PS3 UI Screens

[Yucie]

As much as people want to hate on and bash Tanaka and the previous team, most of which as YoshiP said still works on XIV, people need to remember that ARR is Yoshida's first real step to prove is he has what it takes or not -- When he took over XIV 1.0 he stated he was pushing out the updates and content the previous team had in the works then it would be stuff he as a director/producer puts in the pipeline like the Job system.

As much as people want to say ARR is a brand new game, if it takes place on the same planet and follow the same storyline, it's the same game -- The design may be different but most people will always remember Final Fantasy XIV as the MMO that failed in 2010 and there's a hell of a lot they need to do to get people and keep them despite that. "No press is bad press" but in terms of MMOs, not many get a successful second chance.

What most people "lol you all complain everything!" seem to ignore is that in terms of graphics, they are a step back from current, you can deny this tll your fingers fall off if you want, but it's fact; This is why people will comment on the graphics at all -- while graphics aren't everything, not everyone is blind to changes being made for ARR or will be happy with everything.

People are going to bash Tanaka over and over, no matter how much anyone defends him. It was him and his team that were responsible for FFXIV back in 2010, and from what little activity there was in patching the game, delivering content and news, and things of the like, we can now see that Tanaka had no ambitions for the game and it's future -- it was pushed out the door at a very bad time in the pipeline, and the game was nothing more than a skeleton. The one responsible for this, if not solely, was Tanaka for allowing this to happen.

When we see Yoshida, we see progress. We see vision, and we see ambition. As director and producer, for 2 years him and his huge team have worked on rebuilding the game almost entirely from scratch, with a new engine, new zones, and pretty much everything used in ARR will be their handiwork, and not recycled from current FFXIV1.x. He's passionate about his job, and he seems to love what he's doing. He keeps in contact with the fans at events, he writes us letters, and news is coming (though I admit, some of it is certainly slow in arriving). With Tanaka, we never saw ANYTHING and the game never really went anywhere until they shuffled the development teams and put Yoshi-P in charge.

He has played MMOs, including the world's largest. From being a hardcore player of these games, he'll have the experience and knowledge required to make a game that is worthy of being called Final Fantasy. So far, he's doing just that - the concept art, new zones, the new (and faster) battle system, chocobo raising - all of that seems spectacular and strong, and with each new announcement, or batch of screens, or concept art, I grow even more anxious to finally sit down and play ARR for myself. I'm really excited for it.

The FFXIV team needs a strong leader who can guide the game and fulfill his vision of an awesome MMO. I believe that person is Yoshida, and he's done nothing short of miracle work since they started 2 years ago. So please, don't say that him wanting everything to perfection is a bad thing - it's what the game needs. The fans, and peers of FFXIV won't settle for anything less than perfection at this point.

[Jennestia]

People are going to bash Tanaka over and over, no matter how much anyone defends him. It was him and his team that were responsible for FFXIV back in 2010, and from what little activity there was in patching the game, delivering content and news, and things of the like, we can now see that Tanaka had no ambitions for the game and it's future -- it was pushed out the door at a very bad time in the pipeline, and the game was nothing more than a skeleton. The one responsible for this, if not solely, was Tanaka for allowing this to happen.

Maybe it works differently where you're from but in Japan, most companies I've worked with it's more up to the ones running a company when something needs to be out, not so much the ones leading a project -- We still have our bosses too. Tanaka said time and time again XIV was not ready up until it was given it's September release date.

When we see Yoshida, we see progress. We see vision

As I said, a lot of updates Yoshida pushed out was from Tanaka's team; The only vision of Yoshida's we seen for sure based on timing was the Job system and up to the conclusion of the 7th Umbral era storyline, and even that is likely the team's idea more so than Yoshi's as the team for the most part is the same, only the managerial portion was reformed.

The FFXIV team needs a strong leader who can guide the game and fulfill his vision of an awesome MMO. I believe that person is Yoshida, and he's done nothing short of miracle work since they started 2 years ago.

So once again, most of the updates "he has done miracles with" were the previous teams when he took over, ARR is pretty much the thing he has done and we're still waiting for actual information, let alone to get it in our hands to see if he truly did perform a miracle or not.

So please, don't say that him wanting everything to perfection is a bad thing - it's what the game needs. The fans, and peers of FFXIV won't settle for anything less than perfection at this point.

This is why I feel XIV has a very high chance of failing, people will expect too much and if expectations aren't met -- well, we've seen what happens to MMOs. I think this is why some people will easily jump on someone for having a different point of view from completely being happy with everything.

[Yucie]

Maybe it works differently where you're from but in Japan, most companies I've worked with it's more up to the ones running a company when something needs to be out, not so much the ones leading a project -- We still have our bosses too. Tanaka said time and time again XIV was not ready up until it was given it's September release date.

As I said, a lot of updates Yoshida pushed out was from Tanaka's team; The only vision of Yoshida's we seen for sure based on timing was the Job system and up to the conclusion of the 7th Umbral era storyline, and even that is likely the team's idea more so than Yoshi's as the team for the most part is the same, only the managerial portion was reformed.

So once again, most of the updates "he has done miracles with" were the previous teams when he took over, ARR is pretty much the thing he has done and we're still waiting for actual information, let alone to get it in our hands to see if he truly did perform a miracle or not.

This is why I feel XIV has a very high chance of failing, people will expect too much and if expectations aren't met -- well, we've seen what happens to MMOs. I think this is why some people will easily jump on someone for having a different point of view from completely being happy with everything.

I wasn't talking at all about Yoshida's work on the current version of the game. Every reference I've made to his work is their development of the 2.0 engine, that content, those new maps, enemies, etc. And Tanaka certainly had his bosses at Squeenix.. however, that's no excuse for how the game ended up. If it isn't entirely his fault (and I still dislike him greatly for the stagnation of FFXI) he's still partially responsible. As Director/producer, it was his job to see to the game and make sure everything was ready, and if things weren't ready, it was still his job to get more of the support and time he needed to actually release the game in even a partially-completed state. Somewhere along the line he failed to perform as expected of him in his position, and that's where Yoshida joined us.

With the re-release of FFXIV, it's not so much about expectation - people have already seen the game fail miserably once, and as a result a lot of gamers have close to zero expectation for A Realm Reborn. The only gamers that might have any expectations for the game at release are the people who are currently playing, and WILL be playing until 1.0 servers go offline.

Since expectations seem very low across the board for ARR, it's Yoshida's job to make sure that the game is released in a condition that feels complete, and feels wonderful; he needs to surprise the doom-whisperers with something amazing, that will turn people's opinions with a one-eighty. But we don't even need to say that at this point - all the current players know that if ARR isn't anything shy of amazing, it will probably fail again. But, throughout the past 2 years, he seems to have done a wonderful job with the engine, possible content, and any other assets, if concept art and screenshots are anything to go by.

Another upside to Yoshida's work is the PS3 version of ARR. It exists, we have screenshots, and it's supposedly going to be released in-tandem with the PC version. I've been to various forums, and I even know people IRL who say "The PS3 version is coming? Can't wait!", which means that the team has access to a market of gamers that have been waiting to play XIV on their console since the beginning. That's a huge plus.

But, by all means, if you only think the game is going to fail, keep thinking that. Games go nowhere when players have that kind of attitude, lol.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

As I said, a lot of updates Yoshida pushed out was from Tanaka's team; The only vision of Yoshida's we seen for sure based on timing was the Job system and up to the conclusion of the 7th Umbral era storyline, and even that is likely the team's idea more so than Yoshi's as the team for the most part is the same, only the managerial portion was reformed.

So once again, most of the updates "he has done miracles with" were the previous teams when he took over, ARR is pretty much the thing he has done and we're still waiting for actual information, let alone to get it in our hands to see if he truly did perform a miracle or not.

Sorry, but this is pure ignorance. After it was announced that Tanaka will be stepping down as director and Yoshida would be coming in as director and producer, which wasn't exactly a snap judgement by the way, the team stopped developing for a month to follow a new path to salvage the current version. Maybe what you're thinking of are the already made dungeon zones and models created, but the direction and implementation of those things had nothing to do with Tanaka.

If it were up to him, we'd have barbaric and reminiscent systems to XI with a slightly less tedious and grindy leveling system, a thousand unawnsered questions proposed in interviews, no ambition to pull FFXIV in today's standards of MMORPGs, and only make the game appealing to those games in a very niche market. Something had to give. I mean, I had fond memories of FFXI too, but I was also a lot younger then, had more fun and formed a lot of nostalgia, and had more time on my hands. However, if I had the choice to go back or take those same systems and implement it on 2.0's engine with Tanaka's direction, I'd probably look for something else. He doesn't show growth with a community that has grown with his games. It screams stagnant even if you take Wada rushing the game's release out of the equation.

Anyway, the point is there is a clear vision that this isn't the same director when looking at FFXIV today. Nor was it post Tanaka patches. I think so say it was is incredibly ignorant and I'm not even a 100% fan of Yoshida's direction. I just have eyes.

[Yucie]

Sorry, but this is pure ignorance. After it was announced that Tanaka will be stepping down as director and Yoshida would be coming in as director and producer, which wasn't exactly a snap judgement by the way, the team stopped developing for a month to follow a new path to salvage the current version. Maybe what you're thinking of are the already made dungeon zones and models created, but the direction and implementation of those things had nothing to do with Tanaka.

If it were up to him, we'd have barbaric and reminiscent systems to XI with a slightly less tedious and grindy leveling system, a thousand unawnsered questions proposed in interviews, no ambition to pull FFXIV in today's standards of MMORPGs, and only make the game appealing to those games in a very niche market. Something had to give. I mean, I had fond memories of FFXI too, but I was also a lot younger then, had more fun and formed a lot of nostalgia, and had more time on my hands. However, if I had the choice to go back or take those same systems and implement it on 2.0's engine with Tanaka's direction, I'd probably look for something else. He doesn't show growth with a community that has grown with his games. It screams stagnant even if you take Wada rushing the game's release out of the equation.

Anyway, the point is there is a clear vision that this isn't the same director when looking at FFXIV today. Nor was it post Tanaka patches. I think so say it was is incredibly ignorant and I'm not even a 100% fan of Yoshida's direction. I just have eyes.

Couldn't have explained it better myself. Good show, sir.

[bobbygunz]

We see vision, and we see ambition.

Ambition to instance everything and make a quest-spam progression system?... real ambitious. Meanwhile other games are making non-instanced housing systems, and combat with active blocking/dodging, and so-called dynamic quests. Yoshi might be ambitious in his own head, but vision he certainly lacks. Unless by vision you mean copying WoW any chance he gets.

[Starlord]

Ambition to instance everything and make a quest-spam progression system?... real ambitious. Meanwhile other games are making non-instanced housing systems, and combat with active blocking/dodging, and so-called dynamic quests. Yoshi might be ambitious in his own head, but vision he certainly lacks. Unless by vision you mean copying WoW any chance he gets.

Posts like these makes me wonder why you are here.

[Elexia]

Posts like these makes me wonder why you are here.

Sorry that everyone isn't happy with everything SE does, once you're done questioning the fact people may not be happy with everything, reread this part of his post:

Meanwhile other games are making non-instanced housing systems, and combat with active blocking/dodging, and so-called dynamic quests. Yoshi might be ambitious in his own head, but vision he certainly lacks. Unless by vision you mean copying WoW any chance he gets.

While few MMOs are like this, you have to admit, all YoshiP is doing is making XIV how MMOs were back in 2004-2006 era, not really doing anything new. Tanaka had vision (XI was successful), Tanaka had ambitions, everything he tried to do was usually for the sake of trying to make something new for MMOs, the ideas were half implemented or else it probably would have went over a lot better.

[Starlord]

Sorry that everyone isn't happy with everything SE does, once you're done questioning the fact people may not be happy with everything, reread this part of his post:



While few MMOs are like this, you have to admit, all YoshiP is doing is making XIV how MMOs were back in 2004-2006 era, not really doing anything new. Tanaka had vision (XI was successful), Tanaka had ambitions, everything he tried to do was usually for the sake of trying to make something new for MMOs, the ideas were half implemented or else it probably would have went over a lot better.

You have your way of thinking, and I have mine. and the way he said it makes me "believe" that he has absolute zero faith in the game. Don't pull the "He wouldn't bother be here if he didn't have faith". saying Yoshi-P has lacks in vision at this stage of FFXIV A Realm Reborn, he shouldn't even be here with that kind of mentality of thinking. Vision means the "broad scope of the game itself" He says he lacks in his Vision. He's entitled to his opinion and I respect that. However, that leads me to question:

If you or anyone else truly think his vision is a bunch of crap( which is basically what he's saying when he says "lacks in vision"), at this stage of development when everything is complete and ready to be tested, then why are you even here? I couldn't say this a year ago because his vision wasn't 100% completely set in motion. However now that were at the home stretch, and you don't like his vision as it stands, I wouldn't even waist your time. Taking away or adding things will only delay to come out even further.

I'm not trying sound like a jerk and I am sorry if I am. just it frustrates me when He or anyone else thinks this game isn't going to make it, and stays here like everything is going to be sugar and rainbows.

At this point you have to ask yourself:

Do you think FFXIV ARR is going to succeed or fail at launch? If no, I highly suggest you go and find a game that suits your expectations.

Again sorry if I sounded like a jerk, I have a cold I'm really congested, I have a ruptured eardrum and I'm extremely cranky. So excuse my behavior if I offended any of you.

[lshumaker]

Sorry that everyone isn't happy with everything SE does, once you're done questioning the fact people may not be happy with everything, reread this part of his post:



While few MMOs are like this, you have to admit, all YoshiP is doing is making XIV how MMOs were back in 2004-2006 era, not really doing anything new. Tanaka had vision (XI was successful), Tanaka had ambitions, everything he tried to do was usually for the sake of trying to make something new for MMOs, the ideas were half implemented or else it probably would have went over a lot better.

You say that Tanaka had vision and ambitions, but then say that Yoshi-P has none because he is copying WoW. Ironic, considering that FFXI was a clone of EQ1 with a FF skin. Also, if you read the latest interview with Tanaka, you would find out that he just let the development team do what they wanted. He basically says that he did not come up with the ideas that made it into the game. So, if none of the ideas were his, how can he have had ambition for FFXIV?

On the subject of the PS3 UI, it looks great. This was one of my main concerns, as I have a friend who could not get a PC strong enough to play FFXIV. It will still be hard to communicate on PS3, but at least actions look easy and fast to access. Also, it can hold a good deal of actions (128), which was another concern as PC versions (of other MMOs) tend to have had more action slots available than their console counterpart.