LOLPATCH 1.16a

[Abriael]

I am a fan of Square-Enix. I am not a Square-Enix fanboy.

Final Fantasy 10 was my first Final Fantasy. It is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time. I spent an entire summer learning how to play Zanarkand on the piano - having never played piano before.

FFXI was my first MMO. In my opinion, it is the best MMO out there. It has some major problems but considering my incredibly favorable impression of Square-Enix, I had assumed that SE would take what it's learned from it's 8 years of FFXI and release the best MMO for years to come.

I will not just support something right or wrong. Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

Unfortunately Square Enix did learn a lesson fron Final Fantasy XI: That you can release a game much before it's ready and patch it after, and still be successful.

I'm sure many would love a FFXI-2. Personally, I can only applaud the choice to try to innovate the model. I played FFXI for 6 years. That's plenty to get bored, even when a game is great. And FFXI was. But still, after 6 years, I found myself bored.

Incidentally, the MMO that I think is the best in the market is Dark Age of Camelot. I'm quite glad to see that Yoshida agrees

[BelgianRofl]

Unfortunately Square Enix did learn a lesson fron Final Fantasy XI: That you can release a game much before it's ready and patch it after, and still be successful.

I wonder what lesson they learned with FFXIV. Mr. Tanaka certainly learned a thing or two.

[Abriael]

I wonder what lesson they learned with FFXIV. Mr. Tanaka certainly learned a thing or two.

Probably he learned that investing his face publicly when the real decisions are taken elsewhere is not a good idea.
I don't have a natural admiration for Tanaka, but I seriously doubt that the decisions that most drastically impacted FFXIV in a negative way were his or majorly his.
Tanaka was the producer. While every company has a different definition of what a producer is, I know for a fact that in SE a producer doesn't cover the role of a game director as well, and still has to bow to executive decisions.

I emphathize with you Belgian. I also dislike how people color you a troll when you're simply attempting to stir up the community into earnest thought.

The community doesn't need to be stirred up more than it is. Thinking that some of the basic areas of this game have merit and should be preserved doesn't mean needing to be "stirred up".
Also, there's a big difference between "stirring up" and intentionally spreading negativity and FUD, every single day, always looking for (often completely out of line, like in this case) excuses to do so, without a single spec of constructiveness.

Game development needs constructive feedback, and that's what the forums are for. Self elected robin hoods should learn that stay in sherwood. Overdramatized support posts don't really make their methods any less disruptive.

[Evenstar]

Probably he learned that investing his face publicly when the real decisions are taken elsewhere is not a good idea.
I don't have a natural admiration for Tanaka, but I seriously doubt that the decisions that most drastically impacted FFXIV in a negative way were his or majorly his.
Tanaka was the producer. While every company has a different definition of what a producer is, I know for a fact that in SE a producer doesn't cover the role of a game director as well, and still has to bow to executive decisions.



The community doesn't need to be stirred up more than it is. Thinking that some of the basic areas of this game have merit and should be preserved doesn't mean needing to be "stirred up".
Also, there's a big difference between "stirring up" and intentionally spreading negativity and FUD, every single day, always looking for (often completely out of line, like in this case) excuses to do so, without a single spec of constructiveness.

Game development needs constructive feedback, and that's what the forums are for. Self elected robin hoods should learn that stay in sherwood.

The last part of your post basically is what I tried to say in my post above and I totally agree with you.

[Zaene]

The community doesn't need to be stirred up more than it is. Thinking that some of the basic areas of this game have merit and should be preserved doesn't mean needing to be "stirred up".
Also, there's a big difference between "stirring up" and intentionally spreading negativity and FUD, every single day, always looking for (often completely out of line, like in this case) excuses to do so, without a single spec of constructiveness.

Game development needs constructive feedback, and that's what the forums are for. Self elected robin hoods should learn that stay in sherwood. Overdramatized support posts don't really make their methods any less disruptive.

We shall have to agree to disagree then, my good man. You are entitled to your opinion as am I, I shall not attempt to argue for my opinion seeing as doing so generally just makes everyone else entrench further in their folly. However, I am of the opinion that self-elected Robin Hoods are awesome. You would prefer a "Robin Hood" that was elected by popular vote?

"Intentionally Spreading Negativity" I suppose a great many "Muckrakers" did that as well. The general consensus was they needed to "quiet down". The overarching theme of history at large is people forget the bad things if they're idle enough.

Is that good? Subjective. Is that bad? Subjective.

Also, for someone who loves the tar out of subjectivity a statement such as "Game development needs constructive feedback, and that's what the forums are for." Seems highly suspect. I mean, who am I or who are you to say what these forums are for? Maybe they're to gauge player attitudes? Maybe they're to lighten SE's countenance?

I don't know. People should say that more often because it sure as heck is true of far more people than would ever admit it.

[Abriael]

We shall have to agree to disagree then, my good man. You are entitled to your opinion as am I, I shall not attempt to argue for my opinion seeing as doing so generally just makes everyone else entrench further in their folly. However, I am of the opinion that self-elected Robin Hoods are awesome. You would prefer a "Robin Hood" that was elected by popular vote?

No, I would prefer people with a constructive and actually useful attitude over glorified thieves

"Intentionally Spreading Negativity" I suppose a great many "Muckrakers" did that as well. The general consensus was they needed to "quiet down". The overarching theme of history at large is people forget the bad things if they're idle enough.

The small detail you're not noticing is that the forums definitely aren't idle. There are hundreds of posts bursting full with suggestions and requests for changes. So people simply aren not "idle enough". No one here needs a muckracker to tell him that this game needs to evolve, if you didn't notice. Further stirring isn't needed, as much as some are quite evidently convinced that they know better than everyone else.

Sorry mate, this is game development, not politics.

Also, for someone who loves the tar out of subjectivity a statement such as "Game development needs constructive feedback, and that's what the forums are for." Seems highly suspect. I mean, who am I or who are you to say what these forums are for? Maybe they're to gauge player attitudes? Maybe they're to lighten SE's countenance?

The rules of the forums establish what these forums are for, as the various developer posts about it. Guess what? they all talk about constructiveness, respect (which includes first and foremost respect for the development team) and similar concepts. There's nothing subjective about that.

While i do agree single player games wont do anything towards the mmo market, let us not forget that other AAA MMOs are coming soon.

There are already plenty MMOs on the market, one of which is more dangerous to FFXIV (and to any other) than any other "AAA" MMO out there (quotes obligatory, since only SWTOR is actually classifiable as "AAA", and the sci-fi crowd is quite disjoined from the Final Fantasy one).
There's no ticking clock. As much as other MMOs will influence FFXIV, FFXIV's releases will influence them (if they're good) in turn. That's how the market works.
And none of them will influence the others as much as the sole presence of WoW (and the release of any of it's major patches or expansions) does.

[Zkieve]

There's no ticking clock. As much as other MMOs will influence FFXIV, FFXIV's releases will influence them (if they're good) in turn. That's how the market works.
And none of them will influence the others as much as the sole presence of WoW (and the release of any of it's major patches or expansions) does.

So you think loosing a big chunk of what is left on FFXIV population wont matter ?
because lets face it , a good MMO comes out people will go and play it.
Somewhat i find that hard to believe.

[Abriael]

So you think loosing a big chunk of what is left on FFXIV population wont matter ?
because lets face it , a good MMO comes out people will go and play it.
Somewhat i find that hard to believe.

ANY game will lose a chunk of it's population every time another game is released. Even WoW, mind you. To think that developers should burn their chances to improve the game because they need to make haste and beat other games to the market is simply to deny the nature of the gaming market.

Zkieve, seeing as how you are a rank 50, may I ask your opinion on the current Class system and Battle system?
How do you feel about party tactics? Individuality? Challenge?
Some are of the opinion that being rank 15, I cannot have a valid opinion of battle in FFXIV.

I'm sure that you understand that the fact that you may be able to find higher level people that may(or may not) agree with your ideas doesn't change the fact that you didn't experience what you're talking about, ergo, your opinion isn't founded on anything else that banter on a forum. Experience it, then judge. It's pretty simple and trying to change subject won't change that.

Personally I can say that tanking in FFXIV is one of the mist fun and challenging experiences in a MMO to date. The only system I liked more was in Age of Conan before Funcom dumbed it down to appease those that couldn't master it.
Considering how many i see that, even at level 50, can't hold aggro for the life of them, and stubbornly refuse to use most of the tools they have at their hand to ensure just that, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a lot of people simply didn't even get a small part of the combat system.
I see too many tanks that are absolute trainwrecks around me to exclude that very solid possibility.

[Evenstar]

So you think loosing a big chunk of what is left on FFXIV population wont matter ?
because lets face it , a good MMO comes out people will go and play it.
Somewhat i find that hard to believe.

You DO NOT KNOW if that is going to happen. That is what I am trying to tell you and the others that think like you. You are just guessing. You are trying to present your opinion as a fact. I do not see any MMORPG that will be released in 2011 that can have a really big impact on the playerbase of FFXIV.

The whole the clock is ticking thing is as valid as me saying FFXIV will beat WoW when the PS3 version is released, because Square Enix is cool and WoW has no moogles.

Most people that would leave FFXIV already left. The few left understand what SE has to do and are waiting for Yoshi to fix the game. The problem is not SE or FFXIV. The problem is a small part of the current player base that do not understand that developing a game and changing the very basics of the game play take some time ...

They are not going to add or remove a small thing. They are talking about redoing whole maps, fixing the battle mechanics and redoing whole class balancing. That is not doable in a week, a month or even a few months ... it takes time. Give it time ...

A few weeks ago everyone was so damn happy about RIFT. RIFT was so cool, so new, so polished ... and so boring because it is a WoW copy. It only took them a few days to come back and troll the FFXIV forums instead of playing their beloved RIFT.

The coming MMOs will do as much damage as RIFT did to FFXIV, which is almost none ...