Old FFXI minds vs New Generation ideas

[Seif]

XI is just better. The story is more compelling the environments have more variety and the battle system has more depth and the quests are well made with cutscenes.

Is it really any wonder that people want those elements in XIV? I haven't heard of a MMO which has as good storytelling as XI so to me that seems like a fair comparison.

Whenever I tell my friends who play wow and TAoC they just tell me "but MMOs don't HAVE story!"

I pity them =D

[Abriael]

XI is just better. The story is more compelling the environments have more variety and the battle system has more depth and the quests are well made with cutscenes.

You forgot another crucial difference, FFXI has more than eight years of post-release development and several expansions on it's shoulders.

You also forgot to mention that the vast majority of sidequests in FFXI, especially the ones implemented in the first few years, don't have any cutscene, but are just scrolling text.

Is it really any wonder that those elements will come to FFXIV exactly as they did in FFXI?

[gifthorse]

XI is just better. The story is more compelling the environments have more variety and the battle system has more depth and the quests are well made with cutscenes.

Is it really any wonder that people want those elements in XIV? I haven't heard of a MMO which has as good storytelling as XI so to me that seems like a fair comparison.

Whenever I tell my friends who play wow and TAoC they just tell me "but MMOs don't HAVE story!"

I pity them =D

Well most people don't play an MMO to simply digest a story someone else has already written for them in the same way they might if they were playing a single player game; most people play an MMO to engage with a fantasy world where others live and to write their own stories, well not only write them, but do them too. In FFXI, you couldn't DO anything, all you did was just sit back and watch it all.

Wow and AoC are bad offenders in some cases, but one thing i like about AoC is the guild city ideas they introduced.

Storytelling is interesting, as is lore, but the first priority should be to create a world around the players. Creating the world and then throwing all the players in as an after-thought is a bad way of designing an MMO and quite frankly misses the point of what an MMO should be about.

Ever since the first Ultima Online game and the original Lineage, games have followed the same generic formula which Everquest started.

[Moth]

Well most people don't play an MMO to simply digest a story someone else has already written for them in the same way they might if they were playing a single player game; most people play an MMO to engage with a fantasy world where others live and to write their own stories, well not only write them, but do them too. In FFXI, you couldn't DO anything, all you did was just sit back and watch it all.

Wow and AoC are bad offenders in some cases, but one thing i like about AoC is the guild city ideas they introduced.

Storytelling is interesting, as is lore, but the first priority should be to create a world around the players. Creating the world and then throwing all the players in as an after-thought is a bad way of designing an MMO and quite frankly misses the point of what an MMO should be about.

Ever since the first Ultima Online game and the original Lineage, games have followed the same generic formula which Everquest started.

No one is stopping you from creating your own stories in XI. I believe that almost everyone had meaningful experiences and stories in XI that had nothing to do with the actual in game story lines. but with the relationships they formed with other players. The story lines were just something that gave the worlds more depth.

I know this game has a lot of growing to do, but I am not worried. It has amazing potential and I am sure it will be simply incredible one day! XI was very incomplete at the beginning as well, but no NA's got to see it because it was in Japan for a whole year before we even got it! That fact alone is comforting.

[Rynricy]

Honestly FFXI worked, I think that SE should take that into consideration, FFXI-2 would work for many players, but im sure we all open to some changes as well. The overall feel of FFXI is what we are looking for and at this point we're just not getting it.

[Tinydog]

i played ffxi since COP release and played wow since vanilla (pre expansions). i can tell u now that wow is on a decline. cataclysm ruined wow for ALOT of people. they killed endgame, they killed pugging instances thru the dungeon finder. not to mention dailies, crafting, pvp, and a simplified talent tree. if you go on wow forums its post after post of disappointments. i quit ffxi a little after they released af3 from abyssea(didnt like those quests to get seals) and quit wow about 2 months after cata release.
anyways i think FFXIV has a ton of potential once they release a crap ton of content. i mean they should bring in a party xp format like in FFXI. idk about you but i hate this leves system with a 8 quests every 2 days limit. people have to make silly ways to get more xp by manipulating the leves system. since the lvl cap is only 50, grinding 200-300xp mobs a kill wouldnt be so bad.
the xp in abyssea was awesome, as a blm i had to aga some worms and the melee would do there thing on other worms. i got 5 lvls in about 7 hours of play. thats what made it so fun, u were accomplishing levels in a short amount of time.
now idk if its me but mmo's are starting to suck...mmos are coming out with the wow format, such as WAR, Rift, DC, Tera and even tho they have content at release its still the same ol thing. ffxiv tried to make it different but right now its a grind fest.
Square Enix, its not about trying to put wow and ffxi together into a game its about being original and making a game thats fun for all types of players. Just put in that work and keep making the game free. LOL.

[Rhianu]

But every mainstream mmo has bastardized group play as just something that is a side item until endgame... which is completely against what I feel is the main things about a mmo the group aspect. That is what kept me on FFXI instead of a jumping ship to a mainstream mmo. I just makes no sense to make a multi player game mainly solo.

There's actually a very good reason why modern MMOs have moved away from the whole forced grouping aspect that was so prevalent among older MMORPGs.

While it's true that the whole idea of making these games online in the first place was so you can play with other people, the first MMOs showed us that if you have forced grouping, then there will be times when you will be unable to play at all simply because you can't find a group, or the people in your group are too incompetent to make playing the game any fun. Not to mention the huge timesink forced grouping always turns an MMO into.

[gifthorse]

No one is stopping you from creating your own stories in XI. I believe that almost everyone had meaningful experiences and stories in XI that had nothing to do with the actual in game story lines. but with the relationships they formed with other players. The story lines were just something that gave the worlds more depth.

I know this game has a lot of growing to do, but I am not worried. It has amazing potential and I am sure it will be simply incredible one day! XI was very incomplete at the beginning as well, but no NA's got to see it because it was in Japan for a whole year before we even got it! That fact alone is comforting.

My point is that the game developers should try and foster players by equipping them with the power and tools to create something in this world for themselves. Everyone has fond memories of FFXI but we left nothing behind when we left that game. Our presence there meant nothing to the world because the world would always be the same without us. The landscape didn't change because of us, the beastmen didn't shrink in population because of us, nothing we did ever mattered. Our linkshells did nothing but run instances and kill NMs and party to max level and gear grind... in a practical sense, we never created anything.

I think a MMO should work to help players create things and not just create everything for them already.

[gifthorse]

There's actually a very good reason why modern MMOs have moved away from the whole forced grouping aspect that was so prevalent among older MMORPGs.

While it's true that the whole idea of making these games online in the first place was so you can play with other people, the first MMOs showed us that if you have forced grouping, then there will be times when you will be unable to play at all simply because you can't find a group, or the people in your group are too incompetent to make playing the game any fun. Not to mention the huge timesink forced grouping always turns an MMO into.

Everyone in FFXIV already groups enough as it is anyway, so I feel like it's not imperative that SE tries to foster this idea of group play further. There is so much benefit to grouping in FFXIV (greater SP, faster mob death, more leve linking) that not grouping is doing so at your own loss.

[Ostia]

i played ffxi since COP release and played wow since vanilla (pre expansions). i can tell u now that wow is on a decline. cataclysm ruined wow for ALOT of people. they killed endgame, they killed pugging instances thru the dungeon finder. not to mention dailies, crafting, pvp, and a simplified talent tree. if you go on wow forums its post after post of disappointments. i quit ffxi a little after they released af3 from abyssea(didnt like those quests to get seals) and quit wow about 2 months after cata release.
anyways i think FFXIV has a ton of potential once they release a crap ton of content. i mean they should bring in a party xp format like in FFXI. idk about you but i hate this leves system with a 8 quests every 2 days limit. people have to make silly ways to get more xp by manipulating the leves system. since the lvl cap is only 50, grinding 200-300xp mobs a kill wouldnt be so bad.
the xp in abyssea was awesome, as a blm i had to aga some worms and the melee would do there thing on other worms. i got 5 lvls in about 7 hours of play. thats what made it so fun, u were accomplishing levels in a short amount of time.
now idk if its me but mmo's are starting to suck...mmos are coming out with the wow format, such as WAR, Rift, DC, Tera and even tho they have content at release its still the same ol thing. ffxiv tried to make it different but right now its a grind fest.
Square Enix, its not about trying to put wow and ffxi together into a game its about being original and making a game thats fun for all types of players. Just put in that work and keep making the game free. LOL.

Where is veidis and moth to call this guy a troll ? Oh wait! I forgot <.<

Btw yes cataclysm is in a decline, i do not know what blizzard will do with all their subs seriously 12mil JESUS CHRIST! That game must be bad lol