Friend just started FF14, and he's in the cart scene telling me about how

[Gaddes]

This is the real opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBfIFgxf2sw

Funny how that opening has such a focus on Odin and Behemoth when those Fates ended up being so minimal....

[Jinko]

Funny how that opening has such a focus on Odin and Behemoth when those Fates ended up being so minimal....

Well you get Behemoth in CT as well, I'm sure at some point we will see Odin in a dungeon of some design.

[Naunet]

People who think the intros are bad clearly do not remember how bland WoWs "intros" are or most other MMOs for that matter.

At least you can skip the opening cinematics in WoW with a single hit of ESC. Not so for XIV. @.@

[Wicc]

well I mean.. when you think about it: The start of the game is very peaceful. You are an adventurer going to (enter home city here) and putting your roots down for the first time. then, OH MY GOSH BAD THINGS START TO HAPPEN.

Personally, exciting intros can be misleading.
For example (don't kill me) but the ESO intro and tutorial was like: Oh my gosh! This is so intense
Then you get to the first area and you are like: Oh......Well...This is boring.

[Enkidoh]

Well, the reason the 1.0 introduction cutscene seemed more intense and thrilling was because they were rendered with 1.0's original engine which was designed for that specific task (ala, FFXIII's engine Crystal Tools, and we all know how FFXIII was virtually one long cutscene with some fighting in it ), an engine that could render cutscenes beautifully, but utterly sucked at actually rendering a detailed gameworld, especially one necessary for a MMO.

Hence, the ARR introduction on the carriage/ferry was designed to guide a new player into the game slowly, as well as bring them up to speed with everything that had happened in 1.0, transferring the battle tutorial aspect to after the player arrives in their starting city - a new player starting in 1.0 had literally none of that - they were just dumped straight into the game with no guidance other than some slight tutoring during the initial battle. No explanation as to why they were there, where they were or who these weird characters with the fancy powers are (Thancred, or Y'shtola or Yda and Papalymo), or why the player could hear Susan Calloway singing and see a starshower that no-one else could.

In fact, the 1.0 openings were actually designed with a storyline element in mind that was never actually resolved or revealed (the big revelation that for the first part of the game the player wasn't even experiencing those events - they had actually happened ten years earlier and the player was simply experiencing them through the Echo. This fact was only revealed by main scenario writer and lead translator Fernewahles on the Lore forum and was never actually stated in 1.0 itself, although it seemed that's what the original team had planned on leading up to eventually). Hence, because this story idea has been removed, plus the Archons don't show up until much later (as well as the whole meteor shower/Echo scene), accordingly a more subdued introduction was used to guide the player in without overburdening them with info. .

The only thing that I feel could have been added and would have improved on the starting scene's experience, was the fact the intro seemed was going to have a quick tutorial battle against beastmen when the carriage/ferry was attacked (just like 1.0's opening had), but unfortunately it doesn't happen. Personally I think it would have added to the experience (and in actual fact, considering the player can only choose from a Disciple of War or Magic at the start, it seems like this was in fact even considered, but ultimately dropped). Ah well.

[Ildur]

They need to add a skip button to that intro, at least for people who already have characters in the server.

My favourite part about the intro, besides how unskippable it is, is when you are asked if you are new to the city. If you answer that no, you are not new... the NPC ignores you and makes you go through the city lore dump anyway.

[Seif]

At least it wasn't three MagiTech armors walking through snow for like 5 minutes.

That's the best openin sequence of any game ever in my opinion!

[Skivvy]

I loved the original XIV intros. The Limsa CS always gave me goosebumps :3

[Welsper59]

Agreed with the 2.0 intro. It's... rather lackluster, by any real standards for an FF game. 1.0 was definitely something to behold at the time. Especially if you're a tech nut, it was a great means to test your computers hardware (benchmark is obviously better though). The main thing about ARR storytelling is that they're kind of afraid to REALLY invest into it. Yeah, they clearly spend time on it and enjoy what they do (we wouldn't have things like Hildebrandt again if they didn't), but it's very rushed. It's the same sort of feel that stories have when they're only thought about episodically, rather than as a complete project. What if Orson Scott Card had only thought about the story for Ender's Game bit by bit and released it in that episodic format? I sincerely doubt it would have been the same highly acclaimed book it is today.

We get very cliche storylines and very few meaningful plights about the world because there's no drive to go beyond. "X monster killed my family and I want revenge", "some strange entity has inhabited the sacred ruins", etc. Why should we care about these things at all? Because it gives us a reward to use? NO! As far as successful storytelling is concerned, we should sympathize with the characters and have an idea about why it's important to them (or the games world) that help be gotten. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen easily for most of us when we're just sent on generic fetch quests in a fast-paced fashion for NPCs that we will never meet again and have absolutely no backstory to.

That's why certain storylines in this game, like with Edda, are memorable. Time is invested to give these generic characters a story (or history) for the reader to relate to or sympathize with.

[silentwindfr]

i'm amazed, mostly because most of the complain are not funded. indeed the intro is peacefull... it's the peace after all, no empire that attack the city, some small scale battle with the beastman and only in some small area.
the 1.0 was more active but at the same time... less interesting for the story, it was giving nothing as information about the world. you was simply drop into your city after this small fight and tha all.

the 2.0 is peacefull because it's the peace. if the story evolve into a full scale war it will change but for now... exept the beastmen at the start, the empire are simply not active. it become active after we do finish the city quest line. they take time to explain the world to the newcomer. it's slow, yep, but at the start do we really need to see battle against big monster when our character have something like 3 skill?