FFXIV-- the fear of a WoW Clone is real...

[HiranaiVashai]

If there is one thing that Japanese is great at is that they can take the essence of others and then enhance, repackage and deliver a better product than before (as oppose to the Chinese, whom usually just replicate with no quality control what-so-ever... I'm Chinese here, I know the culture well)

I've heard that statement in real life before. It's true that Japan has taken a lot of good products and inventions and enhanced it a lot for safety and preformance. I wasn't following this thread post by post but I really do think that the threat is minimal. I played WoW only once or twice just to try, on a friends account. I was an XI player for years. I thought XIV took more of a similar look and feel (UI) like WoW at 1.0 release. It still had a better flavor. I disagreed with claims that XIV was far from being a Final Fantasy like title, because the system seemed quite based on a mix of FF2 (development through pure skill usage) and XI's Blue Mage (what I kind of liked, the point based system to set spells/abilities). I thought up of such similar formulas for MMOs when I played XI and it didn't work out well seeing it in practice on XIV.

Also, SE has time and again set the benchmark themselves on game-play/battle systems in years past. Yoshi-P is an experienced MMO player and encouraged the dev team to play a variety themselves (iirc). To experience themselves what they liked, what they hated, what worked, what didn't. And I'm sure it's not to steal success formulas, but rather get inspired to create new ones. Remember, we're at an age where we say it's all been done and yet we still (though rarely) get a surprised with something that feels new. I'm confident that 'if' anything is similar to another formula, it's not going to be recognized as the same.

[Yolteotl]

Everyone is taking a statement and creating their own ideas out of it. To me, the better way to imagine what direction ARR is going to take is to look at 1.0 what it was and where it went (and considering the limitations of 1.0 and only a partial amount of the development team was involved).

More than likely the only reason the statement about looking @ SWToR and GW2 was even made was to give Westerners examples of how they are not blindly going to push ARR without an understanding of market competition, which was one major downfall of the 1.0 launch. And before the trolls are like 'But the Letter Live was a JP event', it was a Global event and Yoshi-P and everyone else involved knew that; they and the company they represent are just obviously Japanese.

Also, for the posts referring to tbe players doing nothing but jumping around in Alpha; Alpha is just a stress-test so the only real importance is to have ur character there doing something. And sice they were asked to follow the Dev as part of the Live/Alpha combination, not much else to do and stay within the parameters of the event and the stress-test.

[Royze]

I'm pretty sure only the die-hard "fun" game companies will continue to focus on catering to their loyal traditional consumer base, while larger entities such as SE try to mimic the 10 Billion $ success that is WoW.

While SE probably has a couple of FF loyalists left within the organization, you have to understand it went from 300 employees to 3200+ in a decade.

Their titles are now marketed towards a larger demograph and psychograph. Women and Casual players.



SE exists to make more $$$$ - not to provide novelty for 30+ year old FF purists.

[Okazaki]

You do realize that pleasing their existing fan base is what keeps them earning money right? this isnt wii fit we are talking about here....

[Darkhaund]

Ohhh i know and I do HOPE that they keep this game "unique" but FFXIII did bad and FF14.. well we all know so SE is in dire need of money and they are targeting a much borader audience with ARR

[Abriael]

You do realize that pleasing their existing fan base is what keeps them earning money right? this isnt wii fit we are talking about here....

You do realize that the "existing fan base" is extremely small, right?

Ohhh i know and I do HOPE that they keep this game "unique" but FFXIII did bad and FF14.. well we all know so SE is in dire need of money and they are targeting a much borader audience with ARR

in "dire need of money?"

You need to refresh your financial information. SE's finances are between the most solid of the game industry. Also, Final Fantasy XIII sold very well.

It's really pretty simple: the whole premise of your thread is false.

[Royze]

You do realize that the "existing fan base" is extremely small, right?



in "dire need of money?"

You need to refresh your financial information. SE's finances are between the most solid of the game industry. Also, Final Fantasy XIII sold very well.

It's really pretty simple: the whole premise of your thread is false.

While I agree about their fan base being tiny in the scale of everything, I do have to point out that while their finances are "solid" that doesn't mean that their equity or profits support their ambitions. I'm pretty certain their overhead and net aren't too wide apart.

More importantly, if you compare their growth in the 90's up until X-2 vs their growth since X-2, you will notice a rather rapid decline and stagnation, while their overhead has increased...

yeah solid finances and cash flow, but huge liabilities and major stakeholders across the sea on the mainland.

[Darkhaund]

Nope... if you see all the other MMOs that tried to copy WoW formula have failed.
And it will be pretty shameful if SE copied blizzard and also failed dont you think?

[Abriael]

While I agree about their fan base being tiny in the scale of everything, I do have to point out that while their finances are "solid" that doesn't mean that their equity or profits support their ambitions. I'm pretty certain their overhead and net aren't too wide apart.

More importantly, if you compare their growth in the 90's up until X-2 vs their growth since X-2, you will notice a rather rapid decline and stagnation, while their overhead has increased...

yeah solid finances and cash flow, but huge liabilities and major stakeholders across the sea on the mainland.

That has nothing to do with being in "dire need of money". They aren't. If they were, FFXIV: ARR would have never gone beyond the idea stage.

Nope... if you see all the other MMOs that tried to copy WoW formula have failed.
And it will be pretty shameful if SE copied blizzard and also failed dont you think?

You called it a "real fear", while it's just an irrational statement born of nothing, as we already can see that ARR is very far from WoW in quite a lot of aspect.

Again, this whole thread is a trainwreck of ignorance. Sorry.

[Royze]

That has nothing to do with being in "dire need of money". They aren't. If they were, FFXIV: ARR would have never gone beyond the idea stage.



You called it a "real fear", while it's just an irrational statement born of nothing, as we already can see that ARR is very far from WoW in quite a lot of aspect.

Again, this whole thread is a trainwreck of ignorance. Sorry.

HEY! you're an ignorance of threadwreck whole sorry!