Be brave

[Neptune]

You're making this whole thing sound worryingly religeous. He also directed all the utter crap that came with this game. The 'praise' of his vision is vague at best, and launch reviewers thought the game was a pile of piss.

He's a director, you have to realise he was in charge of the WHOLE game.

Well, as opposed to taking a religious view, why not apply some critical thinking? Of course he was responsible for the whole game. What were his flaws? I think we can agree that he was not a good leader, he could not address technical problems, etc. Anyway it's pretty clear that you didn't read my original post.

Yep.


This world is totally not immersive. It lags, I can hardly interact with it, everything looks too similar in too many areas, nothing I do impacts the world at all, it hardly has any sense of "life" to it, and it relies on too many stale archetypes in its design.


The cutscenes are pretty, but how is that uniquely Tanaka's vision? Every other game out there has stuff like this.


This game is hardly driven by story. There are hardly any story quests. They are embarrassingly easy and require no effort on the part of the player at all. They offer no rewards, and it doesn't make a lick of difference if I do them or ignore them completely.


Totally. Blew. It.


I still don't see anything of merit that is uniquely "Tanaka's vision" that is even remotely positive. The concept of the armory system, customization, battle regimens, crafters/gatherers being their own class, etc are all pretty nice in theory. Game concepts can be as pretty as we imagine on paper, but look what we have in reality. The game as it was released back in September had Tanaka's stamp of approval, and it was complete crap.


The praise of the reviewers, in context of the entire reviews is faint and grasping at anything positive to balance out the overwhelming negatives. The fact that you have to look for reviewers for hints at Tanaka's vision rather than Tanaka himself should obviously point out to you how little "vision" there was to begin with.

At least give me the courtesy of a proper response rentahamster. No other game in this genre has the storyline style presented like FFXI or continued in FFXIV. Are you really trying to argue that the producer had nothing to do with it? If so that is a lame point to try to be making, since the reviewers I quoted above liked it.

Perhaps you didn't play FFXI or Chains of Promathia. Players of that can attest to the striking difference between playing that and a WoW clone. This is one of the core design elements of FFXIV. I refer to it as a storyline-driven MMO. I think that's a fair description. At least, that is what FFXIV was originally planned to be.

Of course, it is not your assessment of merit that matters to my post, it is the reviewers that I quoted. You posted a lot about Tanaka but Tanaka is not my central point. I hate Tanaka. I hope Tanaka's lunch gets confiscated from him every day at Square Enix. FFXIV did something right, and the new dev team wants to blow that up.

Your last paragraph is very disappointing. The praise I listed might have seemed faint in bullet form, and I can tell you didn't read the reviews linked because you wouldn't have posted that if you had. Clearly you have not been following the game very closely or you would more fully understand the good and bad things about the game, the factors that went into them, and the assessment of the reviewers. I'm not the only one here that understands Tanaka's influence on FFXIV. And even if what the reviewers liked is due to the Tooth Fairy, it's the elements they liked that mattered and not who it came from.

[Eldaena]

It's okay, OP, I'm nervous too. After we all download patch 1.18, we are going to be practically playing a new game. It's sad because we have spent 8 months with this system, and we know it has been praised and rightly so. The armoury system has it's problems that could have been corrected, but now instead it appears they are just going to streamline everything and alter what was 'okay' and ignore a lot of what was considered 'bad.' I honestly don't know how this is going to go...and I'm trying to be optimistic. It's difficult though because through all these rough waters of development, I've still had a lot of fun with this game as it is. (Frustrations too, but if I had fun at all, that is important.) I don't want that fun to depart into something that possibly has less potential to be different and enjoyable.

[Neptune]

It's interesting to see the battle/armory system was praised, but you should just forget about the "Tanaka's vision" : he was producer, not director/game designer/battle director/lead something.

The only thing I can see that I should forget in the future is your opinion since you clearly have no idea what a producer is. Have you been mystified about how the game has changed since January? Did you notice there is a new producer? On a less confrontational note, it was very interesting to see the praise. I was very surprised when I read over these old reviews in light of the last few days' information from the dev team.

[darkstarpoet1]

yes, it is disturbing to see the items praised in game to be the first things removed and redone in game while the things that were complaints go without being touched.

[Spellbinder]

The critics may have praised the Armory system, but it was the players who clamored and complained insisting that things become less ambiguous and roles become more defined. I guess this is what happens when players get what they ask for?

[Arcell]

You continue mentioning the class system wasn't ridiculed in the reviews but you forget all the bitching and moaning that went on about it here. Blame those who cried for the restrictions constantly and quite vocally.

[Rentahamster]

At least give me the courtesy of a proper response rentahamster.

Sure thing. Go ahead.

No other game in this genre has the storyline style presented like FFXI or continued in FFXIV. Are you really trying to argue that the producer had nothing to do with it? If so that is a lame point to try to be making, since the reviewers I quoted above liked it.

Did you read the same reviews that I did? None of the reviewers said anything positive about the story. IGN said they liked the cutscenes, but that's about it.

I'm not trying to argue that the producer had nothing to do with it. I'm saying that he had everything to do with it, and that he failed. The storyline we have in this game is convoluted, unimportant, and uninteresting. But it sure is pretty.

Perhaps you didn't play FFXI or Chains of Promathia. Players of that can attest to the striking difference between playing that and a WoW clone. This is one of the core design elements of FFXIV. I refer to it as a storyline-driven MMO. I think that's a fair description. At least, that is what FFXIV was originally planned to be.

I did play FF11. I did not play Chains of Promathia. CoP may have been a good storyline-driven MMO, but that has nothing to do with FF14.

You don't know if FF14 was planned this way or not, Tanaka never said. The only evidence we have to judge this on is the game that Tanaka approved for retail sale. That game, sadly to say, is nothing close to a "storyline-driven MMO"

Of course, it is not your assessment of merit that matters to my post, it is the reviewers that I quoted. You posted a lot about Tanaka but Tanaka is not my central point. I hate Tanaka. I hope Tanaka's lunch gets confiscated from him every day at Square Enix. FFXIV did something right, and the new dev team wants to blow that up.

The new dev team wants to make it better, not blow it up. There are seeds of inspiration and potential lurking in this turd of a game, and I belive the new dev team has got what it takes to develop those seeds, along with their new ideas, into a great game. I say again - Tanaka failed. It's Yoshi's turn to salvage this mess.

Your last paragraph is very disappointing. The praise I listed might have seemed faint in bullet form, and I can tell you didn't read the reviews linked because you wouldn't have posted that if you had.

I described the reviewers' praise as faint, not your own. You can tell I didn't read the reviews? I did. They universally think the game, in its retail form in September, is terrible. How can you make positive spin out of 2/5 star and 30% reviews?

Clearly you have not been following the game very closely or you would more fully understand the good and bad things about the game, the factors that went into them, and the assessment of the reviewers. I'm not the only one here that understands Tanaka's influence on FFXIV. And even if what the reviewers liked is due to the Tooth Fairy, it's the elements they liked that mattered and not who it came from.

Clearly you don't know anything about me. I have been following this game this past year and participated in the beta. I have analyzed the game mechanics, got multiple classes to rank 50, and had many discussions about what makes the game good and what makes it bad. I've read all the pre-release interviews and been a close observer of the game's evolution as well as a fan despite the terrible quality of the game. I've argued with whiteknights off an on over the past 7 months, and most of them have quit, while somehow, I'm still around.

I am not arguing from a position of ignorance.

[Demacia]

-FFXIV
-Immersive

Pick one.

[Genz]

Yoshida is both producer and director, and some other key-role have been modified/completed too. Thus the changements in the game are not the consequences of the change of producer only.
The main role of a producer is to handle budget and schedule (and if Tanaka has failed somewhere, it is here), then it's variable from project to project. It seems you trust Tanaka, so you should read this : http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=23393&storypage=2

However, there are those with different concepts of what is ideal and there can be more than one version of the "best." So this time, Director Nobuaki Komoto and his crew are creating their own version of the ideal MMORPG -- Final Fantasy XIV.

[Renshi]

The game started out bad, now they are fixing it, and for now so far so good.
This has become a game that you can understand if youlike it or not, or if is awesome or not, by only playing it.
You like it if you like it, screw the reviewers =D