Patch 1.18 release date announced! July 21

[Chezen]

Agreed. Tanaka is an excellent developer. He was likely just forced to rush due to Cataclysm.

I've been thinking about this...

I think they really did mean to release FFXIV that way.

The top complaints about this game from reviewers were UI and tutorials or directions on where to go. I've been playing FFXI lightly for a couple of weeks (for the first time), and it's even worse. Maybe FFXI players are so used to it, they don't realize how it is for a new gamer (or maybe they all have controllers). I'm not surprised by how FFXIV was released now, because even the UI at FFIV's opening was easier than FFXI's.

In FFXI, one NPC told me how to get outside the city, but only because I walked up and talked to him. I found my first quest by accident. Nothing shows where anything is. Even the map is hard to understand. I still haven't figured out if I can warp back to town. It's a long walk.

After some internet research, I figured out how to regain HP from fighting and how to hand in quests. You can't just talk to the NPC, you have to actually trade the item they want from you.

Compared to that, FFXIV's UI was a cakewalk at start. WoW (and other mmos) is fairly self-explanatory, because everything is drag and drop. But here, I guess to make it controller friendly, everything is click. It took me time to figure that out. Seems easy now, but when you have no idea whats going on... that alone will make you not want to play.

I'm not saying that UI is the only problem, but it was probably the biggest one keeping people from even trying this game. If you are confused and frustrated from the start, it doesn't make you want to continue and get emotionally invested in the game.