Final Fantasy XXIV Online (Not a Typo)

[Chocobits]

Sub-title for thread is "How to not mess up your next MMO"

Just going to throw out a few seemingly common sense items for consideration to implement in the next MMO version of Final Fantasy, whatever that version's number happens to be.

-Stop making overly complicated MMO designs that target multiple platforms. It is the accepted standard that if you are going to MMO, you are doing it on a PC. And you have proven twice now that you do not know how to or are not capable of properly coding software to be compatible with multiple platforms. Final Fantasy MMOs should be PC-only. Not because we wouldn't like to play them on consoles, but that actually doing it is a novelty and we already know you won't do it right and we will be stuck with spaghetti code for a decade+

-Auto-Translate is an awesome feature. Expand on that.

-Improved member and party search features and social networking features that are ready from the git-go. It might seem weird to understand, but most people that play MMOs tend to associate with those type of people IRL as well as online. Thus, we are going to have friends, coworkers and family right there on our server with us at launch time. We are gonna wanna coordinate and chat, share achievements, blog, create fan sites, fanvids, faqs and video tutorials, etc etc. Give us tools to coordinate all of this into 1 or 2 places instead of being flung helter skelter across Al Gore's intrawebz.

-NO MANDATORY FULL SCREEN THAT CRASHES ON ALT+TAB, CTRL+ESC, WINDOWS KEY, OR JAVA UPDATE POPUPS LOL! WE DON'T USE OUR PC'S AS A SANDBOX FOR 1 APPLICATION! LEARN2CODE!

Now I know you're saying, "But Choco.. you said this exact same stuff 4 years ago when project Rapture was publicly announced.."

Yes, I did. How many millions of USD (so as to not confuse this with Yen) and how much faith in your company name would you have saved listening to me then SE?

I'm giving away a free formula on how not to suck. This is the third or fourth time I've literally handed you victory, and you reached down and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I want you guys to succeed, I really do. But you don't know how when it comes to MMOs.

So, 4 years later~ish, I'm here saying the same things again. Please understand SE, I kick a lot of ass. Not as much as I used to, which was all the more reason to listen to me back then. Now, I have toned it down to a dull roar. But I can still design and produce a better MMO than you. I'll leave you to what you do best - storyboarding and music. You let me handle UI design, AI behavior, battle planning, city and landscape design............, social networking, client interface and marketing. Deal? Let's work together to make a product that spit shines your company image and makes us all a lot of money.

I'd write up a resume for you to consider me, but all it would have had on it would be "I told you so".