Make FFXIV more like FFXI and less like WoW

[Hyrist]

-snip-

Now think of those wonderfully humongous zones with the teleport capabilities FFXIV has available and you've got a winning combination

FFXI's zones are dull in comparison to FFXIV's zones. Ronfarue, Saruta, etc. Were all incredible looking back in 03'. But go back to them. Look now. They're dull. They don't have much in the terms of life to them, and look a lot like FFXIV's 1.0 version zones if you made them smaller and took out the copy-pasta. Pretty, but quite empty.

Also, if you gave FFXI's players FFXIV's run-speed, you'd burn through those zones rather fast too. Ease of transport does not make theses zones less vibrant or amazing - your impatience does. Take the time an LOOK. FFXI forced you to look because it took forever to get anywhere of note. FFXIV is full of places of note and it's difficult to take it all in unless you stop yourself to just see it.

I actually want to do a video series where it takes the time to just show off these places to people, because we walk past it all so easily.

Go on, talk a walk; soak it in. The zones are so much more than what you give them credit for. Only thing I'll agree with you is the reduced sense of danger in them. And honestly, that's fine by me, if you run in the wrong direction, you still can get yourself killed.

Yoshi-P disagrees with you. His assessment of why XIV 1.0 did so poorly (in large part) is because one of Tanaka and co's main goals was to make XIV as unlike XI as possible and ended up with "not much of anything".

They obsessively tried to steer XIV away from XI, and it blew up in their face.

You're paraphrasing incorrectly. What Yoshi was citing was that FFXI focused on being a good game for its timeframe and age, it played off of the refrences of games recently before it and did so in a Final Fantasy Style.

FFXIV used FFXI as pretty much its ONLY Groundwork, and pushed itself too far to be unique from FFXI without any outside inspiration to fill the gap. What was left was a game with more flaws than FFXI had and little in terms of redeeming value, because 'we could just fix it later! We're Final Fantasy!' was the hubris at the time.

It had as much to do with being ignorant of the world around them as it was pushing so far as way from FFXI that it lost what it meant to be a Final Fantasy game.

[Redemption]

This is generally what I've seen from XI players. They where stuck in a world very very separated from the rest of the MMO world, then come demanding this game be like XI which in all actuality is what 1.0 was; which failed miserably. My biggest worry is that SE will listen to them.

No, it was expressly their mission that ffxiv (1.0) be a different game than xi. SE can only gain from learning what made xi special.

[Roaminggnome]

Problem is if I wanted FFxi then would rather they just have improved the graphics. For this I would rather have something new and unique.

Edit: took out the royal we lol

[Redemption]

FFXI's zones are dull in comparison to FFXIV's zones. Ronfarue, Saruta, etc. Were all incredible looking back in 03'. But go back to them. Look now. They're dull. They don't have much in the terms of life to them, and look a lot like FFXIV's 1.0 version zones if you made them smaller and took out the copy-pasta. Pretty, but quite empty.

Go on, talk a walk soak it in. The zones are so much more than what you give them credit for. Only thing I'll agree with you is the reduced sense of danger in them. And honestly, that's fine by me, if you run in the wrong direction, you still can get yourself killed.

Actually I have done just this and find just about every ffxi zone to have more to them than any 1 of ffxiv's.

[Hyrist]

Actually I have done just this and find just about every ffxi zone to have more to them than any 1 of ffxiv's.

Then we have an impasse of opinion, one I'll gladly engage you on further.

I've found that the only difference between FFXI zones and FFXIV zones, aside from the obvious graphical differences is more open read (dead) space on behalf of FFXI zones, and that varied from zone to zone. You can compare East Sarutabaruta directly to Central Shroud alone and there's no comparison, Shroud has so much MORE there. Honestly, we can start enumerating notable locations based off of zone if you like.

[Althea]

Yoshi-P disagrees with you. His assessment of why XIV 1.0 did so poorly (in large part) is because one of Tanaka and co's main goals was to make XIV as unlike XI as possible and ended up with "not much of anything".

They obsessively tried to steer XIV away from XI, and it blew up in their face.

Hmm. This it's kind of ironic in my head, because XI players are being reminiscent of mob grinding parties - and I know that was a HUGE deterrent of 1.0. That, and the extreeemely slow combat system.

[Hyrist]

I love how you undermine your own arguments like that. Do you even realize you're doing that?

When you're misconstruing my argument, yes. But that's warping someone else words, something you're trying to accuse me of while at the same time doing yourself.

You're seriously comparing 2003 graphics to 2013 graphics as some kind of argument. You said it yourself.. in 2003 (and even after), XI's graphics looked fantastic. Shall we return to this topic and see what you feel about Thanalan and La Noscea compared to current graphics of 2024?

I'm comparing zone design in concept, accounting for the graphical differences. That's why I acknowledged that we ooed and awed over much less, yet become hypercritical of something that, in actuality, has accomplished much more.

And you're ignoring the context of my answer. I know what Yoshi-P said and I understand why he said it (that's why I said "in large part").

My response was to someone stating that XIV tried to be too much like FFXI and that's why it failed. That is factually incorrect. They were not trying to emulate XI. They were trying to move away from it.

You ignored the premise of my counter argument that I said right at the beginning, you're paraphrasing him incorrectly - ignoring the entire context of HIS statement to favor your argument.

He wasn't talking about moving too far away from FFXI as an independent entity as the source of his problem. He said we moved too far away from what FFXI was in the context of the genre, and he illustrated what FFXI was at its core - a game that reflected an age of MMOs within the scope of Final Fantasy.

[Redemption]

Then we have an impasse of opinion, one I'll gladly engage you on further.

I've found that the only difference between FFXI zones and FFXIV zones, aside from the obvious graphical differences is more open read (dead) space on behalf of FFXI zones, and that varied from zone to zone. You can compare East Sarutabaruta directly to Central Shroud alone and there's no comparison, Shroud has so much MORE there. Honestly, we can start enumerating notable locations based off of zone if you like.

Ok, looking at Central shroud the only 2 locations I can think of with any real meaning are the manor and tam-tara. Everything else there so far as I could tell was filler (comparable to your dead space). There are more points on the map, they just are all empty soul-less trash. For example the mirror planks and the sanguine perch. Who even knows these exist? I found more character in the pond with the 2 special malboro in it than most of the named locations on the map. Now east saruta, just about every location in that zone is tied into an understanding of the world with the most notable points being the haurtoto ruins (both inner and outer) as towers giving a sense that the world is connected (this dungeon lies beneath the ground you stand on) which is something I didn't get from any dungeon in ffxiv despite them actually being located in the zones. The quests feel far more involved in the zone and exploring it as well. Placement of monsters was also better tuned to a worldly feel and not the floating blobs they are here (ex: undead spawning at night) with actual nms (rare monsters rather than timed events). It all made a very tied together experience where ffxiv is more like a slide show, pretty colors and no substance... its like eating a pound of cardboard.

[Leknaat]

Most people fail to understand that FF11 was built on a shoestring budget of 16mil.
It's LONG since broken even (2002) - before it was even released in the US.
So it's pretty much just the overhead of the servers and whatever skeleton crew they have still putting out content for the game. Of course they're going to keep 11 alive until the drain on their pockets is greater than what they can rake in from 11 players.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/squ.../1100-2901481/

[Dliver]

Most people fail to understand that FF11 was built on a shoestring budget of 16mil.
It's LONG since broken even (2002).
So it's pretty much just the overhead of the servers and whatever skeleton crew they have still putting out content for the game. Of course they're going to keep 11 alive until the drain on their pockets is greater than what they can rake in from 11 players.

Well since they developed this game twice, I guess that can't be true for FF14!

Anyhow, it was crazy to even try to redevelop the game with the same name, as opposed to cutting and running from the 1.0 disaster. But they made it work in my opinion. And I think they made it work by copying WoW, as they've freely admitted. I don't see why some of the 11 veterans don't want to admit that. WoW at its peak perfectly balanced hardcore and casual.