What's really being done with all these updates?

[Suetan]

I know that the original team really messed this game up, and didn't do hardly anything right, but at the same time, why is SE so concerned about making this game so much like FFXI in terms of gameplay when there STILL isn't an end to the main story. I've seen all these different bugs being worked out, and lots of people bitching about character customization, jobs, and the battle system. What about what has always been FF's best selling point... THE GODDAMNED STORY! There's been little to no work on the story in this game in the (going on) 20 updates that this game has had.

Battle system updates and changes, fine; job system chage, good; storyline additions, NOT AN OPTION TO IGNORE AND NEED TO BE CONSIDERED.

The addition of two new city-states means next to nothing except more leves and NMs. Maybe a little more story, but SE seems to be putting that on the back burner. Who needs an end of the game and a purpose for actually playing, when you can turn the game into WoW, and have people do nothing but grind through level after level all day, every day.

There needs to be major story additions to this game. The other stuff is important too, but story is the key selling point to every FF game, and this game is still lacking after more than a year of updates.

[Ferth]

I think SE has basically admitted that in its current state the game is not what anyone can call "finished" and so the priority is to get everything working at an acceptable level before they add more to the main stories.

As you say, the story is what draws people to FF as a series. But I think the priority right now is to make sure that everything else works well enough that people are willing to play the storylines. Once everything is working they will have years and years to add story, or atleast that's the hope.

It helps to think of it as still being in beta for now. Storylines don't need beta testing, battle systems, UI, monster interaction all need to be in working order, then the story can be expanded.

[Suetan]

I can see that people are still complaining about how this system or that system works, but it just seems like this isn't going to end. People are never really happy about an MMORPG, just look at WoW. When that game first got started it was actually challenging. Now look at it, it's nothing but a massive mob of people that gain level after level, undersell one another for items, and then they go and do raids to get better gear for PvP. The challenge has left that game, and the feeling of hey, I wonder what's going to happen next is completely gone.

I work at Wal*Mart, and when Cataclysm came out, I didn't hear ANY of the people talking about the story. They only cared about the new level cap, and what new items were going to be available. I'm afraid that this is also going to happen to FF14 because they've already greatly lowered the difficulty level of leves and made you gain more exp/sp, and now they're making it so that your physical level pretty much isn't going to matter at all.

[Ferth]

It's one thing to recognize that there will always be complaints... but none of the core game mechanics are anywhere near solid.

I'd say don't really expect much in the way of story development until they either announce when the subscription fees will start again, or until after they've already been reinstated.

[PrettyPrincess]

Well we ARE getting the Ifrit Battle quest in 1.19 :O I am like, excited~

[Perrin_Aybarra]

It's one thing to recognize that there will always be complaints... but none of the core game mechanics are anywhere near solid.

I'd say don't really expect much in the way of story development until they either announce when the subscription fees will start again, or until after they've already been reinstated.

That and there is no point in coming out with story and story-related battles is the battle system and core systems are not in place. So I'd expect them to work on that after the summer updates which should have take care of those.

On a side note, the ifrit battle is most likely story-related and is announced for this summer, so I'd say it's a start and would expect more content and story to be released faster after those big core updates.