When is enough really enough ???? [DEV]

[Chocobits]

I posted this in another thread.

So you need a bit of imagination for this to work.. Imagine the final meeting between Tanaka and the Dev Team during Open Beta the week before the game went live. Maybe there was 1 person that tried to do that right thing at the very end..? Like suggesting halting the game's release or including last minute fixes, etc.

How do YOU picture that final meeting go? Here's mine:

Tanaka: Everything is ready to rolllllllllllll!
Dev Team: But Mr. Tanaka, the battle UI hasn't..
Tanaka: ROLLLLLLLL!
Dev Team: And the maps sir, those were just what you drew on the back of a napkin, we never actually had the world map designer come in and..
Tanaka: HAHA! Fantastic.
Dev Team: It takes players 3-10 seconds to execute commands in battl..
Tanaka: (Thinking out loud) I wonder if it's possible to earn a Nobel prize for a video game.. I'll find out soon enough!
Dev Team: Sir all the mobs in the game use ranged attacks as well, making ranged DD/Mage classes useless..
Tanaka: (Sigh) But they can't use terrain advantage.. we learned from FFXI!
Dev Team: And that Centralized Economy plan we were still working on hasn't been put in...
Tanaka: ECONOMY?! There's plenty of economy. They farm many Marmot, they sell Marmot hide at NPC vendor! If they sell too much though, maybe we ban them for RMT (evil laugh)!
Dev Team: Can we at least put in the feature so they can manage linkshell administration anywhere in the worl..
Tanaka: NO! We talk face to face in this game! You no want me to fire you over the phone do you? NO! You want be fired face to face! In fact.. you FIRED! HAHA!

Two months later:
Tanaka wakes up violently at his desk: My god, that was some powerful Peyote.. (presses buzzer) Hey Carol, how has the game held up while I was in mushroom land? Did I get that Nobel nomination yet? (pause) WHAT? The players said what?! Amazon.com said WHAT? Game sells for $14 and no one will BUY it?! GameStop no carry it?!
..
(Inner reflection) I should really stop overseeing productions in a drug-riddled haze. Hey Nancy, who all from the Dev Team hasn't quit yet? Hmm.. Let's try this. I'll fall on my sword and we'll give this Yoshida slugger a chance.

Carol: My name is Carol sir.
Tanaka: Nancy make a note of that: her name is Carol. I have a hangover.

[Renshi]

Good you can do elementary grade math.

Now incorporate leve linkage randomness and the fact that you can only do them every 36 hours into your oversimplified equation.

And you toggle your overcomplication chip off!

I have more fun doing Leves for 2 hours than grinding monsters. Fun > SP (High-school grade math)

[Dragonlord]

Wolfie why do you even play ffxiv, seriously?? All you do is flame the game in every single post u do. I am a troll everytime i see your posts.. They are always filled with negitivity. Please by all means, if you really dont like the game go play something else that makes you happy. SE isnt ever going to make everyone happy. That is the problem right there. They are looking to the community for help to re-shape the game, and they are torn down the middle, because some people are ok with the new ideas, and some arent. Basically when it becomes a finished product some are going to stay, and some are going to leave. I urge anyone that isnt happy with the game, and the new direction its taking should just quit now, and save yourself the anxiety, and stress that this game obivously brings to you.

[MyKotoShi]

Roger that mission control, preparing to troll the forums!

[Ilean]

And you toggle your overcomplication chip off!

I have more fun doing Leves for 2 hours than grinding monsters. Fun > SP (High-school grade math)

Good for you.

[Ilean]

How do YOU picture that final meeting go? Here's mine:

LOL! Here is mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk

[Dreamer]

Wolfie why do you even play ffxiv, seriously?? All you do is flame the game in every single post u do. I am a troll everytime i see your posts.. They are always filled with negitivity. Please by all means, if you really dont like the game go play something else that makes you happy. SE isnt ever going to make everyone happy. That is the problem right there. They are looking to the community for help to re-shape the game, and they are torn down the middle, because some people are ok with the new ideas, and some arent. Basically when it becomes a finished product some are going to stay, and some are going to leave. I urge anyone that isnt happy with the game, and the new direction its taking should just quit now, and save yourself the anxiety, and stress that this game obivously brings to you.

I put Wolfie on ignore long, long ago.

[Renshi]

Good for you.

Grinding.

It's good for you.

[Wolfie]

Wolfie why do you even play ffxiv, seriously?? All you do is flame the game in every single post u do. I am a troll everytime i see your posts.. They are always filled with negitivity. Please by all means, if you really dont like the game go play something else that makes you happy. SE isnt ever going to make everyone happy. That is the problem right there. They are looking to the community for help to re-shape the game, and they are torn down the middle, because some people are ok with the new ideas, and some arent. Basically when it becomes a finished product some are going to stay, and some are going to leave. I urge anyone that isnt happy with the game, and the new direction its taking should just quit now, and save yourself the anxiety, and stress that this game obivously brings to you.

Just because I'm negative doesn't mean I'm a troll or I can't provide constructive feedback or that I can't derive any fun from the game.

And I do like the direction the game is going. I've praised it plenty. You just don't want to acknowledge those posts because you get offended whenever someone doesn't 100% think the same way you do.

[Rowyne]

The original game direction was unique and and potentially revolutionary.

I thought that too, at one point. I respected the fact that the manual attack and fatigue systems were supposedly botting and RMT deterrents.

But I've been playing a lot of FFIV on my PSP this past week. That's when I realized that all they did was take an old school standalone FF format, and try to make an MMO out of it. From the stamina bar (ie ATB bar) that gave us slow and boring turn-based combat, to the AoE toggle that incurs no extra MP or enmity cost, these are things that just do not translate properly into an MMO.

And then, take the fatigue system. Did you know that WoW tried something very similar 7 years ago during beta testing? It's no secret. This bit of information is posted right on WoWWiki:

In the beta version of the original game, rest did not exist and experience was designed to prevent players from playing more than few hours in a row. Experience gained was divided by 50% after few hours. However, beta-testers did not like it and rest was implemented, giving instead 200% of experience for few hours, which Blizzard's developers later reported as being the "same numbers seen from the opposite point of view".

If it's not common sense enough to think that players wouldn't like being punished for their playtime, if SE had done just a bit of research they would have had this information all laid out in front of them.

The armory system, the one truly unique aspect of the game, is good in theory but not in practice. Building your own class is, again, something that could work quite well in a standalone game. It could even possibly work just fine in an MMO for soloing. But just how do you balance that for party play? The truth is, you can't. That's why they're giving us a job system, so that everyone has a defined role.

I really liked where Komoto was taking the game, but facts of it were simply that he & Tanaka blatantly chose to ignore the response of the Beta testers and adjust the content accordingly while delaying the game for at least another year.

Most of this statement is true. The real downfall of this game is the fact that they just did not listen to player feedback and released it prematurely. But the truth is that most of the systems in place wouldn't have worked, anyway.

Unfortunately, the time for innovation is over. This game was a grand experiment that failed. Now they need to take some basic systems that they know work, if they are to save this game. Anything unique will have to come in the future, or in the form of another MMO. FFXIV just can't wait any longer.