Final Fantasy XIV 1.23b - Would you Play it if Available?

You say you're the opposite, but you seemed to agree with me!

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Originally Posted by Canadane

You say you're the opposite, but you seemed to agree with me!

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Ahh, I misunderstood. Since you mentioned the old engine and the game changing (tone suggest for the worse) since, I thought "as it was" referred to everything about it, not just the design philosophy, and the later day version of even that system being outside of what you were looking for (the original experience?).

If not, we are indeed in agreement!

I would absolutely play it. I'd even pay for it. Under the condition that the battle system we have currently was brought back. I'd be more interested in the story from 1.0 than anything.

Personally, I would love to experience the original storyline - just because things look so nice from what I've seen. That fight between Gaius and the Scions looked super amazing.

An aggressing leader who wants to free the planet from psuedo-creatures (Eikons) literally draining it of life, and honestly believes he and his empire are doing the right thing for the most part in their invasion, if we would just... stop... resisting...

A continent in a cycle of destructive ignorance, reaching clarity of this fact only to be destroyed in yet another Umbral cycle... Or as would have been the case, could certain individuals not see into the memories of others...

The implications of dreams becoming reality at the cost of the world spirit's very matter, of their being pervertable - of nothing born of magic quite being reality save for what we make of it...

You can pick up any weapon, without starting from 0, and start figuring out what comes naturally to it, and make use of those things, insofar as they are applicable, on any other weapon, making your job as you wish, out of the underlying factors of play and all you've learned thus far...

They all seem like promising concepts even now, as poor as their original interpretation may have been. A bit fatalistic, a bit pessimistic is world mood, but within that highly open, to exploration, interpretation, and between the two, potentially even something optimistic for a given player character.

As for world design, while it was too barren of content and details, and arguably even of civilization for nations allegedly having built itself back up over so many years, I actually miss the frontiers it offered. Somehow, even the larger (and in a somehow different way, emptier) Stormblood maps could never bring back the original feeling of, say, the original Coerthas. Now just imagine that with greater level flexibility, better mob camp mechanics, mob AI, movement animation, terrain navigatability, etc... /drool

No, I wouldn't. Why? Because there is no jump button, unless you count being a DRG.

Seriously though, I played all jobs to 50 back on 1.23b, and it was fine, but 2.0 forward was a HUGE change in the right direction. There's very little from back then that isn't in game now, and the character models, etc were not THAT huge a change. The maze-like forests were a chore, limited teleports abysmal, and complete lack of instances made a lot of stuff boring fast.

The only relic of 1.23b I would love to see return would be areas with extremely high level enemies that can 1 shot you, that you have to sneak through to reach primal fights, etc. There is little to no feeling of real danger in the game now, and it sort of stinks.

Then again, people still rage quit when they die in easy stuff now, and I'm like "Seriously? Are you that put out that you have to run back to us from a shortcut?"

I would love an opportunity to play through that storyline again. The events leading up to the Calamity, and our attempts to stop it were worthy of a Final Fantasy title.

If all I could have is one thing from 1.23b, it would be the Rivenroad fight. That fight was amazing. A multi-tiered battlefield that forced you to divide your party on different levels to handle mechanics is something that ARR+ has not been able to duplicate. We have had some great fights since the remake, and maybe some nostalgia is influencing my memory of it, but Rivenroad was best fight and best battlefield in XIV to date.

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

Personally, I would love to experience the original storyline - just because things look so nice from what I've seen. That fight between Gaius and the Scions looked super amazing.

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That is the real Gaius we had to see in ARR, but no... And still, I found he left too fast without so much explanations. I really wish to see more of him and his story.

I saw him for the first time in that cutscene and now I really regret that I didn't play 1.X till that moment.

Holy revival Batman. This threads OP is dated in 2015.

FFXIV 1.23b was the best that engine was ever going to get.

The story was amazing.

Not to sound mean, but it was an amazing experienced filled with rich lore, voice acting and motion capture that took hours of hard work to achieve. I was immersed. But as many people have voiced, gameplay > story.

Thus ARR was born. Still a great game, but very different.

1.23b is in the past and I've had great memories of it. But that's all it should be today is just memories. There's nothing to gain from rewalking those old footsteps.

Let's look to the future instead.

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

But that's all it should be today is just memories. There's nothing to gain from rewalking those old footsteps.

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There are those of us who don't have those memories though - who've never walked those footsteps, and would like to.

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Originally Posted by Singularity

There are those of us who don't have those memories though - who've never walked those footsteps, and would like to.

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I agree with Kerwin, as much as there are things that I miss from 1.23b, I feel that is should stay where it is.

However, I do think that a XIV version of Wings of the Goddess from XI (an expansion for an earlier time period in the story) would be better received and fit the feel of the game better. It could be an expansion long echo.

I thought you could just buy the original game and enter Private server lol

I will always prefer 1.23B over what we have now, the battle system (again imo) was much better. Graphics looked nice, characters had weight, we had butts lol.

The way everything was worded when 2.0 was in the works was as if we were getting just an updated server without the weird lag, but the game and looks would remain basically the same. Even the screenshots they showed us made it look that way. When 2.0 came out and it was totally different, I can safely say all of my 1.0 friends quit.

I never played 1.0 and its subsequent patches so all I can say is that if it were possible, I'd like to play its msq only as part of some form of memoria. Like an echo string of side-quests leading up to the battle of Cartenau.

Its always fun seeing the nostalgia goggles come on. SE offered to keep the 1.0 servers running as long as people were still playing. They shut down a month later.

People say its because they would no longer transfer what you did to the new servers, but if it was enjoyable to you, then why stop playing? The data would have still been on the old 1.0 servers.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

People say its because they would no longer transfer what you did to the new servers, but if it was enjoyable to you, then why stop playing? The data would have still been on the old 1.0 servers.

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Because at the time 1.0 players didn't realize that what they were getting was a weekly tomestone/daily quest grind WoW clone, with a completely dead world that has nothing to do in it, that stagnated in its first expansion.

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Originally Posted by Alash

Because at the time 1.0 players didn't realize that what they were getting was a weekly tomestone/daily quest grind WoW clone, with a completely dead world that has nothing to do in it, that stagnated in its first expansion.

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You must not have played 1.0 if you think this world is dead lol.

There was NOTHING in the world in 1.0. Beastman strongholds? nope. hamlets? nope, those were added at the end. Grand companies? nope. quests? nope. the only thing in the world was copy pasted terrain and lvl 99 mobs sprinkled around. Not very exciting at all. The only content in the game was levequests. There weren't even NM's at launch.

And even then, why not keep playing the game. They told you if there was no interest they would shut the servers down. There wasn't interest. People apparently didn't like the game enough to keep playing it when they thought they wouldn't get anything out of it. I have a feeling it would be the same case if they did decide to open up a single server, people would log in, look around for 15-20 mins, then log back out.

Some of the features were a nice part of the game. But it was overall an atrocious abomination of an MMORPG. I'd never re-sub to the game again if we went back to having that. It was worse than any mmo on the market hands down. You'd have more fun playing the knife game with your hands and paying for bandages as DLC like the mog station than play that mess.

Only thing I gave a crap about in the game:
-The social aspect originally.
-The storyline, no matter how mediocre it felt, it's a nostalgia thing
-my retainer who disappeared and died in the tragedy and no one knows what happened to her D:
-also butts

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

You must not have played 1.0 if you think this world is dead lol.

There was NOTHING in the world in 1.0. Beastman strongholds? nope. hamlets? nope, those were added at the end. Grand companies? nope. quests? nope. the only thing in the world was copy pasted terrain and lvl 99 mobs sprinkled around. Not very exciting at all. The only content in the game was levequests. There weren't even NM's at launch.

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It's disingenuous to bait me into the discussion of launch 1.0 in comparison to patch 4.1. I was under the assumption that when discussing the original version of the game people would be intelligent enough to default to the most up to date release of that version, but I guess I was wrong. I would like to set the record straight on how I fell for this:

You posited that SE put forward the notion of the original version of the game remaining playable after the deadline for character data transfer, but the lack of interest led to the closure of the servers. Given that this was the topic of conversion that I was replying to I had assumed that you were talking about version 1.23b, which was the version of the service they were running prior to its closure. They never offered to run the original 1.0 release, please retract your post.

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Originally Posted by Alash

It's disingenuous to bait me into the discussion of launch 1.0 in comparison to patch 4.1. I was under the assumption that when discussing the original version of the game people would be intelligent enough to default to the most up to date release of that version, but I guess I was wrong. I would like to set the record straight on how I fell for this:

You posited that SE put forward the notion of the original version of the game remaining playable after the deadline for character data transfer, but the lack of interest led to the closure of the servers. Given that this was the topic of conversion that I was replying to I had assumed that you were talking about version 1.23b, which was the version of the service they were running prior to its closure. They never offered to run the original 1.0 release, please retract your post.

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Ok, so its still copy/pasted, with some quests, the story ends with nael, nothing furtheron Gaius than what was the original rank 46 or 48 quest. Best tribes and coffers are a thing, and there are 5 dungeons, which you have to speedrun to get the loot coffers for darklight gear, in darkhold. Thats your endgame., darkhold speed runs. Then you have a relic that makes atma look like it was not a grind at all.


On top of that, you have hamlet defense, which was only for those who crafted a lot really, since thats how you got the most points in the allotted time. Lets see, moogle, ifrit, and garuda hard, but people would only let you into garuda if you had full melded gear. Lets not forget that melded gear BROKE if you failed a meld, not just the materia, the whole gear piece. And that may have been 50 mil that just shattered into a million pieces. Also you had to have BLM and MNK leveled, and WAR was preferred over PLD at the time. I don't remember anyone wanting a DRG for anything. If you think the meta in 4.1 is bad, Oh do I have stories for you. You could switch jobs mid dungeon, and groups required it for speed clearing. I still don't remember much in the world being lively, but maybe thats just me. Heck, I don't even remember fighting with other people over NM claims but once or twice, and there were only 4, and this was on Balmung. I rarely saw people out in the field other than for the events. There was only ever one other groupo at Mog when we did that.

Regardless of these points, people were still given the option of continueing to play on the original servers, and they decided not to. If you never played 1.0, you have no idea how bad it really was. People are just remembering through nostalgia goggles, and forgetting how bare the game really was, and I put many many hours into it.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Regardless of these points, people were still given the option of continueing to play on the original servers, and they decided not to.

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You keep bringing this up like it means anything. People do not continue to play MMOs when they've exhausted all the content that is currently available. They never intended to keep the server running post 2.0, they only offered to keep the server up to hold people over in the mean time between the end of 1.0 and beta/alpha tests for 2.0. If SE announced that the next expansion was going to require the same steps that were taken between 1.23b and 2.0, no one would play past the cut off date either. I am quite confident that if 1.0 players knew that what they were getting was a by the numbers tomestone grind simulator there would have been quite a bit of push back, and if given the option of playing a classic server (maybe in the way that Runescape Classic operates) they would be rather happy to play that.

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Originally Posted by Alash

I am quite confident that if 1.0 players knew that what they were getting was a by the numbers tomestone grind simulator there would have been quite a bit of push back, and if given the option of playing a classic server (maybe in the way that Runescape Classic operates) they would be rather happy to play that.

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I keep seeing this stated over and over again and it quite frankly is untrue. ARR was never going to be '1.0 with a better graphic engine/server structure' - if 1.0 really was salvageable don't you think Yoshi would have not bothered spending so much time and money developing ARR otherwise? He determined early on that 1.0 was simply beyond salvation - it was a broken, barely playable mess that had utterly ruined the FF name and nearly dragged SE down the gurgler with it. He valiantly tinkered around the edges as much as he could (mostly to experiment with different concepts and gameplay styles planned for ARR), but in the end, they had no intention of continuing to support 1.0 with updates even with a new engine. The game fundamentally was rotten to it's very code, and only by completing replacing it with an entirely new game but keeping the core ideas, lore and setting could the game be saved, and scrapping 1.0 in the process.

And lets address the adamantoise in the living room here that 1.0 players seem to conveniently ignore or are in denial about: ARR was designed especially according to 1.0 player requests. Things like the Duty Finder, smaller more detailed zones, easier teleportation, even Jobs coming off classes, was all a result of player polling Yoshi did early on in his tenure, which guided their development of ARR. Yes some things may not have turned out exactly how they first planned, but the fundamentals were true to what they said would be.

Besides, the proof is in the telling: FFXIV's logo now doesn't even have the '1.0 adventurers exploding out' artwork anymore, it's just the game's title. Nothing else. It's clear SE themselves regard 1.0 as a sordid part of their past they would rather forget and move away from.

1.0 had some cool concepts of mechanical stuff, that just wouldn't work in a modern mmo let alone ffxiv.

also the servers were constantly on fire for the longest time.

People just hate change and rather play the old stuff, happens with every game that goes through this cycle, (everquest, wow, ff are prime examples of this)

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

He valiantly tinkered around the edges as much as he could (mostly to experiment with different concepts and gameplay styles planned for ARR)

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Wait, what? Day 1 stated redesign goals included the combat revisions, which were tailored to allow for jobs -- virtually the safest possible bet for crowd pleasing, and the most destructive possible take on the prior combat system. Rather than building on the extended damage types of the 1.0 system and adding synergy thereto to allow for meaningful but variable rotations, all gameplay was reduced, effectively, to 2-3 buttons through the new "combo" system. Every additional combat mechanic, such as incapacitation and battle regimen, were removed upon taking over, even when they had no direct repercussions on his new intended gameplay.

Yes, Yoshida salvaged the game, and overwhelmingly (even if not entirely) for the better, but there was zero "valiant tinkering" with what was given to him. He treated virtually everything about it like a dumpster fire, as if the only thing he needed to do to make a satisfying design was to do the exact opposite of whatever idea came previously, wherever any "side" could be pointed out in design philosophy.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

And lets address the adamantoise in the living room here that 1.0 players seem to conveniently ignore or are in denial about: ARR was designed especially according to 1.0 player requests. Things like the Duty Finder, smaller more detailed zones, easier teleportation, even Jobs coming off classes, was all a result of player polling Yoshi did early on in his tenure, which guided their development of ARR. Yes some things may not have turned out exactly how they first planned, but the fundamentals were true to what they said would be.

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I for one never wanted smaller zones. I hated what they did with the zones in ARR and making them load in between areas compared to a seamless world was hard for me to get use to.

Loading zones reminds me that I'm playing a game. A seamless world is immersive

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

I for one never wanted smaller zones. I hated what they did with the zones in ARR and making them load in between areas compared to a seamless world was hard for me to get use to.

Loading zones reminds me that I'm playing a game. A seamless world is immersive

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The zones were large, yes, but terrain was basically copy/pasted, you'd run into the same bend in the road or landscape features multiple times, there was hardly anything in the zones themselves, and the "loading screens" were un-immersive, long tunnels between zones, where PC's would pop in and out of view as they crossed the zone line.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The zones were large, yes, but terrain was basically copy/pasted, you'd run into the same bend in the road or landscape features multiple times, there was hardly anything in the zones themselves, and the "loading screens" were un-immersive, long tunnels between zones, where PC's would pop in and out of view as they crossed the zone line.

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Yep, I remember running through the tunnel at uldah to get in when the front gate was always closed. Good times lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goKSqF9fldE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpWwn00mJs

I decided to watch some videos of the 1.0 primals, because why not? Definitely would not have played 1.0. If it was your cup of tea, awesome! The gameplay looks absolutely boring to me. To each their own.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/.../de/Necro.jpeg

2015 was the OP :speak_no_evil:

This wasn't even necro'd with the announcement of WoW Classic XD.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/.../de/Necro.jpeg

2015 was the OP :speak_no_evil:

This wasn't even necro'd with the announcement of WoW Classic XD.

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They don't look down on necro'd threads here, in fact they encourage it to keep everything in one spot.

I never really liked the old 1.23b era yes it had some nice features but the combat and a lot of the main msq where dull or boring. and remembering the black shroud makes me shiver to the bones

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Its always fun seeing the nostalgia goggles come on. SE offered to keep the 1.0 servers running as long as people were still playing. They shut down a month later.
People say its because they would no longer transfer what you did to the new servers, but if it was enjoyable to you, then why stop playing? The data would have still been on the old 1.0 servers.

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The servers were always intended to close for ARR launch, so what you did during that period would still have been for nothing in the end. That's why people stopped playing it.

But, on the initial topic, I'd love to be ablo to play 1.23b alongside SB, because, back then, there are lots of things I didn't do, and my computer was way to weak to bring justice to the magnificient engine. Now, that Blizzard is planning a Vanilla version of WoW, maybe we can ask for that ;)

The copy paste of the zones killed me AND DON'T GET ME STARTED WITH BLACK SHROUD!

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

The servers were always intended to close for ARR launch, so what you did during that period would still have been for nothing in the end. That's why people stopped playing it.

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Except Yoshi himself then said that as far he was concerned "the game could remain operational more or less as is indefinitely as long as there was player demand for it" (paraphrased) - this gained official approval and thus 1.0 players were polled on the Lodestone a few days after the original shutdown asking pretty much this thread's very question (and before you pass judgement, I voted 'yes'). Over 30% said 'yes' (to reactivate 1.0), and so Yoshi complied, bringing the 1.0 servers back up on November 21 2012 (with the game's version restored to 1.23b, the state it was just prior to the final save maintenance, in other words, without the 'end of the world' features like Dalamud Answers BGM and the stormy weather). He also stressed that it was dependent entirely on enough 1.0 players logging in each month (at least 30% of the active account population - that is, accounts that were active at the original end of service), and that they would determine it's future on a month by month basis.

It didn't even last a month when they realized the amount of logins was falling far short of that amount, so they quickly decided it just was not worth bothering with anymore, with the axe finally falling on 1.0's head forever on December 31st 2012. Those are the facts - 1.0 could have kept going indefinitely, but players simply were not interested, and remained silent as the condemned was led to it's execution.

Given that this thread's very idea is exactly what SE offered back then, I'm going to once again state that 1.0 players had their chance, and squandered it. 1.0 thus is gone and is never coming back. Saying that 'oh, but 1.0 players had no reason to come back then' is irrelevant, because that would still be the case now, yet there are posts on this thread which blatantly contradict that despite being to the contrary.

Either way, once again I'm going to state that it was clear back then to SE that 1.0 is a lost cause - and that has not changed. 1.0 is gone and is not coming back.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Given that this thread's very idea is exactly what SE offered back then, I'm going to once again state that 1.0 players had their chance, and squandered it. 1.0 thus is gone and is never coming back. Saying that 'oh, but 1.0 players had no reason to come back then' is irrelevant, because that would still be the case now, yet there are posts on this thread which blatantly contradict that despite being to the contrary.

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This kind of relies on the assumption that original 1.x players would be the only ones interested. I for one have never played 1.x and I'd definitely like to try it. Now I know well enough that running a server is not at zero cost even without development of any kind, but that statistic regarding there not being enough players interested to pay for it is no longer necessarily accurate.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Its always fun seeing the nostalgia goggles come on. SE offered to keep the 1.0 servers running as long as people were still playing. They shut down a month later.

People say its because they would no longer transfer what you did to the new servers, but if it was enjoyable to you, then why stop playing? The data would have still been on the old 1.0 servers.

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I never stopped despite the data not being saved. I still logged in, rped with the friends that stayed, ran primals with the other ones that did and ran around taking all the screen shots I could. Those of us that did play that last month knew the data wasn't going to be saved, we didn't care. 1.0 to us was about spending time with each other and creating our own adventures. Not so much about worrying about quests, dailies and progression. Just having simple fun. That's what Final Fantasy meant to us. Our own world, our own sandbox.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Would you play it?

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Yes. I'm not sure how much of a monthly fee I'd pay; it's been so long since XIV 1.x was available that nostalgia may be clouding my memory. But I'd certainly play it from time to time, if only to admire high-resolution, appropriately-proportioned character models again.

But, honestly, I'd mostly log in out of a sense of nostalgia. I similarly pop into FFXI every year or two, though I don't tend to stick around for long.

What I'd much rather see is a 'non-casual' version of the existing FFXIV. No ridiculously out-of-place mounts; no bikinis allowed in dungeons (hell, just get rid of Glamours entirely); more restrictions on teleporting and navigation so that the world feels larger; actually dangerous open-world monsters; adjusted sinks and sources for Gil to ensure it was actually worthwhile. I'd pay for that in a heartbeat, probably $20-25 a month.

Because, at the end of the day, it's the lack of so many 'frills' that made 1.x and FFXI stand out so much in my mind, more so than the current version of XIV does. It's what draws me back to them more than the specifics of the games themselves, both of which are very dated in comparison to modern titles (including the current iteration of XIV).

Enkidoh summed up the entire story/situation perfectly. 1.0 servers aren't ever going to happen. Ever.

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Originally Posted by Khaidal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goKSqF9fldE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpWwn00mJs

I decided to watch some videos of the 1.0 primals, because why not? Definitely would not have played 1.0. If it was your cup of tea, awesome! The gameplay looks absolutely boring to me. To each their own.

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This is one of many reasons why this mmo was atrocious back in the day. Like I mentioned earlier, if this game went back to that direction (even though I complain about nothing to do atm), I'd honestly never think to resub again in the future. At least, with ARR+ I've still supporting this game longer, regardless of not having anything to do or enjoy doing at this time. The game was a jumbled mess. The story, yes, totally would play through again, but everything else from the battles and the battle system, gods no.

Just because everything was copy-pasted in 1.0 doesn't mean it would be now. 1.0 had a host of problems, and most of those problems were from a design point of view. Done by the current devs, large /seamless zones could be done very well!