Do you think this game will be as great as XI was?

[Babydoll]

No. As others have said its not a fair comparison...but if I had to:

As XIV stands now..IMO nothing is a challenge. In xi the dev team listened to themselves...they didn't cater to every complaint they got. The people from XI (that stuck with it...I mean pre - abyssea also) are hardcore gamers. They dedicated a LOT of time and effort to the game. I can really tell the difference between the player base of the two games...

In XI everything to me felt like a fun challenge and I was stubborn, stuck with it and accomplished everything I wanted to in XI. I had so many friends and even met the person I love though the game. (And we are together RL for a long time now) I would NEVER consider that in XIV LOL (If I was single). XIV doesn't have nearly the same social aspect XI did.

I loved the game so much I am reserving my final judgement after 2.0..I really hope it can give me the same feel. If not I think I am done with MMO ^^;

[JillyBean]

I really, really hope it does, but I doubt it.
Here's some of the videos I'm talking about. /equip Nostalgia Goggles

1 / 2

Wow. This took me back. I can only hope one day we can have the same emotions and feelings with FFXIV. No comparison. Watching the videos made me wish I appreciated the moments more during my 6.5 years in XI. XIV has so much to live up to, it might be impossible. Many things I like even more about XIV but there's something about XI, an intangible magical quality, that I just wish we could get back....

Favorite music is just simply Gustaberg (namely around 1:25 and 2:30 on this track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3-k7XbsxM )

Playing and immensely enjoying FFXIV but still ..... MISS. XI. SO. SO. SO. SO. MUCH.

[bobbygunz]

Nothing will ever be like XI, unfortunately.

But XIV will be a different game. I can only hope will be good in the sense that it can differentiate itself from other MMOs

I anticipate it's going to be much more like the generic type of MMO you see being released every other week nowadays rather than an MMO like the original FFXIV and FFXI.

Gamers think MMOs are a genre and expect them all to play the same, instead of realising they are a platform with different sub-genres. This expectation leads to devs going back to cloning WoW because that's what the players apparently want, and its a vicious cycle. So that's what Yoshi is delivering; something more like WoW and all the others.

on topic: greatness is subjective. People thought Hitler was great too at some point.

[Forerunner]

Hopefully, one day this will match XI.

Or maybe even better it.

I'll be around though, can't go back to XI now.

[yoshikwalla]

It's not going to be better than XI until XIV been out for a long time and has its own league of biased, nostalgic fans who have played it for over 5 years. Also, XI was a beast of a game while this game isn't... yet. Give it time and the goodness will come.

XI was hard, yes. In a way, people didn't play XI as much as they did in spite of XI, working together to find their way around the mess of development flaws, balancing issues, bugs, grind, and whatnot. And while that's not a particularly bad thing, it makes for a niche community.

XIV won't have as much of a niche community because the developers are going out of their way to make things easier to get into. I agree that we need more challenge other than Skirmishes (freakin' hate reset!), Garuda (unless you speak Japanese) and Nael van Darnus. But why would the developers release more challenging content using a cruddy battle system that's gonna be swapped for a newer, shinier one? It's like trying to teach someone who will die in a week 5 years of German. Once 2.0 comes out and they fix all the kinks that will be at launch, then I can see challenging content being developed. But not now.

When it comes to the story, I really like XIV's and can't wait to resume it now that I beat Darnus. I never felt like that before for an expansion. When it comes to community, I'm amazed by the amount of friends I made. I can just travel to Ul'dah and walk a few steps before noticing someone I know. The people who I've grouped with are great. The linkshells are great. This is the only time that I've truly been engrossed in a player community since AION pre-f2p (which made me engross myself with a bunch of assholes) and post-f2p (which made me engross myself with a bunch of brazillians, huehuehuehuehue and even more gold spammers).

XI won't have as big a community because the game is unfriendly. It just spits at you the minute you get in. It's like prison and your prisonmates are your best friends who can help you pull though and find fun in your new environment. This fun is amazing, yes, but still requires hours of frustratingly rock-climbing the learning curve mountain. XIV won't have that because the developers are taking their time to make the game friendly and aren't limited to what they can do by limiting themselves to ps2 systems years into modern gaming.

[hrdndv]

Nothing will ever be like XI, unfortunately.

But XIV will be a different game. I can only hope will be good in the sense that it can differentiate itself from other MMOs

I agree. XI came out in prehistoric times (computer hardware wize). It looks archaic and the controls are awful. But when I first played it all those years ago it was beautiful, wonderful, amazing. This is a new era for hardware, software, and the whole gaming experience. A lot of the newness and surprise have worn off XI, even with new content. Kinda like playing Qix. XIV 2.0 should still bring some surprising things with it, but players are not awed by bigger monsters and harder mobs anymore. Getting into a dungeon or raiding a castle are no longer amazing. In FFXIII the story had to bring in time-travel and features straight out of Kingdom Hearts... an all consuming Void. In FFXIV we were promised airships, space-travel, pets, personal castles with retainers... and I hope we can let friends into our castles. But what will surprise? What will amaze? In FFXI I loved just exploring... getting into strange new areas. I loved fishing, where you could catch a new sword. I love strange crafting recipes with weird spider dyes and hard to get ingredients. When they revised the crafting recipes and made them so easy half the fun of exploring strange caves for hard to mine mining points was lost. In some ways the development team is right to listen to us players, but there are times when the players want it too easy. This whole rant against random events and drops is misguided. I agree Garuda drops too rarely to be fun, but random events and random drops are part of the game. Will this mysterious new engine have features that improve game play... maybe. Will the new story be amazing and suck the player in.... maybe. Maybe the new update for 1.23a will give us a clue to where we are going.... What we really need though is information of getting into Beta... we are almost there.

[hrdndv]

Wow. This took me back. I can only hope one day we can have the same emotions and feelings with FFXIV. No comparison. Watching the videos made me wish I appreciated the moments more during my 6.5 years in XI. XIV has so much to live up to, it might be impossible. Many things I like even more about XIV but there's something about XI, an intangible magical quality, that I just wish we could get back....

Favorite music is just simply Gustaberg (namely around 1:25 and 2:30 on this track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx3-k7XbsxM )

Playing and immensely enjoying FFXIV but still ..... MISS. XI. SO. SO. SO. SO. MUCH.

WOW! I hven't hear that beautiful tune for ages and had forgotten it.... You are right. There were amazing things in FFXI. I still play XI but I usually play with the sound off so I don't annoy my parents... lol.

[Mishakai]

Well, it has already surpassed XI for me. I loved XI, however it was my first MMO, and I did only play it for about 9 months. Completed a few AF sets and was on the way to 75 before I just burned out on it. Since then I've played a ton of other MMOs searching for one that has "that feeling"... the only one I have found is XIV. Wish I could put my finger on it, really do.. cause when the game launched I was ready to fly to Japan with my collectors edition box and cram it up somebody's rear.

The ironic part is some of the things I like best about the game now are things I hated at launch.. go figure...

Now, this game ranks as #2 for most time invested (behind WoW), but catching up quickly... Note that doesn't mean #2 for most content cleared. There have been other MMOs I have played where I could literally slam my drunken face against the keyboard and hold aggro for an entire 4 hour raid crawl.. XIV isn't one of them.

[Rau]

If 2.0 somehow fails, or doesn't live up to expectations, I'm hoping to see some mass exodus to XI when we find out SoA is apparently super awesome.

[hrdndv]

If 2.0 somehow fails, or doesn't live up to expectations, I'm hoping to see some mass exodus to XI when we find out SoA is apparently super awesome.

I don't expect XI will get a boost... it will merely linger to its last breath... eventually being revised and stuck in a new engine... at which point (about 2055 AD) it will become the new fad game. I will stick with 2.0 until I see what it can do and become over the next couple of years... and if I get bored I will be playing Elder Scrolls Online.... though today I am starting Guild Wars 2 Beta to see if it is any good.