any questions?

[Zetonegi]

My (multifaceted) question, somewhat in line with Gifthorse's string of questions is:
Is adding a new class a taboo?
Are all new classes just going to be tacked onto existing ones as jobs or can something get its role and be a new class?

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Are you obsessed with FFXIV? This OP is a little bit unhealthy. I'm not trolling and I'm being serious. I think you have a negative obsession with this game.

[Starlord]

Are you obsessed with FFXIV? This OP is a little bit unhealthy. I'm not trolling and I'm being serious. I think you have a negative obsession with this game.

Yeah he doesn't say too many things at all that's Positive... in fact I don't think he has said anything Positive :/

[captainpicard]

*How does FFXIV expect to compete in the market?

It doesn't seem that its a goal. At this point I think they are banking on name + limited mmo competition on consoles to carry it into profitability.

*What are its selling points, and will FFXIV best other MMOs in these departments?

One of a few mmo's that will allegedly be available on a console system, name

*Are you worried that standardising the game will only lead to carbon-copying?

I don't worry about it much at all anymore. It is what it is, I don't really expect it to ever improve significantly at this point

*Is there an upper and lower limit to imitation, and where is that?

All I can say is taking ok systems from other games, and implementing them poorly seems to be the status quo here

*Revising the game to suit every player, is that a wise move?

I don't think so-it leads to a watered down, visionless game that ultimately makes no one happy due to so many compromises

*What should an MMO be?

Every persons answer is different. Generally speaking though I think we can all agree that the 1st tenant is fun. After that, its anyone's guess.

*Where do other MMOs go wrong?

Every persons answer is different. Generally, I would say reliance on questing and solo play is the number one mistake most mmo's make

*Where did FFXIV go wrong? Why did people leave? / Why did people stay?

This game went wrong with its foundation. Broken servers, running an incomplete game design, in a very repetitive world, with no real content and no real goals implementing hacked up systems from other mmo's in a very much worse way (ex: leves) all glued together with an inferior, unintuitive user interface and gated by a challenging user billing system

People left because all of that adds up to very little fun and a lot of frustration and dissappointment

People stayed because they had misplaced hope, are true fans of the series, are willing to give the game a chance, its free and they are cheap and bored, they are masochists.. any number of reasons. I originally stayed thinking the game would get better, so I would go ahead and build my character up so that when it was worth playing I wouldn't be behind the curve. That was an error.


*What perceived problems exist and how do you intend to solve them?

I don't really think the problems within this game can be solved, short of just starting over with a new game and new name. I think it may be best left relegated to the history books, much like "New Coke" and "Crystal Pepsi"

*What are the redeeming features of FFXIV?

The character models heads turn towards their target

* Is there danger of interfering with these good features?

I am struggling with what you are referencing here-

*How much instancing is too much instancing?

Once you start instancing, you stop creating a interesting persistent world, so essentially that method should only be employed when absolutely necessary (see maat fight for example) otherwise anything else is too much

*Is there value in the armory system?

Perhaps in a sandbox game. I don't find a lot of value in it in this game. It made my character feel directionless and generally like everyone else. I don't really like playing ALTs - so with that said I do find value in switching jobs, but jobs should be clearly defined.

*Won't the current choice of job-implementation erode some aspects of the armory system?

Delete the armory system. It would be an improvement

*Will all players now be cookie-cutter builds?

Why not.. C in FFXIV stands for Change.

*What is the current dev team's opinion on the difference between jobs and classes?

I am sure they think what they are doing is brilliant when the reality is they are just making the jobs and armory system obsolete, so why not just go ahead and delete it. Oh and please don't tie a rep grind to the new jobs. This isn't aoc-

*Is the new Bard/archer an infringment on the differentiation between class and job?

It sounds like a conflict of interest.

*To justify implementation, will jobs be better than classes at certain roles?

The dev team has no idea-they are making this up as they go along. This project probably has more scope creep then we can imagine.

*Will that make classes a pointless intermediate on the way to jobs?

Yes

*Will crafters now only be "materia users"?

It sounds like a layer of complexity I am not even interested in, and since the new leve frequency is going to make everyone a high level crafter anyway, I don't really see crafters as some minority population anymore, so the answer is both yes and no

*Is there merit in a player-run economy?

Yep. This game is going out of its way to delete the economy

*Have the HQ changes removed some depth to the crafting system?

I don't know that I call endless grinding via slow arduous to navigate interfaces, along with menus that wont hold more than 4 options depth, as much as I call them just interferring with what could have been an interesting crafting system.

*Is there anything for crafters to do besides grind ranks?

Not really. There is no market for crafted goods at this time and I don't really see there being one in the future since everyone will level off saved up leve's and do their own materia work, if they care

*Has the materia system and HQ changes injected more grind into the game?

I don't know. Maybe they have given non-crafters more incentive to grind their crafts.

*When are we getting drag and drop???

Never

[User201109011315]

Yeah he doesn't say too many things at all that's Positive... in fact I don't think he has said anything Positive :/

You should probably check my post history before making stuff up.

[User201109011315]

...

I'm afraid that's the truth.

[Starlord]

You should probably check my post history before making stuff up.

I have actually at least most anyhow and from what I have seen its always some wrong with FFXIV, Sorry

Now go back to trolling while I play WKC2 =)

[Gennosuke]

Interesting character as always Gifthorse. I actually enjoy your posts because they challenge the opposition on this forum which are a vast majority while maintaining a good tone and not stooping down to a personal level. I commend you for it, regardless of what most say here, i personally don't believe you're a troll, alas there is a silly notion here that if you oppose the game in any sense, you're a troll. I can clearly see however from your previous posts that you're attached to Tanaka's vision which i am not fond of, but that's your own right. That said, you raise some good points and questions there.

I do disagree with your Armory system vision, i've personally hated the Armory system and feel it's full of flaws but i agree with many other points you raise. I do also agree with you that job system as a 2nd layer on top of Armory system is not a wise idea and will potentially produce many probs down the line and be a source of redundancy and imbalance. Though contrary to your goal of saving Armory system, i'm more for saving the job system.

Anyhow, i'm interested to also put my mind to rest with where this game is headed. It feels like the game is causing more confusion with every patch introduced. Valid post, Valid concerns. Perhaps it will get through to dev team.

[weeble]

I have actually at least most anyhow and from what I have seen its always some wrong with FFXIV, Sorry

Now go back to trolling while I play WKC2 =)

probably what you'd be playing no matter how easy the game goes, looking for party, waiting for others to make dungeons for ya, inviting you to mission battles.then complain how hard the game is no matter how easy it gets cause you can't be arsed to do anything yourself. (by way since u might take it to heart, it may not actually be you that does this but i'm just saying, i bet it is, and i bet it is 90% of the complainers for the verses)

also i think if they adding a bow to bard it probably cause they don't expect it to do the one thing in ffxi it did and was pull mobs 24/7. hopefully it's not cause they creating dynamicless mobs that don't need buffs or debuffs on them. (that is if the bow/harp is true)

[Rydin]

At the end of the day... the main goal of this game is (And always has been) to bring a Final Fantasy MMO to the masses that appeals to all the people who buy the offline numbered titles
Everything that was done (or wasn't done) was to this end...

Gift is asking a bunch of subjective questions, but I must say, it would be extremely interesting to see Yoshi P answer them....

Honestly though, we don't know how much pressure was (is??) put on the design team.
I bet this is what it sounded like during development

Yoichi Wada: Hey Tanaka, Final Fantasy X is up to 8 million in sales... FFXII did 3 million in the first week.... How many subscribers did FFXI have?

Hiromichi Tanaka: like half a million, but here's the thing... thats not bad numbers for an MMO. People are hesitant about paying monthly fees to play a game

Wada: You're right... no MMO has millions of subscribers.... OH WAIT.....

Tanaka: Very funny.... But I'm just saying... you can't even play FFXI on a slim PS2. It got a bad rep...

Wada: Whatever... look... FFXIII just did 2 frikkin million sales in its first week... IN JAPAN ALONE.... and we let interns write the story.

Tanaka: Well work on FFXIV is proceeding beautifully. The tech demo was very well received.

Wada: That's all well and good.. but I swear to God, you give me FFXI-2 and the next game you'll be working on is "Game Designer Sepeku"

Tanaka: This one will be different. You will see... Come Fall 2012, the world will be blown away

Wada: Yea... about that... I was thinking we should bump that up... to say... Spring 2011.

Tanaka: But Crystal Tools was designed for PSgl, not directX. The networking API is brand new. These things take time..

Wada: You know what I'm hearing from you T-Knocker, Excuses. PSGL, DirectX, MS-DOS 5.1... its all the same shit.. And I know I'm no computer guy... but can't you just use the networking API from the FFXI engine?

Tanaka: No, not at all... even if it wasn't owned by someone else, it was based around much smaller bandwidth needs. This new one was developed by our staff in China

Wada: Yea, whatever. Just get me an MMO that millions of people will buy, and have it ready by Spring 2011. And I am so serious.. If I see an FFXI clone, You're going to be the new custodian at the Beijing office

Tanaka: Fine, it will be released well ahead of schedule and it will not resemble FFXI.

Wada: You know what... make that Fall 2010... I'm feeling generous