Is Final Fantasy 14 the next X-2?

[Katt]

(Now before I continue I want to disclose that I was a BETA player for Final Fantasy XIV, and have continued playing the game at least since this writing.)

Well it’s now been over a year since Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV for the PC (September 30,2010) , and there have been some good times, and bad time with the game.

Before the game was released there was a 3D version of Final Fantasy XIV that I got to play around with, and it took a major learning curve on how to aim for monsters, but this was later discarded and the game when to the normal 2D with 3D graphics

As some might recall with what happened with Final Fantasy XIV after it lunched, there was a wave of complaints from players that the game was broken in many ways and were not happy with the game. As some might recall Square Enix on October 15, 2010 announced to it’s players that it was extending everyone’s free trail period from 30days to 60days, to help with the issues as they released patches. (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/news/detail?newsId=60bd5ecff1b7645d4e1ead107941f0d8c4e88994) But soon after they announced this, players were then updated again that the whole Developer team for Final Fantasy XIV was going to be restructured, and some new people were also going to be brought in to make Final Fantasy XIV a game they could be proud of. (A vary polite and professional way to say people got fired and replaced)

Some of the major issues Square Enix had to tackle over the years, was players had a hard time finding the NPCs they needed to talk to for there quests, and finding the ones that would give them side quests. While on a quest, and if a player had to talk to a certain NPC, there quest map would show them an area on the map, with a yellow circle and they just had to look for them. Now players can see on there mini game map and on the NPCs a ! to find the NPCs that they need to talk to. This is also the case if a player has too go to a certain area on a map to engage monsters or to enter a instance.

The Market Wards as well had some minor issues as well. In order to see what players had setup for sale, you had to go from retainer to retainer and just to see what was for sale, and what prices might be. Square Enix in a patch made it so you can now search the Market Wards to find the item(s) you’re looking for, and see the list of Retainers with the top 20 that are selling the item the cheapest.

Before the 1.19 patch players were given a Ranking and Physical leveling system similar to Final Fantasy V. This is where players had a base Physical lever that once the leveled up they would have points to put towards there base states, and there Rank level was for there current job class, where they could be a Rank 50 Conjuere (Black & White Mage roller into one) and a Rank 23 Archer. A player could change there job class by equipping a different item in there main hand. Once patch 1.19 was released the Physical Level was removed from the game, and players are now given set stats with there Job class and its level.

An ongoing issue that some players have had is that there isn’t much for armor and weapons that can give there charter a unique look. Square Enix has released new items and weapons that have a different looks to them over the last year, but some are level 1 items that are meant to be work while you’re in one of the three cities since they woun’t help you while you’re adventuring. And lets be honest the swimsuits were just for the otakus out there.

Other then that, nothing much has been added to the game. There has been some work on making more daily quests and side quests. The crafting aspect in Final Fantast XIV is a work in progress, with recipes still changing on what’s needed to make items, and some items being removed completely, and instead of needed a cretin little item to fix your gear or weapon, you now only need one out of the 5 “Dark Mater” items. The higher Leveled the item is the higher Dark Mater you’ll need to fix it.

Over the last year, Square Enix has released over 19 patches to the game, extending the amount of missions players can pick from, introduced the “Grand Companies” which give players more quests to pick from, Chocobo mounts that players can ride on, to the instruction to Materia which is used to give your items stat bonuses.

On October 14, 2011 players were addressed by President and CEO, Yoichi Wada that they will start to charge players for the game as of late November, early December 2011. (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/) Square Enix current billing rates for the game stand as:

$12.99/30 days game play
$3.00/ per extra character
$1.00/ per extra Retainer (As of this writing, this has yet to be implemented )

With this announcement Square Enix also released “The Road to Version 2.0”. This is a set of four PDFs that can be found at http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/

Mostly this shows what is in the works for the next chapter in Final Fantasy XIV. A few things in the works though are new type of playable charters such as the Male Miqo'te, and the in-game mail system. (Which has some would argue this was a setback since Final Fantasy XI has had this fetcher for years.) For the V2.0 of Final Fantasy XIV Square Enix will also be introducing a few new job classes such as White Mage, Black Mage, Bard and Paladin. It is currently unknown if these will be job classes that you can build off of from your current job classes or new ones that you have to build from the ground up, but more information will be released when Square Enix thinks its ready.

The bad thing is Square Enix is leaving all the major updates to the UI, and fetchers that players want now, for V2.0. Which isn’t coming out till late 2012. Some of the current players feel snubbed by this since they will have to pay for the game soon, and not see any real changes to there game till next year.

Now one has to wonder how much money Square Enix has put into Final Fantasy XIV with developing the game up to its launched in Sept 30, 2010, to now and having to pay for all the servers running the game, and the power.
While looking over the forms you’ll see many posts from players saying that there happy to start paying the monthly fee(s) for there beloved game and will defend Square Enix for there decision. But you will also find the other half of players that feel that there being stuck with the a game that’s still stuck in an open BETA, and Square Enix wants you to pay to play for it now, to quote a player’s comment on the forms “hey the game will be totally awsome and revamped next year will all new graphics, world, races, classes..ect....but can you pay us while we fix it for the next year...thanks!"

Anyone will tell you that Square Enix took a major risk to start charging it’s players with the games current state, and they’ll lose players over it. But I think it would be better to wait a two or three weeks to see how many players that quit the game come back. Only time will tell.

- Tatsuki Ishida

[MrLion]

Eh thats a really long post so the answer to your question is...no..

[dolionakifkinpos]

lets credit all the ppl who complained about the crappy state of the game, and those who completely abandoned it, for the 2.0 version thats coming, not the diehards who criticize us for pointing out t he flaws, and who will the pay there sub fees who will defend the game no matter how bad it is even to this day

[MrLion]

lets credit all the ppl who complained about the crappy state of the game, and those who completely abandoned it, for the 2.0 version thats coming, not the diehards who criticize us for pointing out t he flaws, and who will the pay there sub fees who will defend the game no matter how bad it is even to this day

Too bad the ones that are not paying are the minority.

[Atoli]

What's the point of this post?
I actually took the time to read through it, and..it's just a summary of what happened over the past 12 months o,O
Nothing worth reading, because it's nothing we don't know yet.
Basically: Okay, the game was not so great in the beginning, then some people complained and stuff got fixed, and some people still complain, so more stuff will be fixed in the future, and eventually everyone will leave when we have to pay, but we'll see in 2 months.

[dolionakifkinpos]

lol get your facts straight 650k copies sold their is probaly less then 50k ppl who play left after subs lets assume half the people leaves that 25k hardly makes for a vibrant community , its a buisness desicion to do 2.0 not to appease people that troll the forums cause its more fun then playing the game

[MrLion]

lol the 7UPs are becoming more and more vocal by the moment.

[Wynn]

I don't understand why people keep creating new threads... they can't possibly be missing the current ones that make up the entirety of the general discussion front page...

[quantumsaint]

Too bad the ones that are not paying are the minority.

The majority of FF fans and MMO fans don't play this game. We are the 1%.

[Alerith]

Glory to the 7UPs!