FFXIV A Realm Reborn

At least some people are skeptical but willing to try XIV.

It's still in a closed BETA and has 1 million+ players. I've played every NA Final Fanatasy and RPG from SE since Mystic Quest and I can tell you if you're a FF fan missing XIV is completely your loss.

XI had great lore, and original ideas, but for once I'm seeing SE utilize all the amazing FF lore, and things that worked from previous games into one "True FF MMO" They've borrowed from

FF1: Warriors of Light
FF3: Crystal Tower
http://i44.tinypic.com/r03510.jpg
FF4: Dragoon AF, and some story
FF5: Jobs system
FF6: Magitek Riders, Empire
FF7: Materia, Aetheryte, Golden Saucer, Limit Breaks
FF11: Races, Monsters, 3 base cities, numerious other things,
FF12: Judge like Emperial Legetus's & Hunting Logs
http://i43.tinypic.com/1pgyzk.jpg
FF13: numerious monsters, ideas

AND FFXIV:
Quests
in depth Crafting & Gathering
Primals and new beast tribes
Housing
unique story
new lore
new battlesystem
Many more new things..

This shows a good selection
http://youtu.be/HHnxfrvgdqw

"The Red Moon" in reference to Dalamud is also a tiny homage to FF IV =D

Nothing from FFX saddens me greatly.

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Originally Posted by Runespider

If you are fine with playing a bland carbon copy of every other mmo then maybe it is for you, it doesn't really seem to have any soul to the game honestly, it's like something a room full of suits put together by copying stuff from other companies that put more though into their games. There is nothing unique or exciting in XIV at all and that is one of the major reasons you will log into it and just rush to cap for "endgame". You won't make a group to level with and make friends, you'ill do boring quest after boring quest and do instanced dungeons when the cross server matcher finally makes the group for you. You won't get the vast array of different content XI had and you won't get the community built out of party based leveling.

For me I want something unique in a new mmo that will make the massive investment of my time and money worthwhile, the majority of MMO players are really not easy to satisfy these days (look at the massive player drop in Gw2) because they've seen this "ingredients to make an mmo" over and over again and with a game that cost as much to create as XIV did being bland and unoriginal as it is not going to ensure it gets the large long-term following it needs.

XIV has nice graphics which don't really beat what's out there now or have the charm of XI imo (and certainly not the newer games coming out soon) it has nothing from XI which made it great and it simply copies the norm of every other newer mmo. Maybe you think that's the key to success? Offer a product totally unlike the previous one that was successfull and offer a bland copy of every other new mmo that failed to beat the product it was based on.

If as a XI player you are looking to get into XIV thinking you will be playing something very much like XI but prettier you will be sorely dissapointed. XIV is nothing like XI at all, it's as far away from it as you can get without paying a sub to Blizzard. If you are on the fence just go and play the beta for free, actually playing the game does far more than looking at some pretty pictures that tell you nothing about the game.

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You have have no argument whatsoever. This is bandwagon hate at its finest.

You state no whys. You give no reasons. You say the game is bland and has no soul, simply because it uses systems that have been proven to work?

I'm actually glad you aren't going to play it. I feel sorry for any server you would end up going to with that kind of idiotic attitude.

By Runespider's logic every car/tv/etc must bring something new to it instead of taking what works and improving/flavoring them.

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Originally Posted by Finuve

I'm pretty sure the words "MMO Standards" are the reason this genre has become so boring and stale

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Now go explain that to game producers and to the public as well.

Look at how they treated 11 while it was making them money hand over fist and all the blunder along the way from the devs. Most likely dictated by the higher ups to drag out content as long as they could anyway possible, using 1% drop rates, 24 hour spawns, pitting the players against each to claim those spawns so on.

So ask your self this can you really expect not to be treated like that again or do you have confidence that SE would be willing to devote the resources needed to follow the WoW model of the gear treadmill. Before some one says it won't be like WoW with a gear treadmill then what would it be like, follow the EQ/FFXI model which they seem to be moving away from and since they failed so badly at being different the higher ups are not going to allow for anything else that is unproven. I personally can enjoy both WoW treadmill or the grind of EQ/FFXI but I just can't see SE having the resources or willingness to do it right to support a decent gear treadmill.

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Originally Posted by Ravenmore

Look at how they treated 11 while it was making them money hand over fist and all the blunder along the way from the devs. Most likely dictated by the higher ups to drag out content as long as they could anyway possible, using 1% drop rates, 24 hour spawns, pitting the players against each to claim those spawns so on.

So ask your self this can you really expect not to be treated like that again or do you have confidence that SE would be willing to devote the resources needed to follow the WoW model of the gear treadmill. Before some one says it won't be like WoW with a gear treadmill then what would it be like, follow the EQ/FFXI model which they seem to be moving away from and since they failed so badly at being different the higher ups are not going to allow for anything else that is unproven. I personally can enjoy both WoW treadmill or the grind of EQ/FFXI but I just can't see SE having the resources or willingness to do it right to support a decent gear treadmill.

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Your concerns about direction given XI's past history are valid, and while I cannot predict the future, I can say that the outlook is by far more promising than I'd ever seen in XI's history (I've been around since NA launch back in October 2003).

To start with, we have different directors/producers at the wheel. XI's lifecycle was mostly led by Hiromichi Tanaka, whom I dubbed a "brick wall". Under his direction, there was almost no community input, dev responses or updates, or even interviews. The only times people could really approach him or his team was at the Vana/Fanfestivals, and most of the time, we were given one of two responses "I don't know" [hi Sage Sundi!] or "We'll look into it".

Back during his time, the idea of official forums was brought up A LOT, and I wish I could find it, but I specifically remember Tanaka responding with "we have no plans for running an official forum. It would require too much resources to man them in multiple languages."

Fastforward 2011, we get XI forums. Hurray! Now we get to offer feedback and we get to have a closer relationship with the devs than before. Guess what? Tanaka is no longer in charge! (yes I know he came back for a brief stint, but he was just as quickly out the door again xD)

The same scenario happened over at XIV as soon as Tanaka resigned. Almost immediately, Yoshida began a relationship with the community, giving us some kind of commentary on what was going on at their end, what his future plans were, and how he was going to go about implementing said things. He has maintained this constant involvement with the community, and it shows.

Yoshida is the reason I have hope XIV won't go down the same, brickwall path XI suffered for so many years. It is a shame that XI spent so many years closed off from the devs that naturally many are untrusting of the direction the game is going. I can only hope that whatever it is Matsui is planning, that he does so carefully and meaningfully. As always, I may not be an active player, but I have always followed the update notes to see what is going on in the development cycle, and I try to keep optimistic that one day this game will see some good days again.

While having different producers and directors they still have the same higher ups that will be controlling the purse strings. The people in charge of the money will be rather tight with it seeing how 14 was the straw that broke SE's back and lead to massive losses for the company. Yes they put a lot of money into the rebuild but you can bet they have taken that from some where else long the way for 14 most likely from the first expansions budget.

While we can shout all day that it is a completely different game investors won't give two craps about that and only see FF14 as a venture that lost money, SE is aware of this as well since they didn't mention 14 once during their E3 event which is aimed mostly at investors. I fear that if it doesn't live up to investors expectations(which can be unrealistic) then expansions will be slow coming which would not sit well with the gear treadmill type MMO.

What investors are you talking about, specifically? It's been stated at least twice that SE has funded XIV entirely on their own money, therefore they don't have to pay any investors back. The only other company that is capable of doing the same thing is Blizzard.