4gamer Interview

[Rufalus]

Man, remember all the Buzz around New World, Blue Protocol, Diablo IV, & Lost Ark?
I think Lost Ark might still be ok, but I dont hear about it anymore.

Sad state of things. Around the time FF XIV released we were getting news on "the largest sandbox style MMO ever designed" which was set to leapfrog everyone else - Everquest Next. It was going to have ahead-of-its-time tech with terrain deformation and physics systems.... and it was cancelled. That's the end of the EQ series being relevant.

WildStar looked good but that died. I would have tried if they made a console version. WoW is almost 20 years old now and it has never been on console. I still intend to try Blue Protocol when it is releases internationally but it has red flags; being run by Amazon tops the list.

S-E are at least very reliable at running an MMO. We're up-to-date on the English side of FF XIV because it's combined with JP service in a global version, not spun off to a less reliable company. And they have in-house localisation. And they aren't going bust or ending service any time soon.

'Good enough' will have to do. There is no wildly innovative next-gen MMO coming to shake up the market and displace FF XIV unless they wake up and adapt to new ideas.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Sounds like a fair statement to me. In New World's case, the players misinterpreted the NW devs' intent as making a fun and interesting MMORPG.

The devs' intent was to grab a piece of the MMORPG market using a minimum of knowledge about making MMORPGs. They're still doing it with all the packages they keep adding to their cash shop.

Maybe if players had waited before rushing in on the hype train to buy, they wouldn't have fallen into the trap.

New World is still going? I thought the poor implementation of the ideas that sounded good on paper killed off what was left after their 4 day long login queues when it launched.

A fair amount of issues in games in general in more recent years IMO are a result of devs not thinking like actual gamers when designing the game which results in systems and mechanics getting manipulated easily to the point it breaks the game. While not so much of an issue with a single player game it tends to become a serious issue with multiplayer or MMO games. Going off trends with CBU3 it seems their approach to this is to simply take options away from players to excessively limit what they can do in game. Which IMO is counter to the entire concept of an RPG.

[Noumenon]

The devs' intent was to grab a piece of the MMORPG market using a minimum of knowledge about making MMORPGs. They're still doing it with all the packagesmounts they keep adding to their cash shop.

You're absolutely correct about FF14