What was FFXI like when that first launched?

[Armok]

I played FFXI about 4-5 years after launched. (Loved that game.)

There's a lot of heat about how rubbish FFXIV is at the moment, although I don't think it's that bad.

Just out of interest for FFXI veterans - How was FFXI when that first launched? Was it really bad?

Looking back at WOW when that first launched, it wasn't that good. It had so many problems... but look at that game now.

Hopefully FFXIV will be like that in a few years time.

[CrystalObsidian]

I've wondered that myself, sorry I can't answer your question because I haven't played XI. But I don't remember hearing great things about it when it came out O.o which might be why I didn't play it. I also like XIV, and even though many people hate it, I think it's pretty fun (for the most part..)

I'm sure XIV will be as beastly as all the others in a year or two..Me and my friends, who also like XIV, keep reminding ourselves it's still a young MMO, and it sucks that everyone else seems to think that it's supposed to be a grand masterpiece right off the bat :/

[Reika]

FFXI was garbage >.> NA/EU got to see it with the first expansion, but there was not nearly as much to it prior to that.

Yea, nothing is a total masterpiece right at release, not even every single player games.

[Alzelia]

FFXI was garbage >.> NA/EU got to see it with the first expansion, but there was not nearly as much to it prior to that.

Yea, nothing is a total masterpiece right at release, not even every single player games.

This is when I started playing FFXIV, a couple of months before the second expansion came out. If the first expansion to FFXIV brings it up to that level (literally and figuratively) then I'll be happy.

[Tanaya]

FFXI was garbage >.> NA/EU got to see it with the first expansion, but there was not nearly as much to it prior to that.

Yea, nothing is a total masterpiece right at release, not even every single player games.

Problem is FFXI, when first released in 2002, was only in Japan. NA/EU got it when the "beta test" ended and if I remember right that was in 2004. The game still had massive amounts of problems but it was still widely appealing.

FFXIV released worldwide, with a bigger gaming market, a much bigger campaign advertisement, and most of all as a successor to FFXI. A lot of the mistakes in FFXIV has happened in FFXI as well, but XIV barely had anything at all upon release. Most of all the game was virtually unplayable due to a terrible laggy UI and the Market Wards not having a search function, and all you could basically do is grind to rank 50 and hang up the game.

FFXI may have been garbage but FFXIV was a complete train wreck and all the passengers died on board.

[SolArisa]

FF XI was a total nightmare aqnd basically everything done wrong. SE got many things fixed before the NA and windows versions were released, but it was an unbelievable mess. Worse than XIV.
Remembering this gave me more hope than anything else. Hehe, I still remember stuff wich may seem funny from today's perspective, but were not back then ... like being aggroed on chocobos, mobs always being your rank, the AH getting shut down due to duping bugs, etc.

But also, history repeats itself, like the server load issues, etc. ... SE still seems to be a bunch of developers who consider themselves being system administrators and infrastructure architects, but without a real clue here.

I found a nice link on the update history ... http://zeusls.llima.net/download/ffxiupdatehistory.html
Some things may be interesting to read, some even funny, some painful because it simply happens again to us.

[Reika]

Problem is FFXI, when first released in 2002, was only in Japan. NA/EU got it when the "beta test" ended and if I remember right that was in 2004. The game still had massive amounts of problems but it was still widely appealing.

FFXIV released worldwide, with a bigger gaming market, a much bigger campaign advertisement, and most of all as a successor to FFXI. A lot of the mistakes in FFXIV has happened in FFXI as well, but XIV barely had anything at all upon release. Most of all the game was virtually unplayable due to a terrible laggy UI and the Market Wards not having a search function, and all you could basically do is grind to rank 50 and hang up the game.

FFXI may have been garbage but FFXIV was a complete train wreck and all the passengers died on board.

Actually that link up there says Actual beta ended in April 2002, went live a month later, and saw NA release in October 2003, a years and 5 months later. And it wasn't all the bomb after that, especially because of the requirement to group for EVERYTHING past level 12.

And I wouldnt say FFXIV was totally worse than XI's launch. I've been playing FFXIV since October, and my UI was never laggy beyond the obvious server-side UI crap that they still have going on today, and the Market wards lack of search function just made it take an extremely long time to find anything, but they didnt make it unplayable.

And the train wreck was only really bad to those who thot MMO's launched with flawless victories 100% of the time. I survived it because I knew it was a new MMO and what to expect from new MMO's.

Maybe people would feel a whole lot better if they just released it in Japan in September, then made NA/EU wait a year and 5 months to play it with a possible first expansion again? I sure as hell am glad they didn't do that again. And it's not like we are paying anything right now, SE is just keeping the servers open while they make fixes and additions and prepare for a re-release ^^

[Demacia]

FFXI was probably almost as bad as FFXIV when it first launched in Japan. By the time it was released in the US about a year later it was a solid game.

[Mireille]

Its nice to hear that both XI and WoW needed a lot fine tuning. Having only played XI, and XIV for any appreciable length of time I hadn't really though of all MMO needing fine tuning at launch. I like XIV overall, and my biggest concern has been will SE find it necessary to pull the plug. If this sort of post launch fix-up is par for the course for MMO then I would bet on SE making this into something good. Their creative staff is pretty good, and when you look at the graphics and character models its clear they have artists who really care about their craft. Truth is I saw MMO that launched 7 years after XI did, and they had poor graphics compared to XI, and we were already in the 'next gen' graphics era at that point.

[Tanaya]

@Reika: I was going straight from memory, so my years got jumbled. Oh well though.

And the train wreck was only really bad to those who thot MMO's launched with flawless victories 100% of the time. I survived it because I knew it was a new MMO and what to expect from new MMO's.

Maybe people would feel a whole lot better if they just released it in Japan in September, then made NA/EU wait a year and 5 months to play it with a possible first expansion again? I sure as hell am glad they didn't do that again. And it's not like we are paying anything right now, SE is just keeping the servers open while they make fixes and additions and prepare for a re-release ^^

I don't necessarily believe MMOs at launch are 100% perfect, but they're certainly better than what XIV given out, just on content alone. And like I said before, this game was heavily advertised and had a simultaneous release worldwide, and is a successor to XI, an MMO that has been out for 9 years. A lot of these mistakes shouldn't have happened and the game was no different at release when played on Beta. In fact it was the exact same game.

It seems like their experiences from XI didn't carry over at all. The fact they even had to make it free to even keep a sufficient amount of players on servers is about as drastic as I've ever seen anyone do with an MMO. XIV had a much bigger mantle to carry than XI and that's why it bombed harder.