What's makes an MMORPG fun? - 4Gamer chats with the Producers of FFXI, FFXIV, and DQX

[Ryios]

Noticed you failed to mention anything about playing with friends or free company members.

I had friends, they quit, I made more, they quit, until eventually my overall demeaner towards new ones caused people to not want to be my friend. I got tired of it.

The main issue with a game like this, is that there isn't very much for friends to have interaction with you on. And when you do it's content, e.g. raids, which cause stress, and theres always that one thorn in the bush that ruins everyones experience (even if I am that thorn to some people). in games like FFXI... I made so many memories... And all of them are based around things people considered "Inconvienient" in that game. Like having to get high level help to escort you to jeuno. Or having to hunt down a white mage for a teleport to dem to go exp in the dunes. Or dieing in the middle of no where with a home point thousands of miles away and needing a raise. Or accidentally casting Aeroga on a fly in gusgen mines and agroing/linking the ENTIRE MINE and running for our lives out the front door. And then there was endgame, competing with 4 linkshell's thf's to pull pop trash to get items to make the stuff we needed to spawn the gods etc. All of those connections and aspects are just non existent in this game, and as such it feels empty and barren, no matter how much content they have.

In my eyes the entire world of eorzea is just a background picture that surves to purpose, they literally could just move the duty finder to the login client and have yuo pop in and out of stuff without loading eorzea...

[YoseiTakei]

Thanks OP for the translation. It really is a great read on the development perspective from back in the old days to modern game development. As someone working in a similar field and played old school MMORPG I 100% agree on what Yoshida said about the difference in modern player expectations. I hope there will be more articles like this that talks about development decisions.

[Swagcity]

Personally, the issue is not so much the game itself (although it could use work), but more so my play-style and preferences. I could not imagine playing XI without bst, nin, sam, drk, or blu (I like rdm, pup, and cor also). Perhaps this is why I struggle to find enjoyment in 14; I hated blm, mnk, drg, and pld. Smn was okay in XI (Have no idea what happened to the summons in XIV; considering ps2 limitations and all). This may sound bizarre, but when they add bst, sam, nin, musk, or blu, I will play more often, lol. There were several jobs in XI that I did not touch (Sub job reasons), but enjoyed the game nonetheless. Game play is pretty decent, nice animations, but the current jobs do not appeal to me (Lack of economy and crafting relevance also hurts). decent/pretty good game, but not for me; atm at least.

[Nekodar]

Personally, the issue is not so much the game itself (although it could use work), but more so my play-style and preferences. I could not imagine playing XI without bst, nin, sam, drk, or blu (I like rdm, pup, and cor also). Perhaps this is why I struggle to find enjoyment in 14; I hated blm, mnk, drg, and pld. Smn was okay in XI (Have no idea what happened to the summons in XIV; considering ps2 limitations and all). This may sound bizarre, but when they add bst, sam, nin, musk, or blu, I will play more often, lol. There were several jobs in XI that I did not touch (Sub job reasons), but enjoyed the game nonetheless. Game play is pretty decent, nice animations, but the current jobs do not appeal to me (Lack of economy and crafting relevance also hurts). decent/pretty good game, but not for me; atm at least.

BST, NIN, SAM, DRK and BLU were all added in expansion and were not part of the original release iirc.

[Sygmaelle]

The only gripe I could have in this game is that you pretty much need a good FC to do all the content, runs with Duty Finder and all the like for extremes and such are just plain terrible and its pretty sad.

Surprisingly enough, sometimes I find myself more wastin gils to repair my gear than actually downing content and its pretty frustrating. Not enough good players

Other than that, most magical game director. He know where it's at.

[Stanelis]

Praises shall be given to the game once it deserves them.There isn't currently enough stuff to do at 50 to make the game praiseworthy in the long run.

[KraggyKor]

BST, NIN, SAM, DRK and BLU were all added in expansion and were not part of the original release iirc.

Certainly not the original release, but many NA and EU players fail to realise 'their' releases already included the first full expansion.

[Swagcity]

BST, NIN, SAM, DRK and BLU were all added in expansion and were not part of the original release iirc.

I did not know that bst and drk were part of the zilart expansion. I started shortly after the NA ps2 release; hence is why I cannot imagine playing XI without the aforementioned jobs. I originally stated that XIV is not the game for me; atm. However, things may change in the future.

[ReplicaX]

BST, NIN, SAM, DRK and BLU were all added in expansion and were not part of the original release iirc.

Ppl mix up standard jobs, advanced jobs, and expansion jobs all the time. It can be very confusing.

FFXI Standard unlocked jobs: White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Warrior, Monk
FFXI Standard locked advanced jobs: Paladin, Dark Knight, Beastmaster, Bard, Ranger

Rise of Zilart: Ninja, Samurai, Dragoon
Summoner<(Didn't require RoZ expansion, added in update for JP client at RoZ release)
Treasures of Aht Urhgan: Corsair, Blue Mage, Puppetmaster
Wings of the Goddess: Scholar, Dancer
Seekers of Adoulin: Geomancer, Rune Fencer

[Vydos]

This was a nice refreshing read. It's nice to see the producers sit and talk casually like that.