FFXIV: ARR becoming TORtanic

[Aenarion]

WOULD I PLAY THIS GAME IF IT WERE SINGLE PLAYER?

No, nor would I want it to be. If I wanted to play a single player game, I’d go play a single player game. There are very different dynamics in play between single and multiplier games, much less MMOs. To judge a multiplier/MMO game on single player game metrics IMO is a terribly biased way of looking at things.

Beyond the obviously different experience the two are designed for, there is a social and persistence component that simply doesn’t exist in single player games, and for many people that’s what makes the MMO experience for them. For example, as much as I loved playing Tales of Xillia, I would not give it more than one play-through. Even my all-time favorites of FFT, VC, Xenogears etc, I would be hard-pressed to give them more than a few runs.

On the other hand, MMOs like Eve Online? It’s a game I would not enjoy playing it if it was a single player game - something like the X3 series, and I find myself getting bored incredibly fast in those. Yet I have immensely enjoyed my 7+ years in Eve, nor do I see myself ever quitting that game until the day it shuts down. The social aspect of the game and the persistent nature of the world turn what would’ve been a meaningless action in a single player game to something that actually matters in the online world – when I blow a ship up, it’s no longer just some pixels and numbers on my own PC, it’s someone else’s prized pixels and numbers

'Cause this just isn't a good game. Its an MMO alright, and there's this demented sort of...something akin to a twisted sort of pride that pervades the MMO gaming community, that MMO's don't have to be good games. They're not supposed to be good games. They're supposed to be grindfests that are painful to play because you're supposed to bleed, and suffer, and hate every step of it until you are hardcore, and then you are allowed to be proud and happy.

In some ways this is also seen in brutal sandboxes like Eve vs theme parks like ARR and WoW, we often get risk-averse players coming in Eve wondering why there isn’t guaranteed safety in high security space, to them the idea that one can be destroyed anytime, anywhere if someone else wanted to bad enough to be terrible. To us however, that makes the action you take in game actually meaningful, as you actually have something worthwhile on the line in a fight. IMO, you seem to be even further down on the scale.

I want a good game. There are lots of good games to play. WoW is a shockingly and amazingly good GAME to play. Of all the MMO's currently going, WoW is one of the few I'd play single player.

That is purely a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I’d rather play minesweeper than WoW.

SWTOR? Some of those class stories are pretty fun, though they suffer from some of the same disjointed schizophrenia that's plaging ARR's main story. You have to do way too much 'side' stuff between installments, and it gets really easy to wind up going 'Why do I care about this dumbface again? I remember what was happening, but not why I'm supposed to care' a lot in some of them. Not so much in others.

To me it just sounds like what you really want is a single player game with online components, rather than an actual MMO. That’s fine, but frankly IMO you’re looking at the wrong genre if that’s the type of game you’re looking for.

[Chrysania]

No, nor would I want it to be. If I wanted to play a single player game, I’d go play a single player game. There are very different dynamics in play between single and multiplier games, much less MMOs. To judge a multiplier/MMO game on single player game metrics IMO is a terribly biased way of looking at things.

Because I'm here to be an objective consumer (said nobody ever). Think I care if its biased? Think I'm here to be fair? I'll compare it to opening boxes of cracker jacks if I dang well please. There is no such thing as an objective metric on what makes a good game anyway.

There are, however, games that entertain me (subjective). There are ways to identify amazing games that clearly do well, and one can identify correlatives and even causatives between certain characteristics and that (chiefly financial) success.

FOR ME (subjective), its a very important question; would I play this if it were a single player game?

There are no objective questions to ask.

Beyond the obviously different experience the two are designed for, there is a social and persistence component that simply doesn’t exist in single player games, and for many people that’s what makes the MMO experience for them. For example, as much as I loved playing Tales of Xillia, I would not give it more than one play-through. Even my all-time favorites of FFT, VC, Xenogears etc, I would be hard-pressed to give them more than a few runs.

Yeah, I like the social aspect as well. However, the social aspect is 100% irrelevant to whether or not the game itself is crap, or is not.
Do you have wonderful people to play with? Maybe so! Maybe that makes your experience joyful. Does the game suck?

'Well, I have all these amazing people--" BZZT, irrelevant. DOES. THE GAME. SUCK? 'Well, but my friends are--" BZZT. Irrelevant.

Does. The game. Suck? Its you vs the game. Is it fun to play? 'Well I can't answer that if I can't factor for all my friends being there'

So all you really want is a chatroom? Why are you and your friends here, playing this game and not some other game? The game must not suck, yet there's very little I can see that is anything more than mediocre.

'Well, ok, A is boring and B is a grind, but if you have friends, you can--' BZZT, I don't care about your friends and I don't want to hear about how they make a sucky game tolerable; I get it, you enjoy hanging out with your friends and would like to do things with them, even if those things are retarded.

Does. The game. Suck?

If you think yes, why?

If you think no, why?

On the other hand, MMOs like Eve Online? It’s a game I would not enjoy playing it if it was a single player game - something like the X3 series, and I find myself getting bored incredibly fast in those. Yet I have immensely enjoyed my 7+ years in Eve, nor do I see myself ever quitting that game until the day it shuts down. The social aspect of the game and the persistent nature of the world turn what would’ve been a meaningless action in a single player game to something that actually matters in the online world – when I blow a ship up, it’s no longer just some pixels and numbers on my own PC, it’s someone else’s prized pixels and numbers

So the game sucks, but you like hanging out with your friends and only perceive meaning in your in-game actions if someone else acknowledges them, chiefly by suffering? Sanctioned sociopathy. /thumbsup.jpg

In some ways this is also seen in brutal sandboxes like Eve vs theme parks like ARR and WoW, we often get risk-averse players coming in Eve wondering why there isn’t guaranteed safety in high security space, to them the idea that one can be destroyed anytime, anywhere if someone else wanted to bad enough to be terrible. To us however, that makes the action you take in game actually meaningful, as you actually have something worthwhile on the line in a fight. IMO, you seem to be even further down on the scale.

Most of those people probably wanted a neat game in space to play and instead found crazy sociopaths and a game that sucks if you have no friends to distract you from the game being boring as banging two rocks together.

That is purely a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I’d rather play minesweeper than WoW.

WoW proves itself to be a good game to play along many objective metrics. Here's one; it lost more players than FFXIV has ever had or (almost certainly) will ever have and STILL has close to ten million active subs. Hallmark of a bad game? Must be. /bizarrelogic.jpg

To me it just sounds like what you really want is a single player game with online components, rather than an actual MMO. That’s fine, but frankly IMO you’re looking at the wrong genre if that’s the type of game you’re looking for.

Bzzt, you have guessed poorly. I like MMO's in general. Gear treadmills, I despise because its the rat everyone keeps boiling for the increasingly watery stew that nobody was honestly enjoying in the first place. Increasing numbers of people are admitting that the treadmills themselves are not fun and the whole appeal is to get that sense of completion/satisfaction/achievement/e-peen bragging rights when they finally make it.

Unfortunately for the MMO industry, its so easy to do gear treadmills that virtually everyone has done it absolutely to death, and even the most monosyllabic mental midget that has difficulty outwitting fenceposts are getting sick and tired of them.

I have single player games. I have a whole backlog I have to get around to playing still, and that's grand. I also like replaying the classics.

Online components in single player? Ehh, that didn't work out so well with Fable 3. Nice gimmick, ultimately pointless. Nah. I like my single player games the way I like my ice cream; not with your (ubiquitous, non-specific 'your') face anywhere near it.

Multiplayer? I'd do somewhat absurd things and spend obscene sums of money for the ability to have multiplayer in Skyrim, yes. But Bethesda is also insanely stupid and can't possibly give us multiplayer Elder Scrolls.

And then there are these Final Fantasy MMO's that seem to have nothing to do with any final fantasy game ever. Tiny pieces of a fun game have been shotgun sprayed into this ball of grind, and I'd like to play that fun game. However, even if you take all the pieces, subtract the grind and put them together in order, you don't have a fun game.

But you are right on one point; I'm looking in the wrong genre for what I want.

Because what I want is simple: I'd like to play a good Final Fantasy MMO. That sort of thing, sadly, does not exist.

Its funny though. You speak as though there's a certain lockstepped form that an MMO must take to be an MMO. The only requirement is that it be massively multi-player.

'Suck' is not required. It'll be amazing when some developing studio figures out that their game doesn't have to be sucky, painful and generally an exercise in balancing frustrations to play in order to be an MMO.

Today is clearly not that day.