Did Yoshida went a bit too far by cloning WoW?

[Tonkra]

Dont get me wrong the old version was, especially at beta and release, not that good.
So this thread here isnt a "in the past was all better"-thread.

And the graphics engine was not optimised for an MMOrpg (i think it could only render at around 30-50 players at a time) as it was the crystals tools Engine from Final Fantasy XIII. The server structures have been a complete mess, especially at release, in the end they patched it and made it slightly better.

Then Yoshi P. came around at made it much better. they added lots of content like the classic jobs and all.

What i liked about the older version was that it had an openworld, though it had huge openworld maps and wasnt less theme park alike.. i liked it slightly better. It felt so real, it had way better weather mechanics and i liked to hold on for a second to just enjoy the surroundings. Today i just walk through the environments just to get the next quest. I dont really bother about the environment because for me the special feeling about it in comparison to before is kind of lost for me..

I cant describe it, but they also changed the perspective behind the character. before it played more like you are playing actually a Final Fantasy and not an MMO/WoW.
Not to talk about the better animations it had.


What i liked also more that there was more classic group play. today you wont find many big groups doing guildleves together, instead you walk anonymously in random groups over FATE's and zerg some stuff down. Which isnt that much fun for me.



The battle system was slow yes, but for me it was much more like a Final Fantasy should be... it had a TP bar etc. and now what we got is a very standardized, frequently used standard combat system which estimatically 90% of the MMorpg's these days are using. The only good thing about it is the limit break system to me.


I liked Final Fantasy XIV quiet much because it felt like Final Fantasy XI.. but obviously its not what the mainstream attracts that much. Now we have instances over instances, itemlevel spirals.

And nowdays it looks more than AION/WOW than Final Fantasy if you ask me.

I mean.. before:







And After (which is more like AION/WOW to me):




UI before and after




Its no secret that Yoshi P. told his dev team to play lots of WoW in order to learn how MMorpgs work these days. (though the trend goes into a different directions because MMorpgs like Elder Scrolls Online are doing it different these days)
and as you can see, you cant really deny the influence anymore.

I dont blame Yoshi P. for this, he had to turn Final Fantasy XIV into a commercial success. Even the old version of Final Fantasy XIV he improved quiet much by implementing classic jobs to it and missions like the one of nael van darnus:




But as he promised he would patch the combat system into the direction of the reboot.. it wasnt really the case as they completely removed it by adding a standardized Combat system.

And the game as a whole seems to follow WoW's philosophy and today partly too much if you ask me (*looks at the screenshot above*). For me its like they sold partly the identity of an own final fantasy game for being more WoW'ish.
Do you think that they went a little too far copying WoW too much?

[Onikimaru]

In short. Yes. Do i love XIV?, most definitely. After watching 1.0 cutscenes and a lot of 1.0 gameplay however it definitely looked more like a final fantasy game and seemed much more appealing, despite all the grief people give it i still think it should have stayed relatively close to it's original design. The game was still in beta and i think it would have got much better overtime just like XIV ARR did but then again i never played it so i will never know exactly how bad it was. I wish i did play it though..

[Vespar]

FFXIV is far from a WoW clone.

I played wow for years and never once did I get this engaged with my character or the storyline. I can be all classes, not just one. The story is presented to me in custcenes and small lines of dialogue. Not walls of text inside a window....

The 1.0 world was extremely lacking in storyline, which for me makes or breaks a game and was the ultimate reason I left wow. (I never bothered to read the walls of text, story presentation is everything here). I can deal with UI issues or graphical errors but if there's no meat on that skeleton why even bother?

While their may be elements of WoW in XIV, I can argue that of almost any MMO these days. Just because WoW was/is the biggest, doesnt mean its the best. And just because they did it first, doesnt mean they did it better.

I love FFXIV, but I hate WoW for various reasons. and it shows probably in my post. Maybe you are the opposite of me and prefer WoW. I dunno. To each their own, but I like FFXIV the way it is now.

[Gilthas]

I didn't play 1.0 much because after 2 hours I started getting the feeling that I was playing FFXI again. Made me turn off the game and never look back. I don't get that with ARR.

People love to make the WoW comparison as if it were an insult to ARR because of lack of originality, but then demand FFXIV to be a copy of FFXI. One game shouldn't determine the "identity of FF". More so when they want to bring back outdated gameplay mechanics.

[Tonkra]

The 1.0 world was extremely lacking in storyline

Hm?

Storyline

And Nael van Darnus Storyline in 1.23 (no voice over here, since it was clear the game is going to be rebooted):
Nael van Darnus some cutscenes (low quality)
Nael van Darnus Storyline Ending Cutscenes - youtube



right the main storyline stayed unfinished. I liked the Nael van Darnus storyline btw very much^

[Daralii]

Snow and gryphons © Blizzard Entertainment

[Yutsimaki]

"Yo guys WoW invented griffins! This game is WoW ripoff."

[Shougun]

While I liked the zones of 3.0 I'm excited to see 4.0, just because I hope from this experience it means we will continue to see large zones. 1.0 had excellent scale but a lot of copy pasta. Also, miss that great Coerthas, before snow.. xD. 2.0 zones while having a lot of little details certainly feel quite small.

You felt 1.0 was lacking story Vespar? I felt like it built slowly but that there was a lot of info to be had in 1.0, and could have been more if it wasn't released earlier than Tanka wanted (obviously the game he was making even if released when he wanted wouldn't have been mainstream but that is a different argument than "game was incomplete, and I felt like there was still some story and would very likely be a lot more if given time").

In terms of the FFXIV going a bit WoW, I do miss some of the somber more serious atmosphere of 1.0 - some of which we seem to be getting back from the 1.0 to 2.0 shift, to now 3.0. Other parts seems Yoshida doesn't like because it isn't very mainstream or new person friendly (wish he carried "not new person friendly" thought process to crafting lol).

[Vespar]

Hm?

Storyline

And Nael van Darnus Storyline in 1.23 (no voice over here, since it was clear the game is going to be rebooted):
Nael van Darnus Storyline Cutscenes - youtube


right the main storyline stayed unfinished. I liked the Nael van Darnus storyline btw very much^

Nael Van Darnus and the original storyline could likely be completed in a day if you didn't have to grind levels to get there ^^; Hence it was lacking.
Levelling aside in ARR and HW, there is hours of cutscenes and dialogue from both the main scenario and side quests, and dungeons.

While I'll admit the open world is lacking in COMBAT, its not lacking if you are a gatherer. I find myself running all over the place enjoying the sights as a gatherer.

Also, for me personally, XIV's replayability is awesome! I'm starting a 3rd new character just to re-experience the storyline all over again (not just thru the inn-room book) and its been fun as hell levelling up and doing quests. I read the dialogue in side quests and main scenario as much as I can and the lore you get from the quests is awesome.

I didnt get this feeling in WoW. Again, my stance is very much a personal one. WoW just doesnt do it for me.
I liked 1.0 too but it was definitely missing ALOT to have kept me interested.

[Raiker]

And WoW carried over elements of EverQuest and EverQuest carried over elements of Ultima Online and Ultima Online (which is where the term MMORPG was coined) got its roots from stuff like The Realm Online and Neverwinter Nights (the AOL version). I'm not sure I get your point.

Everything takes from somewhere else and innovates upon it. FFXIV 1.0 was "Crafter's Fantasy" and although the story was good for 1.0, it was not at first. The graphics needed to be altered cause ate system specs alive in some cases.

You typed "me" ten times by the way; it's not what you want, but what the couple of million subscribers pay for want.