Clearing Confusion - MMORPG differentiation

[Jynx]

It was the races that did it.

Honestly I probably never would have picked the game up if it had the Ivalice races in it "Banga and Viera and whatever" I can assume it was the same for a good chunk of people.

[Naqaj]

They're basic systems, but there's still yet to be an MMO where I can literally open my chat box, type /search ___ and turn up results.

I completely agree with the general point of this thread, but you picked a bad example there. Most MMOs have a search function like that.

[weeble]

is simple to me, dunno why this doesn't happen. separate servers or layer servers with multiple types of game play. if there was that many interested in hardcore mode then make them a server. how can you say no to that much extra money. only reason not to that i can think of is cause it's just that much cheaper and less work to create a mmo that is catered to easy or solo. build ground up for hardcore, then dumb it down for others, 2servers and done. i love the arguments u get on this thought too, is ridiculous.

i too would love the soul of ffxiv to be ffxi, all the good stuff that was in it was expected, just way more better and with a 2011 strength. most people don't even go on forums, i never did a second for ffxi, or other mmo's outside of learning if i'd like it or not. youtube usually paints a great picture. in reality i think most people are done complaining or asking for what they want. they will just leave or stay. i've said this in another thread, but in reality i don't think they after wow players or ffxi players, they want the new players. and easy mode seems to work for that, it's probably why wow had so many players it could always manage to get new players coming, while ffxi probably had way harder time getting new players to stay.

[Renshi]

Yeah, they could take some foundation things from FFXI.
Oh well... the dice has been thrown, so I want to see what the Dev team is going to do in the future =)

[Biggs]

Honestly, I just wish they had simply shut the servers down completely to rework the game. I think there will be too many people that play this game now that will be unwilling to play it when they start charging us. But, poop in one hand and wish in the other I guess. Can't undo it now.

I do think they have lost a huge amount of credibility with this whole debacle though. How you go from making something that, for the last 4 years or so, has been so nicely polished like Xi was to the smoldering piece of crap they released with XIV is still beyond my comprehension. And instead of putting it away for a while and letting people move on while they rework it, this thing has been limping onwards ever since. All while having the majority of the "fanbase" critisize every move they have made to bring it up to speed.

To those that say XI wasn't a success or that nobody wants an XI clone: Certainly you can't believe that an XI clone would have done worse than what this game has done since launch?

[Konachibi]

Honestly, I just wish they had simply shut the servers down completely to rework the game. I think there will be too many people that play this game now that will be unwilling to play it when they start charging us. But, poop in one hand and wish in the other I guess. Can't undo it now.

I do think they have lost a huge amount of credibility with this whole debacle though. How you go from making something that, for the last 4 years or so, has been so nicely polished like Xi was to the smoldering piece of crap they released with XIV is still beyond my comprehension. And instead of putting it away for a while and letting people move on while they rework it, this thing has been limping onwards ever since. All while having the majority of the "fanbase" critisize every move they have made to bring it up to speed.

To those that say XI wasn't a success or that nobody wants an XI clone: Certainly you can't believe that an XI clone would have done worse than what this game has done since launch?

I think the case was that once the beta was out people were ready for the game. If S.E had suddenly turned around and said "ok, we've listened to your comments, opinions and ideas, now please wait a further year or two whilst we finish this off". Same for release, once an MMO is out on the market the company can't just turn it off one day and ask that everyone come back in a years time once it's had some remodeling, it has to just keep rolling.

[Konachibi]

The best way to find a good mix for a game genre is to keep trying new things all the time. We saw Square do this countless times in the past by changing battle systems, camera styles, the kind of world the game is set in and so on. The only way a genre can grow is by experimenting, otherwise everything becomes 'samey' and stale.

From what I can tell of FFXIV, Square were not just going for a game that was completely different from FFXI, but also completely different from any other MMO on the market, this way it feels fresh, new and unique and stops people crowing 'clone' all day. It's a bold move when a company tries this kind of thing as it can cost them a lot of money, and as we've all seen it didn't work so well in some regards, but thankfully the good thing about an MMO is that it can be remade without having to create a brand new game.

Those are just my thoughts on it, not argueing with anyone, just wanted to add my little bit.