Final Fantasy XI's rocky start?

[MeowyWowie]

Personally, I think XIV's launch was worse than XI's. Even when comparing the two games at the 1 year mark, XIV is still worse. Looking into the not too distant future, I believe that XIV's 2.0 launch will still be worse than XI's global launch w/ Zilart.

The main problem I'm seeing is the way they're introducing new elements to the game. Take a look at chocobos. FFXI had a dedicated quest that had a story tied too it, even if insignificant, to obtain your chocobo license. When looking at the quest for what it was, there really wasn't much to it. Trade a chocobo some grasses a few times over the course of a few game days, easy enough. However, it was what you had to do before that to be able to do the quest.

You entered the game as a level 1 newb in your City State of choice. The first few levels were easy, pretty much just a self controlled tutorial for the game. But by the time you hit lv~10 you were thrown into dangerous situations that you were required to complete if you wanted to progress. At such a low level, a new player was forced to navigate through some difficult areas in order to begin playing with others (your first journey to Valkurm Dunes). Windurst had it the worst by far because of Buburimu Peninsula, though San d'Oria and Bastok still had somewhat difficult paths as well. Getting to the Dunes required you to remain cautious of aggressive monsters along the way and test your patience by waiting for the right time to move.

After you finally got there, you were met with the ever persistent feeling of danger because now you're fighting mobs with others. One person making a mistake could spell disaster for the whole party. A bad pull, a healer not quick enough with cures, a tank not holding hate properly, all of those could have wiped a low level party easily in the early days of FFXI. And since it still was the early days, there weren't many people with raise in the area to help if something did go wrong.

By the time you reached lv18 you were met with your first quest with a REAL reward, the subjob quest. Most players would stop at level 18 to finish this quest and level up a subjob before venturing further into the world. The quest itself wasn't difficult, but it was not something a low level newbie could do by themselves. Players needed to help each other. Fortunately for them, this quest could be completed while grinding in the dunes.

After obtaining a subjub, leveling it up and gaining level 20 on your main class you faced yet another challenge. Now you had to travel to Jeuno, I still remember my first time doing this. Most players took the Jugner Forest route because it was the easiest of all, but for a lv20 newbie it was no picnic. The zone was filled with lv30+ aggressive mobs that linked. Aggroing even once could have you taking a dirt nap, risking exp and level loss as well. But this was necessary in the way the game was designed.

So here you are, you finally made it to Jeuno, you're level 20 and already you feel you've accomplished quite a bit. You survived your trip to the Dunes, maybe dying once or twice, but you learned from your mistakes and made it in the end. You met a bunch of people once you got there, learned the basics of playing with others (if you were new to an MMO) and got a feel of the battle system as it was intended to be used for the duration of the game. You completed your first major quest and now you have a properly leveled subjob to compliment your main job. Finally you went the distance and made it through Jugner Forest in one piece. Your reward for all of this: the chocobo quest. All of that effort payed off in a very big way.

But tests like these didn't stop there. Every few levels you gained unlocked a new test for you to complete. Lv~24 you had to get the keys for the Kazham airship. At level 30 you unlocked the quests to obtain advanced jobs. Level 40 you unlocked your first AF quest for your weapon. By level 50 you were doing AF armor quests and limit break quests. There was always a new challenge on the horizon.

Now look at FFXIV in comparison. There is no quest in the game at all that rewards you like any of the ones in XI did. You're able to cross-class abilities right from the get-go. There's no sense of danger whatsoever. Getting your chocobo license is a complete joke and might as well just be handed to you (even though it pretty much already is). Obtaining a personal chocobo is even worse. Jobs are just going to be handed to us, at the level of their parent classes. There is literally nothing in this game at the moment that is optional but considered "required" to play the game the way it's meant to be played. You can progress throughout the entire game and have everything by the time you're level 50 without actually doing anything but grinding.

It's because of this that I feel FFXI's initial and global launch far exceeded what's happening with FFXIV. I view 2.0 the same way I viewed Zilart for FFXI, it's basically history repeating itself but this time around it seems they're just cutting corners and really missing out on good opportunities to give us worthwhile content throughout the game, not just at the end. And even when we get to the end, FFXIV will probably still be lacking. FFXI trumps FFXIV in every way, shape and form when comparing the two against each other on a similar timeline. Hopefully 2.0 will change this, and while I prefer to remain optimistic about it, I'm really not sure if they can pull it off.

Regardless, I will be playing up until the release of 2.0. I'll likely be playing GW2 alongside it since, like many others, I'm quickly running out of things to do (no, I don't believe achievements are content). Hopefully 2.0 will be the golden patch that SE makes it out to be, but by now I've learned to remain cautious about the promises we've been given and try not to expect too much. I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Seif]

I think this excuse has run it's course.

Think of it like this in the light of XIV's launch XI launched smoothly like a cruise liner on a clear day with quest-lines and cutscenes in place and main story mode with a proper ending.

Also it had real FF jobs from day 1.

[Anima]

Try this Link

http://zeusls.llima.net/download/ffxiupdatehistory.html

EDIT: Didn't notice someone already posted the link, my bad.

[Baxter]

Tarutaru Female's from Sandoria motion has been changed. Seemed their pose was very similar to Nazis motion...

hah. I chortled. I remember when they patched mithra /sit too. One of my friends I started with was very upset that it would make it more difficult to get gil from lonely men.

[viion]

hah. I chortled. I remember when they patched mithra /sit too. One of my friends I started with was very upset that it would make it more difficult to get gil from lonely men.

Ah yes...

[TheVedis]

Ah yes...

This is not so fabulous
this just looks....slutty

[viion]

This is not so fabulous
this just looks....slutty

I do agree.

[AdvancedWind]

02/07
サンド出身のタル♀のmotionに変更が加わる。
某ナチスのそれに近かったらしい。

Tarutaru Female's from Sandoria motion has been changed. Seemed their pose was very similar to Nazis motion...

This was my favorite, great read. lol

Requesting pics!

[SniperRifle]

Nvm apparently a few people already posted the link.

[Kiote]

The games released in almost identical conditions. XI did not have adv jobs or anything at release was added after launch.

The major difference between the 2, is Tanaka did not change anything with the release of XI and just added more and more to it every patch.

With XIV currently, the games foundation is being completely rewritten so we are getting actual content at a much much slower rate then it was added to XI.

It is a negative of the revamp. If Tanaka was left in charge there would of most likly been alot more content at this point similar to how XI was done... The timelines of XI and XIV under tanaka where running in parallel almost.

This is pretty much spot on..

The Biggest Reason FFXIV Tanked the way it did was because there was zero content. An MMO can be released with the worst mechanics in the world and just get fixed along the way, they just need to have something that distracts players. I'm glad they decided to do large scale fixes in this game, but the main reason people keep leaving and coming back and leaving again is because there is nothing to do.

The Dev Team needs to get off the WoW-like release a dungeon every few months kick and start making real content or this game will go no where.