{Curiosity} Where did the original concepts end and new begin?

I've been curious lately to know where the original concepts, design, and system ideas end and where does the stuff Yoshi-P brought to the table begin?

Trying to recall 1.0, the GC ranks and such were part of the original ideas, so was group crafting (I remember pics of a huge birthday cake next to a lalafel chef). I also recall something about the current story we are going through was the original one for 1.0 but it was tweaked a little as well as put on hold to bring about the end of 1.0.

Was Golden Saucer all a part of that too, just put aside until it was ready? How about flying mounts? I think it would be really neat to see where these lines were drawn and where they have been blurred.

Thoughts? Input? Sources?

EDIT:

This is not meant to be a "Which is/was better" Simply where does one end and the other begin. I'm curious to know how long until all the content being developed will truly be "new". I think that once 3.0 comes that we will be truly into ARR. So far 2.0 feels like they have just been adding in all the stuff they wanted to have at launch. This team has said they are looking all the way into 4.0 right now for development, how far ahead was the old team looking?

1.0 was a drastically different game. It was more world less game. Very focused on selling you the world and giving you a sense of belonging and realism.

Chances are the original concept would be spinning in its grave from things like lockouts, mounts other than chocobos, cash shop, glamors, glowing weapons, unweighted animations, combat speed, heavy instanced content focus...

All in all 2.0 pretty much went the opposite direction for a good amount of content design focusing heavy on the endgame and leaving the start and mid game to mostly rot.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

1.0 was a drastically different game. It was more world less game. Very focused on selling you the world and giving you a sense of belonging and realism.

Chances are the original concept would be spinning in its grave from things like lockouts, mounts other than chocobos, cash shop, glamors, glowing weapons, unweighted animations, combat speed, heavy instanced content focus...

All in all 2.0 pretty much went the opposite direction for a good amount of content design focusing heavy on the endgame and leaving the start and mid game to mostly rot.

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I agree with you on some of those things. Things like "lock outs" and "Cash Shop" arent what I'm talking about though. Those are parts of content gating that I will happily take over the Fatigue system. I was more curious to know if the amount of dungeons we have were part of the initial concepts, were we still supposed to have gotten Jobs or what that going to be something separate, was the golden saucer something they were thinking of, was Housing (in general) part of the concept, I think Free Companies were part of that but to what extent, etc.

I read all the dev stuff going back before 1.0 launch. As i understand it, the concept was a player built world. Those vast empty zones were meant to be filled with player created structures, kinda like the current housing, but on a more full scale level. In that sense, housing and the airship stuff is really the main design carry over from 1.0 except it is now secondary. The reason the core concepts were not ready at launch was because the game was forced out before it was ready. I still credit tanaka for his vision and ambition though. Woulda been a hell of a game.

The job system and Gold Saucer were never part of the original concepts.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I agree with you on some of those things. Things like "lock outs" and "Cash Shop" arent what I'm talking about though. Those are parts of content gating that I will happily take over the Fatigue system. I was more curious to know if the amount of dungeons we have were part of the initial concepts, were we still supposed to have gotten Jobs or what that going to be something separate, was the golden saucer something they were thinking of, was Housing (in general) part of the concept, I think Free Companies were part of that but to what extent, etc.

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Well, the 2.0 version went to a different direction than what we had in 1.0, for example the job system and armoury system are very different, in a few words you could make pseudo jobs combining all the class skills, like red mage grabbing gladiator class and putting some conjurer and thm skills, remember that thm was very different it had a darker approach with siphon magic and debuffs, so every class could be played in very different ways according to the skills you equipped, it was very common to be asked which skills you had and not which rotation.

But people got mad because it didn't feel like a FF, so they added jobs to keep people playing and added combos, I would say that most of the gameplay core was meant on how skilled the player was and not on boss mechanics like the ones we have now, it was more about knowing the skills of the NM's or boss and crippling them (Incapacitation system) which changed how hard the fight could be done and one of my favorite you could get drops from that parts to get weapons and gear, so crafting was a lot more important and involved in all the game.

Crafting classes a lot more complex, if you wanted to do a leather body piece, you had to prepare the leather squares, the iron bolts to attached it, if it had scales well those too, if it had some cloth the squares of cloth,etc so to make one piece you had to level several crafting classes, lets say it had a very realistic approach as how this things should be done. So that answer the cake and ship question.

It was a good game with lots of good ideas, but with the worst implementation.

I wonder, was the Crystal Tower ever a part of early lore? Some of the developer comments suggests that at least that Dalamud and Bahamut was planned for a different context in 1.0 than how they were ultimately used.

I'm also wondering how much of the Ishgard/Dravania conflict is from original design plans and how much was created after they made A Realm Reborn. Same with Midgardsormr's role in the story.

If I recall from one of the interviews that Yoshi gave. Tanaka had already developed the main story scenario up until when the main story finished. I don't remember if this was around level 30 or so or further. I remember Yoshi saying that there was not a good way that he could progress the story from where the main scenario was leading so he decided to make it a part of the GC storyline instead when he took over.

I know for certain that the final couple of battles in the GC series (United We Stand, and To Kill a Raven, possibly a couple of other battles maybe primals) were battles that Yoshi oversaw.

I know the armory system and job systems have always been there from the start of 1.0. The idea was that if you ran around solo, then you would be running around in your class with full support from other classes. But if you grouped up, there were more benefits to changing to specific job to fit a specific role in the group.

If I recall the original idea of 1.0 was to be FFXI-2. The idea was that you could go into your mog house and select another world and come to FFXIV; hence why the races were similar (This was from an interview with Tanaka I think). They found out that the PS2 could not handle this operation so they dropped it and made it into a separate game. The races being similar were to draw the FFXI crowd into the game to give them something familiar hold onto.

I don't believe the gold saucer was a part of the original idea when 1.0 was conceived. I think only after the failed launch of 1.0 did SE want to start trying to incorporate aspects of other Final Fantasy Series into the game.

I don't know how far Tanaka had planned out, but I know that 1.0's world could have supported a flying version being that it was an open world. The only problem with that was the memory limitations of the PS3. Hence why when Yoshi took over he split up the cities and worlds into segments. But having said that in 1.0 there was not such thing as jump and there were invisible walls and snags that your character constantly got caught on, so take that for what you will.

I remember Yoshi saying that the 1.0 developers really didn't have a direction for which they wanted to go. They just wanted to push the graphical qualities as far as they could, hence the high specifications for the game when it came out.

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I wonder, was the Crystal Tower ever a part of early lore? Some of the developer comments suggests that at least that Dalamud and Bahamut was planned for a different context in 1.0 than how they were ultimately used.

I'm also wondering how much of the Ishgard/Dravania conflict is from original design plans and how much was created after they made A Realm Reborn. Same with Midgardsormr's role in the story.

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Well, Tanaka designed Final Fantasy III so it may have been his idea to put it into FFXIV. Also during FanFest, we learned that the whole Dalamud and Bahamut thing was Yoshi's idea.

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Originally Posted by Genjuro

I don't know how far Tanaka had planned out, but I know that 1.0's world could have supported a flying version being that it was an open world. The only problem with that was the memory limitations of the PS3. Hence why when Yoshi took over he split up the cities and worlds into segments. But having said that in 1.0 there was not such thing as jump and there were invisible walls and snags that your character constantly got caught on, so take that for what you will.

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I wondered if flying might have worked well in 1.0 because it was not separated by zones and loading screens. Oh the frustration of being snagged on a rock the size of your foot or needing to walk around a fence that was knee high and 20ft long. Some people complained about invisible walls in 2.0, they would have hated being rooted to the ground.

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Originally Posted by Genjuro

I remember Yoshi saying that the 1.0 developers really didn't have a direction for which they wanted to go. They just wanted to push the graphical qualities as far as they could, hence the high specifications for the game when it came out.

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From what i recall, there was very little communication from Tanaka and his team during development. Made me wonder if it was intentional to keep things secret until they were released or if it was because they really had nothing to tell us. From the first LftP (written) I was impressed with the openness of the team and happy to see them interacting with their fanbase.

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I wonder, was the Crystal Tower ever a part of early lore? Some of the developer comments suggests that at least that Dalamud and Bahamut was planned for a different context in 1.0 than how they were ultimately used.

I'm also wondering how much of the Ishgard/Dravania conflict is from original design plans and how much was created after they made A Realm Reborn. Same with Midgardsormr's role in the story.

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Yes, the opening cinematic of 1.0 had left me with so many questions. I always wanted to get into that ship (havent managed to get to keeper of the lake yet, but I will!). I also wonder what was planned for Ishgard based on the Dragoon quests and how/if it differs from what we are getting. Is there any way to see lore posts and threads from 1.0?

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Originally Posted by Genjuro

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Just an observation, i think you got some info mixed, first, they never had the intention to implement jobs in 1.0, the idea was building one character (character level) and then mixing skills to make your own class, the main build, char level would determine if your character was more focused on a single role, or built to perform various roles but less efficiently. And last, ffxiv was never meant to be ffxi-2 or even similar to it, the project started as a graphic rebuild of ffxi for it's new client in ps3, but they decided to make a new game instead, if they used the races to save work time, or for the nostalgia factor is something we can't really know.

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I wonder, was the Crystal Tower ever a part of early lore? Some of the developer comments suggests that at least that Dalamud and Bahamut was planned for a different context in 1.0 than how they were ultimately used.

I'm also wondering how much of the Ishgard/Dravania conflict is from original design plans and how much was created after they made A Realm Reborn. Same with Midgardsormr's role in the story.

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As far as we know the Crystal Tower was new to 2.0 with no original plans for it in 1.0. In fact all character cameos and references to previous FF games came only after YoshiP took over. Tanaka's vision for FFXIV was very much XI-2 complete with realistic travel times, downtime, social dependencies, etc. The only thing that really differed was the class system.

As for Dalamud, YoshiP said a long while back that Dalamud was never intended to be Bahamut's prison. It was originally an Allagan space station of sorts that players were meant to eventually visit in an expansion. When ARR was given the go ahead though Yoshi needed a cataclysmic event to explain all the changes to the world so they changed the lore behind Dalamud. Whilst I am indeed curious what the original story for Dalamud was meant to be I'm quite happy with how it turned out instead.

The Ishgard/Dravania stuff is most likely very much back on track for the original story now. They were not changed much at all for 2.0, though the Ascian involvement in events may be considerably more overt than originally planned.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

As far as we know the Crystal Tower was new to 2.0 with no original plans for it in 1.0. In fact all character cameos and references to previous FF games came only after YoshiP took over. Tanaka's vision for FFXIV was very much XI-2 complete with realistic travel times, downtime, social dependencies, etc. The only thing that really differed was the class system.

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This isn't accurate. 1.0 was nowhere near XI-2, and wasn't supposed to be. The only thing different was the class system? Just off the top of my head; the battle system, crafting, equipment system, quest system, leve quests, aetherytes, group mechanics. All were completely different from XI's.

As for Ishgard's storyline, there was next to nothing about it in Tanaka's time. I don't think you can claim they are back in line with a story we didn't have.

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Originally Posted by HereticBliss

This isn't accurate. 1.0 was nowhere near XI-2, and wasn't supposed to be. The only thing different was the class system? Just off the top of my head; the battle system, crafting, equipment system, quest system, leve quests, aetherytes, group mechanics. All were completely different from XI's.

As for Ishgard's storyline, there was next to nothing about it in Tanaka's time. I don't think you can claim they are back in line with a story we didn't have.

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When I say XI-2 I don't mean system for system identical. I mean he was making a very similar world with very similar values at the heart of the game. Look at the things that made XI unique in the modern MMO world: access to all roles on one character, massive reliance on group play, a story driven main narrative, realistic travel times, lots and lots of downtime (which actually is the key to building a social community and precisely why so few players care to be social in newer MMOs). The soul of XIV was clearly intended to be the same as XI, even if the systems themselves were different or evolutions of XI.

As for Ishgard's storyline, no we don't know much about what was originally intended. But we do know that the 2.0 arc was a deviation to facilitate the fall of Dalamud and reintroduce new players to the Garlean threat. Essentially 2.0 was a catchup story to get everyone that missed 1.0 on the same page. We already knew that Ishgard was intended to be opened in 1.0 so in effect the story is now back where it was originally supposed to be, even if the cast has changed and some events played out differently. Whilst it's possible they may have entirely re-written Ishgard's story for the reboot I find it very unlikely as that would entail huge amounts of extra and unnecessary work if there was already something planned that would still fit with the rebooted 2.0 story.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

When I say XI-2 I don't mean system for system identical. I mean he was making a very similar world with very similar values at the heart of the game. Look at the things that made XI unique in the modern MMO world: access to all roles on one character, massive reliance on group play, a story driven main narrative, realistic travel times, lots and lots of downtime (which actually is the key to building a social community and precisely why so few players care to be social in newer MMOs). The soul of XIV was clearly intended to be the same as XI, even if the systems themselves were different or evolutions of XI.

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Literally none of what you listed was unique to FFXI when it was released. not a single thing. The similarities between 11 and 14 apply to nearly every MMO as well, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there.

As for Ishgard, you're speculating at this point so I don't see a reason to argue it. Irrelevant in either case.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Well, Tanaka designed Final Fantasy III so it may have been his idea to put it into FFXIV. Also during FanFest, we learned that the whole Dalamud and Bahamut thing was Yoshi's idea.

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Well he has to come up with something to do the reboot into 2.0 lol...what better than to blow up the world?!

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Originally Posted by tymora

Well he has to come up with something to do the reboot into 2.0 lol...what better than to blow up the world?!

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I still love this pic someone shared back when 1.0 was ending.

http://i.imgur.com/TKfbg.jpg