Letter from the Producer, XXX (06/21/2012)

[KujinRen]

Considering how much they are playing up Odin in their 2.0 spoilers, I am seriously starting to thinking that people are correct when they say Odin is inside, or riding on, Dalamund. I don't think we've heard any lore related to Odin so it would make sense that he isn't from Eorzea.

Sometimes I wonder if "Odin" is hidden Emperor of the Garleans... *enter dramatic music here*

[FallenRaine]

Sometimes I wonder if "Odin" is hidden Emperor of the Garleans... *enter dramatic music here*

[FallenRaine]

Considering how much they are playing up Odin in their 2.0 spoilers, I am seriously starting to thinking that people are correct when they say Odin is inside, or riding on, Dalamund. I don't think we've heard any lore related to Odin so it would make sense that he isn't from Eorzea.

he's in Dalamud like this?

[bobbygunz]

Yoshi has way too much of a love obsession with World of Warcraft. It's old news Yoshi! Get with the times!

[Jynx]

Yoshi has way too much of a love obsession with World of Warcraft. It's old news Yoshi! Get with the times!

Man mentions he likes WoW "mention is repeated a million times by news outlets" = Yoshida is obsessed with WoW.

Logic.

Can the man not visit another MMO developer and recognize their accomplishments? I'm no fan of WoW myself but Yoshida seems anything but "Obsessed" with them. It's hard to avoid mentioning them in interviews considering they are a massive force in the industry.

[Airget]

Man mentions he likes WoW "mention is repeated a million times by news outlets" = Yoshida is obsessed with WoW.

Logic.

Can the man not visit another MMO developer and recognize their accomplishments? I'm no fan of WoW myself but Yoshida seems anything but "Obsessed" with them. It's hard to avoid mentioning them in interviews considering they are a massive force in the industry.

Yep, in order to make something great, better or even just competitive with another product you have to understand and respect the product you are up against. Compared to any other MMO out there WoW is pretty much the only one that's been able to keep such a high population for as long as it's been around for. Not even a brand like star wars is enough to ring in the amount of people an MMO such as WoW has and Yoshida recognizes this. He understands that if you want to create something of a specific genre you have to look around and see what works and what doesn't work.

It also helps the fact that he is actually an MMO player that has played other MMOs and a basic MMOer can tell you that simply copying the mechanics of WoW just doesn't work no matter how many developers try to do it it just doesn't work. So with that XIV alrdy took the proper direction even when it was first released, it just failed to deliver on content to keep people occupied and instead had it's own set of limitations to prevent you from doing said content as much as you like.

With the current XIV setup the majority of content is more wide opened, varied and accesible to the average casual gamer. And there's still content there for the hardcores to enjoy, but at the same time the events that the hardcores enjoy can be enjoyed by the more casual players, they just might not be able to reach that same lv that the hardcores can.

You need just enough variety to keep the common player attached to a game, but also enough challenging content to keep the more competitive gamers around to make an MMO work. When you focus on to much on one side or the other you run into the following issues:
SWTOR=Heavily focused on casual, pretty much causes all the hardcore and fans of SW to jump ship once they fulfilled all the content and realize that there really isn't much challenge to it.

Megaten Online=Heavily focused on unforgiving death penalty as well as very risky weapon/armor upgrading system. It uses cash shops to alleviate said issues but that's where a hardcore/casual player does come in, where the casual may spend money to get better at the same time a lot of events are set around groups and you can't really ever do anything solo aside from lving to an extent. A better example though and ones people will be familiar with is

EVE=Highly Complex and highly unforgiving game which pretty much discourages any casual player from playing it, however this form of extreme difficulty does manage to draw in the right amount of hardcore players to keep the game alive.

So ya it all comes down to balance. With a title like Final Fantasy it has such a wide fanbase that if you were to focus on the casual only or hardcore only you would end up discouraging a good amount of players from playing said mmo. Now with what we've seen so far we can see that 14 is going in a more unique direction by having it play a lot of homages to the FF series rather then be a standalone like 11. So that in itself is a good tool which could draw in a lot of casual/hardcores of the series that may be interested in seeing past FF concepts incorporated into an MMO and see how they flesh out. They will also be given the hope that in the future even more homages will be put into the game so they would always be looking forward to the next VU as well as expansions.

Just a few more months though, and we'll get to see what he's managed to make of everything. Well maybe sooner when they decide to release the site and 1.23 sounds like it'll be a starting point to ease players into the changes from 1.0-2.0. There's definitely a lot to look forward to this summer for 14.

[bobbygunz]

There is more to a game than just the User Interface or how it rates on the hardcore/casual spectrum. There has been an overt paradigm shift in combat mechanics in recent MMOs lately, and far less emphasis on the WoW UI-centric type playstyles, yet it's almost as if Yoshi has focused his efforts almost entirely on regurgitating those two elements of WoW which are now outdated.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

There is more to a game than just the User Interface or how it rates on the hardcore/casual spectrum. There has been an overt paradigm shift in combat mechanics in recent MMOs lately, and far less emphasis on the WoW UI-centric type playstyles, yet it's almost as if Yoshi has focused his efforts almost entirely on regurgitating those two elements of WoW which are now outdated.

Oh, really ? You can take the old ui if you feel it so pro

[Biggs]

There is more to a game than just the User Interface or how it rates on the hardcore/casual spectrum. There has been an overt paradigm shift in combat mechanics in recent MMOs lately, and far less emphasis on the WoW UI-centric type playstyles, yet it's almost as if Yoshi has focused his efforts almost entirely on regurgitating those two elements of WoW which are now outdated.

True, but none of said skills of these combat mechanics have (as of yet) paid the bills like WOW's had. Again, not a fan of WOW, but they clearly did something no one else has been able to repeat yet financially.

[Elexia]

True, but none of said skills of these combat mechanics have (as of yet) paid the bills like WOW's had. Again, not a fan of WOW, but they clearly did something no one else has been able to repeat yet financially.

They caught the train at the right time in terms of MMOs. MMOs always existed, but with more use of the internet, liittle kids growing up and poking around, plaster ads everywhere and on TV you'll make a killing.

This is the only reason WoW was successful, you couldn't go to one website without seeing a WoW ad, much like Maplestory, you couldn't browse without seeing the cutesy characters telling you to join. Fyi, Maplestory was and still is one of the most popular MMOs to date as well. Like I've said before, WoW is the FFVII of MMOs: Came at the right place at the right time, VII was inferior to most FF games yet still acclaimed as one of the best simply because it was many people's first FF game as well as the first "next-gen" FF game even though we can all agree earlier and later FF games are much better and more polished.