Can we have Tanaka back now?

[Namasu]

Please don't do that.
We need to step back and cut the hyperbole and exaggerations if we want any progressing conversation to form.
.....
As astronomically unlikely as it is, What if they did the same with this version? Took it away and implemented features enjoyed more by sandbox and committed players? It would polarize it again. There is no objectivity to which designs are better or worse, there's only what they believe will attract a larger subscriber base.

You just did the same thing that you want people to stop doing.

First of all, like it or not, Yoshi-P effectively ripped up the foundation that was 1.0 and rebuilt a new base to foster his ideal MMORPG that is FFXIV:ARR. It's been repeated and repeated so many times in interview and live letters that he wants to start with a simple base in order to support the growth of complex game mechanics in the future (he even said this again in his interview with reddit).

So there's not point into posing that what-if scenario again. It just won't happen. This game's foundation is already cemented and dry for the targeted playerbase and there's no digging it up again. If you don't like the current form of the game (yes nobody can truly admit it's perfect), my advice is to just go play something else and forget about it and just check up on the updates every once in a while. Hopefully ARR will add in something that you want, if not go look somewhere else and come back again or give up hope. The choice is your.

Also for the people that cry for big open dangerous world over and over, your wish will most likely 99% chance be granted:

"So now there's chances that you might get on your Chocobo and auto run, look around, go to get yourself a... "Oh I'm dead". We want to bring back some of that thrill and we're adding that to our concept for 3.0. But we're not going to make it anything as thrilling as the original Final Fantasy XI. We know that there's people out there who love that though." -Yoshida

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...naoki_yoshida/

[Antonius2004]

Exactly, you are correct. I loved FFXIV 1.23 and even after the fall of Dalamud, I continued to log in, hell, I usually checked to see who else was on and the same six others were usually on with me. Ahh, playig the game during that final month and a half really felt like the end of the world as there only just that small number of people.

Regardless of that 2.0 is definitely a much better game, but if given the opportunity I would like to explore 1.0 Eorzea one more time.

[ReplicaX]

Remember when people blamed the crystal tools engine and Square higherups for 1.0s failings?
Pepperidge Farms doesn't. They're a cookie company. What would they know or care about it?

Can always count on ya for humor in a very opinion heavy thread man.

Still the Battle Panel for any fan was a good watch.

[Noshpan]

Remember when people blamed the crystal tools engine and Square higherups for 1.0s failings?
Pepperidge Farms doesn't. They're a cookie company. What would they know or care about it?

You've made me hungry for cookies. The temptation to open up a bag of the fun size Three Musketeers I have for trick or treaters in 9 days is great. I hope you're happy.

(Someone ate my monster taco while I was asleep and left the empty bag in the fridge. I'm a little miffed about that. And hungry. So very hungry.)

[BlaiseArath]

.

That response and the one about more varied itemization in armor a possibility were the best things I've ever read.

I liked a lot of what XI had to give me so I did enjoy some of what XIV 1.0 brought to the table. I was disappointed that XIV's open world was nothing short of a varied waiting room... but they went a way in solving that with hunts, making it at least someone useful to go into the open world. I mean, its a nice middle ground between NMs and Non-NMs.

I'd enjoy S and A Ranks more if they dropped vanity gear or pets or something other than bloody logs.. but its a start.

[Adeline]

Someone please tell me this thread isn't real and that all this is a figment of my imagination due to my lack of sleep/food over the last two days.

[charlemagne]

At the end FFXIV was a pretty damn good game for the most part. There was a fair amount of it I prefer to 2.0, but it wasn't in any way Tanaka's game. Yoshida's changes were what made it an enjoyable game. If FFXIV had been released in the state it closed I think it would have been a success.

[Mahri]

In any case, jokes like that only serve to make us feel better about our own taste. I only ask that you dial it down a bit.

Maaan, why'd you have to go and be all reasonable like that?

To be a bit more constructive, and in counterpoint to what you're saying: 1.0 didn't feel like it was intended as a wide-open, freeform sandbox. It felt like they just slapped down a lot of space to run around and grind in, and they're on record as saying that they thought people would stick around just because it had Final Fantasy in the name. It was less poor game design than the absence of game design.

I'd say FFXI was actually better, because at least there was some rhyme and reason behind its stiff impenetrability, though there were still a good amount of highly questionable choices and some stuff that felt clearly designed to restrict and punish, devoid of rewards even remotely proportional to the difficulty.

[Mahri]

(continued from previous post due to character limits)

Still, if people are feeling a marked contrast between 1.0 and ARR, and feeling that the current experience is too directed, that's fair, but I'd point more towards the leveling experience, with its very linear sequence of story quests (which you CAN break away from, but why would you, since you must progress to unlock new features?), as opposed to the endgame, where things actually open way up and you have a number of viable routes to go with character progression -- and hell, "progression" is something you can define yourself. Is progress better gear? Go get 'em! Is progress advancing the storyline? Advance! Is progress just getting free reign of the world to bumble around in and find stuff to do? Bumble away!

Something in particular I want to say: Hunts actually bring back a good feeling reminiscent of FFXI. They're weird, obtuse, and have a dumb pseudo-competitive "don't pull yet!" element, but they reward cooperation (in communication at least, if not in party dynamics) and have a rambly touch-and-go improvisational feel that nothing in, say, World of Warcraft quite compares to.

[Moqi]

He'll be available at the cash shop!