Did Yoshida went a bit too far by cloning WoW?

Dont get me wrong the old version was, especially at beta and release, not that good.
So this thread here isnt a "in the past was all better"-thread.

And the graphics engine was not optimised for an MMOrpg (i think it could only render at around 30-50 players at a time) as it was the crystals tools Engine from Final Fantasy XIII. The server structures have been a complete mess, especially at release, in the end they patched it and made it slightly better.

Then Yoshi P. came around at made it much better. they added lots of content like the classic jobs and all.

What i liked about the older version was that it had an openworld, though it had huge openworld maps and wasnt less theme park alike.. i liked it slightly better. It felt so real, it had way better weather mechanics and i liked to hold on for a second to just enjoy the surroundings. Today i just walk through the environments just to get the next quest. I dont really bother about the environment because for me the special feeling about it in comparison to before is kind of lost for me..

I cant describe it, but they also changed the perspective behind the character. before it played more like you are playing actually a Final Fantasy and not an MMO/WoW.
Not to talk about the better animations it had.


What i liked also more that there was more classic group play. today you wont find many big groups doing guildleves together, instead you walk anonymously in random groups over FATE's and zerg some stuff down. Which isnt that much fun for me.



The battle system was slow yes, but for me it was much more like a Final Fantasy should be... it had a TP bar etc. and now what we got is a very standardized, frequently used standard combat system which estimatically 90% of the MMorpg's these days are using. The only good thing about it is the limit break system to me.


I liked Final Fantasy XIV quiet much because it felt like Final Fantasy XI.. but obviously its not what the mainstream attracts that much. Now we have instances over instances, itemlevel spirals.

And nowdays it looks more than AION/WOW than Final Fantasy if you ask me.

I mean.. before:
http://eorzeareborn.com/wp-content/u...2/12/Party.png
http://www.gameranx.com/img/11-Dec/ffxiv03.jpg
http://evo-x.de/images/screenshots/s...20090810/4.jpg
http://final-fantasy-future.de/cms/i...8-17-10_56.jpg
http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/...f.jpg~original
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/arti...6051542069.jpg

And After (which is more like AION/WOW to me):

https://jamuthatswho.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/1.jpg
http://www.chaosbox.de/wp-content/wo...308_081935.jpg

UI before and after
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/arti...6051542069.jpg
http://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/p...png?1404811571
http://i.stack.imgur.com/9fIDq.jpg

Its no secret that Yoshi P. told his dev team to play lots of WoW in order to learn how MMorpgs work these days. (though the trend goes into a different directions because MMorpgs like Elder Scrolls Online are doing it different these days)
and as you can see, you cant really deny the influence anymore.

I dont blame Yoshi P. for this, he had to turn Final Fantasy XIV into a commercial success. Even the old version of Final Fantasy XIV he improved quiet much by implementing classic jobs to it and missions like the one of nael van darnus:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/aNVm7rxrxoc/hqdefault.jpg
http://zantetsuken.net/wp-content/up...123-banner.jpg

But as he promised he would patch the combat system into the direction of the reboot.. it wasnt really the case as they completely removed it by adding a standardized Combat system.

And the game as a whole seems to follow WoW's philosophy and today partly too much if you ask me (*looks at the screenshot above*). For me its like they sold partly the identity of an own final fantasy game for being more WoW'ish.
Do you think that they went a little too far copying WoW too much?

In short. Yes. Do i love XIV?, most definitely. After watching 1.0 cutscenes and a lot of 1.0 gameplay however it definitely looked more like a final fantasy game and seemed much more appealing, despite all the grief people give it i still think it should have stayed relatively close to it's original design. The game was still in beta and i think it would have got much better overtime just like XIV ARR did but then again i never played it so i will never know exactly how bad it was. I wish i did play it though..

FFXIV is far from a WoW clone.

I played wow for years and never once did I get this engaged with my character or the storyline. I can be all classes, not just one. The story is presented to me in custcenes and small lines of dialogue. Not walls of text inside a window....

The 1.0 world was extremely lacking in storyline, which for me makes or breaks a game and was the ultimate reason I left wow. (I never bothered to read the walls of text, story presentation is everything here). I can deal with UI issues or graphical errors but if there's no meat on that skeleton why even bother?

While their may be elements of WoW in XIV, I can argue that of almost any MMO these days. Just because WoW was/is the biggest, doesnt mean its the best. And just because they did it first, doesnt mean they did it better.

I love FFXIV, but I hate WoW for various reasons. and it shows probably in my post. Maybe you are the opposite of me and prefer WoW. I dunno. To each their own, but I like FFXIV the way it is now.

I didn't play 1.0 much because after 2 hours I started getting the feeling that I was playing FFXI again. Made me turn off the game and never look back. I don't get that with ARR.

People love to make the WoW comparison as if it were an insult to ARR because of lack of originality, but then demand FFXIV to be a copy of FFXI. One game shouldn't determine the "identity of FF". More so when they want to bring back outdated gameplay mechanics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

The 1.0 world was extremely lacking in storyline

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Hm?

Storyline

And Nael van Darnus Storyline in 1.23 (no voice over here, since it was clear the game is going to be rebooted):
Nael van Darnus some cutscenes (low quality)
Nael van Darnus Storyline Ending Cutscenes - youtube



right the main storyline stayed unfinished. I liked the Nael van Darnus storyline btw very much^

Snow and gryphons © Blizzard Entertainment

"Yo guys WoW invented griffins! This game is WoW ripoff."

While I liked the zones of 3.0 I'm excited to see 4.0, just because I hope from this experience it means we will continue to see large zones. 1.0 had excellent scale but a lot of copy pasta. Also, miss that great Coerthas, before snow.. xD. 2.0 zones while having a lot of little details certainly feel quite small.

You felt 1.0 was lacking story Vespar? I felt like it built slowly but that there was a lot of info to be had in 1.0, and could have been more if it wasn't released earlier than Tanka wanted (obviously the game he was making even if released when he wanted wouldn't have been mainstream but that is a different argument than "game was incomplete, and I felt like there was still some story and would very likely be a lot more if given time").

In terms of the FFXIV going a bit WoW, I do miss some of the somber more serious atmosphere of 1.0 - some of which we seem to be getting back from the 1.0 to 2.0 shift, to now 3.0. Other parts seems Yoshida doesn't like because it isn't very mainstream or new person friendly (wish he carried "not new person friendly" thought process to crafting lol).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

Hm?

Storyline

And Nael van Darnus Storyline in 1.23 (no voice over here, since it was clear the game is going to be rebooted):
Nael van Darnus Storyline Cutscenes - youtube


right the main storyline stayed unfinished. I liked the Nael van Darnus storyline btw very much^

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Nael Van Darnus and the original storyline could likely be completed in a day if you didn't have to grind levels to get there ^^; Hence it was lacking.
Levelling aside in ARR and HW, there is hours of cutscenes and dialogue from both the main scenario and side quests, and dungeons.

While I'll admit the open world is lacking in COMBAT, its not lacking if you are a gatherer. I find myself running all over the place enjoying the sights as a gatherer.

Also, for me personally, XIV's replayability is awesome! I'm starting a 3rd new character just to re-experience the storyline all over again (not just thru the inn-room book) and its been fun as hell levelling up and doing quests. I read the dialogue in side quests and main scenario as much as I can and the lore you get from the quests is awesome.

I didnt get this feeling in WoW. Again, my stance is very much a personal one. WoW just doesnt do it for me.
I liked 1.0 too but it was definitely missing ALOT to have kept me interested.

And WoW carried over elements of EverQuest and EverQuest carried over elements of Ultima Online and Ultima Online (which is where the term MMORPG was coined) got its roots from stuff like The Realm Online and Neverwinter Nights (the AOL version). I'm not sure I get your point.

Everything takes from somewhere else and innovates upon it. FFXIV 1.0 was "Crafter's Fantasy" and although the story was good for 1.0, it was not at first. The graphics needed to be altered cause ate system specs alive in some cases.

You typed "me" ten times by the way; it's not what you want, but what the couple of million subscribers pay for want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yutsimaki

"Yo guys WoW invented griffins! This game is WoW ripoff."

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do you know that Final Fantasy didnt ever had griffins in its franchise till FF HW? hum how comes?

And as the scenery itself reminds of WoW.. not to talk about the UI and flying mounts in all. and even having other mounts besides chocobos. like blue glowing ponys and all havent been part of final fantasy ever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

Nael Van Darnus and the original storyline could likely be completed in a day if you didn't have to grind levels to get there ^^; Hence it was lacking.

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Yes and FF ARR is lenghtening it by implementing hundreds of careless "get me 10 milk bottles" quests within the main story. Kill 6 random mobs... right. thats what a mainstoryline mission deserves.

besides that openworld mobs are complete trash mobs now. in Final Fantasy every monster is considered as a serious opponent.

i mean
Final Fantasy X


trash mobs... that isnt Final Fantasy.. and thats why monsters in the old version and especially in FFXI monsters have taken a longer time to kill...and in contrast gave 10x more exp. I think many people didnt understood that, because they come from games like WoW.
That there are games with battles that are taking longer time and a combat system thats being slower.

1.0 had a lot of problems during it's start, for example the combat system was changed several times from having to execute your basic attacks to suddenly have auto-attacks. Also the exp system was confusing, given you exp for healing someone not in your party and having a reverse rest system when your exp gain suddenly plummeted sharply unless you changed to a different class.
Back then leves when the name of the game for exp, but that also got changed a lot. I recall being able to handle lv 20 leves on my PUG15, but suddenly it was changed and now I had to do lower level leves for crappy exp.

What drow me away were all the different changes, it felt like they didn't have a clear direction for the game back then and it felt imcomplete, like questing getting patched in later and wasn't a part of it from the start. I did love the very big open worlds, I hope they get more programmers and money to this game so we can have truely big maps like in 1.0(but with less copy paste locations)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

do you know that Final Fantasy didnt ever had griffins in its franchise till FF HW? hum how comes?

And as the scenery itself reminds of WoW.. not to talk about the UI and flying mounts in all. and even having other mounts besides chocobos. like blue glowing ponys and all.

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I'm having a hard time trying to decide if you're serious. Several Final Fantasy games have had gryphons (spelled Griffon in the games) as enemies.

And it's a WoW clone because they both happen to have snow-covered zones? Because snowy zones never existed in a game before WoW, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

do you know that Final Fantasy didnt ever had griffins in its franchise till FF HW? hum how comes?

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Let me help you:

Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy Legend 1, 2, and 3
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Here, for reference young one. http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Griffon_(Enemy)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

I'm having a hard time trying to decide if you're serious. Several Final Fantasy games have had gryphons (spelled Griffon in the games) as enemies.

And it's a WoW clone because they both happen to have snow-covered zones? Because snowy zones never existed in a game before WoW, right?

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But not as mounts.. since in FF you ever had chocobos as mounts.. and no flying mounts.. no its because of the LOOKS it has.. when you compare it to older screenshots..

and if you compare it to the offline series it has less in common with typical FF's. thats my opinion on that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

Yes and FF ARR is lenghtening it by implementing hundreds of careless "get me 10 milk bottles" quests within the main story. Kill 6 random mobs... right. thats what a mainstoryline mission deserves.

besides that openworld mobs are complete trash mobs now. in Final Fantasy every monster is considered as a serious opponent.

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Those are called random encounters; you grind on them to level up. Let me repeat that: You grind on them to level up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

Yes and FF ARR is lenghtening it by implementing hundreds of careless "get me 10 milk bottles" quests within the main story. Kill 6 random mobs... right. thats what a mainstoryline mission deserves.

---

Last time I played WoW there were literally HUNDREDS of these "go get me X item" quests as well. The only difference is that the story in WoW is a block of text. In FFXIV, its line by line dialogue with an npc who explained why that item was needed. Not to mention there's often a veritable treasure trove of lore packed into some of these quests, or insights into NPC's you wouldnt otherwise see.
Dunno if WoW is the same, I couldnt be bothered to read their walls of texts, so in XIV I'd say the line by line dialogue is a welcome innovation...

Also, 1.0 was literally years ago. And its not coming back. There comes a time when you have to let go of the past to make way for a better future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

do you know that Final Fantasy didnt ever had griffins in its franchise till FF HW? hum how comes?

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http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Griffon_(Enemy)

Final Fantasy 3 is where they first appear. I think this kind of pre-dates WoW.........

EDIT; Lol Raiker beat me to it, but if two of us can do a quick google check on facts, i think OP can as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

But not as mounts.. since in FF you ever had chocobos as mounts.. and no flying mounts.. no its because of the LOOKS it has.. when you compare it to older screenshots..

and if you compare it to the offline series it has less in common with typical FF's. thats my opinion on that.

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Let me help you again:

A griffon flying mount: http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Flying_Mount_(EQ2_Quest_Series)

Guess EQ2 stole it from WoW too?

I get it, you want 1.0 back, the only other MMO you've played is WoW, so you have no reference. You're not getting 1.0 back; the game nearly failed for all the glorious nostalgia that folks have, it nearly failed.

Move on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raiker

And WoW carried over elements of EverQuest and EverQuest carried over elements of Ultima Online and Ultima Online (which is where the term MMORPG was coined)

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First of all Final Fantasy XI is more like an Everquest than a WoW ever is going to be.... its a difference to copy features and remaining true to onseself... or copying and looking/feeling like an other franchise. gameplay, lore and visually wise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raiker

Guess EQ2 stole it from WoW too?

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Though you think you are intelligent.. i meant the LOOKS of it. i said "which LOOKS more like AION/WOW to me). AION didnt had a griffin mount or did it?! Besides the fact that you never ever would ride a griffon, a blue glowing pony in any other final fantasy game of the series.. and that its a flying mount..

i meant the VISUALS about it. NOT the griffon. or did i just said that by posting that screenshot? no..

that these graphics, visuals, character perspective, flying mount, griffin, the UI, Quest Hub and all does not look Final Fantasy'ish.
https://jamuthatswho.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/1.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

And it's a WoW clone because they both happen to have snow-covered zones? Because snowy zones never existed in a game before WoW, right?

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Well they are called Blizzard entertainment.

On a serious note there are a large number of things that XIV has done to modernize itself to the current MMO market, a market that was pretty much shaped around the successes of many of WoW's systems, for those coming from 1.0 it's easy to see where it feels like the game has lost some of it's FF identity from a design standpoint.

The game does however try to make up for it by throwing tons of references to older FF titles via NPCs, story elements, and bosses / monsters but at it's core you can fairly say quite a lot of the game borrows from WoW's formula (by developer intent as stated by Yoshida), not everyone enjoys that aspect.

10/10 Almost posted serious response

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryel

The game does however try to make up for it by throwing tons of references to older FF titles via NPCs, story elements, and bosses / monsters but at it's core you can fairly say quite a lot of the game borrows from WoW's formula (by developer intent as stated by Yoshida), not everyone enjoys that aspect.

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this +++

thank you for that. it was even stated by yoshida himself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

Though you think you are intelligent.. i meant the LOOKS of it. i said "which LOOKS more like AION/WOW to me). AION didnt had a griffin mount or did it?! Besides the fact that you never ever would ride a griffon, a blue glowing pony in any other final fantasy game of the series.. and that its a flying mount..

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Let me educate you ONE last time.

http://www.google.com

Use that so you can educate yourself, I'm tired of doing it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raiker

Let me educate you ONE last time.

http://www.google.com

Use that so you can educate yourself, I'm tired of doing it.

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raiker yeah and im tired of talking to you about the griffin thing.. which wasnt my point at ALL..

im tired of explaining this to you either. i think my fault was to just post one screenshot at that point.

Bottom line is...no matter how you design the game, someone is bound to be unhappy.

The number of that "someone" determines the game design. Casual design wins more subscriptions, thus this game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raiker

Let me educate you ONE last time.

http://www.google.com

Use that so you can educate yourself, I'm tired of doing it.

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about the mount topic i could post also other mount pictures in comparison to each other (to go away from that "griffin topic"):

http://i.imgur.com/k1tBBhq.png
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...Offensive1.jpg
http://www.onrpgblog.com/wp-content/...1/midnight.jpg
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20060710145222
http://static.wowhead.com/uploads/sc...mal/200279.jpg
http://cdn3-www.craveonline.com/asse...unt-dragon.jpg
http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/p.../Image1302.jpg
http://www.electricblueskies.com/wp/...OCOBO-CUTE.jpg

Its your decision what you think about it... and yea. they came up with the idea of having more than chocobo mounts for a reason.
And yea.. other game mechanics are based on a specific game.

as yoshida told his dev team to play lots of WoW.. and he even stated that.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovate

Innovate: : to do something in a new way : to have new ideas about how something can be done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

about the mount topic i could post also other mount pictures in comparison to each other:

http://i.imgur.com/k1tBBhq.png
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...Offensive1.jpg
http://www.onrpgblog.com/wp-content/...1/midnight.jpg
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/...20060710145222
http://static.wowhead.com/uploads/sc...mal/200279.jpg
http://cdn3-www.craveonline.com/asse...unt-dragon.jpg

Its your decision what you think about it... and yea. they came up with the idea of having more than chocobo mounts for a reason.
And yea.. other game mechanics are based on a game which i wont mention for now anymore.

as yoshida told his dev team to play lots of WoW.. and he even stated that.

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I do feel like the chocobo system could be improved, emotionalized (word? lol) via further personalization and care, making them a larger part of the game. But on the bright side every photo you exampled FFXIV looks 10000% better and neither dragons or horses are particularly unique to the fantasy setting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovate

Innovate: : to do something in a new way : to have new ideas about how something can be done.

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so its innovative to implement blue shiny ponys to Star Wars online too then? Innovative? Of course final fantasy evolves in its lore etc. but for me it just shows how they sold the identity for several things.. to make it WoW'ish and to make a commercial success...and thats not just the mounts.

And no, implementing different mount types is no innovation.. since that is done by billions of other MMorpgs since i dont know.. a decade

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

so its innovative to implement blue shiny ponys to star trek online too? Innovative? Of course final fantasy evolves in its lore etc. but for me it just shows how they sold the identity for several things.. to make it WoW'ish and to make a commercial success...and thats not just the mounts.

And no, implementing different mount types is no innovation.. since that is done by billions of other MMorpgs since i dont know.. a decade

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If everything is so WoW to you. Why arent you playing WoW?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

(wish he carried "not new person friendly" thought process to crafting lol).

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Oh definitely. Seems like they're making gathering and crafting more and more obnoxious with each update.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

If everything is so WoW to you. Why arent you playing WoW?

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because its much more cartoonish and i dont like the lore at all. yea. and yes im about to leave FFXIV.
im quiet tired of that MMO formula of running instances and itemlevel spirals.

i find it kind of sad, as i loved to play FFXI (the game is a little bit outdated for todays standards). they unfortunatley missed the chance to become a REAL final fantasy Online . With OWN Combat System and gameplay mechanics, that actually feel like a final fantasy.

so for me FFXIV is more like standard MMO stuffed with FF things in it.. which kept me playing it for some time.

Kevin VanOrd a big fan of ff said what was true in back in the day http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/fina.../1900-6280901/ Was any of this a lie? i mean 1.0 was very nice to look at but was busted

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tonkra

because its much more cartoonish and i dont like the lore at all. yea. and yes im about to leave FFXIV.
im quiet tired of that MMO formula of running instances and itemlevel spirals.

i find it kind of sad, as i loved to play FFXI (the game is a little bit outdated for todays standards). they missed the chance to become a REAL final fantasy unfortunatley.

so for me FFXIV is more like standard MMO stuffed with FF things in it.. which kept me playing it for some time.

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Dont let the door hit you on the way out. Because obviously nothing anyone in here says will answer your original question in your eyes. You already made up your mind before you asked the question.

Did SE clone WoW? No, I dont think they cloned anything. If they cloned anything it would look exactly like WoW. The story would be the exact same yada yada yada.
What I do see, is research that was done using other WoW and games and MMO's that was then expanded upon, innovated and implemented in a way that allowed SE to make it their own. However, their story is entirely original, as are their mount designs and methods of obtainment.

Furthermore, If you were to take away the title of "Final Fantasy" what would this game be to you? Would you care that it had elemnts of WoW? Would you enjoy it for what it is, rather than what it isnt? I feel like far too many people put too much stock into a single name. Final Fantasy has always been different for each and every installment.

I'm a legacy player from all the way back in 1.0 alpha days. There are many things I enjoyed about 1.x... I was one of the few who actually liked the environments and didn't agree with the hyperbolic "copy pasta" accusations. But ultimately there was a lack of content and it was a pretty ridiculous grind on top of a penalty system that reduced your XP if you were grinding too much.

There were also quite a few mechanical issues and the graphics system was not optimized well at all.

But while I did enjoy 1.x, ARR+ is just better in almost every possible way. And it's in no way a copy of WoW. The people who make that claim don't really understand what they are saying. There are certain aspects of MMOs that are "tried and true" and end up becoming standards that are expected by the demographic. Those are the things the carry over between all MMOs, and WoW was not the first one to implement them, far from it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

FFXIV is far from a WoW clone.

I played wow for years and never once did I get this engaged with my character or the storyline. I can be all classes, not just one. The story is presented to me in custcenes and small lines of dialogue. Not walls of text inside a window....

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THIS. What I hate about pretty much every MMORPG except Mabinogi and Star Wars: The Old Republic, is that ALL other MMORPG's just throw a wall of text at you and have little to no cinematics to it. Hell I played Archeage and Aion expecting such kinds of cutscenes and there were zero. The cutscenes in Archeage and Wizardy Online were little more than the character's idle pose looping while their arms and mouth moves (Archeage), or just "wobbles" (Wizardry.) SWTOR actually has a storyline, albeit one you might not care for if you're not really really realllllllly into Star Wars. The Star Trek Online was much worse. There was nothing cinematic about it. Mabinogi has plenty of cutscenes, but a lot of were skipped if you were in a party for much the same reason in FFXIV, people are impatient.

So three out of maybe 20 games I tried since UO had "engaging" storylines.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vespar

The 1.0 world was extremely lacking in storyline, which for me makes or breaks a game and was the ultimate reason I left wow. (I never bothered to read the walls of text, story presentation is everything here). I can deal with UI issues or graphical errors but if there's no meat on that skeleton why even bother?

While their may be elements of WoW in XIV, I can argue that of almost any MMO these days. Just because WoW was/is the biggest, doesnt mean its the best. And just because they did it first, doesnt mean they did it better.

I love FFXIV, but I hate WoW for various reasons. and it shows probably in my post. Maybe you are the opposite of me and prefer WoW. I dunno. To each their own, but I like FFXIV the way it is now.

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I've never played WoW, and a large amount of reason why I never got had the slightest interest in it was because WoW came out at a time I was working at a call center and I knew NOTHING about it other than all the "dudebro" slackers were playing it. Like not the "nerds", but the actual dudebros. So I didn't make the connection. (Likewise I didn't make the connection that people actually used Facebook when I worked at the last call center, just that all the damn facebook game invites were a plague.) The call centers "cut off" access to the WoW forums and it caused an outrage.

Like to me, there has to be a storyline. It can not simply be "log in to the game and grind in one spot for 16 hours, or until you no longer get experience from the mobs"

The Final Fantasy "Identity" is in the storyline, which borrows heavily from Naussica, which is a "man vs nature/environment" story.
It doesn't matter that the Garleans come in and wreck the place, or that Cid brings the Airship to get you to the next location, ultimately the "big bad" in all the Final Fantasy Games is "someone who corrupts nature to their own ends", be it the Crystals, Magic, or Espers/Primals/God-like beings. It's your job as the Warrior of Light to stop the Big Bad from destroying everyone. I think it was around FF5 that Final Fantasy started to really get it's own identity.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest both borrow their game mechanics heavily from Ultima and Wizardry CRPG's, and while Dragon Quest mainly adhered to Wizardy's combat system, Final Fantasy created it's own unique combat system. Every FF game since has refined on it, or threw out the previous system only to bring parts of it back in a later game. Again, around FF5 it started to get it's own identity.

Both DQ and FF, had the same inspirations for their RPG elements. Wizardy and Ultima.

Like, let's say in some alternate reality, SquareEnix had decided to just live with FFXIV the way it was at 1.0 release, and Yoshi-P never came into the picture? What do you really think would have happened?

My guess is that we would get one storyline out of it and then it would have been "changed to a single player game" and re-released offline and they just take a loss on it. Square-Enix may still need to do this just to allow players to see the entire storyline, or just rip a page out of FF7's book and pre-render all the lore scenes and allow the player to import their FFXIV V2.0 character into it.

I'm fairly confident that SE could just back-port all the cutscenes to ret-con the storylines of each Scion/Path-of-Twelve, but they wouldn't be quite as amazing since it seems the current cutscene engine lacks dynamic camera movement (which is what allowed for the amazing openings that V1.0 had)

I realize the OP is getting much flak. But the OP is speaking some truth... and usually the truth pisses people off. I personally don't car if aesthetically the game is similar to WoW. or if they game has some things that are similar to WoW (dungeon finder, flying mounts ect...) The bottom line is the only thing that can really be attributed to WoW as being an original addition to the general makeup of MMOs is a cohesive, continual streamlined questline. Thats really all WoW ever brought to the table that set it apart from the other MMOs at the time. They took Everquest, and they streamlined it. Blizzard effectively gave birth to the concept of "Themepark". And that's fine, I don't mind other MMOs using that.

What disturbs me about this and many other MMOs is this complete adherence to the design philosophy behind WoW in it's entirety. Games STOP trying to be their own thing and latch on to the relatively shoddy design that was/still is World of Warcraft.

Case in point in FFXIV is this cap nonsense. Instead of trying to legitimize the game as an enjoyable experience we're instead met with a developer crutch designed to prolong content life by forcing players to stick around for subs to acquire gear. This is ignoring the fact that WoW was a decade ago and we're still on the same tired ass gear grind scenario as the entirety of purpose in MMOs. This is the problem. it isn't whats copied. it's that what is copied is never improved, not really; certainly not on the systems and design points that matter.

This is why most games fail. They wants to just copy the success and maybe add a gimmick that they think will distinguish it at the start, but then those gimmicks are never developed because there isn't enough of the game elsewhere to allow it a lifespan of any length to see it occur. In short, they're never their own games, they never have their own identity because they're too busy being preoccupied with copycatting the other presently successful MMO.

Thats why when new MMOs are announced and they promise to be entirely different they get enormous spikes in interest.. but eventually only prove to be the exact same shit but with a small twist. Imagine if an automotive maker said they were coming out with the next evolution in the idea of the car and basically just made the same car from 10 years ago but with the knight rider light on the front spoiler. That's essentially all MMO developers do now.

That's essentially all Yoshida did with FFXIV. That's essentially all SE continues to do.

And before the "Well if you dont like the game why are you here"

Because I hold out hope that eventually someone will remove their head from their ass and change. That's why.

Things never get better if you just shut your mouth and leave.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan

I'm a legacy player from all the way back in 1.0 alpha days. There are many things I enjoyed about 1.x... I was one of the few who actually liked the environments and didn't agree with the hyperbolic "copy pasta" accusations. But ultimately there was a lack of content and it was a pretty ridiculous grind on top of a penalty system that reduced your XP if you were grinding too much.

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I liked the look of them on a grand scale but I think hyperbolic and accusations is a bit of an intense wording, have you not seen the screen shots that show 20+ exact copy locations?

What would be considered copy pasta if not locations exactly the same within 30 seconds of each other? Just curious xD.

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Originally Posted by Vespar

Dont let the door hit you on the way out. Because obviously nothing anyone in here says will answer your original question in your eyes. You already made up your mind before you asked the question.

Did SE clone WoW? No, I dont think they cloned anything.

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Sorry but get your rosy goggles off.. you cant say "ANYTHING".. i would understand if you say "for me it's like they copied some things out of it". but saying "nothing at all" is completely false. especially when the producer itself said that.

and cloning doesnt mean that you copy the story..

it is a standard MMO with FF things stuffed into it. (lore, characters etc.). i mean if you play an offline fantasy and then FFXIV you see the differences very obviously. That MMorpgs these days can be similiar to their offline titles .. ESO is a good example for that. it made its own combat system and not "click target, click a button" etc. it is more or less elder scrolls online gameplay.

You cant say that FFXIV now feels like you are playing a Final Fantasy game. For me its definatley a missed chance.
FFXI had the main menu of the offline titles in it. it was very slow paced. FFXIV had things like TP bar etc. it was more unique in that way


im not saying FFXIV is a bad game. but if i see it in comparison to the old version or FFXI... it is obviously driven towards wow.