What's unique about FFXIV:ARR?

[Zumi]

Nothing substantial yet. It's pretty generic.

If there isn't anything, I probably won't bother beyond a few months. I'm just not interested in playing the same MMO's I've been trying for years. But It's only at the beta stage so far and a good chunk of the content still isn't available so I'll give it the benefit of a doubt.

XIV's failure wasn't from its original ideas. It was the lack of endgame, basic content, and overly simplistic level design.



I'm getting sick of seeing this. The guy isn't even saying the game's in trouble. He's asking a basic and totally reasonable question.

I really don't understand all the hate for ARR. It still has all the Final Fantasy themes, chocobos, moogles, story, the familiar races that were in FFXI. A lot of people bought this game because it was a Final Fantasy game and they are Final Fantasy fans. All the story and lore that type of stuff will still be in the game I am sure. Last time I checked the only Final Fantasy themed MMO was FFXI. ARR looks a lot different then other MMOs. The characters and style in the game look nothing like Tera, WoW, Star Wars or any other recent mmo.

They are trying to clean up the game's systems to bring it up to the standard of what a mmo should be and how is this a bad thing?

[Gramul]

I really don't understand all the hate for ARR. It still has all the Final Fantasy themes, chocobos, moogles, story, the familiar races that were in FFXI. A lot of people bought this game because it was a Final Fantasy game and they are Final Fantasy fans. All the story and lore that type of stuff will still be in the game I am sure. Last time I checked the only Final Fantasy themed MMO was FFXI. ARR looks a lot different then other MMOs. The characters and style in the game look nothing like Tera, WoW, Star Wars or any other recent mmo.

They are trying to clean up the game's systems to bring it up to the standard of what a mmo should be and how is this a bad thing?

1.0 had all the Final Fantasy things too.

It doesn't matter what style it puts itself in. What fresh coat of paint it wears, what story it tells. It's the same game I've been playing for a decade and often for free. The same games that have long been forgotten by most.

Some people, myself included, are just sick of the MMO standard. We find it boring. The rush to endgame, the painfully generic quests, the action spamming, the dungeon rush instancing. It's all just so mechanical and bureaucratic. It feels like no life to the progression. It's all just systematized for the sake of convenience and that's very offputing to me.

Now it may not be totally true from what little I could experience of XI (only ever just got beyond a chocobo license but experienced a great deal within that frame), but it never felt that way to me. Nothing was ever so obvious. I had to rely on exploration or talking with the comunity to figure things out. The quests didn't exactly lead me down a path to various hubs. They where hidden through the cities and required you to do all sorts of crazy stuff. It didn't always demand you solve it one way or another. Girl wants a ring? Buy one, find one from a drop, trade it with a friend or craft it yourself. It just told you what it wanted and it was up to you and your company to figure it out. Here you have to investigate one certain spot and kill a specific foe to get it to drop the ring specific to the quest. XI at the start just felt so much more...free I guess?

Now, I never made it to endgame, so I can't vouch for that. But the MMO's these days seem to want to string it all in a convenient line for you to follow till the end and while you're free to stray from that line, you won't find much outside of it.

Who knows. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic. Maybe it's all flip flopped and the freedom (or at least illusion thereof) comes at the endgame now. In any case, I can't summon any more emotion beyond curiosity at this point.

[Millerna]

1.0 had all the Final Fantasy things too.

It doesn't matter what style it puts itself in. What fresh coat of paint it wears, what story it tells. It's the same game I've been playing for a decade and often for free. The same games that have long been forgotten by most.

Some people, myself included, are just sick of the MMO standard. We find it boring. The rush to endgame, the painfully generic quests, the action spamming, the dungeon rush instancing. It's all just so mechanical and bureaucratic. It feels like no life to the progression. It's all just systematized for the sake of convenience and that's very offputing to me.

Now it may not be totally true from what little I could experience of XI (only ever just got beyond a chocobo license but experienced a great deal within that frame), but it never felt that way to me. Nothing was ever so obvious. I had to rely on exploration or talking with the comunity to figure things out. The quests didn't exactly lead me down a path to various hubs. They where hidden through the cities and required you to do all sorts of crazy stuff. It didn't always demand you solve it one way or another. Girl wants a ring? Buy one, find one from a drop, trade it with a friend or craft it yourself. It just told you what it wanted and it was up to you and your company to figure it out. Here you have to investigate one certain spot and kill a specific foe to get it to drop the ring specific to the quest. XI at the start just felt so much more...free I guess?

Now, I never made it to endgame, so I can't vouch for that. But the MMO's these days seem to want to string it all in a convenient line for you to follow till the end and while you're free to stray from that line, you won't find much outside of it.

Who knows. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic. Maybe it's all flip flopped and the freedom (or at least illusion thereof) comes at the endgame now. In any case, I can't summon any more emotion beyond curiosity at this point.

Being a player of MMOs for many years, I too prefer the old school (some would say hardcore) MMOs like EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot and FFXI, and even the early years of WoW. I actually still play FFXI (started a new character not long ago), and even though they've made that a lot easier these days, I'm still enjoying it, and mostly play it to see some of the content I haven't been able to see yet.

That said though, you can't compare current generation MMOs with the MMOs of old. Development cost has risen substantially over the years because people keeping expecting (demanding in certain cases) superior graphics and details, huge zones, more and more content etc. etc. To put it into perspective, the original Dark Age of Camelot was made by a team of about 25 people in 18 months on a 2.5 million dollar budget. SWtOR is said to have had a budget of around 150-200 million dollar. Obviously, the new MMOs need to sell more in order to make any profit, and the 50k subscribers that would've once been considered a healthy MMO just doesn't cut it anymore.

While there are quite a few people who'd play an old school MMO, it's unlikely they'd settle for old school MMO graphics. If they did, they'd still be playing the old MMOs

What I would like to see though, is 1 or 2 servers set up with a more old school ruleset, where levelling is part of the game and not just a rush to get to end game. However, it would likely require devs to design the game in a way that allows the ruleset, and isn't something that can be put in easily after a game has been designed.

[IloveYouPumpkin]

Who knows. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic.

No. So-called 'modern' MMO's are bad. That's the truth, don't doubt yourself and think otherwise.

[Abriael]

No. So-called 'modern' MMO's are bad. That's the truth, don't doubt yourself and think otherwise.

Or *gasp* they're just not for you.

[Millerna]

For me, the story and graphic design is what makes it unique.

I don't even really care if it's a WoW clone with good graphics, because quite frankly, I enjoyed vanilla WoW for a couple of years.

[Yrusama]

Of the things mentioned, going to go with:

• Materia: Simultaneously adding in-depth customization and taking gear back out of the economy so it isn't flooded.
• Class system: How often can you freely switch between classes, let alone variations of the same class?
• Crafting/Gathering: We can actually feel like craftsmen, and it makes us more sympathetic to the woes of the craftsmen NPCs. I honestly consider my character a Botanist first and a Crafter second, with no particular focus in the war/magic classes.
• Attention to Detail: I don't know if many other MMOs have such intricate lore, but I can tell you that things like the Roegadyn naming system and the varied backstories between subraces (Keeper of the Moon/Seeker of the Sun for instance) make the characters, how players perceive themselves, and how we feel about our place in the world much more complex. I've noticed WoW doesn't take itself half as seriously as it should. "Let's add a Kung Fu Panda expansion because we can!"
• Final Fantasy Setting: This is something I've brought up before, too. There are many of us here that aren't playing it because it's an MMO, we're playing it because it's a Final Fantasy. Among other things, it's a chance to see enemies like the Malboro or Shiva in HD and on a much bigger and more intimidating scale than any offline game can offer, and in some cases even XI. It's also a chance to further identify with a given role (WHM, WAR, DRG, etc.) and maybe thence grow closer to other characters in the 25-y-o series.

Forgot to mention, the degree of communication between Yoshida and the fan community is really impressive. Do other MMOs have as many producer letters, let alone live letters? Yoshida has a real presence that's felt by all but the newest players.

[Dannythm]

The job system is pretty much unique.

[Saburo]

It's a JRPG. That's unique enough for me.

[Kallera]

It's a JRPG. That's unique enough for me.

*gasp* JRPG!? The scourge of The Gods!