Yet another interview..Kotaku however.

[Zumi]

Well, of course there is challenge in WOW. And i'm aware of these hard dungeons. But the game overall is what i'm talking about. And that is what threw me off the wagon.

If you played for 2 weeks though you didn't make it to end game, Almost all the content is at end game. Its really hard to get a feel for what WoW is like unless you made it to end game joined a guild that does raids or battlegrouds/arenas where 99% of the development is focused on. The leveling and questing system really doesn't give you a good idea at all what the game is about its very different once you hit level cap. So much so that Blizzard started giving 300% exp to refer a friends and level 80 boosted characters to people that return so they could skip the leveling process.

[Joji]

If you played for 2 weeks though you didn't make it to end game, Almost all the content is at end game. Its really hard to get a feel for what WoW is like unless you made it to end game joined a guild that does raids or battlegrouds/arenas where 99% of the development is focused on. The leveling and questing system really doesn't give you a good idea at all what the game is about its very different once you hit level cap. So much so that Blizzard started giving 300% exp to refer a friends and level 80 boosted characters to people that return so they could skip the leveling process.

In my opinion a good mmorpg to me is a game where you enjoy playing from the start to the end.
Just to clarify myself here, My impression of WOW is bad based on these 2 weeks of play which made me to stop playing it. And yes, it is way too little time to judge a game fully, but the first impression is an important factor for me. This is why I continued playing XIV, I enjoyed it enough to continue after 2 weeks despite it's flaws and lacks.

[Duelle]

Pretty much this. It had some good ideas but not every idea was good. The genre has changed since it was created.

I also agree with Alhanelem's post. You can't design a game exactly like FFXI today and expect it to do well.

I honestly don't see a difference between (play everquest for a year - make xi) and (play wow for a year - make xiv) because, to me, WoW was made by some dudes playing EQ and figuring out what worked well in it.

Agreed. It was a mix of D&D concepts and mechanics drawn from EQ and refined over time.

I'm hardly an advocate of XI 2.0, but you can't and shouldn't reinvent the wheel when a perfectly good and fully functioning wheel is sitting right in front of you. You aren't going to do better than the wheel. There is no better design there. Just dress it up to reflect your style and move on to areas that have room for innovation.

You do as you do with the competition in the market: look at what they do, research it and see if it'll work in your game. Try to device your own spin on the concept or even improve it in a way the competition has not thought of. Move on. I'm not entirely against borrowing from FFXI, but I'll oppose it if what they're gonna borrow is 24 hour pop drama-inducing bosses and niche-based class balance, for example.

I played WoW since the first one came out. I don't feel like typing a lot but here's the jist of it... I liked the game a lot. Burning Crusade came out (first expansion) still loving it. Then Wrath of the Lich King.. why is this so easy? Oh well, maybe next time? Cataclysm. Everyones standing in town teleporting to overly easy dungeons.

Part of the reason for the teleporting thing is really that the new zones in cata were disjointed, and the community didn't adjust well to it.

You can't just toss in a handful of new areas in existing continents and expect people to be out and about. TBC had Shattrath as the main hub city in Outland, and Dalaran played the exact same role in Northrend. Cata gave you your faction capitals with a bunch of portals. The fact some of the zones (Vashjiir, Deepholm) require portals to get to did not help.

The only thing that kept me for so long were the friends I made during the years.

This is the story of every MMORPG. I stuck to FFXI for as long as I did for the same reason, despite hating most of the systems in-game.

In my opinion a good mmorpg to me is a game where you enjoy playing from the start to the end.
Just to clarify myself here, My impression of WOW is bad based on these 2 weeks of play which made me to stop playing it. And yes, it is way too little time to judge a game fully, but the first impression is an important factor for me. This is why I continued playing XIV, I enjoyed it enough to continue after 2 weeks despite it's flaws and lacks.

I'm not sure this is an accurate way to look at WoW. The game presented steadier progression while leveling and more content with which to hide the level grind than any other MMORPG aside from City of Heroes out of that entire generation of games.

FFXI = grind mobs ad nauseum to level, farm beehive chips to buy overpriced gear
Ragnarok Online = grind mobs ad nauseum, sometimes in a party until you're high enough level for class transfers
Lineage II = grind mobs ad nauseum, try to avoid getting PKd while leveling

[strallaalaa]

i played wow for few months and ran right back to ffxi back then b4 i could use the full 6months of gameplay i pre purchased. the concept of taking from wow makes me shutter in fear. yes man yoshi must not get that every mmo in creation is doing what he says he wants to do, make ff with wow. and what rift was the closest to success from them?

only thing yoshi has is the franchise name to start off extra successful with and then it will die out like swtor just the same no matter the numbers. but meh, i don't feel like i'm playing wow when i played ffxiv1.XX so for now i'm ok. everything i'm reading about what is coming to the game endgame wise sounds awesome (crystal towers and labyrinth) so i'm not really worried.

worse thing that will happen is i quit another mmo in a year time. but i think it will be last one i actually pay for till i see exactly what i want from a mmo first. witch might never happen, that is fine though i rather not throw my money to every company to keep them trying to make the same standard mmo's. i'm not standard, i'm a relic of what real mmo's were and is what i will always want. if the big companies can't do it, then i guess the smaller ones need to step in and take them out.

oh lastly, if ffxi had things like salvage and nyzle and campaign battles from the start "along with the full scale stuff that many love" it would of kept and had probably just as many players as wow. it didn't have enough things for the tards that like solo'ing and doing small party stuff and jump right in stuff content. fact they not was added till it's last expansions. but to say take it all from wow, naaaa. give all the babies there bottles including myself ...one side or the other and you unravel the game thread by thread.

[Preypacer]

This kind of echoes what was said in a previous post, but the way I would always try to describe FFXI to people was that, rather than taking Final Fantasy and shoe-horning it into a standard MMO format, SE took a Final Fantasy game and put it online, working common elements of MMOs into it (MMOs of that time, of course).

They seemed to have come at it from the opposite direction of how many MMO developers do these days, and it worked for them. They created a MMO that was "familiar" to those with previous MMO experience (EQ1, etc) but still felt like its own unique game; which it was in many ways. There was nothing else out there quite like FFXI.

I think if they are taking that same approach, starting with "what is Final Fantasy" and then making it work in a MMO framework that's in line with what people are used to today, it could be just as good.

It seems like that's the direction they're going with it.. but... won't be able to tell 'til I' can actually experience it.

[Alerith]

However, what that says is exactly what Yoshida says in regards to pulling from WoW. He stated the reason XI even got successful is because it did what it should have done, Look at Final Fantasy (Hence: Final Fantasy XI) and use the appropriate MMO framework (EverQuest at the time.)

So unless I haven't kept up with MMOs, there's still plenty that XI does well that new MMOs have yet to do or has done extremely poorly that they could easily look at and build from it while still using "Standard" framework..however people immediately says something is from GW2 just because it's a new MMO lol.

I have to agree with this.

At the time, they took elements from their flagship franchise and worked them into the EverQuest MMO framework. In these new days, it isn't unreasonable to take elements from the same franchise and put it into the current framework. In this case, WoW.

The only thing we should be leery of is if they try to make it a carbon copy of WoW, which it does not seem like they are doing. XIV should be as much of a copy of WoW as XI was for EQ.

[odintius]

Honestly I'm playing the game for it story and lore if some of other game idea like wow which wow done the same btw come in and fits the game to make it more enjoyable to play I'll be happy. Some things for gaming you can't get away from no matter what game is put on the market it how they implement it for there game that is what matter's.

[Joji]

I'm not sure this is an accurate way to look at WoW. The game presented steadier progression while leveling and more content with which to hide the level grind than any other MMORPG aside from City of Heroes out of that entire generation of games.

FFXI = grind mobs ad nauseum to level, farm beehive chips to buy overpriced gear
Ragnarok Online = grind mobs ad nauseum, sometimes in a party until you're high enough level for class transfers
Lineage II = grind mobs ad nauseum, try to avoid getting PKd while leveling

For me, it was way too easy to level up. I felt no pride in getting to the next level. It's all about what impression it gave me which was childish graphics and content without soul. That's as accurate as i can get.
Call me a weirdo for liking the potential XIV have. From what little quests were availble in XIV v.1.0, it atleast had something i could connect with in a better way than WOW had.
But it's all personal feelings. It's really not something to discuss. But putting it out here do have value in this conversation. And that's why im sharing them.

[Odyssey]

What i feel is missing from current MMOs is the community aspect. FFXI did a great job making you interact with people. I liked the party system. Genkai was fun as well. Getting a group together to get paper etc. FFXI was really good at making people work together. Which is what Final Fantasy is about. Grouping up IE: Gain characters to fight against common enemies and learn everyone's story. Helping people was equally rewarding for me.

At least this is what i felt playing FFXI. I know some people prefer to play alone and solo and i get that but I didn't play a MMO to play by myself. lol.

The other thing I've felt that there isn't a sense of fear in FFXIV 1.0 besides lol... gear damage. No real sense of danger or repercussion for being stupid. Like falling down the hole in Garliage Citadel or traveling too deep into Eldime necropolis. Sneak/invis really added a element of cloak and dagger. FFXIV needs more of this IMO.

[Joji]

What i feel is missing from current MMOs is the community aspect. FFXI did a great job making you interact with people. I liked the party system. Genkai was fun as well. Getting a group together to get paper etc. FFXI was really good at making people work together. Which is what Final Fantasy is about. Grouping up IE: Gain characters to fight against common enemies and learn everyone's story. Helping people was equally rewarding for me.

At least this is what i felt playing FFXI. I know some people prefer to play alone and solo and i get that but I didn't play a MMO to play by myself. lol.

The other thing I've felt that there isn't a sense of fear in FFXIV 1.0 besides lol... gear damage. No real sense of danger or repercussion for being stupid. Like falling down the hole in Garliage Citadel or traveling too deep into Eldime necropolis. Sneak/invis really added a element of cloak and dagger. FFXIV needs more of this IMO.

Totally agree with you, i had a post a long time ago about removing the aggro sign above each mob name. Turned out they made the icon smaller only in the end. I think the world should be dangerous to be in. Like XI, you had to learn what mobs had aggro or not. Such a small thing can make a huge difference in gameplay.