Who is really optimistic about this game?

[LillithaFenimore]

to devs: optimism only takes you so far. lets hope at 2.0 the content does all the talking cause promises and talk has already been used up by a long shot.

This right here! Cause I can almost guarantee I won't be back due to my husband not like this game :/...so devs...ummm I better hear that this game got it's act together, at 2.0...cause if not...if many lost players are as brutal as my husband in their judgements...or worse... in the words of J from Men In Black..."Day-um"

[Gramul]

Ellipsis

More ellipsis

Okay.
Fist off, you're wrong, being 'behind' is purely a matter of perspective and has no bearing on population or features aside from personal taste and overall finical gain which at this point any amount of profit would be a gain. Square has enough reserve finances from Dragon Quest and the like to keep this game alive for a long time should they choose; how it relates with other MMO's in terms of profit isn't terribly relevant for us.

Second, the reason that certain "simple features" haven't been implemented or have taken so long to be implemented, have to do with a combination of bad server structure, the change of development team, and the total redesign. You should know this by now. I'm tired of explaining it.

Third, there are things that FFXIV does that other MMO's are behind in. One character being allowed any job or class at any given time. Direct player input on game development. Multi-platform and multinational servers. First and Surnames (yeah big deal I know, don't focus on this though because I swear to Halone if you pinpoint on the weakest link and ignore everything else- OOOH).

Is it perfect? God no.
Could it use other features from other MMO's? [omitted] yes.

But being "behind"? That's dumb. That implies there's a linear course, an eventual goal in design. An end we'll somehow eventually reach.

[Pulseczar]

I've been pretty positive up until patch 1.20. The patch is half-assed and feels unfinished. I feel it was a step backwards for the game. 1.19 delivered way more than 1.20 in terms of content and polish. I just figured they would go "all-out" for 1.20; considering it was the patch that was supposed to get us hooked onto the game before we had to start paying. Honestly, I'm beginning to lose hope for the game—the fast dwindling population on my server doesn't help either.

[lackofwords]

1. FFXIV smartphone application
2. Player Housing - outdoor design, gardens
3. Chocobo Raising - part of player housing
4. Content Finder - if it is what it sounds like, searching for groups from all worlds would be amazing
5. Large Scale PvE - Maybe from Hamlet defense - it might offer a similar open battle like campaign battles? but if not they still have large scale PvE coming
6. PvP - I hope they pull this off better with the concept of Coliseum
7. Recipe Book - no more browsing off websites for recipes
8. Casino/Card games/Minigames - eh... not sure how to feel about this one
9. Summoning/Pet classes - Not really a huge fan of summoning classes but having the choice to play that type of role would be nice

[Drunk-Bandit]

Third, there are things that FFXIV does that other MMO's are behind in. One character being allowed any job or class at any given time. Direct player input on game development. Multi-platform and multinational servers. First and Surnames (yeah big deal I know, don't focus on this though because I swear to Halone if you pinpoint on the weakest link and ignore everything else- OOOH).

Oooh boy another Person Coming to Defend the almighty Square enix hahahahahaha!!! Man this is getting Fun... I guess being on these forums is better then playing FFXIV It's self I Suppose. Not like the game has a Community anyways... Heck it's a shadow of it's former self, and they were dumb enough not to take the successful elements from XI... They tried to make it soo different to the point the game doesn't have "Global Chat"... But Hey... I use to be an adventurer just like you my friend until I realize how far SE had fallen. Oooh don't get me started on the broken storyline of this game... The Villains in this game seemed to be non-existence & completely Predicable :/ BORING!!! Next Mmorpg plz SE

But being "behind"? That's dumb. That implies there's a linear course, an eventual goal in design. An end we'll somehow eventually reach.

maybe in 2020.... Heck it takes em that long to release a patch anyways soo why not... Wonder if people will still be playing this trash by then ^.~

[LillithaFenimore]

Okay.
Fist off, you're wrong, being 'behind' is purely a matter of perspective and has no bearing on population or features aside from personal taste and overall finical gain which at this point any amount of profit would be a gain. Square has enough reserve finances from Dragon Quest and the like to keep this game alive for a long time should they choose; how it relates with other MMO's in terms of profit isn't terribly relevant for us.

Second, the reason that certain "simple features" haven't been implemented or have taken so long to be implemented, have to do with a combination of bad server structure, the change of development team, and the total redesign. You should know this by now. I'm tired of explaining it.

Third, there are things that FFXIV does that other MMO's are behind in. One character being allowed any job or class at any given time. Direct player input on game development. Multi-platform and multinational servers. First and Surnames (yeah big deal I know, don't focus on this though because I swear to Halone if you pinpoint on the weakest link and ignore everything else- OOOH).

Is it perfect? God no.
Could it use other features from other MMO's? [omitted] yes.


But being "behind"? That's dumb. That implies there's a linear course, an eventual goal in design. An end we'll somehow eventually reach.

I am sure they do have enough finances to keep this game alive along as they chose, I never said otherwise. And I never discussed anything about SE profting from this game. It's all on them if they chose to keep a game open and make/lose money from it.

Actually, the lack of the two items I discussed in my post is from them doing a rush job on this game. Yeah, the reason why the game wasn't implemented with two basic feature I discussed may have very well be due to bad server structure. Hence why you don't release half-finished work >_<; you just don't! You don't turn in work that is half finished, you don't sell a customer a brand new shiney car, who is expecting it to have a engine in it, and charge full price! It's bad bad business practices and you lose customers that way, even long time customers. In business, you don't chance in ruining your customer loyalty. You mess up once and maybe the customer will give you the opportunity to fix the issue, but if you can't properly fix the issue in a proper amount of time you just lost your customer, & word of mouth travels fast.

You are right, that is one great thing FFXI and FFXIV had going for it. You could have one character and give it as many jobs as you wanted. That is great and it is a shame that more MMO's do not do this. However, I pinpointed two our of many weakest links this game had stacked against it. It was released with lag issues, it was released with very minimal content (There was the main story line, behest, and leves.), wards were impossible to navigate through causing extreme price gouging of items (and you can't say they didn't exist in the beginning because I expierienced it first hand in crafting when I was trying to hunt down ingredients to grind my craft), crafting was extremely irritating due to need god knows how many items to craft something, space on character and retainer was limited, lack of various modes of transport once Anima was consumed, no way for DOL to avoid HL monsters in areas they needed in order to progress in level (I didn't expirience this first hand, but from playing over this entire time this seemed to be a concern amongst DOL)...need I go on?


Do I or many expect a game to be perfect on release...IDK maybe, I'm not one of them, but the list of issues they had at release...really? Really? That is insane. Those are things that shouldn't have been. So yes, at release, they to me seemed very very behind compared to other MMO's, especially compared to SW at release since it's a new MMO, and FFXIV was released just a little over a year ago.

I'm not saying the team isn't doing a great job now, cause they are. They are truly working their tooshies off and I commend every single one of them for sticking with this project to hopefully bring it to the glory it deserves. However I think many are in very much so denial about this game behind behind others in terms of being released for play for the first time.

[elreed]

i am very optimistic

[Baxter]

I've been pretty positive up until patch 1.20. The patch is half-assed and feels unfinished. I feel it was a step backwards for the game. 1.19 delivered way more than 1.20 in terms of content and polish. I just figured they would go "all-out" for 1.20; considering it was the patch that was supposed to get us hooked onto the game before we had to start paying. Honestly, I'm beginning to lose hope for the game—the fast dwindling population on my server doesn't help either.

Well 1.20 technically isn't a content patch. Why would they decide to commence billing on an off 'content' patch? Who the hell knows.

[Gramul]

Passive aggression

Look, if you don't want to seriously discuss it just tell me. I'm not gonna waste my time with that schadenfreude nonsense.

bold

The finance thing wasn't really directed at you so don't worry yourself over it. As for the "half finished" features, consider them a sort of quick fix while they work on the 2.0 version; as far as you should be concerned, this is the 2.0 beta and they're not charging full price. The folly of FFXIV is on its own merit and should be judged as such. FFXIV is no more behind other MMO's as VVVVVV is behind Super Mario 3D land.

Basically what I'm trying to convey is that evolution is not a line. Development and style come from adapting to any given situation to whatever is the best outcome decided by the people in charge. If you fail to adapt, you die. FFXIV is adapting by Yoshi and company's perspective, developers not in the same position or mindset of WoW or swtor's developers.

Squares Goals at this point are basicly:
Have the game make money.
Regain trust in Fanbase.

Blizzard and EA's are:
Make even more money.

Or at least that's how it seems.

There are many routes with many goals. The results of one game do not have to be reflected in another.

[Kasathar]

I just came back to the after a year away from it due to its horrible, rocky start. But I can say that these last 2 days of testing I feel the game is going in the right direction. I really hope it does NOT become another FFXI in regards to game mechanics.
I have passed from not being able to be logged in for more than 30 minutes to constantly traveling and looking for quests to complete and doing Grand Company's missions. I did grind a little bit yesterday in a full group, and I was gladly surprised about the new pty bonuses (that was very cool)
Materia is great, but it kind of sucks that you need a "crafter" to imbue it on your equipment. I have a blacksmithing leveled but what about people who don't like to craft? Still, a very welcome update.

The only 2 things that still annoy the hell out of me is the Anima system for traveling (just make it free or make the anima restore faster; it is annoying and does NOT help as a time sink in order to keep people playing. When people get tired of just running through humongous maps, SE will loose subscribers instead of keeping them paying for "running"), and the god damn Targeting system.

Another 2 things that I am willing to overlook for now are the lack of a functioning Mail System, and the mess the Retainer system is at the moment. Just get rid of that silly system and introduce a damn Auction System once and for all, stop wasting your and my time on introducing a more complex and useless trading system (Tanaka, I fkn hate you dude)

All in all, the game IS way better than before, and I feel it is improving, going the right way, and that makes me happy. My only concern is if it is not too late for the game's image. Out of these forums FFXIV is synonymous of "This is how to make a game suck no matter what", and it will require huge fan support, advertising, and continuous work towards what the game is really supposed to be in order to get potential players faith.

Thank you SE for getting rid of the people that killed the game before it was born and getting people on your team that actually know what they are doing.