Every inconvenience is a challenge.

[Peptaru]

FFVIII (or XII) most likely, neither XI nor XIV is that great at the moment lol. XIV promises to get better (god i hope so) and XI promises to get worse, but neither is wonderful at the moment. Why then do I play XIV? I wanna experience the change of umbal ages~

[Jadi]

FFVIII (or XII) most likely, neither XI nor XIV is that great at the moment lol. XIV promises to get better (god i hope so) and XI promises to get worse, but neither is wonderful at the moment. Why then do I play XIV? I wanna experience the change of umbal ages~

Yes you are right about that.. likely neither but you know between the two in your heart what the answer would be..

[weeble]

@Peptaru I don't want to put XI down, I have a lot of nostalgic feeling for XI but we have to be real about things too. If Joe Gamer who has never played either was shopping SE titles and he had a choice between XI or XIV what one do you think he would pickup and be happier with?

all players are different but ffxi was my first mmo and it didn't scare me away or rage me away. i loved it, i played it like it was a rpg but with lots of players. if people are picking offline games they pick from mass amounts of genre's and in them genre's there tons of different options and styles. in mmo's it should be the same but it's really not at all, probably more the opposite. when you pick a rpg or any game offline or with online play in it, do you like to see on the description with over 20hours of gameplay or 100hours of game play and lots of repeatability in the description. i'd pick the 100hrs, fact i love games like fallout 3 cause i could play for 300hrs b4 i get bored of it. that is getting your monies worth in game play. i think that is the difference between ffxi and other newer mmo's ..it's life expectancy. they make em, they die out quick they turn them into f2p and in all that they are still making profits and pushing out a new mmo by time the other is dying, and the speed they push them out is only going to get faster i'm sure.

[Platinumstorm]

Inconveniences can be used as tools to add pacing to games, even mmos. The types of inconveniences you add are very important too, and the way you limit inconveniences is additionally as important.

Getting a group to tackle a dungeon, for example, is an inconvenience, but it also helps establish other game elements important to an mmo like social aspects and understanding other classes and their abilities better. When you accomplish something you can only do with a full group, then you also have a sense of that accomplishment. That's not to say you can't accomplish things solo, but that's why solo things are relegated to lesser events, like leveling up.

The way the current world design and transportation systems involved means abolishing anima makes no sense. I find it hard to believe people can pass judgement on whether anima can stay or go for 2.0 based on what little we know about the scale of 2.0's environment and the transportation systems set up.

The correct balance is one which makes traveling an adventure, and something that fosters exploration, and avoids the trappings of linearity and making everything instantly accessible, but doesn't mean going from the United States to Canada sends one on a trip that involves going over Antarctica to reach Canada. There is a balance that must be maintained or else something doesn't just become an inconvenience, but a complete waste a time. For example, currently organizing a group in Ul'dah to go to Darkhold without anima would be a complete waste of time. The travel distance, one which has no challenges, and one which fosters no exploration would actually take longer than Darkhold. That's not a good design decision, and if one of those people has internet problems or an emergency, it's all the way back to Ul'dah you go. It could be devastating to your group, and at the least it's a complete waste of over an hour. These are the kinds of mistakes FFXI made that turned away so many players, despite its moderate success as a title.

FFXIV 1.0 can't exist without anima, I don't know about FFXIV 2.0.

[Starlord]

FFXIV 1.0 can't exist without anima, I don't know about FFXIV 2.0.

Your Right, 1.0 Can't exist without Anima because of its Huge Maps it has.. and how everything is so repetitive. ( the NM for seals is Fun, makes you not want to use anima and kill the NMs while Exploring.. if you did Anima Everytime for 3.5k seals a run.. you will run out before long.. especially with the Amount of seals you need to use for alot of the stuff.

However, in 2.0 it is said that the maps will be alot less repetitive, Not as elongated like 1.0 's maps things like that.. so if that holds to be true with 2.0.. then Anima is not needed at all.. only forms of Transportation (Trains/Chocobos/Airships/ etc).

We shall see in the coming months.

[Madruk]

Taking ideas from Raph Koster? I thought we buried him after that abortion SWG.

[Riaayo]

We, as humans, feel most alive when faced with danger and threat. This equates fun for anyone. If there is little danger of failure or 'death', we can safely assume that 99% would not find the event fun.

Right now, I can say that I only play XIV because it's just slightly better than doing nothing at all in my spare time.

Sounds a little creepy... I can't say I look forward to "feeling alive" with someone shooting at me or teetering on the edge of a skyscraper. I also don't think feeling alive from danger equates to bad UI design and flow, slow game responses or ridiculously low drop rates that end up having players do the same task hundreds of times for only a random chance at reward (in that regard I would ask if you'd ever take a job where at the end of the day your boss rolled a dice and if it hit 6 you got your paycheck?).

While I understand the philosophical point behind the OP's quote, I don't think it's some magical bullet to shoot down arguments against bad design. A large problem I see is that many old games had terrible addictive design only put in place to force more play time out of players in order to generate more money... in all honest, they were (and are) essentially software drugs designed to addict players and sustain revenue. Players became so addicted to these games they made and make excuses and sometimes literally trick themselves into thinking they enjoyed something that was brutal and completely unenjoyable. Then, the fear of change causes players to stick to these old ideals even though they are often times completely outdated.

I truthfully would take words from designers of older MMOs with a grain of salt as they were essentially the guys making the drugs (though I would imagine the 'drug' design aspect was more or less pushed upon them by the company actually paying them and funding the project).


All that said, I love challenges, but tedious time-sinks are not a challenge like a difficult fight is a challenge. .0001% drop rates are not a challenge as is avoiding all damage from an enemy to cause a chest to spawn. People seem to forget what actual challenges are because they've been fed fake ones for so long.

[Nakiamiie]

Something is wrong with the forums, I'm hammering my fist into the 'like' button but it's not going up more than once.

It should be like reddit, posts with the more likes get on the first page.