New Letter from the Producer, XII

[Wolfie]

Tanaka's team gave us a mangled game with monumentally bad design flaws, poorly implemented features, multiple core problems, and zero direction. All of his "novel features" were thrown right back into his face because they were so so s***ty.

Yoshida understands what makes MMOs work, and even if he won't be making the next hallmark MMO, at least he'll turn this s*** ship around.

FFXIV at launch was next generation coaster and toilet paper.

[giftforce]

Tanaka's team gave us a mangled game with monumentally bad design flaws, poorly implemented features, multiple core problems, and zero direction. All of his "novel features" were thrown right back into his face because they were so so s***ty.

Yoshida understands what makes MMOs work, and even if he won't be making the next hallmark MMO, at least he'll turn this s*** ship around.

FFXIV at launch was next generation coaster and toilet paper.

And autoattack and questhubs are the future of MMOs? Do me a favour and make sense.

For all his failings, at least Tanaka was trying to offer something new. Yoshi doesn't know the meaning of imagination. Everything is just a plagiarism of WoW and EQ. He might as well have said so himself in the interview.

This is not the future of MMO gaming.

Every other upcoming MMO offers so much more than FFXIV is about to start offering, and they did it all without actually plagiarising WoW. Yoshi needs to wake the hell up and realise everything he suggests (steals from WoW) isn't worth implementation.

[Richard]

And autoattack and questhubs are the future of MMOs? Do me a favour and make sense.

The future of MMOs is obviously what you say it is. You should design your own and I'm sure you'll have a larger sub base than WoW.

[Wolfie]

And autoattack and questhubs are the future of MMOs? Do me a favour and make sense.

For all his failings, at least Tanaka was trying to offer something new. Yoshi doesn't know the meaning of imagination. Everything is just a plagiarism of WoW and EQ. He might as well have said so himself in the interview.

This is not the future of MMO gaming.

Every other upcoming MMO offers so much more than FFXIV is about to start offering, and they did it all without actually plagiarising WoW. Yoshi needs to wake the hell up and realise everything he suggests (steals from WoW) isn't worth implementation.

Please enlighten me as to how Tanaka's original direction, if any, was good.

Yoshida is adding things that have become standards in MMOs, that this one was completely lacking. It STILL lacks dozens of things that are standard in MMOs.

[giftforce]

Please enlighten me as to how Tanaka's original direction, if any, was good.

Yoshida is adding things that have become standards in MMOs, that this one was completely lacking. It STILL lacks dozens of things that are standard in MMOs.

Proving that Tanaka was bad doesn't make Yoshi good.

One redeeming feature of Tanaka, however, was that he actually took ownership of the game and, under his leadership, the development team still put forth ideas that helped further the genre; tHe armory and crafting systems, for example, and player run companies, etc.

And what does Yoshi give us? The promise of auto attack and quest hubs. These aren't freaking standards anymore!

[Wolfie]

Proving that Tanaka was bad doesn't make Yoshi good.

Your argument was that Yoshi is bad for the game. I countered that saying that he's adding in features to the game that have become genre standard. Your counter argument to that is that Tanaka was an innovator and his novel ideas were good for the game and/or genre. I'm asking you to back up those claims.

One redeeming feature of Tanaka, however, was that he actually took ownership of the game

Irrelevant. Being a director and/or producer means nothing in terms of innovation or the good of the game/genre.

and, under his leadership, the development team still put forth ideas that helped further the genre; tHe armory

The armor system has been bashed up and down by everyone because it creates homogeneous, bland classes. It's impossible to create any sort of class distinction in it, when its basic premise is that you can equip abilities from any class unto any class. To create distinction, you need to have abilities that are unequippable by other classes -- which is going in the opposite direction of the armory system.

and crafting systems

Also has been bashed up and down because of the monotony involved with crafting, the ridiculous interdependency between crafting jobs, stupidly rigid recipes, and the fact that crafting classes are considered viable main classes (meaning that all main story line quests or content that the devs want everyone to see need to be easy boring snoozefests).

for example, and player run companies, etc.

You mean, guilds? Whooo boy, really innovative here.

And what does Yoshi give us? The promise of auto attack and quest hubs. These aren't freaking standards anymore!

Yes they are.

[kukurumei]

I believe 99% of people who look at FF14 will be of similar opinion in the Tanaka era FF14.

Everything should be rightly "retracted".

[Richard]

I believe 99% of people who look at FF14 will be of similar opinion in the Tanaka era FF14.

Everything should be rightly "retracted".

Agreed. Tanaka was the cancerous tumor slowly killing this game off. He gets put on the back burner and things are starting to finally prosper.

[Richard]

Prosper? I've seen nothing but systematic destruction of the MMO Yoshi was supposedly put in charge to help save.

Job system? LOL. Wrong game yoshi you fool. At least make it work within the confines of the armory system instead of replacing it!

Who put these ignoramuses in charge?

They don't even have the courage to delete the armory system that they obviously hate so much. They hear some people want jobs so they try to fit an incompatible system on top of another.

You want to hear about mangling an MMO, look no further than Yoshi P.

Im not saying Tanaka is good. Im saying Yoshi has no freakin idea.

/comfort =/ I feel so bad for you lol

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Isn't everything a recreation of something of the past, but with better technology? Nothing is really "new" in MMOs for the past decade. It's just executed correctly and simple minds are intellectually incapable of knowing it's a remodel. That doesn't make it horrible though. It's just going to come down to how it is presented.

Many of Tanaka's visions (which were not totally of his own btw) were all recreations of crap that's been done before. The execution was tremendously off, and our TL;DR and ADD gamer generation, if you don't stick to your base in the first two weeks... you're done. Years of development and a failed launch was enough to push to demote him. Plenty.

If the PS3 version is a dud and the revision of FFXIV is unsuccessful, not only will this game be cut off, so will Yoshida. This is as fair as what happened to the previous director.