

I mean you can always run old stuff again for drops. LoV and their minions are for example locked away for players if they did not get it when it was still active enough, the same might happen with Mahjong. So if you still want those minions you might need to "cheat" for it by getting friends togethter who are winning or losing on purpose. I just dont find that good.

[Naryoril]

Simply put: Because the Japanese, for whatever to me incomprehensible reason, really really love mahjong. And since there are already so many electronic versions of it out there, it's easy and quick to implement. Like it would also be really easy to implement chess, you can bet you can just buy the AI for it somewhere for a relatively low amount of money.