Final Fantasy XIV coming to China

[tOnni3]

I heard that didnt happen cos microsoft didnt want to share servers with ps3 players.

In my understanding, MS's policy is not to let 3rd party have subscription fee but DLC and Xbox Live Gold subscription.
This can explain why no Monster Hunter on Xbox as well.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Milmoko_Gemoko]

I think the FFXIV/MS issue do with MS not wanting to open Live again for the game to connect with the PC/PS3/PS4 (soon) players, they seemed to want their own private servers - Square werent willing to go that route and I dont blame them, can you imagine spening the money to get Xbox FF running and then risk not getting the subs to sustain it?

As for China - its nice its going there but a shame that they wont be able to play with us :/ a million more tanks/healers could be helpful in the DF queues!

[CUTS3R]

As for China - its nice its going there but a shame that they wont be able to play with us

Don't worry about that, if you want to interact with chinese players on our servers just respond to a RMT tell.

[HoroBoro]

It's required by law in China, Xbox issue is Microsoft being greedy. Also the Chinese version is different.

Actually, it's just that you have to have a server there because China will arbitrarily shut down your traffic as they control the gateways which are physically located there.

And you can always tunnel through it if you've got someone who has the technical chops. That's why people can still access Facebook there - because paid VPNs often also offer encapsulation in order to tunnel the information in a different format that can bypass controls.

I guess China can (and does) decrypt and classify traffic.. and they do do this to some services, but that really takes a lot of effort, and they probably won't do it all the time reliably. And you can support more protocols and offer better encryption. Eventually I guess you would get to a point where your traffic/revenue generation is slowed down enough and the government eventually wins.

Still... the country would have to really, really hate your company to do that. Most companies just trust them with their sensitive information and keep the server there even though the government basically has access to EVERYTHING on your company at any time. To cut IT costs. Heck, our company recently collapsed our domain with the China exclusive one as well.

And China has better things to do with their time. Like manage it's rapidly aging workforce. Though governments can't be said to be the most rational entities ever.

[Allyrion]

On the official chinese website, there's some info from the company that's localizing it.
They did Aion in China.

There's a questionnaire asking people if they want the game charged hour or by month. It also says it's going try to keep to the original as closely as possible (unlike how they made a F2P model out of Aion, I guess).
So subscription is likely, but hourly is much more popular in China.

My wife is Chinese so she keeps tabs on this.

[ArkhamNative]

I hope I can choose Chinese language in the US version of the game in the future(I live in the US but I speak both Chinese and English), but I know it's not likely to happen. hmmm

I'm pretty sure it's going to be a completely different client designed to operate with China servers only.

It's required by law in China....

China also apparently has Internet gaming laws to try to limit gameplay time and identify players. The game client would need to comply with these (and servers enforce them?). (I'm just paraphrasing Wikipedia, though.) Some thought FFXIV v1's SP (XP) Fatigue system was designed with China's laws in mind.

[baopee]

I hope I can choose Chinese language in the US version of the game in the future(I live in the US but I speak both Chinese and English), but I know it's not likely to happen. hmmm

Same here, but I cant type in Chinese >_<, so I think i will stick with English version

[Anjian]

China has a very healthy market for MMOs, and some very good games too, like the Age of Wulin. Played that and the open PvP is crazy. The maps are magnificent and they are huge, and I mean huge. There is one game I am keeping an eye on and that is Monster Hunter Online, which is a partnership between Tencent and Capcom. Its based on Crytek 3 engine and has genuine collision dynamics (means it plays like a true action game even for an MMO).

[Lunavi]

I think the FFXIV/MS issue do with MS not wanting to open Live again for the game to connect with the PC/PS3/PS4 (soon) players, they seemed to want their own private servers - Square werent willing to go that route and I dont blame them, can you imagine spening the money to get Xbox FF running and then risk not getting the subs to sustain it?

As for China - its nice its going there but a shame that they wont be able to play with us :/ a million more tanks/healers could be helpful in the DF queues!

Let me correct that... A million more RMTs.

[am0n]

As for China - its nice its going there but a shame that they wont be able to play with us :/ a million more tanks/healers could be helpful in the DF queues!

And 10 million more DPS to flood your queues and make them longer.