A shout out to the 1.0 players still here today

[Gemina]

A bit long, sorry!

I joined FFXIV just a little bit before patch 3.1 came. My knowledge of 1.x at this point came mostly from small, sporadic references mentioned here on these forums, and eventually the Coils of Bahamut questline. I do have vague memories of hearing about it failing, which along with a bad taste in my mouth left from FFXI, kept me from subscribing. I recently caught a video series on YouTube titled, "The Fall and Rise of FFXIV", and I now greatly regret that decision.

This series, made me feel what it is like to possess the echo. Through these videos, I saw in great detail how we got the game we are playing today. Everything from the atma currency to teleport, the grindy exp point/leveling system, those horrid world maps, atrocious UI, server crashes, the two directors stepping down and Yoshida stepping in to fill both positions.

That man, Naoki Yoshida. Talk about a stunt, that really should be known as one of the craziest and risky stunts in gaming history. He and his dev team decide to launch a calamity at 1.x in order to start 2.0. My eyes, ears, and brain were in non-stop absorption mode, all the way to the very haunting cutscenes players would experience when logging in, and the descension of Dalamud, and the heavily speculated, "The end is coming."

When I saw what players experienced on that epic day when the 1.x servers would go offline for good, I broke down in tears. All of the LSs huddled below Dalamud, the great Gobbue wall, Ul'dah running rampant with mobs, that violent clash with the Garleans, I really wish I could have been part of that. As empathetic as I am, I am sure there is still a lot that I would have to be there in order to fully understand. I would have dealt with all of that mess to have those precious memories.

So to you players who have your well earned Legacy Tattoos and chocobos, and still playing today, you have such a newfound respect from me. As a long time FF player, I should have been there with all of you. Thank you so much for your dedication which undoubtedly helped Yoshida's vision come to light!

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Some of us are still excited for whats to come. I don't really keep track, but I still see a few friends who are around from the old days.

[polyhedral]

No reason to respect any of us anymore than anyone else to be fair.

I liked 1.0, and get insulted when I admit it online, still.
I must have forgotten to sign the hive-mind contract that was going around back then.

Sure, it had it problems, but so does the current version.

[Gemina]

No reason to respect any of us anymore than anyone else to be fair.

I liked 1.0, and get insulted when I admit it online, still.
I must have forgotten to sign the hive-mind contract that was going around back then.

Sure, it had it problems, but so does the current version.

I respect everyone, don't worry! Just giving a special note of appreciation to those who endured.

Yeah, the current version does have some issues, and underperforms in certain areas compared to other mmos, but compared to then, the game has come so far.

[MOZZYSTAR]

When I saw what players experienced on that epic day when the 1.x servers would go offline for good, I broke down in tears. All of the LSs huddled below Dalamud, the great Gobbue wall, Ul'dah running rampant with mobs, that violent clash with the Garleans, I really wish I could have been part of that. As empathetic as I am, I am sure there is still a lot that I would have to be there in order to fully understand. I would have dealt with all of that mess to have those precious memories.

Wasn't this just amazing? I started in 1.0 when it first came out, but I started the game not knowing what an MMO was and had been expecting another standard FF title. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of dropping the game early on because I found it to be very disappointing (because it wasn't what I thought it would be). So, despite being there for 1.0 (briefly), I wasn't there to experience the calamity and after seeing the same video as you, I really regretted not committing to 1.0 because it really was just... so amazing. I wish I could have experienced that live. This regret encouraged me to get back in the game and try 2.0. Been around off and on ever since.

It makes me wonder when/if we ever finish this story/MMO if they will choose to end it in a similar way. If they ever did or ever had to, I hope so and I plan on being there when/if it happens.


P.S. very nice letter to the devs.

[Fawkes]

I wish I had experienced more of it. I couldn't get any of my friends to play with me even when there was no subscription fee.

[Gemina]

Wasn't this just amazing? I started in 1.0 when it first came out, but I started the game not knowing what an MMO was and had been expecting another standard FF title. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of dropping the game early on because I found it to be very disappointing (because it wasn't what I thought it would be). So, despite being there for 1.0 (briefly), I wasn't there to experience the calamity and after seeing the same video as you, I really regretted not committing to 1.0 because it really was just... so amazing. I wish I could have experienced that live. This regret encouraged me to get back in the game and try 2.0. Been around off and on ever since.

It makes me wonder when/if we ever finish this story/MMO if they will choose to end it in a similar way. If they ever did or ever had to, I hope so and I plan on being there when/if it happens.


P.S. very nice letter to the devs.

Truth be told, I retired from gaming after I left XI. I had absolutely no plans on coming back, and missed the remainder of PS2's lifespan, and the entire PS3 generation. It was Yoshida who convinced me to come back. Not personally of course, but through his passion for the franchise and dedication to keep SEs flagship series in the sky.

Whatever they have planned for this game going forward, I definitely plan on being there no matter what it is

[Ghastly]

I really like the direction 1.0 was taking after Yoshida joined, from what I saw on youtube. Wish I was there during the transition. Definitely have a lot of respect for the 1.0 players who never lost faith in Eorzea.
One thing I wish they would bring in 5.0 is a more dangerous world with rare things, 1.0 seemed like it was going in a direction where exploring was seeing as something special and important.

[KisaiTenshi]

I opted not to play very long into 1.0 due to the hardware requirements. It was just not viable to spend the money to upgrade the system to play something that wasn't in that good of shape. I wanted to see where the story was going, but it was just a slog to do, and when surrounded by 50 bots at every aetheryte, made the game feel like the developers didn't care about it.

Even for 2.0 I replaced the video card as a consequence of killing the previous card, and then when I got a 4K monitor that card was suffering so I justified replacing it with the top-end card (GTX 1080 at the time) when Neir:Automata came out.

Playing with good hardware makes a huge difference in playability. In some cases I can't believe anyone could bear playing this game at 720p on a laptop. There is just so little screen real estate at that resolution. At 4K I actually pushed down the UI widget sizes.

[Gemina]

I really like the direction 1.0 was taking after Yoshida joined, from what I saw on youtube. Wish I was there during the transition. Definitely have a lot of respect for the 1.0 players who never lost faith in Eorzea.
One thing I wish they would bring in 5.0 is a more dangerous world with rare things, 1.0 seemed like it was going in a direction where exploring was seeing as something special and important.

He may have very well single-handedly saved not only the franchise, but the company. Credit should also go to his dev team and support staff, but for the most part he chose who these people were.

After watching the videos, something really interesting to me that got scrapped was Hamlets. These instances actually allowed combat classes to work alongside the crafters and gatherers and I thought it was soooo cool! I think they could actually do something with that if the incentives are good enough for all DoM/DoW and DoH/DoL.