Mark Kearns reviews FF14 vs current MMO development mentality

Source: https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1414968975704825856

Not sure many of you know who Mark Kearn is but I'll list his bio below.

Twitter BIO
"Chrono Trigger is best game. Yes, I made Blizzard games. Yes, I still make games. Team lead of original WoW, producer on Starcraft, Diablo II, and more."

The guy was the lead on some of the most iconic games in history.

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I leave a tip for
@FF_XIV_EN


Follow this and you will 10x your sales and userbase. Take it from the wow guy.

Fix your account website! Take 6 devs and do an EMERGENCY REWRITE.

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This is an amazing thread from an extremely informed person on MMO's breaking down the failures of current MMO developers and their focus on treating players like customers instead of respecting them as gamers.

People might be to young to know him but that guy is the reason wow, diablo and some other titles got successful.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

People might be to young to know him but that guy is the reason wow, diablo and some other titles got successful.

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I like that his only advice is to redesign the site so people can buy the game faster lol

I dont know, the last time someone trusted Kern -- he burnt Red 5 Studios to the ground then got voted out as CEO

Yup, it's actually crazy how hard it is to buy the game.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I dont know, the last time someone trusted Kern -- he burnt Red 5 Studios to the ground then got voted out as CEO

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Yeah definitely not in his prime anymore but I think people still value his opinion lol

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Yeah definitely not in his prime anymore but I think people still value his opinion lol

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I dont. I think he was good because of Blizzard -- not because of him. Everything outside of Blizz he has done either tanks or is sold out to China (Em8ers)

Case and point: Yuji Naka. Unless you think Balan Wonderworld isnt akin to torture.

Making their user experience outside of game things sleeker would be nice, I get strong 2000 vibes from most of the important account wide stuff. Certainly something blizzard is still good at (not just them, many big artistic highly tech related businesses have sleek pretty websites). The new player guide area is cute, but the account section is definitely not. I remember even re-downloading the game was annoying as well, rather than an easy to find button it was faster just to Google where to download it.

Not sure about this 10x stuff though ... Lol. I would be curious to see how many stop because of the experience but I can't imagine it's a lot, it just doesn't give a great first impression.

I'm happy for the extra windfall for FFXIV though, I hope they can utilize well and keep the momentum long term. Hope SE is ready, might earn themselves fans in general - just don't clone the mistakes from the place many are moving on from (money is important, how else do you except to help people survive and work their worth - a lot of potential responsibility if you care for your employees, but just don't go transparently money first 'game/gamer's second. Something CDProjektRed did well up until their last release fiasco).

Every player's first taste of Savage content is account set up.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

Every player's first taste of Savage content is account set up.

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Do you get echo if you fail to sign up?

He's right, the mog station system is trash and it makes buying the game a lot harder than it needs to be.

That said, let's not pretend that Mark Kearn is someone that knows what he's doing when it comes to mmos. This is the guy who's responsible for tanking firefall due to his indecisiveness (firefall's core systems were changed so many times during the beta, it was kind of absurd) and frivolous spending (look up the firefall bus and "stage 5", a glorified youtube channel that they bought movie quality filming equipment for, that ultimately went nowhere). Not only did he tank red5, he also tried to get a blockchain based mmo up and running a while ago, an idea that he quietly abandoned so that he could use what little good will he's got left to milk people dry developing em-8er, a game that will, in all likelihood, go down the same way as firefall, assuming it ever actually gets off the ground. The dude's a joke.

edit: Man twitter's format is terrible, I didn't realize the mog station comment was actually the end of a big chain. I maintain everything I said earlier, the dude still sucks as a dev, but everything he said there certainly sounds about right.

All I read in the tweets linked is either common knowledge to anyone who keeps up with game industry news or just obvious.

And I'm not trying to defend WoW. I couldn't care less about the game. But the first link in his thread probably dramatized a lot on Blizzard's internal affairs.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

All I read in the tweets linked is either common knowledge to anyone who keeps up with game industry news or just obvious.

And I'm not trying to defend WoW. I couldn't care less about the game. But the first link in his thread probably dramatized a lot on Blizzard's internal affairs.

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So he was there in that transition period between Blizzard and Activision/Blizzard so he does have some insight on how the industry seems to work. You kind of see it with New World where they tried to add a cash shop with straight up pay to win before the MMO even released to the pure uproar of even people who support it.

I think it is just an interesting set of tweets that is common knowledge to anyone who has lived through it actually happening.

It's nice that everyone is getting in on this fad right now.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I dont. I think he was good because of Blizzard -- not because of him. Everything outside of Blizz he has done either tanks or is sold out to China (Em8ers)

Case and point: Yuji Naka. Unless you think Balan Wonderworld isnt akin to torture.

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OMG.... are you an OG fan of our lord and savior Sonic The Hedgehog and follow true lord Tail channel? - I joke - But I loled you mentioned Yuji. It's rare someone mentions him.

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

OMG.... are you an OG fan of our lord and savior Sonic The Hedgehog and follow true lord Tail channel? - I joke - But I loled you mentioned Yuji. It's rare someone mentions him.

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I saw a video of Balan Wonderworld and can never forget him now.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

All I read in the tweets linked is either common knowledge to anyone who keeps up with game industry news or just obvious.

And I'm not trying to defend WoW. I couldn't care less about the game. But the first link in his thread probably dramatized a lot on Blizzard's internal affairs.

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Its /vg/ -- so its about as real as the people leaking Goku for Smash

On the one hand, I have to input my friggin one time password three times if I want to buy anything on the mogstation.

On the other hand, I am absolutely not afraid of my account ever getting hacked, on account of the website asking for the OTP twice just to log in. Back in XI, there were people with OTPs that got hacked when their launcher got a virus from Vanadiel Maps, and the thieves used the input OTP to log into PlayOnline and change the password. That's.... definitely not an issue with XIV's horrible website design.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Its /vg/ -- so its about as real as the people leaking Goku for Smash

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just because it's 4chan doesn't mean it must be wrong, though
the gta general had a rockstar dev leaking things for quite a while before the company was restructured, for example
plus, leaking things is easier when you're anonymous vs, say, pseudo-anon on resetera or reddit where it's possible you'll get flak when people figure out who you are or just downvote you to oblivion

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

People might be to young to know him but that guy is the reason wow, diablo and some other titles got successful.

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He was also the head of one of the greatest mismanaging and financial disasters in gaming with Firefall.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I saw a video of Balan Wonderworld and can never forget him now.

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damn. PTSD.

ngl but I agree 100% they really need to fix the account system.

I also don't wanna go on abit of a tangent but like legit I have made like 3 or so accounts since 2011 for FFXIV (and lost the login info for them over the years but I luckily still got a few of my 1.0. boxes somewhere) and not only that but I also have like 2 services accounts on this very account i'm using right now with one locked to steam and the other not. which by the way I can't even play my darn non-steam toons which also includes my arr beta toon without having to shell out even more dang money for subs and expansions on the very same account, like seriously this is getting ridiculous here. Also I never really got why you lose your "legacy" account status if ya nuked your legacy toon for some reason neither, I mean shouldn't that be something that is linked to the whole account and not just one toon? whatever, i'm done complaining here but yeah, I agree with Mark Kearns in that they need to Desperately fix the account website, it's just simply way too botched

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Originally Posted by znushu

ngl but I agree 100% they really need to fix the account system.

I also don't wanna go on abit of a tangent but like legit I have made like 3 or so accounts since 2011 for FFXIV (and lost the login info for them over the years but I luckily still got a few of my 1.0. boxes somewhere) and not only that but I also have like 2 services accounts on this very account i'm using right now with one locked to steam and the other not. which by the way I can't even play my darn non-steam toons which also includes my arr beta toon without having to shell out even more dang money for subs and expansions on the very same account, like seriously this is getting ridiculous here. Also I never really got why you lose your "legacy" account status if ya nuked your legacy toon for some reason neither, I mean shouldn't that be something that is linked to the whole account and not just one toon? whatever, i'm done complaining here but yeah, I agree with Mark Kearns in that they need to Desperately fix the account website, it's just simply way too botched

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It is tied to the account. You aren't using the same account.

Account type doesn't change based on character. If your account met the requirements for legacy status, you have legacy status. The only thing tied to the character is the tattoo, which has nothing to do with account type, isn't part of the legacy account status, and any 1.0 character will have that, where only some 1.0 accounts are legacy accounts.


And I really don't understand why people have so much trouble crating and managing accounts for XIV.

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Originally Posted by Rinhi

just because it's 4chan doesn't mean it must be wrong, though
the gta general had a rockstar dev leaking things for quite a while before the company was restructured, for example
plus, leaking things is easier when you're anonymous vs, say, pseudo-anon on resetera or reddit where it's possible you'll get flak when people figure out who you are or just downvote you to oblivion

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Sure, but i get suspicious at the length of the post and certain LARPy parts.

Its reads and sounds like a bad forum post.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Sure, but i get suspicious at the length of the post and certain LARPy parts.

Its reads and sounds like a bad forum post.

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yeah, I get you and I don't want to seem like I disagree with you about your points because I actually agree with them generally
I just wanted to point out that there are arguments to be made to use that forum rather than the others

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Sure, but i get suspicious at the length of the post and certain LARPy parts.

Its reads and sounds like a bad forum post.

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The forum post might be fake but it does not take a genius to realize that Blizzard had no clue the tsunami of unsubs they were going to get hit with as SystemsLands turned into the disaster literally everyone who played the Beta PTR could tell you it would.

Ion completely ignored extremely valid feedback not just about class locking but literally spec locking inside of a class now that required massive grinds. He learned nothing from Legion and somehow managed to make something worse then BFA.

PreachGaming literally said "The elitist will encounter the problems with Shadowlands immediately as they will have to grind hard for Mythic raiding and they will accept it because the raid is good but when the casuals hit that wall is when the real problems start".

I made a post explaining to the FF14 community completely confused why an expansion that is literally OVER and has been out for 2 years in a content lul is insanely popular out of nowhere. The amount of times people said the word grind, timegating and RNG in Youtube videos explaining 9.1 after waiting 7 months was a major red flag of what was really coming.

Mark Kern???

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/co..._didnt_take_a/

*walks away laughing hysterically*

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I dont. I think he was good because of Blizzard -- not because of him. Everything outside of Blizz he has done either tanks or is sold out to China (Em8ers)

Case and point: Yuji Naka. Unless you think Balan Wonderworld isnt akin to torture.

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Yuji Naka wasn't the one responsible for making Sonic good though. The concept was his and he did the programming, but the actual game design and direction was Hirokazu Yasuhara's. It's no coincidence the main games dropped drastically in quality under Yuji Naka's production when Yasuhara left. Yuji Naka only deserves credit for designing two games: Ivy the Kiwi and Rodea. He's had more decades of undeserving credit than Keiji Inafune. Balan was only the ultimate proof people needed.

I don't think Mark Kern is a person that I personally would listen to. He is a clearly very bitter person who will pretty much say anything to hurt his former employer. By the way, he doesn't actually think Final Fantasy is a good game, just like a bunch of other people he is just using it to attack WoW.

He's against the core philosophy of final fantasy, hates things like fast travel or easy modes, and clearly is only saying anything good about Final Fantasy to get back at Blizzard.

The CFO type person, looking at FF14 and they say, well FF14 is profitable, and it does not affect our gacha games so why not;
The CFO type person, looking at wow and they say, well it sells but not our best seller, and it hinders our potential for a lot of money on gacha games due to the fans revolting... maybe just maybe we should let the game die 'naturally' so we can reintroduce phone games that could potentially increase our profit.

I don’t get what’s so hard about making an account anyway. You go to mog click register. Input personal info. Then Input a game code you bought from Amazon or SE directly. Download game and play.

Mark Kern, now there's a name I never wanted to hear again.

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Originally Posted by seraf

I don’t get what’s so hard about making an account anyway. You go to mog click register. Input personal info. Then Input a game code you bought from Amazon or SE directly. Download game and play.

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It is the two account thing. You have one user name for this place and another for the MogStation. You then have to use the right one on the launcher after you figure out where to input the code because the item code thing if you put the wrong code there it does not tell you where to put expansion codes lol

A lot of this could be solved with an option on a drop down to just apply the expansion code to your account when you buy it or choose to get it e-mailed if you want to gift the code or something.

Just to quickly drop a few comments regarding the leak...

Well, let's start with the obvious -- the leak FEELS genuine. This may be more important to it being accurate or not, stuff like this tends to become a "self-fulfilling prophecy" of sorts; Blizz can't control their own narrative, and for the most part it's affirming a lot of the negative sentiment which is already out there. The details like it actually affecting recruitment of developers would be this actually happening in practice, working at Blizz no longer has the prestige it used to.

The one detail that is surprising is actually somewhat contrary the negative sentiment -- the development leads are an example of the "Peter Principle", essentially being thrust into a position where they are unable (and/or don't understand everything that it requires you to cover) after the old guard left. This, combined with a certain stubbornness and steadfastly believing the game is "too big to fail", is what appears to be causing things to go downhill so swiftly.

There's an old saying:

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"How do people go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

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The problems have been mounting for years, but they've been ignored. Now that it has reached the tipping point, they're desperately trying to figure out why.
But the simple answer is that their arrogance left them blind to the warning signs which were being thrown at them constantly.

Still, there is one thing I have to agree with -- whatever Blizz does next, it has to be a "significant win" and be an important step in rebuilding all of the company's lost goodwill.
WoW might not be as bad as FFXIV 1.0... but Blizz' reputation is just as bad, if not worse, than Square's at that time. It has all but reached the point WoW needs an ARR-style rebuild.

After reading all that, it seems real, but out of all of that. One part really irked me.


The woke part down at the bottom. I want stories that offend me. I want content that makes me upset, or cry. Making non offensive content is just stupid, and is a trend that needs to end.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

It is the two account thing. You have one user name for this place and another for the MogStation. You then have to use the right one on the launcher after you figure out where to input the code because the item code thing if you put the wrong code there it does not tell you where to put expansion codes lol

A lot of this could be solved with an option on a drop down to just apply the expansion code to your account when you buy it or choose to get it e-mailed if you want to gift the code or something.

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Uhh, the forums use the same account as your game.

I feel like that advice is disingenuous.

Also, laughs in PlayOnline FFXI account setup.

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

Also, laughs in PlayOnline FFXI account setup.

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I remember when I decided to try FFXI, maybe a year ago or so... installed the whole game and ended up not being able to set foot in the game...
It was pure chaos and I don't have a doctorate in nonsense so I ended up uninstalling
I really wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players are turned off by that and can't be bothered giving it a go.

For FFXIV I don't remember my account setup but I do remember when I moved from Asia to Europe and wanted my account to move with me was a STRUGGLE.
Had to contact support so many times for them to take my money XD

Good luck to new players, hope you make it through :)

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Uhh, the forums use the same account as your game.

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I can promise you for me atleast this is not the case. There is one login in that uses this thing and another that uses my e-mail. There are also like 2 other options for things that I am not even sure if I ever created. When I went to actually go buy Endwalker I had to login and took me 10+ minutes to figure out what to use to correctly get into my account that was the place to apply the code.

As someone who did use the Blizzard launcher to buy BFA it was very simple and applied the code to your account with a simple drop down. There was not a separate e-mail where I had to go back to the site with that code and put it in a different place.

The Square Enix devs obviously have Blizzard accounts and are not blind so they clearly see the difference in how the sites are set-up. What is HILARIOUS is the entire Blizzard launcher that people love was actually stolen design from Trion who made Rift lol. I honestly do not think WoW players understand how much Rift influenced WoW right after Wrath of the Lich King.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

I can promise you for me atleast this is not the case. There is one login in that uses this thing and another that uses my e-mail. There are also like 2 other options for things that I am not even sure if I ever created. When I went to actually go buy Endwalker I had to login and took me 10+ minutes to figure out what to use to correctly get into my account that was the place to apply the code.

As someone who did use the Blizzard launcher to buy BFA it was very simple and applied the code to your account with a simple drop down. There was not a separate e-mail where I had to go back to the site with that code and put it in a different place.

The Square Enix devs obviously have Blizzard accounts and are not blind so they clearly see the difference in how the sites are set-up. What is HILARIOUS is the entire Blizzard launcher that people love was actually stolen design from Trion who made Rift lol. I honestly do not think WoW players understand how much Rift influenced WoW right after Wrath of the Lich King.

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Because the SE store isn't run or managed by SE, it's a 3rd party. And you can use your XIV login for the store, but not vice versa.

The forums and XIV itself both use the same login.

Also, blizzards launcher is for all of their games. XIVs launcher is for... XIV.


I've played almost every MMO out there (or did, back in the 2000s and early 2010s), I still don't understand how people get confused with XIV. It's not hard. But then, I dealt with publishers like ncsoft, games like sw galaxies, the original guild wars, etc.

Even early wow didn't have a great account management system. It just all got rolled into blizzards launcher a while back, long after I quit.