Will FFXIV's failure be a key to it's success?

I've been thinking... because FFXIV failed in so many aspects and we were given a pretty much empty game. Because of this it gives the dev the ability to reforge the game and have a base to work with. With the help of the FFXIV community, the forums and the polls... the game has the potential to turn into the greatest mmo out there.

I mean it is a way better situation then having a mmo full of content and feautres that suck and would require too much work to change. Correct me if i am wrong but i don't think there is another game that did what FFXIV is doing and have the player base influence it's development.

You could just change bad features to something good and some features an individual will hate another will like. While something empty has nothing to like or to hate, so whats the point. I'm not generally refering to the game here, its like them selling the game but you only get a box, no disc, no manual etc.

All possible, but not possible with the current team. They are to slow right now and because of this it will always be behind other MMO's for a very long time.

But in 3-4 year sit could be good, if something else doesn't come out then.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

I've been thinking... because FFXIV failed in so many aspects and we were given a pretty much empty game. Because of this it gives the dev the ability to reforge the game and have a base to work with. With the help of the FFXIV community, the forums and the polls... the game has the potential to turn into the greatest mmo out there.

I mean it is a way better situation then having a mmo full of content and feautres that suck and would require too much work to change. Correct me if i am wrong but i don't think there is another game that did what FFXIV is doing and have the player base influence it's development.

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We can't influence the development any more than we can any other game.

Many other games like TERA and GW2 have more active developers, engaging with the community. FFXIV is hardly unique in that respect, and possibly fares worse by comparison. But I admire your attempt at putting a positive spin on the situation.

Highly likely.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

I've been thinking... because FFXIV failed in so many aspects and we were given a pretty much empty game. Because of this it gives the dev the ability to reforge the game and have a base to work with. With the help of the FFXIV community, the forums and the polls... the game has the potential to turn into the greatest mmo out there.

I mean it is a way better situation then having a mmo full of content and feautres that suck and would require too much work to change. Correct me if i am wrong but i don't think there is another game that did what FFXIV is doing and have the player base influence it's development.

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Can it become something Good? Yes it can, but that is only because it is so Bad! As for if is a better situation or not that MMO'S with content and bad features, well this game has no content and bad features..... a MMO with content atleast has that to keep its current player base engaged until they figure and fix the features.

Also no, this game is not the first one to actually have the dev and mods engage with the player base in discussion and debate of features, tho it is a welcome change from FFXI.

...what?


/10karazhan

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Originally Posted by viion

All possible, but not possible with the current team. They are to slow right now and because of this it will always be behind other MMO's for a very long time.

But in 3-4 year sit could be good, if something else doesn't come out then.

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You wont know if this team is "too slow" until the end of the summer. You think picking up the slack on a half finished game is quick and easy? the conception of what they have to do moving forward takes some work and it needs to be done right. I'm willing to bet they've probably been testing and tweaking the battle system for the last two months now along with whatever new content they have. The new team may be small, which will hinder its progress, but we don't know if its "slow" until we see what they give us here soon. End of the summer is do or die for this game and sometimes I log in and I think "do!" and other times I think "its already dead what the hell is gonna save it!"....but i always log back in. God help me.

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

We can't influence the development any more than we can any other game.

Many other games like TERA and GW2 have more active developers, engaging with the community. FFXIV is hardly unique in that respect, and possibly fares worse by comparison. But I admire your attempt at putting a positive spin on the situation.

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And I agree with gifthorse here, because as much as some of you like to come down hard on this not too mellow of a fellow he speaks a good word often and makes more sense than most of the blabber on these forums anyway. The devs aren't really being influenced *that* much by us, at most they will take, "make new content!" and add new content but what that content entails is up to them. They will take the subtleties like make the UI more responsive! or give us Chocobos! sure...those are a given, but its not like they're listening to the guy who wants full on airship battles with flying chocobos and mounted summons...not unless they think they can actually pull something like that off with as few resources as possible relative to what else they have to do. IMO its nice to have these forums, but in reality they are just here as an illusion, much like how governments work! :P

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Originally Posted by Mack

You wont know if this team is "too slow" until the end of the summer. You think picking up the slack on a half finished game is quick and easy? the conception of what they have to do moving forward takes some work and it needs to be done right. I'm willing to bet they've probably been testing and tweaking the battle system for the last two months now along with whatever new content they have. The new team may be small, which will hinder its progress, but we don't know if its "slow" until we see what they give us here soon. End of the summer is do or die for this game and sometimes I log in and I think "do!" and other times I think "its already dead what the hell is gonna save it!"....but i always log back in. God help me.

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It seems like you think every person on the development team ins involved in this overhaul (which btw only includes the battle system). No only the battle system team are involved, the rest such as people who design areas and people who do the monsters are all operational as normal and thus its slow. We've had 1 new mob since release which is sad. We've had no new areas (when there are areas that exist but the game wont let us go there, why not just open these up? They are complete and would shut people up). The games development is slow and isn't revolved around this battle system update. They are not waiting on it, otherwise they wouldnt go release 20 mid NM's that are going to become unbalanced.

We don't know enough about what is truly going on in Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XIV's offices to have this sort of discussion about the developers team being too slow or whatever. I'll believe in them until the servers shut down. For a casual gamer like me, the content in coming at a good rate, there are still tons of stuff left to explore and do. For the hardcore gamer, maybe it would be good to diversify what you play (thus becoming a casual gamer in Final Fantasy XIV) until the team releases what you are looking for.

As for the topic of this thread, yes, I want to believe Final Fantasy XIV will rise to new unexpected heights. It's all in the hands of the team and ours as gamers (to submit constructive criticism and believe in them).

That's not why it's failure could lead it to be extremely successful; but what could do it, would be if the PS3 launch got like a 9/10 across the boards and people would be like, "how did this game go from terrible to awesome?" And then they'll get curious and run to the game.

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Originally Posted by viion

It seems like you think every person on the development team ins involved in this overhaul (which btw only includes the battle system). No only the battle system team are involved, the rest such as people who design areas and people who do the monsters are all operational as normal and thus its slow. We've had 1 new mob since release which is sad. We've had no new areas (when there are areas that exist but the game wont let us go there, why not just open these up? They are complete and would shut people up). The games development is slow and isn't revolved around this battle system update. They are not waiting on it, otherwise they wouldnt go release 20 mid NM's that are going to become unbalanced.

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Yet more sound reasoning from Viion. Yes, the battle system update IS a bottle-neck right now. The NMs were introduced as a bit of content for people to do, I'm sure they really don't care how balanced they are with the new battle system, considering they're all basic midlevel mobs that realistically probably took a relatively small amount of time to create. I imagine they're planning to release those new areas when they actually have a use for them. Why bother just opening them up for no reason? Perhaps they're going to be used as the basis of instances.

Seriously, you seem to come out with this 'logic' and suggest that you know the inner workings of the team, and that they're making mistakes you wouldn't. You don't, they aren't.

They can't be a success any more IMO, you get one chance in the MMO world and once your game is marked as "CRAP" that's it people don't want to know.

Even most PS3 player are going to stay away form this game because the PC version had such bad reviews and word of mouth.

Not to mention SE have to compete against Blade and Soul which is also coming to PS3 and is light years ahead.

TL'DR:- PS3 isn't going to save this game.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

They can't be a success any more IMO, you get one chance in the MMO world and once your game is marked as "CRAP" that's it people don't want to know.

Even most PS3 player are going to stay away form this game because it has such bad reviews and word of mouth.

Not to mention SE have to compete against Blade and Soul which is also coming to PS3 and is light years ahead.

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Yeah, I was watching the beginner quest campaign from Blade and Soul's recent open beta and, when comparing it to FFXIV, it was ironic to see FFXIV fall short. Considering FFXIV's one selling point is supposed to be its strong story-mode, it's funny to think that some tacky Korean MMO made by NCsoft can surpass it in this regard. In EVERY regard.

Seriously, go watch the videos on youtube. There are full-out beach wars and you can pick up wounded NPCs and carry them to safety etc. Not to mention the combat system. And full voice-overs for EVERY single quest.

FFXIV needs alot of new features if it intends to compete with TERA, B&S, and ArcheAche, and GW2... and SWTOR... and the list goes on. It's not far from the truth to say that a new MMO comes up every month and blows FFXIV out of the water with its feature list.

2011 and 2012 will be two years of high quality MMO releases. In a saturated market, FFXIV may not fare so well.

One good thing about FFXIV though is the graphical quality and art-style. The graphical engine might be crap, but SE has talented artists who can make the most of what they have. So at least they always have that to fall back on.

Now if they could just bring their gameplay and quests up to par with games like B&S, they might have a shot.

But considering that SE's idea for a new battle system REVOLVES around auto-attack, I have a feeling there is no hope for FFXIV.

Which is not to say that it was unwise to focus on revamping the battle system. In fact, to the contray, I think it was not only a wise decision, but a necessary one. This is because when you compare the current system to upcoming titles, FFXIV's battle system is rather crap. However, that being said, it was an unwise decision to make a battle system centered around auto-attack.

FFXIV probably did have a chance to redeem itself. Square enix could have invested time into voice-overs, a better combat system, a more interactive environment, and generally brought their game into the 21st century. But they seem to have squandered that chance.

Yoshi said that SE is putting their full support into this game to ensure it doesn't flop. But proof will come soon enough if this is true.



IMO, Square Enix should have bought the stolen network code from BlueHole studios when they had the chance. Maybe they could have eliminated at least ONE of their competitors in the process.

I'm going with a swing and a miss. When there weren't tons of MMO's to pick from, a company could recover from a bad launch...

However we're in 2011... new MMO's come out regularly and with better features and launches than ffxiv could ever of hoped for. I don't see this game making a comeback, I don't see it being a competitor any longer in the MMO world. It has pissed off the majority of people who bought it, and now its taking too long to make any real progress. Word of mouth and reviews of the game still say nothing but failure and a waste of time. It will keep its die hard fan base just like ffxi has over the years. But it will never be as popular as 11 was, and likely have more of a player base than ffxi does now.

I'd just love for them to release the player stats for this game now... really just to laugh. I've gone full circle to hoping this would rock to realizing this game circling the drain. Hopefully they learned a lesson, maybe they will try again and not fuck up so badly... who knows.

FFXIV's failure will never be a positive. It will always show, no matter how good the game gets, that it was based on a pile of **** from the start. One of the biggest reasons to restart XIV instead of keep overhauling FFXI is because you can't fix some of the fundamental aspects of FFXI that maybe you wished you had never done. To rebuild the foundation, better.

FFXIV's foundation is a 4/10 game. Even if you build a 9/10 house on top of it, you still have to deal with the basement.

You will always be able to tell something was initially wrong with the game, even if the product is unrecognizable 3 years from now. We're putting new wine in old wineskins. That analogy has been lost over time, but you can always tell.

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Originally Posted by viion

It seems like you think every person on the development team ins involved in this overhaul (which btw only includes the battle system). No only the battle system team are involved, the rest such as people who design areas and people who do the monsters are all operational as normal and thus its slow. We've had 1 new mob since release which is sad. We've had no new areas (when there are areas that exist but the game wont let us go there, why not just open these up? They are complete and would shut people up). The games development is slow and isn't revolved around this battle system update. They are not waiting on it, otherwise they wouldnt go release 20 mid NM's that are going to become unbalanced.

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As much as this is true, sometimes, other designs cannot be balanced without the release of another, which leads to another, and another.. its just a chain of designs that are meant to be patched together into the game. That is why we may get the 1.17b and the instanced Dungeons before the battle system update, because it doesn't directly tie into the battle system changes, rather, it is only optimized for it, and that's it.

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

We can't influence the development any more than we can any other game.

Many other games like TERA and GW2 have more active developers, engaging with the community. FFXIV is hardly unique in that respect, and possibly fares worse by comparison. But I admire your attempt at putting a positive spin on the situation.

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ehhh communities have a couple good ideas, but A LOT of bad ideas, usually if you do what someone says they want, you find out its not what they wanted at all

I will stand behind SE no matter what they produce. They have been here for me for the last 21 years, and I will enjoy every bit of it.

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Originally Posted by viion

It seems like you think every person on the development team ins involved in this overhaul (which btw only includes the battle system). No only the battle system team are involved, the rest such as people who design areas and people who do the monsters are all operational as normal and thus its slow. We've had 1 new mob since release which is sad. We've had no new areas (when there are areas that exist but the game wont let us go there, why not just open these up? They are complete and would shut people up). The games development is slow and isn't revolved around this battle system update. They are not waiting on it, otherwise they wouldnt go release 20 mid NM's that are going to become unbalanced.

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Actually they are waiting on it because Yoshi said so. He said why release new content catering to the new battle system *before* releasing the new battle system. I'm not an idiot, I don't think the entire team is working on the battle system overhaul but some of you make it sound like the battle system is just getting finished, its probably been tested to death already and has been getting fine tuned for a while now. Battle system changes brings with it a lot of things, stat changes, armor changes, ability changes, class balance, mob changes, mob behavior perhaps, mob balance, etc. etc. That's why I'm saying that just because we haven't been getting much doesn't mean nothing is getting done. The next patch could be a chalk full of content for all you know, you make it sound like 6 months is a long time and you forget the state the game was released in.

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Not to mention SE have to compete against Blade and Soul which is also coming to PS3 and is light years ahead.

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In the same vein FFXIV was "the next WoW" before it was released right? people just don't learn.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

Highly likely.

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Wow, we have some common ground?!

FFXIV may make a recovery, and may eventually fill a niche, but make no mistake:

Whatever success FFXIV may achieve, it will never match what might have been if it had been a good game from the start.

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Originally Posted by viion

All possible, but not possible with the current team. They are to slow right now and because of this it will always be behind other MMO's for a very long time.

But in 3-4 year sit could be good, if something else doesn't come out then.

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No, they fix it now or it will always remain a small community...

....um~ lets see; there is a NEW TEAM o.0 (what are you talking about ; top to bottom lol.) and lets seee...they had an EQ, Nuclear disaster (which just got worse again last night) and Golden Week last week...(all right at the start of it).
So it may appear slow but...yeah. (Plus the new team has to look over absolutely everything you could imagine to get caught up to speed and present there new direction. They can't tell us everything that's going on right now because they are planning an entire complete 180 with everything in FFXIV from bottom to top; from Class names and mechanics, all the way down to adding jump lol.) (It was hinted that they might release a 17B this month because the new team knows how it feels for us; and telling us nothing till june bothers them too under the circumstances.) (there was even a letter about it lol )

Don't bash the new team; when they actually are what we've been waiting for...
(Im saying ur comment might give the new players looking through the forums the wrong idea)

This teams getting things done and fully into it. Matter of fact all of SE is going through a revamp; not just the team and projects....(Which is why they need it to work and fully intend to make it work; there not just trying to save the game or regain some costs; obviously! lol (The great apology and our ability to play for free)
This team also has no issues listening to players and are going to be doing things the past team refused ignorantly to do over and over. Im glad there's not a disillusion mad man in control anymore. (RiP Dinosaur and the most evil boss FFXIV will ever see)

The people playing from beta or release that are still here need to be sensitive to new players because getting them back this will be the first real turn around in an mmo in history...I mean usually at this point if its an mmo there is no real recovery but because of SE's current situation (and therefore new found awareness to the community) along with PS3 release it can happen.
I saw a guy (new player) looking for LS the other day and he got a bunch of ftp idiots telling him tuff shit... You got people asking for airships n chocobos; then people saying we don't need them....Really then don't use them... You have people coming back just to kill time because its free (Cata is over, Rift is at its peek, and SoE servers have been down for over a week n up to the end of the month probably.)
Be selfish and desire the game out loud however you want; but its the players coming back that are going to make it so you can continue to play ur way. Seriously; I know most of the people that are still around are good people; Im not trying to be negative; im just saying more people need to keep stepping up to the plate. Else this will just be another VG disaster in the long run. SE wants to fix this so lets help them; they are asking for that. And I feel many players are like those that give up in life right when the sunlight was right around that corner they couldn't crawl towards, because they thought it would just be another street...

Also to many people who haven't bothered to roll a new character (the new team is focusing on the beginning players (working on tuts, quests etc) and if you are a player coming back it seems its far easier to notice how much has changed since the start then for the older players dragging on in there hope at this point.

Completely new battle system on the way, classes going classic, no more surplus / fatigue etc...Many of the things people elft over...The engine is getting optimized (for all the lag problems) code being reworked... First big content addition coming to be followed by much more. Even zones getting revamped...its finally coming.

sry sry rant over~

And all this talk of no communication...Freaking look at the Dev tracker and the under development sections; they tell you whats coming. (The things which are not brought up often.) I know everyone's use to getting the silent treatment and its what we come to expect...But SE is being shaken down with ears and eyes now open. (Not just the FFXIV team)This new team doesn't deserve to get our defeatism speeches or to be scolded for anothers mistake...these guys are getting stuff done...The old team just wanted to tweak and patch; like band aids on a patient with a severed limb. These guys are actually bringing change. A whole new game almost. *Crawls back in hole (for real this time)

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Originally Posted by Paragons

No, they fix it now or it will always remain a small community...
...sry sry rant over~

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I don't think that was a rant. It makes sense what you are saying, and I am glad its not a two word post like, "Nope. lol"

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Originally Posted by Ayerc

FFXIV may make a recovery, and may eventually fill a niche, but make no mistake:

Whatever success FFXIV may achieve, it will never match what might have been if it had been a good game from the start.

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It is not impossible but the only way FFXIV can be a success is if they turn the game from a 6/10 to a 10/10. People are not forgiving and most have moved on... a 8/10 game will not make any of those people who already have a bad opinion give it a 2nd chance.

Because it failed so bad it needs to be extra good and way better then the competition. They blew their first chance so uneless they turn this into next wow then it will at best as popular as FF XI is now.

Hey Oni. Nice post. This is exactly how I felt a while ago. All of the updates, while I admit they take a bit to come out, have been great improvements. I will continue to play FFXIV. It's F2P right now anyways, so I don't mind waiting. I bet once they have the foundation set for Battle, UI and Optimization there is a crap load of content set to be released. It'll be like a whole new game.

I don't really understand the reasoning behind the analogy of, 4/10 Basement with a 9/10 house on top. It's more like they just tore down the the whole house and built a better one. It is a new constrution team after all.
"Bus Driver. Move that Bus"

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

It is not impossible but the only way FFXIV can be a success is if they turn the game from a 6/10 to a 10/10. People are not forgiving and most have moved on... a 8/10 game will not make any of those people who already have a bad opinion give it a 2nd chance.

Because it failed so bad it needs to be extra good and way better then the competition. They blew their first chance so uneless they turn this into next wow then it will at best as popular as FF XI is now.

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I agree, though it'll never be the next WoW. But even if they get reviews giving it a 10/10, there are still plenty of players jaded by the first experience that will either refuse to believe it, or just won't care to come back. I can see it slow building up to what FFXI had in it's hayday, I think there's enough potential in the game for that, but we're still a long ways away from that.

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Originally Posted by Ayerc

I agree, though it'll never be the next WoW. But even if they get reviews giving it a 10/10, there are still plenty of players jaded by the first experience that will either refuse to believe it, or just won't care to come back. I can see it slow building up to what FFXI had in it's hayday, I think there's enough potential in the game for that, but we're still a long ways away from that.

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If we ever get to the game being a 10 it will be all up to SE;s skills in marketing and promoting to try and bring those people back.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

If we ever get to the game being a 10 it will be all up to SE;s skills in marketing and promoting to try and bring those people back.

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Well, there's no reason why it can't be done.