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

[Nakiamiie]

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

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

[Xeno]

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

[Sephr]

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

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

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

[Jinko]

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

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

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

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

[gifthorse]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

[Blitz0309]

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

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

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

[Peregrine]

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

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

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

[Nuru]

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

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

[Physic]

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

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

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

[Versivus]

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