FINAL FANTASY XIV Special Talk Session (translated)!!!

[Zezlar]

As a long-time WoW player -and- a long-time FFXI player, I find myself potentially and cautiously excited about the faster paced battle. We have no issues in WoW with faster-paced fighting taking away from the game-play as a whole so I don't really see an issue.

in before "not a WoW clone"

Don't care for WoW nor do I want to see it in XIV. To each their own though.

[Breladine]

Don't care for WoW nor do I want to see it in XIV. To each their own though.

Indeed, to each their own.

The thing is, I think SE has finally started to realize they need to start trying to appeal to a wider variety of people out on the market to make this a success. After seeing the information with regard to faster-paced battles and being able to level on quests and content alone rather than dragging your behind out to the field to do the same thing over and over again, my husband for one actually has a peaked interest, whereas before he wouldn't touch this game with a 10 foot pole. That's great to hear, it shows the game is moving toward actually competing with mainstream MMOs (as he is a WoW player) rather than just being some cult following.

Cult followings are cute but they don't generate you the most revenue, and at the end of the day Square Enix is just another business. I know everyone who played FFXI hardcore like many of us did don't mind putting in the mind-numbing effort to level their characters, but the world is full of a whole market of people who would like something a little more accessible, and by striking a balance hopefully SE can appeal to some of each and widen their customer base with FFXIV.

We've seen some of these changes and balances up until now with FFXIV 1.23a, and I'm looking forward to seeing further implementation of similar changes in the future.

That's my ultimate hope, anyway.