You need to give up on XI-2

[bobbygunz]

Tucking all the content away for 2.0 is a very bold strategy... only time will tell if it works to his advantage...
We can make predictions... but the gaming market is fickle and unpredictable...
No one knows what will happen come 2.0....
A big E3 and a strong Famitsu score will help... but it's still anyone's guess overall

I used to think Yoshi had a dream job, but now that you think about it, the consequence for failure will be severe. It must be really stressful.

[Gukswar]

LOL hhahahhahaha I love this !!

[StateAlchemist]

Tucking all the content away for 2.0 is a very bold strategy... only time will tell if it works to his advantage...
We can make predictions... but the gaming market is fickle and unpredictable...
No one knows what will happen come 2.0....
A big E3 and a strong Famitsu score will help... but it's still anyone's guess overall

^This. I am anticipating every tid-bit of information I can get from E3 about Version 2.0. I do think SE has a really solid chance of turning this failure into a mild-success (maybe not a shining one...it will always be tainted...). Although at this point they would REALLY have to screw up to get me to leave the game. But I still have high expectations for 2.0 that I hope SE can meet.

[Yves]

I used to think Yoshi had a dream job, but now that you think about it, the consequence for failure will be severe. It must be really stressful.

Meh, in an immediate sense it would seem severe. On a slightly larger timeline it's a situation where he cannot lose but only gain. In any industry, if an individual takes the helm of either a sinking ship or a failed project they immediately have the "out" of "I inherited a no-win situation." This is nice because any improvement is a gold star. However, if the project succeeds, it is because of the vision and ability of the individuals involved - it's icing.

Perhaps in Japan the impact would be greater (due to cultural differences) but on a global scale he would be received as almost a hero who committed himself to a cause he could not win and did so with conviction. This is similar to William Wallace and Davy Crockett at the Alamo. And, even in the case of ill-reception in Japan, time will fade the scars nicely.

[bobbygunz]

Meh, in an immediate sense it would seem severe. On a slightly larger timeline it's a situation where he cannot lose but only gain. In any industry, if an individual takes the helm of either a sinking ship or a failed project they immediately have the "out" of "I inherited a no-win situation." This is nice because any improvement is a gold star. However, if the project succeeds, it is because of the vision and ability of the individuals involved - it's icing.

Perhaps in Japan the impact would be greater (due to cultural differences) but on a global scale he would be received as almost a hero who committed himself to a cause he could not win and did so with conviction. This is similar to William Wallace and Davy Crockett at the Alamo. And, even in the case of ill-reception in Japan, time will fade the scars nicely.

True, and even that guy who did the AOIN westernisation got hired again for TERA. So I guess Yoshi will have it easy regardless. Plus everyone loves him, almost - dare I say - religiously.

[Peptaru]

Did someone just compare a gaming industry person to people who died for their countries/beliefs/to try to end oppression? I think my brain just started dripping out of my ear. extreme examples ftw!

[Yves]

Did someone just compare a gaming industry person to people who died for their countries/beliefs/to try to end oppression? I think my brain just started dripping out of my ear. extreme examples ftw!

Actually, the Scots did not fight against oppression - Longshanks was as reasonable as the era could dictate. His son, however, was the villain. Also, the Scots fought for French rule as opposed to British rule. But, as for the extremes, the philosophy has always been that if it exists on the extremes then exists in the regions between.

[Maxwell]

(Sorry, i tried to shorten the post as much as i could )

... But you need to understand that this game was never intended to be XI-2. Yes it has similar races and world but that it is because the same people did it and IMO they just lacked imagination....

I fail to see the logical basis behind your statement that it was never intended to be XI-2.

The game is called FINAL FANTASY XIV - ONLINE -. When you slap that name on a game, you capitalize on its predecessors fame and glory but you also inherit the full wave of expectations. Therefore we can legitimately expect the bare minimum back bone that made the previous games enjoyable to be present. Sadly, on this day and most likely until 2.0, the bare minimum is not there yet and its inferior to XI: broken UI, broken commerce system, broken social interaction mechanics, etc.

Concepts taken from XI:

• The 3 city states
• The themes of the 3 city states
• The jungle zone entire design
• The exact same races +1
• The exact same jobs
• Many of the same monsters
• Most of the ability names and functions
• Notorious monsters
• Many identical food items
• Same leveling up system
• Same story line driving principle
• Same chat/auto-translate system
• Same command line options
• Almost the same solo xp highway (leve quest = fields of valor)
• I can go on.....

New stuff they tried in order to make it different:

• Stamina bar (failed)
• Once action per click (no auto attack) (failed)
• New xp gain system (random) (failed)
• New cross-class system (they are pushing back toward something similar to job+subjob)
• New highly complex crafting system (toned down severly)
• New graphic engine (ended up in a bland and repetitive zone design inferior to XI)
• New server side architechture to prevent hacking (failed)
• New random monster distribution (failed. Brought back the progresive scaling of monster strength)
• New loot distribution system (failed)
• New merchant ward system (OMGfailed)
• (i was tempted in include inferior lore, but XI wasnt much better until Zilart/COP)

As far as i'm concerned, this game IS XI-2. They had to slap in another number because the story line was different.

[Tibian]

The staff upheaval when Tanaka stood down may have actually crippled progress for FFXIV for all we know.

There were very few members that actually left. It was simply a restructuring of the development team. So whoever is working on XIV now, worked on it when it was under Tanaka's terrible production.

I mean, in FFXIV, we've had some improvements, but no new areas that weren't already in the dats since the official release date. There's been progress made, but come on, not as much as you'd expect for 2 years of continued development.

I agree and disagree with you here. Nothing we have now is probably "new" except for grand companies and I don't think jobs were ever in the picture with Tanaka. The fact that Yoshi has shown off jumping means he is clearly exploring all options rather than just saying "We're investigating," or "Please look forward to it (in 5 years)."

I realise it's an uncommon situation since most of the progress they've made is still under wraps, and that's my point, we haven't even seen their progress, so you can't act like Yoshi has proved himself the amazing director everyone says he is, yet.

I think you can tell that Yoshi has proven himself an amazing director. He's taken literally the worst game ever made (an MMO nontheless) and has clearly rallied the development team into a better position than Tanaka ever did over the course of the development of the game. The fact that Yoshi has come out and said that they need to rebuild the servers and the graphics engine is proof alone that he is far more intelligent than Tanaka when it comes to understanding current MMOs. The work that Yoshi has mediated with the same dev team that Tanaka has clearly proves he can not only lead a team of people, but can cohesively hold a vision and execute it. The current engine/game is still terrible, but look at what Yoshi has done with it. I guarantee you Tanaka would have just let it sit in the quagmire of death that still resembled the horrible XI engine.

In fact, I think the game would be in better shape now even if Tanaka was still on board, and I say this because we would actually SEE the progress, rather than it being hidden away for 2.0.

I completely disagree with you here. Tanaka doesn't promote progress, he promotes complete stagnation; XI is proof of this. Tanaka didn't even want to implement a hardware mouse.

Progress was happening at a rapid pace even before Tanaka stood down. Don't you remember the rather prompt release of NMs and debugging that happened after release? They even alleviated a lot of lag? And they increased timers for food and guild facilities , etc, so already they were listening to feedback and building the game around that, and making it less punishing.

Lag was reduced due to the exodus of players from the game. The pace at which the development team is churning out content and fixes for a scrapped system is much more impressive than anything Tanaka did.

So in conclusion, Yoshi might be good. Might be. But how do we know until 2.0?

Given the fact that Yoshi has landed in the hospital, most likely due to the insane amount of work he is putting in on the game... im pretty sure he's at least devoted. You should probably give him the benefit of the doubt -- especially when he has done AMAZING things with the worst game systems ever developed.

[Rydin]

I think you can tell that Yoshi has proven himself an amazing director.

While he has done a good job... I wouldn't call him an "amazing director" just yet...
We still have yet to see the bulk of his contribution.
Also, he has some proven and tested final fantasy developers on his staff...
He may end up proving his greatness... 2.0 will definitely be quite a barometer... but right here, right now, calling him "amazing" is jumping the gun a little...

And I'm actually a fan of Yoshi and what he is doing... Let's just try to be realistic