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INTERVIEW: FINAL FANTASY XIV'S NAOKI YOSHIDA.
Final Fantasy XIV saw more than its share of problems. First released in 2010, the online RPG came under such heavy fire for its glitches and design flaws that Square extended the game's free-trial period and overhauled the development team. Producer Hiromichi Tanaka was out, and producer Naoki Yoshida was in. Under Yoshida, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn came along in 2013, and its reception proved far more positive in every sector.
This revived Final Fantasy XIV saw its first major expansion with Heavensward in June, and ANN's Heidi Kemps sat down with Yoshida to discuss just where Final Fantasy XIV is going.
Heidi Kemps: It's been a little over a year since A Realm Reborn was launched. How do you feel about the player reaction since the original game relaunch?
Players have reacted differently to a lot of different things… Hmmm, I guess what struck me the most was the reaction from players for whom A Realm Reborn was their first MMO. It wasn't just in Japan, but in the West as well. When we go to events and talk to fans, the people who say “Wow, this is a great game, and it's my first MMO! I hope it continues for a long time!” It's really heartening to hear that, especially given how bad the game's original launch was. Moving from that to a game that people love and want to continue playing for a long time is probably the biggest thing.
Another thing… well, I guess this might not really be a reaction… but it kind of is a reaction, is, well – look at the numbers. A lot of MMOs will have big numbers to start with, then a dropoff. With A Realm Reborn, you see a gradual increase. We have more players now than we did at launch. It's because we have great content and regular updates. The players are staying with us, and they're bringing friends in, too.
It seems like this sort of packaged, subscription-based MMO is becoming rare, with free-to-play becoming the major force in the MMO field. Do you anticipate ever having to change the payment structure in FFXIV in the future?
It's not the amount of subscription-based MMOs are becoming fewer, necessarily… it's just that a lot of MMOs have to change their payment structure partway through their life cycle. It's not inherently a better business model: because the game wasn't as successful as they hoped with subscriptions, they're forced to change their business model. Would FFXIV move into a hybrid or F2P model? Well, currently, there are no plans. That's not to say that the market won't change to the point where most players don't want subscriptions and want entirely in-game purchases. Then we might have to think about it. It's all about the player needs. We've done surveys, and eighty-five percent of our player base prefers the subscription model, so there doesn't seem to be any need to change it at this time.
It feels like MMOs in general have fallen a bit out of favor with the online gaming audience. Multiplayer online battle arenas are really the hot thing in North America and Asia right now. What are your thoughts on the genre, and how are you addressing this new source of competition?
We're not thinking too deep about that. There are so many things that are different about MOBAs: the size of the game, the scope, how long sessions last, and so forth. The current generation of gamers have very busy lifestyles, and seemingly less time to actually sit down and play games. The amount of time they can spent on each game is a lot less. They're wanting more excitement in a shorter period of time.
In MOBAs, you get into the game and match up with players quickly, play a battle, and then you're done. We've tried to implement things like that in FFXIV as well. Not because MOBAs are doing it, mind you, but because it fits with player lifestyles. For example, in League of Legends you'll have PvP “seasons.” We're thinking of doing something like that in FFXIV as well. We want to see what other games are doing and adapt the concepts for our game, but it's not “us vs. them,” it's “let's see what we use.” Again, it's adapting to what the players want, not just copying another successful genre.
Though, in general, like you said, people moving to MOBAs likely means less large-scale MMOs in the future. It's rather unfortunate.
A couple months ago, you showed off the new race, the Au Ra… but you also showed concept art of the Viera, who appeared in Final fantasy XII and other games. Why did you decide against their inclusion as a playable race?
The issue with the Viera is that, if you look at them, they're basically humanoid save for their long rabbit ears and their heels. We already have a mostly humanoid race with animal ears in the Mi'qote. When we looked at those initial Viera concepts, it just seemed like a Mi'qote with bunny ears instead of cat ears. It simply wasn't different enough. Especially when we did the male designs… they didn't look beastly enough, they were just a little too cute. We wanted to make something that was original to the Final Fantasy series, and to do that, we decided to step away from the Viera.
I was actually strongly against showing the Viera concept art at the event we unveiled the Au Ra at. I knew that people would be like “why didn't you include them?!” [laughs] We feel we have a good thing with the Au Ra, though. If you don't like them, though, let us know and we'll take it into consideration with the next race we bring in.
The promotion of the Au Ra has been very low-key in comparison to how other MMOs introduce playable races. Why is this?
We had so much content that needed to be focused on! But the big reason is that the character race is something a player chooses. Not everyone who picks up Heavensward is going to choose to reroll an Au Ra character. Other features, however, are things all players will be experiencing, so it makes more sense to put the promotional focus on those.
You can experience these new things as an Au Ra, too, of course! Part of their design concept was based on the new classes and how they would fit. A lot of players, with the benchmark, got to go in and make an Au Ra character and see how they'd look as a Dark Knight. Players are getting excited for it, and we're hoping a lot of them are going to Fantasia it up. [laughs]
Ah, here's a very specific question… since the Alexander Savage raid comes one month after Heavensward, will 3.1 be three months after Heavensward or Alexander Savage?
[laughs] I can't say anything definitive. But, well… the dev team has been working super hard on Heavensward, and I kind of want to give them a rest! [laughs] Because again, there's just so much content in the expansion. In fact, one of the team goals for the next few months is to change the workflow a bit, to make things easier on the team. We're going to head back to Japan and try to work that out. Players are always hungry for new content, and expect it quickly, but it's also about finding a balance between giving the team the rest they need and getting new content to our fans. I can say that the raid we have for 3.1 is about 80 percent done, so please look forward to it!
One last question: is there any update on the benchmark of the Mac version?
Y: It might be a bit after launch, but we're definitely working at it. The hardware architecture is different, so we'll have to tweak things to make sure they work OK on Macs… but yeah, we're putting our TransGaming middleware to work. We'll look more into it once we get back to Japan.