EorzeaReborn Column @MMORPG.com

[Ryahl]

Hi everyone and thank you for the kind thoughts.

I have really enjoyed putting together the columns for MMORPG. I am really looking forward to ARR and, the more I look over the last six months of 1.0, really kind of wishing I had jumped back in to poke around sooner. The bit I wandered around prior to the End of an Era, the more I found myself truly impressed with the steps taken.

This period of downtime prior to the beta has given me some time to think over MMO's in general (hence the companion pieces). My next set of articles will involve some of the group play expectations for ARR (article to MMORPG) and some of my thoughts on group play and where it has gone (to Eorzea Reborn).

One of the things I'm batting around a bit is the idea of encounter difficulty. It seems to me that difficulty varies with scale (size of party). Things that are hard for a large force might be easier to execute with a smaller one. However, by comparison, things that are difficult to impossible with a small force become easier with a larger one. With that thought, it's possible to design difficult - and meaningful - end game content around solo/duo; group/doublegroup; and multigroup environs.

[Ticks]

Gotchas. I'm not 100% sure he talked about it in any of the pieces, but one of the things that really got us was back in EQ2 when they released Kurnak. We got off the boat and went straight for Karnors (dungeon). Took our guild and crawled down to the very bottom, and killed the boss a few times. Finally got his very rare drop and was thrilled for a nice ring upgrade. Only to link it in our alliance and find it was worse then the end reward from a solo quest line in the expansion starting area.

It was very demoralizing.

Ahh the days of dodging the massive trains at the entrance of Karnors ^^

[Ryahl]

Ahh the days of dodging the massive trains at the entrance of Karnors ^^

You know, Karnors (EQ1) is an example of something that was really cool in old MMO's that you don't see much of these days. Because of the train potential, and the split entrance, pretty much every server evolved it's own "rules of conduct" on how to train in Karnors.

For ours (Brell Serilis) it was "go right." You enter to the right and you exit to the right. That way, your train would (ideally) never hit anyone.

The fact that entire sets of norms and rules evolved in those older MMO's was an illustration of just how social they were. Yes it's nice to not worry about some of those old mechanics anymore, but we gave up something when we gained something.

[Orophin]

The fact that entire sets of norms and rules evolved in those older MMO's was an illustration of just how social they were. Yes it's nice to not worry about some of those old mechanics anymore, but we gave up something when we gained something.

Ain't that the truth.

Mostly I think that the gamers from 10-15 years ago (most of them) grew up and gained responsibilities that keep them from being able to sit behind a game for 8 hours at a time. Another factor is we have a whole new generation of gamers now with an overwhelming need of instant gratification. The gaming industry seems to have evolved around these changes.

While I liked many things about FFXI, (it was my first MMO, I never got into EQ or the older ones) that style of play just doesn't seem realistic anymore. At least, it won't draw enough people to net SE a profit on this game, which is what it really comes down to at the end of the day.

I guess it's kind of a no-brainer that the social aspect of MMOs will take a hit when people are spending less time playing with each other. This trend is probably something that can be seen with every MMO after the FFXI/EQ era, especially once the ones made within the last few years have tailored themselves to being able to progress to max level completely solo.

[PinkamenaDiane]

OP makes it sound like soloing is the only way to level which just isn't true. There are in fact 4 known ways to level in ARR so far and you seem to be ingoring the fact that they exist. Your tone seems to be all doom and gloom mmos are turning into solo games and thats not the case.

1. Questing - chain quests go from hub to hub, you can group up with these too if you want.
2. Instanced dungeons - queue up for dungeons, kill many mobs with a group and some bosses along the way for lots of exp.
3. Guildleves - Back from 1.0 these repeatable quests that are at camps are back can be done solo or in a group.
4. Grinding on mobs - You can still grind on mobs if you wish solo or in a party as well.

Lets not forget endgame is almost exclusivly done in groups, 8 man and 24 man raids.

[Aela]

OP makes it sound like soloing is the only way to level which just isn't true. There are in fact 4 known ways to level in ARR so far and you seem to be ingoring the fact that they exist. Your tone seems to be all doom and gloom mmos are turning into solo games and thats not the case.

1. Questing - chain quests go from hub to hub, you can group up with these too if you want.
2. Instanced dungeons - queue up for dungeons, kill many mobs with a group and some bosses along the way for lots of exp.
3. Guildleves - Back from 1.0 these repeatable quests that are at camps are back can be done solo or in a group.
4. Grinding on mobs - You can still grind on mobs if you wish solo or in a party as well.

Lets not forget endgame is almost exclusivly done in groups, 8 man and 24 man raids.

I'll respond quickly to your thoughts. (Realizing I [the OP] am not the author of the articles, Ryahl is).

If you read the original MMORPG.com article prior to the companion pieces on EorzeaReborn, you can find there is an entire section "Content, Content, Content" where Ryahl mentions much of what you listed, and states:

FFXIV:ARR is shaping up to be a multi-sphere game, with content offered for soloists, group based gameplay and even multi-group gameplay. The party is a core game element of Final Fantasy, so it makes sense to have robust group game play available. Throughout the beta we should see dungeons and fully active time events (FATE) scenarios brought in for testing.

He does, however, specifically address the solo elements of the game..because there is a lot of concern and discussion on this topic. We have seen a lot of points dealing with this issue on these forums as well as other sites.

Additionally, the many of the current editorials on EorzeaReborn.com are addressing a general movement within MMOs, and not exclusively FFXIV:ARR.

[Reaujien]

These articles were a great read - thanks for posting them.

XI was my first MMO. I started playing it when it launched in NA. Funny, it was actually quite coincidental that I even started playing because I didn't even know about it until randomly a co-worker of mine (back then) mentioned it to me as he saw me reading something on IGN (that's right - I was surfing the net at work!). I had played a few RPG games prior - the most recent [at the time] was Crono Trigger, and actually the only other FF game I had played before was FFVII (typical - I'm sure) - so even the genre of RPG was still relatively new for me as I was more of a platform-junkie gamer then (give me Super Mario Bros. 9000 damn it!)

I remember the very first time I logged in. I was an Elvaan BLM from Bastok ... That's right: I had no idea what I was doing lol. I remember standing in the markets perusing through all the various menus and options, clicking here and there (because, as some know, back before the "crutch" of tutorials old-school gamers had to figure stuff out on his/her own!). And then: "Oooh, what's this 'Manafont' thing all about?" */em uses Manafont* "Umm... I'm not exactly sure what happened, but okay!" Shortly after I started wondering around town more, and talking to the various NPCs. I eventually made my way outside of town to South Gustaburg, and that's when it started: My Adventure.

I could go on and on about my time spent while logged on XI , but that'd be somewhat excessive of a post, heh, because quite honestly I remember almost everything I did in that game for the 5+ years I played it. But that leads me to think about the other MMO"RPG"s I've played since quitting XI: WoW, NWN, Rift, Tera, Allods, GW2, and a few others I know I'm missing, but just can't remember (if that tells you something about them lol). I don't really remember much besides a) the fact that I played them, b) what I was doing before quitting, and c) okay, maybe some random moments. There's no funny "noob" moments similar to what I described above, nor any memories of great achievements or fulfilling experiences. Just... a game I played. Now don't get me wrong some of them I clearly enjoyed playing because I did so for over a year, but at the end of the day they were really just forms of video game entertainment - that's all.

I often wondered why I have such amazing memories about my adventure in FFXI, and I used to believe it was simply because it was "my first": Like you first car, or your first love, etc. However, I came to realize that it's because that game, unlike the the other games I played, was more than just entertainment. It was like a hobby of mine. There simply was something (or more like a lot of things) about FFXI that made the whole notion of "time playing a game" feel more like "time investing in a hobby", and just like a hobby it offered a variety of rewarding experiences the more time invested in it.

We all have our own personal experiences with games, I respect them all, and reading those articles really gave me some "ah ha!" moments when thinking about the differences in experiences I had between FFXI and the other MMO"RPG"s. The most obvious one (to me) is the fact that today's "modern" MMORPGs are really just solo-player games that contain a small amount of party-based content (compared to overall content) or content where having a party is optional. The second most obvious (but, probably more important to note) is this whole notion that character progression has been reduced to this dreadful "process" of 1- 2- or 3-shotting monsters over and over that have been specifically designed to be killed by any one single player regardless of class and/or specialization. No wonder [most] players probably want to get to "end game" ASAP.

When I first heard of FFXIV I immediately became excited about the opportunity to take on a new Final Fantasy adventure. I was also equally excited about the thoughts of being able to experience content and mechanics that were similar to those in FFXI but with a modern user interface, a modern client-server architecture, and, most importantly, a modern graphics engine with, well, modern graphics. See, those are the things I imagine when I think about a "modern MMO": the hardware, the graphics, and how I interact with it. I feel that these are really the only modern "things" any new MMORPGs should have; especially when considering the company that's releasing the new MMORPG has created a successful MMORPG title in the past.

I mean, lol, imagine if Blizzard decided to make StarcraftII into a FPS instead of a RTS. No, of course they wouldn't do that (and, for those who don't play SC, they didn't do that). Instead, they took what worked with SC1 (after all, it was a successful game by itself), updated the graphics and parts of the UI (which, even THAT was virtually the same), updated battle.net to better handle multi-player, and added new elements that didn't exist in SC1.

Anyway... all that being said... here's hoping that ARR won't follow down this "modern MMO" path...

[schism]

Very good reads. And yes the solo play kinda did kill the whole mmo experience. Why can we just have servers for them? lol

[Aela]

Very good reads. And yes the solo play kinda did kill the whole mmo experience. Why can we just have servers for them? lol

Error Code 154: "We are sorry, grouping has been disabled on this server!"

[Yrusama]

Amazing reads, and I think I'll start following your posts. You both clearly have the experience and the objectivity needed to write credibly about the industry.

My favorite trait of XIV is that it offers a reasonable chance for new players to catch up to their endgame friends. FFXI has become much easier than it ever was, yet I've spent months developing my THF from 17 to 99 and still can't feel satisfied to use it in endgame. I've spent weeks developing the empyrean gear and am now at a standstill because the NMs I need require pop items from other NMs, and as a returning player I'd hate to trouble anyone I barely know to help with all of that.

FFXIV from 1.19ish onward was not hard to jump into, and you could reach endgame in a matter of weeks even without a PL. Grouping was encouraged by leves, but not required. The jobs weren't hard to learn, and the game's group-oriented challenges relied more heavily on the strategic layouts of individual fights than an excessive ability list (8 years later I'm still bogged down by my White Mage spell list in XI). I loved my time in XI, but XIV has shown me just how much more fun it is to never feel like I'm eternally behind the times.