actual content

[GreyJorildyn]

Yes well, DIRECTION is what people need. Personally I love quest chain levelling. This is a concept SE should have known was part of the modern mmorpg. Anyone with a brain who hasn't played only XI knows this. You cannot simply login with a weapon after a cutscene, do onr quest, and thrust players out into the world. To do what exactly? Make their own adventure? I'll let you in on a little secret--that sounds really appealing on paper or as an advertising scheme, but majority players do not want that. They want to be told where to go. They want to follow a road to a quest hub, do 10 quests to levelup, to unlock new quests, the last of which sends then ahead to the next quest hub. Sure XIV has quests, but they are scattered with zero direction. The whole "quest design" of this game has you boomeranging back to town everytime. It's like you're tethered to cities and it sucks. People want to move forward, not in circles.

Trust me, that is what players want. More theme park, less sandbox. Six Flags is way more fun than the local park, right? After playing so many mmos over the past 10 years, I can confidently say all these things. Of course, there's need to be some light at the end of that road and so end game is important. However, getting there is also important and is the reason why these open world, mob-grinding, lack-of-quest models do not survive in the current mmo world.

Hopefully they have realized this and will fix it. A lot transparency will be needed too and that's something they're improving on, but are still light years behind the competition with.

[Maxthunder]

Yes well, DIRECTION is what people need. Personally I love quest chain levelling. This is a concept SE should have known was part of the modern mmorpg. Anyone with a brain who hasn't played only XI knows this. You cannot simply login with a weapon after a cutscene, do onr quest, and thrust players out into the world. To do what exactly? Make their own adventure? I'll let you in on a little secret--that sounds really appealing on paper or as an advertising scheme, but majority players do not want that. They want to be told where to go. They want to follow a road to a quest hub, do 10 quests to levelup, to unlock new quests, the last of which sends then ahead to the next quest hub. Sure XIV has quests, but they are scattered with zero direction. The whole "quest design" of this game has you boomeranging back to town everytime. It's like you're tethered to cities and it sucks. People want to move forward, not in circles.

Trust me, that is what players want. More theme park, less sandbox. Six Flags is way more fun than the local park, right? After playing so many mmos over the past 10 years, I can confidently say all these things. Of course, there's need to be some light at the end of that road and so end game is important. However, getting there is also important and is the reason why these open world, mob-grinding, lack-of-quest models do not survive in the current mmo world.

Hopefully they have realized this and will fix it. A lot transparency will be needed too and that's something they're improving on, but are still light years behind the competition with.

I disagree because and I know I am not the only one. I personally like to do things and go places when, where and how I want. I dont need quest based leveling, I want to grind when I want and do other things when I want. I want to explore on my own when I want. Seriously why do you need some one to give you or other players direction? Give me a big world let me explore it and do other things when, where and how I choose to. I dont need direction, there is no need in this. Maybe some people need their hands held all the way to level 50 or what not but I dont, and I am sure not everyone wants that.

[SnickleWhiskers]

I do enjoy quest leveling up i do but don't get me wrong you also only have one class in other mmos, and questing based games are tailored to only having one job to get you to max.

[Alzelia]

I do enjoy quest leveling up i do but don't get me wrong you also only have one class in other mmos, and questing based games are tailored to only having one job to get you to max.

This is the biggest advantage and biggest burden FFXIV has. All the empathesis on leveling multiple classes in FFXIV means we really need an insane amount of content, or else we will get bored.

[Frisky]

I disagree because and I know I am not the only one. I personally like to do things and go places when, where and how I want. I dont need quest based leveling, I want to grind when I want and do other things when I want. I want to explore on my own when I want. Seriously why do you need some one to give you or other players direction? Give me a big world let me explore it and do other things when, where and how I choose to. I dont need direction, there is no need in this. Maybe some people need their hands held all the way to level 50 or what not but I dont, and I am sure not everyone wants that.

As with most (all?) other MMORPGs, there is always the ability to simply grind and explore and not even bother with quests.
What do quest bring to the table that D.I.Y. gaming does not? History, lore, a broader view of the environment and its inhabitants.
It's not always about direction. It's not always about "quest-based-leveling".

[Kopuno]

I'm all for more story content. I love ffxi storylines, and a bit part of why I loved ffxi was the grinding with group mates. I maybe the minority but with so many pointless questing type games, I am happy SE has still stuck somewhat to the route of grouping for xp. I don't care for quest, I don't need quest to tell me what to do. The base majority doesn't even read quest when they do them. They look at the reward, what needs to be killed, what needs to be collected and they do it. So would you be happy if SE put in a bunch of quest that were pretty much..

"Hello Adventurer! Damn Crabs are taking over the local species of Birdonxians,. The Crabs have a huge hunger for the Birdonxians Eggs, which we live on as a part of our normal diet. Please, get a group of fellow Adventurers and go kill 450 of these evil Crabs, and while your at it, bring back some of the Birdonxians Eggs that they clutch under there undershell. When you done, please run these Eggs to the three capitals, and talk to there respective lead culinarians! Do this and I'll reward you this nifty armor you will replace in a couple level, and 7000 xp!!!"

[wiremeshi]

Oh dear do I stick my neck out before I'm off for Christmas fun? why not only live once.

GreyJorildyn:

"are scattered with zero direction. The whole "quest design" of this game has you boomeranging back to town everytime."

Did touch on something I wanted to discuss, and that being the quest structure. I was discussing this with friend who works for a game company. And the subject about the way quests are laid out in other MMOs they are or seem to be designed with progress of the player, each area is tailored to suit the player current level and once the player is done and is ready to move on there will be another set of quests ready for him/her in the next area.

Having the sweeping generalizations and Hyperbole aside on my behalf it does make you think about the level design aspects of the game and I hope this will be thought on if they do implement more quests.

I would like to elaborate a lot more but I off to my folks merry Xmas!

[Tonco]

Personally I prefer the more sandbox style MMO as you feel more a part of the game world, its more of your own adventure rather than one all laid out on a linear path for you, the problem with games like The Old Republic is that you start your character and your pretty much restricted on where and what you do next, do these quests and move on to the next bunch of quests, sometimes you feel like just stepping back and wanting to have the freedom to just do what you want to do rather than what the game is wanting you to do, I enjoy questing on XIV but I'm glad its mostly optional, free to do when you want and not the only way to progress.

[Jennestia]

FF11 also suffered from a lack of low level storyline aswell, hopefully they will sort this out by the time 2.0 is launched.

Hm...nope. Various nation quests, (some that were actual quest chains, i.e Star Onion Brigade), the nation missions lines that were up until rank 7 were doable between level 1 - 55, not to mention when CoP released (1 year after NA launch) that was the capped storyline, which was level 30 - 50 cap all the way up intil chapter 6, which was then 60 cap.

So Vanilla > Zilart > CoP there was plenty of low level storyline and quests.

Considering FFXIV is being overhauled there's not a serious focus on content versus a serious focus on making the game work, and lack of content isn't the game's biggest issues, even SE stated the foundation is very poor -- Which is the most important to any video game, content comes second so when they're done overhauling the game, you'll see an influx of content. Look at FFXI, you have an endless supply of content to do because they aren't overhauling the game -- Whether you want to is a different story.

free to do when you want and not the only way to progress.

Yeah, I'm honestly sick of quest based leveling -- People complain about Guildleves, yet they don't realize quest based leveling MMOs are essentially the same things, just plows you to different areas on a set path till you're stuck doing PvP and the same type of instances over and over.

Very rarely do quest based leveling actually offer much of anything in terms of a coherent storyline, they're thinly veiled kill quests with an occasional picture slideshow or cutscene.

[Gramul]

People complain about Guildleves, yet they don't realize quest based leveling MMOs are essentially the same things...
Very rarely do quest based leveling actually offer much of anything in terms of a coherent storyline, they're thinly veiled kill quests with an occasional picture slideshow or cutscene.

Well, yeah, if they SUCK.


Really though. At the very least, normal sidequests have you progressing through the game world or at least through a simple story. Guildleves have you running to the same blasted desk to pick up the same blasted quests to do at the same blasted camp sites.

I have always hated quest distribution like that. It's always felt very cold, mechanical and dull. I'll take zone and character variety over the DMV/DPS sterility of leve distribution any day.