Yoshi & Team need to man any future FF Onlines

[Sapphic]

The problem is every game has followed the WoW solo cookie cutter model for the past 10 years. They would rather attract game purchases and 3 month subs then watch it burn to the ground and start something new. Then provide a quality game that will last 15+ years like the old QUALITY MMOs have.

Modern MMOs have no retention rate.

Problem also is that no one wants to play the old style MMO so much these days, not to mention that MMOs cost vastly more to produce and run than they did 10 years ago. The required budget has massively increased since EQ1, FFXI, DaoC etc where released, bigger outgoings and investement needs a higher return to actually be able to, not just keep it running, but to return a comfortable net profit. Wildstar tried it, look how well that is turning out to be.

MMOs have changed and adapted to the present market, whos to say what changes will happen next?

I sometimes wonder one thing, Blizzard copied the EQ model because EQ was the most succesful subscription based MMO at its height, for the time. How would things be if Ultima Online had been more succesful than EQ?

[Zarzak]

I sometimes wonder one thing, Blizzard copied the EQ model because EQ was the most succesful subscription based MMO at its height, for the time. How would things be if Ultima Online had been more succesful than EQ?

Blizzard did a piss poor job if that is indeed what they said they were trying to do. Literally nothing from EQ was in WoW. Unless you count common emotes.

[Prototype909]

You just summed up FFXI at launch. (Not EU/US launch as that came after a revamp and an expansion).

The difference is you can actually see that FF XI had a base that was built for actually expanding content instead of cycling it. Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan, even the base game updates - until Abyssea and Adoulin none of the content was suddenly "invalidated" by a more recent addition. Content was supplemented rather than replaced which is why that content was lasting. That is not the case in XIV and so far they are showing nothing that would imply they are breaking free of that model. There is absolutely no reason to go back to content in this game aside from the game forcing you do it (Or through really thinly veiled "quests" like the entire Relic ugprade where you're constantly doing content that was relevant about one year ago now).

This isn't FF XI, it's not going to be FF XI, but that doesn't mean they can't at least learn some lessons from FF XI when designing content. When Heavensward comes out everything in the base game will probably be regarded the same as fights like HM Primals, CT1, and even some of the EX Fights + Coil 1 are. Obsolete, irrelevant, "Just gear up with tomes", etc. Then you have 4 man dungeons (Especially the new ones) which serve literally no purpose other than forcing players to go through fights which were outgeared before they even came out so that they can hit their new tome cap.

The only thing that is keeping me playing is the hope that at some point they realize that fast-tracking everyone to the newest content at the expense of making everything that came before it irrelevant is not the best model to follow. The game world should be evolving and expanding. Instead what happens is that we get new content that is very relevant for a few months, then it becomes slightly less relevant, then finally it becomes defunct and SE searches for a way to shoehorn players back into it.

[Estevo]

The game is bland, overly simplistic, has limited content at endgame which is not improving over time at this point, has limited jobs.

They have to improve this game 2-3 fold and add lasting content before they get a pass from me. Game went from a solid F score to a C-.

Lets hope this expansion adds alot of stuff to do in this game that last more then 6 weeks.

Bland? No. Simplistic? Yes. has limited endgame content? Depends on who you ask, I think there's a lot. Limited jobs? Dark knight, gun job, healer job, and ninja are a good chunk to add on, and who knows, there might be more where that came from too!

Long story short the bland remark was uncalled for and I think you should be a little more forgiving! The game only had 2 years development, I can promise you no good, high production value mmo came out within 2 years of development (although the game's concept of story and some mechanics were taken from 1.0 it's still impressive!)

[Kuwagami]

So I'm wrong? Group gear does not skip raid tiers making them irrelevant? DO explain.

do you really expect a 6-month-old-now-irrelevant-raid by design to have relevant gear ? Vertical progression MMOs. That is your explanation. New content throws away the old one.

BTW, there is no such thing as "raid tiers". There are "gearing tiers", and raid gear enters those gearing tiers. It's always the best of a tier though (it's been 10 month now that group gear cannot compare to raid gear)

Modern MMOs have no retention rate.

Modern MMOs have more players playing daily than the oldies. Because they actually appeal to the masses and don't require stupid dedication to be able to do anything relevant. People may play less time per day with longer breaks, but they play longer overall and they are way more playing.

gun job, healer job

the 2 are likely to be the same ^^

[Tonkra]

FFXIV 1.0 was a steaming pile of crap. Yes they made it acceptable but it is still a fragment of what other major themeparks mmos are and extremely linear and limited in all aspects of the game.

for me version 1.0. wasnt crap.. i loved the openworld (although it hadnt these themepark objects in the landscapes).. it had a complete openworld map.
great atmosphere of a very realistiv world.. you could feel comfortable in that world.

the weather effects, the music.. the graphics.. have been quiet great if you ask me..









uldah time lapse and music

dont get me wrong.. many things in 1.0. werent good. such as lags, the mouse control, less content.
but it also had its moments..


but you say "themepark is too boring".. and then you say "1.0. was crappy"... because 1.0. wasnt like WoW it was bad?


in my opinion you are one of these crybabies or better to say "MMO" normads.. when you flamed enough at one MMO.. you move to the next one to continue flaming there..

oh man i loved that old Gridanian Intro by the way... too funny and to atmospheric

Gridania Intro FFXIV 1.0.

[Duelle]

for me version 1.0. wasnt crap.. i loved the openworld

Unsurprisingly, after people complained about the "copy-paste" zones through all of 1.0 and ARR Beta, how we have people saying they loved them...

great atmosphere of a very realistic world.. you could feel comfortable in that world.

A relatively barren overworld with conveniently-placed lv99 mobs to keep you from exploring areas that showed how incomplete the game was is not something I would call comfortable.

From a design perspective 1.0 had a LOT of stuff that wasn't working. The basis for progression was grinding stuff and guild leves. Character growth was basically random skill ups; They literally grabbed one of the worst parts of FFXI and made it the central mechanic for character growth. Character growth was then hindered by surplus exp, despite people complaining about it during the beta. Even moreso when leve allowances were spread even further apart than they currently are.

Class design tried to justify ability bloat by making cross class abilities useable by anyone with "affinity" traits that could be equipped. I'm assuming this was supposed to segue into the logical conclusion of "making your own class" or creating the classic FF jobs by setting certain abilities and traits on your character. Except it would have been an even less sustainable model than what was seen in the other game that used this system, The Secret World, because you have nothing but guild leves as a means for progression for the numerous planned classes for 1.0 (unless you like killing the same mob over and over again).

--------------------------------

I get that nostalgia is a powerful thing, but let's try to look at things how they actually were. 1.0 had too many things that weren't working. Would they have turned out better with more development time? I can't say. The game would have needed more leveling content to begin with, plus a growth system that could be measured and felt like actual progression instead of coming in random bursts.

The only thing that held even a sliver of promise was the original armoury system, but seeing what happened in TSW we more than likely would have faced a similar problem. For the curious, base classes would be king, and you'd get laughed at if you decided to create your favorite job because you'd be straying from the optimal builds. You'd get laughed at for playing a BLM because you as THM with cures and rezzes crossclassed would just be infinitely more useful to a group (this actually happened during part of the 1.19-1.23 era, by the way).

[Ramzal]

-snip-

If you find it so bland and overly simplistic than why are you still playing it? o_O I don't understand this logic. Even if you find it to be a C-, someone who rates a certain kind of food a C- stops eating it to eat the food that they like or what appeals to them. I'm not telling you to "go away" but your logic baffles me.

[HakuroDK]

Compared to other MMOs on the market, FFXIV is definitely a quality MMO. A statement I bet many people would have laughed at 2-3 years ago.

Yoshida and his team have done a phenomenal job with this game. I've played a lot of MMOs, most of them bored me. This did not bore me.

[ruskie]

I don't know. I find it pretty engaging. And have yet to run out of things to do.