Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[MilkieTea]

You ever see the news on mmorpgs like New World, or any of the other new ones, and are like "wow! dodged a bullet".

Think I'll just stick to what I know.

I'm convinced Amazon looked at the mess that was XIV's 1.0 launch and the subsequent success brought by pulling themselves together and actually caring and said "Let's replicate that... it'll get us money!" Without realizing that the only reason people stuck around was because they had trust in the devs and the devs had WAY too much to lose. Amazon has nothing to lose if NW doesn't succeed. "Meh... a few hundred million gone down the drain. Whatevs, we're a trillion dollar company it doesn't matter to us."

[_Pigzig]

Without realizing that the only reason people stuck around was because they had trust in the devs and the devs had WAY too much to lose. "

I don't think anyone trusted the devs actually, except some fanboys.
Most people here didn't buy 1.0 at all and the Final Fantasy series was long in decline.

The reason I bought 2.0 is it looked way better right from initial screenshots. It was obvious they made a totally different game. I was sold on the game because of how Dragoon looked. Here are some early screenshots for fun.



And there was a lot more positive buzz. You couldn't even find the game in Japan on launch.

[MilkieTea]

I don't think anyone trusted the devs actually, except some fanboys.
Most people here didn't buy 1.0 at all and the Final Fantasy series was long in decline.

The reason I bought 2.0 is it looked way better right from initial screenshots. It was obvious they made a totally different game. I was sold on the game because of how Dragoon looked. Here are some early screenshots for fun.



And there was a lot more positive buzz. You couldn't even find the game in Japan on launch.

There wouldn't have been a core playerbase without trust in the devs, though. My friend who's been playing since 1.0 Launch has shared with me some interesting things, such as PDFs of the timelines they shared with their playerbase etc etc.

There was a loss of trust but some of that had been regained from the devs showing that they honestly wanted the game to at least *work*. There's absolutely none of that with NW. No openness, no trust at all. It's a dumpsterfire that looks pretty (like 1.0) without the new team involved to toss the dumpsterfire out and make a garden instead.

[_Pigzig]

There wouldn't have been a core playerbase without trust in the devs, though. My friend who's been playing since 1.0 Launch has shared with me some interesting things, such as PDFs of the timelines they shared with their playerbase etc etc.

There was a loss of trust but some of that had been regained from the devs showing that they honestly wanted the game to at least *work*. There's absolutely none of that with NW. No openness, no trust at all. It's a dumpsterfire that looks pretty (like 1.0) without the new team involved to toss the dumpsterfire out and make a garden instead.

Yeah but I think most people who play now never knew about any of this. 2.0 was successful because they made a different game and it was good. All I knew about 1.0 was what youtubers and people who ripped it to shreds said. It was one of those games people loved to hate.
What Square did do well though was communicate how different 2.0 was going to be. They even made A Realm Reborn the prominent title on the box, Final Fantasy was only underneath. This trend actually continued. You see ENDWALKER and then FFXIV online underneath.
A lot of the playerbase now aren't even Final Fantasy fans, a lot of people I've talked to don't know the Crystal Tower is a big FF3 reference. The success just seems to be plain old buzz and word of mouth about the game.

[MilkieTea]

Yeah but I think most people who play now never knew about any of this. 2.0 was successful because they made a different game and it was good. All I knew about 1.0 was what youtubers and people who ripped it to shreds said. It was one of those games people loved to hate.
What Square did do well though was communicate how different 2.0 was going to be. They even made A Realm Reborn the prominent title on the box, Final Fantasy was only underneath. This trend actually continued. You see ENDWALKER and then FFXIV online underneath.
A lot of the playerbase now aren't even Final Fantasy fans, a lot of people I've talked to don't know the Crystal Tower is a big FF3 reference. The success just seems to be plain old buzz and word of mouth about the game.

I feel like we've got the same point we're just at different parts of that point ahah.

2.0 onward wouldn't be where it is now without the 1.0 players sticking around during the Free play period and putting enough trust in the devs to be willing to start paying again when they said they'd need to reactivate the subscription model. It honestly wouldn't have made it without that trust. New World doesn't have that - it's a corporate game with zero soul and absolutely no brand identity. My whole point was it feels NW is trying to pull a NW 2.0 ("OOPS, too much, gotta burn it down, pls trust us as we fix it!") But without any of the other reasons XIV 2.0 worked.

[Vyrerus]

I feel like we've got the same point we're just at different parts of that point ahah.

2.0 onward wouldn't be where it is now without the 1.0 players sticking around during the Free play period and putting enough trust in the devs to be willing to start paying again when they said they'd need to reactivate the subscription model. It honestly wouldn't have made it without that trust. New World doesn't have that - it's a corporate game with zero soul and absolutely no brand identity. My whole point was it feels NW is trying to pull a NW 2.0 ("OOPS, too much, gotta burn it down, pls trust us as we fix it!") But without any of the other reasons XIV 2.0 worked.

That's how I felt about Destiny dropping Destiny and moving onto Destiny 2.

[Vahlnir]

That's how I felt about Destiny dropping Destiny and moving onto Destiny 2.

Destiny 2 had an okay start, but it was just down hill from there. Even after Bungie left Activision, which in my opinion is the best thing they could have done, the quality of the game continued to decline. And it hasn't gotten any better since. They've made a lot of questionable decisions. It's clear that they have no idea what they want the game to be. At this point Destiny 2 is basically free advertising for Warframe. lol

[SturmChurro]

Saw that people are basically exploiting for infinite money since it does clientside checks rather than server checks.

Embarassing, really.

Yea, and that's just a minor issue.

Yeah...I figured well before it (New World) was released that it would be a forgotten title a couple of years down the road, maybe sooner. People were getting way too overhyped, but I knew better. Never picked it up to give it a go. (...)

I just wasn't really interested in putting time into a new mmorpg at this time. I have FFXIV, and it looked too much like ESO for me to even bother, when ESO is already established, and I like ES and it's lore. Speaking on that, I'd love to get into Elder Scrolls lore on here, but I am way too afraid of the mods to do so.

I've come to believe that any successful MMO is very much a matter of needing to be in the right place in the right time. I guess it's the lightning in the bottle effect. (...)

Ironically, New World, is/was extremely successful despite it all. If only it hadn't had so many issues. FFXIV could use more competitors, but it needs high quality ones, so that the genre actually benefits.

I'm convinced Amazon looked at the mess that was XIV's 1.0 launch and the subsequent success brought by pulling themselves together and actually caring and said "Let's replicate that... it'll get us money!" Without realizing that the only reason people stuck around was because they had trust in the devs and the devs had WAY too much to lose. Amazon has nothing to lose if NW doesn't succeed. "Meh... a few hundred million gone down the drain. Whatevs, we're a trillion dollar company it doesn't matter to us."

Apparently, it's so bad that the only way to fix it properly would be to like redo it from the ground up. I'm no developer, so someone who is into coding would know a lot more than me on it, of course. It doesn't look like Amazon is abandoning it, supposedly they are hiring tons of devs to try and fix these issues, but they are doing it the hard way. Supposedly, it would take like 10x the amount of work to fix a bug in this state, and doing so will end up breaking more things in the process. Funnily enough, I heard "spaghetti code" was referenced. Deja vu really. They weren't ready for launch.

[MilkieTea]

Apparently, it's so bad that the only way to fix it properly would be to like redo it from the ground up. I'm no developer, so someone who is into coding would know a lot more than me on it, of course. It doesn't look like Amazon is abandoning it, supposedly they are hiring tons of devs to try and fix these issues, but they are doing it the hard way. Supposedly, it would take like 10x the amount of work to fix a bug in this state, and doing so will end up breaking more things in the process. Funnily enough, I heard "spaghetti code" was referenced. Deja vu really. They weren't ready for launch.

God this entire thing just reeks of deja vu. I've been watching the videos on New World by Josh Strife Hayes. I would never play the game but watching the dumpster fire slowly reveal itself to *be* a dumpster fire is extremely interesting.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

God this entire thing just reeks of deja vu. I've been watching the videos on New World by Josh Strife Hayes. I would never play the game but watching the dumpster fire slowly reveal itself to *be* a dumpster fire is extremely interesting.

Ayyy JSH fan!

Yeah, while I had never really planned to try out New World anyway (I've barely got time for this MMO some days, let alone others), watching his vids on the game just convinced me not to touch that thing with a 20 foot pole. I honestly can't say I'm surprised - as Vahlnir said a couple pages back, it's Amazon. I don't trust what's primarily an online shopping conglomerate to make anything close to a good game that they actually care about. The whole thing reeked to me of KR-MMO syndrome from the moment I heard about it, and I swore off KR-MMOs for a reason.

Funny af to watch the thing slowly burning though.