Did Yoshida went a bit too far by cloning WoW?

[Balipu]

I have absolutely no interes in playing wow, but have a lot of interes in playing FFXIV. Of course that has more to do with Blizzard messing up WoD and not because of anything in particular Yoshie did.
I lik FFXIV cause of the story, the graphics (that were better in 1.0) the music, and all the Final Fantasy stuff. I like that patches bring actual stuff to do, and like everyone else I spent most of my time in the gold saucer in the first couple of months after its release.
So it's not because some awesome mechanic or unique feature. Now I admit, I love how crafting and gathering work like classes with gear, abilities, quests and storyling, and I love how you don't have to make alts, but these all carried over from 1.0
The QoL improvements are nice, but we need some clever innovation that can carry the game, cause the brand will only take it so far.

[Fendred]

They should not have copied the framework of World of Warcraft. People walk around with phones as powerful as the PCs back in those days, and being interconnected with thousands of other people playing the same thing isn't in and of itself a "magical" experience like it was ten years ago. FFXIV:ARR is good enough to justify its box price, but to ask for a subscription requires a sustainable experience. World of Warcraft got away with this because of the fact people in 2004 were enchanted with the idea of just being able to consistently talk with thousands of other people over the internet while playing just about any game. You heard me right. Just talking to people -- or hell, even reading the chat from that many people talking consistently -- was an awe inspiring new form of entertainment.

WoW could afford static content because even if people were bored, they'd still log on just to see what was new in general chat. Players were thus willing to pay for it. People like to pin Cataclysm as the sole cause for WoW's decline, but it really only jump started the inevitable. And FFXIV's developers aren't really pumping out more content than the WoW dev's were. They are just giving out bite sized portions so they can say they are adding content quickly. The WoW dev team at its height could run circles around Yoshida's development team (no offense to Yoshida, but they invented this stuff).

[Arixtotle]

...

I played WoW at it's height and I just gotta say LOL. While the content was much better back then it was still not as consistent as FFXIV has been.

Wrath of the Lichking Content Patches
3.0.2 - October 14, 2008 (Pre Wrath Patch)
3.0 - November 13, 2008 (Wrath Release)
3.1.0 - April 14, 2009 (Ulduar, Argent Tournament and Duel Spec); 6 month difference
3.2.0 - August 4, 2009 (Rerelease of a few instances and start of Arena season 7); 4 month difference
3.2.2 - September 22, 2009 (Rerelease of Onyxia's lair); 1 month difference but small patch
3.3.0 - December 8, 2009 (ICC and cross-server LFG); 3 months since small patch, 4 months since larger patch
3.3.5 - June 22, 2010 (Ruby Sanctum); 6 month difference
4.0.1 - October 12, 2010 (Pre-Cata release); 4 months difference
4.0 - December 7, 2010 (Cata relase)

WoW has always released the majority of their content through expansions and added patch content has always been small or just raids. FFXIV pumps out far more content far quicker than WoW did. BUT at the time they were the fastest output of content with the most overall content.

PS. I can do the earlier patches if you really want me to but it's pretty much the same.

[Daralii]

WoW has always released the majority of their content through expansions and added patch content has always been small or just raids. FFXIV pumps out far more content far quicker than WoW did. BUT at the time they were the fastest output of content with the most overall content.

WoW's also been consistently adding less per patch since like 4.1. The first content patch of Warlords of Draenor? Twitter integration and a selfie tool. That was it.

[adn]

I would say that FFXIV is not a clone of WoW but rather a highly-polished refinement of the WoW formula. FFXIV introducing the WoW formula to the Japanese market is nothing surprising (because WoW is not and never was a thing in Japan, the market was ripe for a game that properly introduced WoW-like gameplay to the Japanese market).

The game's structure differs radically in a number of ways such as:
-level of emphasis on PVP (in WoW it's an alternative to PVE; in ARR it's a minigame)
-expansion gating (WoW: no gates; ARR: very heavy gating)
-the way alt classes and crafting are handled (WoW: very restricted, need to make new characters for alts; ARR: almost completely unrestricted)

I think ARR is a fantastic game, but it does have its share of problems. They seem to be getting into a very established "groove" for the kind of content they're providing, and they do need to mix it up now and then because the current formula will not last forever.

[Ayuhra]

WoW's also been consistently adding less per patch since like 4.1. The first content patch of Warlords of Draenor? Twitter integration and a selfie tool. That was it.

And the lead content dev counts that as a MAJOR patch, and the new patch (Tanaan Jungle and Hellfire Citadel) as the second and final patch. That makes Warlords of Draenor an expansion with one actual content patch and going by how Blizzard usually times these things that patch may be lasting them about a year.

WoW at its peak was a fantastic game, I won't argue that, and it offered a lot to keep people busy but they fell off the "Regular Updates" wagon around Siege of Orgrimmar and so far they don't seem to be in any hurry to get back on it.

[Daralii]

WoW at its peak was a fantastic game, I won't argue that, and it offered a lot to keep people busy but they fell off the "Regular Updates" wagon around Siege of Orgrimmar and so far they don't seem to be in any hurry to get back on it.

It started back with Dragon Soul. There was something like 18 months between 4.3 and 5.0, and then it happened again with SoO. Ever since the end of Wrath, Blizzard has been cutting patch content while saying that it's so they can get the next expansion out sooner, and they've failed every time.

I'm someone concerned that Yoshida's said similar things about yearly expansions, but I have more faith in him than any of the higher ups on WoW's team. I followed their tweets and interviews before I quit, and they are just impressively out of touch or stupid.

[Aeyis]

I played WoW at it's height and I just gotta say LOL. While the content was much better back then it was still not as consistent as FFXIV has been.

Wrath of the Lichking Content Patches
3.0.2 - October 14, 2008 (Pre Wrath Patch)
3.0 - November 13, 2008 (Wrath Release)
3.1.0 - April 14, 2009 (Ulduar, Argent Tournament and Duel Spec); 6 month difference
3.2.0 - August 4, 2009 (Rerelease of a few instances and start of Arena season 7); 4 month difference
3.2.2 - September 22, 2009 (Rerelease of Onyxia's lair); 1 month difference but small patch
3.3.0 - December 8, 2009 (ICC and cross-server LFG); 3 months since small patch, 4 months since larger patch
3.3.5 - June 22, 2010 (Ruby Sanctum); 6 month difference
4.0.1 - October 12, 2010 (Pre-Cata release); 4 months difference
4.0 - December 7, 2010 (Cata relase)

WoW has always released the majority of their content through expansions and added patch content has always been small or just raids. FFXIV pumps out far more content far quicker than WoW did. BUT at the time they were the fastest output of content with the most overall content.

PS. I can do the earlier patches if you really want me to but it's pretty much the same.

All of its patches added content. And not just raids either, altho one raid per patch is more then we have here. Honestly, wow has a lot of things it fails at, but dont compare patch content between these 2 games.

The only reason why it seems we get content faster here is because they release smaller amounts at a faster rate. Each content update in wow had more in it then we got here, however.

And lets not compare expansions either, since pretty much each of WoWs expansions redesigned class or gameplay mechanics.

FFXIV is now currently one of only a few MMO's that can actually keep a sub model. That should tell you something about the direction they took the game. I have my issues still...lots of clunky systems still exist, but I can't say they did wrong with the game.

That's because they dont have to answer to investors and what not, and this is far from SE's only ship out on the water.


And let's be honest here. If we held a poll and see how many of us forum goers play this game because ''it's final fantasy'' that would probably be 90%+ of us.

That is not the truth. I can do way more in this game on a KB/M than I could hope on a controller.

What I meant was 1.xx/FFXI had -one- set UI and it was built around the controller. 2.0 gave the option for two different UI's, one built specifically for KB/M and one for controller.

It is, unfortunately. Many of the ui components (for example storing items, or selecting quest items for turn in) work very clunky without a controller. Either it's optimized for use with a controller or it's just poorly designed; your pick.

[Arixtotle]

All of its patches added content. And not just raids either, altho one raid per patch is more then we have here. Honestly, wow has a lot of things it fails at, but dont compare patch content between these 2 games.

The only reason why it seems we get content faster here is because they release smaller amounts at a faster rate. Each content update in wow had more in it then we got here, however.

And lets not compare expansions either, since pretty much each of WoWs expansions redesigned class or gameplay mechanics.

Depends on how you define patch. I listed all the patches for Wrath that added any kind of content as well as the dates and what was added. Here in FFXIV we get MORE patches with MORE content per patch. Do I really need to do a list of patches from 2.X FFXIV? I mean, isn't it enough to know that we started with only two endgame dungeons and ended with SEVENTEEN? And no, each patch in WoW did not add more content then a FFXIV patch. Each patch in 2.X gave us a few instances, a raid and story quests at the very least. That's more than any WoW content patch.

And you say that last thing as if it's a good thing. Redesigning classes and gameplay is one of the things that has caused such a drop in subscribers. Do you know how many Feral Druids left when they made it so you couldn't shapeshift out of roots? Then there was just the max exodus when they said they would no longer have flying. Redesigning core elements of a game just pushes away the core playerbase.

[Terribad]

Depends on how you define patch. I listed all the patches for Wrath that added any kind of content as well as the dates and what was added. Here in FFXIV we get MORE patches with MORE content per patch.

Most of it's story quests, which the average FF player cares about and the average mmo player doesn't.

I personally wouldn't call a rehash of old dungeons/trials plus 1 new dungeon "a lot of content". Especially when the dungeons/trials don't really drop anything worth while. Or keeps dropping reskinned ponies.