THat new UI.

[irongripz]

we all love it but i'm sure we're all wondering... why wasn't it done before, say at launch?

not kidding along with why was the servers and game engine made with prehistoric crap, reused from a game made 10+ years ago?

[Delsus]

I'm not sold. Static images mean nothing. Now hands on demo... why you had me at hands on.

That could just be the image from the designers that the devs designed and Yoshi-P finalised, I'm not even sure if they have a 2.0 test server running yet but if they do I would expect them to release a video of it working soon.

[Teakwood]

Naw, if it had been reused from FFXI's it would have been a lot better than it actually was on release. >____>

[Holy_Dragoon]

If the UI even LOOKs like the mock up, I will be extremely happy. Functionality would put me in FF heaven.

[Delsus]

not kidding along with why was the servers and game engine made with prehistoric crap, reused from a game made 10+ years ago?

The engine was not reused from a game made 10+ years ago, it was designed a few years ago and the first game it was used for was FFXIII, however it didnt work too well with MMOs.

Also I dont know what game you mean with 10+ years ago, because FFXI was released in Japan 9 years ago, which its widely known they didnt get the servers from because I think it is on the DVD included with the collectors edition, never actually checked mine I guess I should sometime.

[Klive]

Yeah Yoshi-p did this...

Yoshi-p~ I accept this position
Team~ YAY!!

Yoshi-p~ What do we have to work with... oh look this is messed up this is messed up.. oh what the heck Tanaka why is this in here.. ok team what shall we do...

Team~ LETS BLOW UP EORZEA

Yoshi-P~ Great Plan!!

so... if you can't fix it, blow it up!

[TheFatHousecat]

I love the new UI, I love the new producer, I love the new team, I love the new world, and I love the new vision!

I LOVE EVERYBODY

[Onidemon]

If the UI even LOOKs like the mock up, I will be extremely happy. Functionality would put me in FF heaven.

It is not a mock up, they confirmed in as a in-game realtime screenshot.

[Fensfield]

Well then...

Am I the only one loving it?

No, I like it a lot. That said, I'd miss being able to hide away the secondary commands in a pull-out menu, and I hope the option will remain to have the action bar only appear when I have an engaged target. Also, it isn't the most controller-friendly-looking thing in the world; as a gamepad user I'm still very much waiting for similar detail on the gamepad-specific UI that the developers also promised. Hopefully it'll build on the good points of what we currently have; it's already pretty comfy so far as I'm concerned.

we all love it but i'm sure we're all wondering... why wasn't it done before, say at launch?

Because, I assume, the rush out the door meant that they only had time to build up one UI and systems behind it, and so attempted to hybridise one seems to have been intended for use primarily by a controller.

It wasnt done before because Tanaka wanted to rush the game out to start making money, this backfired and Yoshi-P is being careful not to make the same mistakes as Tanaka.

Yoichi Wada and the other Square-Enix executives are the ones with final say on release dates. Whether Hiromichi Tanaka said he could achieve a viable game despite the problems they were having is still in question, but the execs are the ones who had veto on when Final Fantasy XIV came out, and they chose not to block the launch in favour of further development.

Only question here is whether or not they forced it out against Tanaka's team's recommendation of if he and his team were with them on the decision. Which I find highly unlikely. No development team pushes for less time to work on a project, especially not one they know is in trouble - and Yoshida has in the past stated that the company did indeed know they were in difficulty a fair while before release.

So.. yeah. Yay new UI! Now, do please hurry up and show us similar prototypes for the gamepad one and OH LOOK TANAKA BASHING.

[tymora]

Tanaka built a game for 2005 and wondered why it didn't sell in 2010. And judging from the various aspects of the game (like graphics engine and UI...), he built a game for PS3 and wondered why it didn't sell on the PC as well.
Game makers needs to play games and keep themselves up to date.