Final Fantasy XI's rocky start?

[Deltara]

I've seen it mentioned a few times on forums that FFXI had a rough start as well. I started playing FFXI shortly before CoP was released, so I wasn't there from the get-go. I'm wondering if some of you FFXI old-timers might be able to elaborate about how bad it was when it first opened.

FFXI was a very successful game and I'm wondering how the parallels to FFXIV run.

What sort of problems did FFXI have on launch day, and exactly how much did they change along the way to making it the game we all know and love/love-hate?

[nasomi]

NA wasn't there from the start, because it was JP onry until RoZ was released. It was a bit rocky, however in all honesty there was more to do... even without expansions. City rank missions, for one. Plenty of unlockable jobs, and more defined leveling areas, there was jueno as well. And progression for people was a lot slower back then, now everyone wants to race to the top as fast as they can, which totally sucks because I enjoy taking my time. Also bear in mind that ffxiv is being completely redesigned in absolute record time for creating a whole new game, while being completely redesigned for the legacy environment as well. Both difficult tasks.

[Kuroyume_Black]

I never played XI so I wasn't aware that it was JP only at the start, I agree that XIV and XI are two differentgames I wish people would stop looking back at XI and want XIV to be like it, the dev team is capable of doing both a game that's different than XI and as good as or even better than XI. The main reasons people want to rush to the top so quickly is that 1. Its easy and 2. All the content thats interesting is at the top...

[Xatsh]

The games released in almost identical conditions. XI did not have adv jobs or anything at release was added after launch.

The major difference between the 2, is Tanaka did not change anything with the release of XI and just added more and more to it every patch.

With XIV currently, the games foundation is being completely rewritten so we are getting actual content at a much much slower rate then it was added to XI.

It is a negative of the revamp. If Tanaka was left in charge there would of most likly been alot more content at this point similar to how XI was done... The timelines of XI and XIV under tanaka where running in parallel almost.

[Kiote]

The games released in almost identical conditions. XI did not have adv jobs or anything at release was added after launch.

The major difference between the 2, is Tanaka did not change anything with the release of XI and just added more and more to it every patch.

With XIV currently, the games foundation is being completely rewritten so we are getting actual content at a much much slower rate then it was added to XI.

It is a negative of the revamp. If Tanaka was left in charge there would of most likly been alot more content at this point similar to how XI was done... The timelines of XI and XIV under tanaka where running in parallel almost.

This is pretty much spot on..

The Biggest Reason FFXIV Tanked the way it did was because there was zero content. An MMO can be released with the worst mechanics in the world and just get fixed along the way, they just need to have something that distracts players. I'm glad they decided to do large scale fixes in this game, but the main reason people keep leaving and coming back and leaving again is because there is nothing to do.

The Dev Team needs to get off the WoW-like release a dungeon every few months kick and start making real content or this game will go no where.

[Cichy]

This is pretty much spot on..

The Biggest Reason FFXIV Tanked the way it did was because there was zero content. An MMO can be released with the worst mechanics in the world and just get fixed along the way, they just need to have something that distracts players. I'm glad they decided to do large scale fixes in this game, but the main reason people keep leaving and coming back and leaving again is because there is nothing to do.

The Dev Team needs to get off the WoW-like release a dungeon every few months kick and start making real content or this game will go no where.

This is what I've been saying since the beginning. If there were shinny armors/weapons, alot of missions, etc way more people would be willing to stick with the game and put up with the bs system. However, nothing you did seemed to produce any type of impact or result. MMO players are like racoons, we like shinny stuff. They still need to stop recoloring the same pieces of gear for 50th time if they planning for us to care.

[Demacia]

This is what I've been saying since the beginning. If there were shinny armors/weapons, alot of missions, etc way more people would be willing to stick with the game and put up with the bs system. However, nothing you did seemed to produce any type of impact or result. MMO players are like racoons, we like shinny stuff. They still need to stop recoloring the same pieces of gear for 50th time if they planning for us to care.

Hey at the very least we get a nice start on that department with job armor in 1.21.

[Deltara]

It's not exactly that I want FFXIV and FFXI to be similar (which to be honest, we all do in a general sense... which is why they are releasing the job system anyway), but more that I really want to put into perspective the game-developing process/timeline.

The fact that FFXI and FFXIV are both MMORGPs, are both FF titles, are both released by the same company, both share the same fanbase/userbase... all of this really does mean that we can compare the two games in a useful way.

Xatsh's comment really makes me wonder what the game would be like if it had kept on the original path. Of course, it is only a mental exercise at this point, but an interesting notion nonetheless.

I'm actually quite happy with the direction FFXIV is heading.

[viion]

There is a site that lists all the patch changes somewhere, i forgot where tho, i think on jp button?

Even though people like to try compare it to XIV, they seem to forget that it was in a different time, a different age of mmos where the f2p wasnt big and barely exist, a age where mmo's was new and high speed broadband was just coming into play, a time where things were still experimental and a time where world wide releases were uncommon.

The standards back then were very lacked and forgiveable than they are now.

[Babydoll]

I used to have a list of all the changes that were made to XI from day one lol. It may have been from elmothepointy. I can't remember where but yeah they didn't have any advanced job, level cap was 50 and there was hardly anything to do haha.