Originally posted by GMan33

Well gratz for them to having the brains to realize a failure and taking the necessary steps to fix their mistakes. If only SWTOR would learn from this....fire the current dev team, get new people in...scratch the entire pos swtor project they have now, and relaunch 2.0 thats actually worth anything.

I wonder, seriously, how much their decision was influenced by their company's honor? I'm not trying to stereotype here but american media portrays to us that honor is still very very fundamental to their society over there and while I can't speak firsthand for how true that is.. we've never seen an american company do this.

To be fair, I'm not sure any game ever failed so hard and so immediate as XIV. Perhaps if Bioware was down to <100k subs in three months, they might take the same route but I do sincerely doubt it.

The parallels would be ironic and humorous though: TOR players ecstatic that the company was trying, and begging and hopping that TOR could bring together the best of early SWG, which it of course failed to do the first time.

But SWG, like XI, are harder than what the companies think their players want.. XI didn't dwindle to near-death because the game was too hard, it dwindled so severely because they weren't listening to players. Abyssea certainly wasn't listening to players either, but it brought a rush of people in who wanted a 75(99) but couldn't actually play their job.

In my two month return last year, all I saw everywhere was truckloads of blms that "were sorry, but they didn't have that spell" even if it was specifically their spellset they were recruited to the group for.

Originally posted by DAOWAce

So long as they go back to the more action oriented combat of the original game, I may be interested in it again.

If it's still the same old auto-attack hotkey based crap they changed it to, the I'm not going to bother with it.  I've been sick of hotkey based MMOs for the last few years now.

The original team made something unique (except it needed TONS of polish, which never happened).  Yoshida's team made it a clone of FFXI, which caused me to quit playing and ignore the game entirely until this 2.0 re-release.  (FWIW, I played FFXI for 2 years back when I had dial-up, ugh!)

Oh and, it they're still going to keep all the servers in Japan, that's another negative point it has which will affect my choices of going back as well.  I don't play games to deal with latency I can never get rid of.  Regional servers or bust, this isn't 2003 anymore.

 

{Please assist.}

Where do you see an FFXI clone in XIV? Not trolling, really want to know because all I saw was differences, for the worse.

I mean, it has the same races, with different names, but that's about where it stops. The game is more about questing (not just missions) than XI ever was, the class system is inferior. Leveling takes a matter of days.

I could go on and on but I'm curious how you see an XI clone in XIV.

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

While Yoshida obviously can’t speak for what the original team intended to create, he noted that when he joined the project he realized that the previous team had created something that wasn’t Final Fantasy XI, wasn’t EverQuest, wasn’t Ultima Online, nor was it World of Warcraft. In doing so, they created a game that wasn’t really anything and didn’t take into account many of the established MMO standards.

This is part of the problem in my opinion.  Why is it considered "Nothing" when someone does something that is not like an existing game.  I would call that innovation.  I dont want a copy/clone of an existing game... I want someone to do something new.  Hoping FFXIV turns around and I look forward to checking it out.

 

It's not innovation if it doesn't innovate.  I'm beating a dead horse here but they didn't improve on of the good features of XI.  Instead, they kept all the annoying ones and banked on ooh's and aah's from the graphics engine.

It's been proven recently that you can have great combat and a great looking game.  It still remains to be seen if SE understands what good combat means though.  That's what I'm worried about more than anything. 

The game has always looked good and seems to be improving in that regard with 2.0, but if it's still not fun to play and still has outdated mechanics, then what's the point?

I'm hopefull that Yoshida does understand this but i don't know if he's had enough time to get this stuff fixed while also trying to innovate.

 

I agree with Dark, however I often said about the game that they kept alot of shitty aspects of FF11 and none of the good ones, while adding things they must have thought were modern/innovative psuedo-new age gimmicky things that further annoyed players.

Dark was on the money with the fact that they should have stuck to a vision and polished it and made it work. Instead the game has been spiraling out of controll in an attempt to "find itself" the newest thought process being taking "standard practices" (whatever those are) and implementing them in the game.

I wholeheartedly believe that Tanaka needed more time, money and effort as well as a better team under him AND maybe more power to make decisions, because I think SE head honchos, like so many other companies, were saying "no no no put this in, WoW has it" and so we had some weird ass features in the game.

Im rambling but Im tired.

Originally posted by Deathofsage

Originally posted by GMan33

Well gratz for them to having the brains to realize a failure and taking the necessary steps to fix their mistakes. If only SWTOR would learn from this....fire the current dev team, get new people in...scratch the entire pos swtor project they have now, and relaunch 2.0 thats actually worth anything.

I wonder, seriously, how much their decision was influenced by their company's honor? I'm not trying to stereotype here but american media portrays to us that honor is still very very fundamental to their society over there and while I can't speak firsthand for how true that is.. we've never seen an american company do this.

To be fair, I'm not sure any game ever failed so hard and so immediate as XIV. Perhaps if Bioware was down to <100k subs in three months, they might take the same route but I do sincerely doubt it.

The parallels would be ironic and humorous though: TOR players ecstatic that the company was trying, and begging and hopping that TOR could bring together the best of early SWG, which it of course failed to do the first time.

But SWG, like XI, are harder than what the companies think their players want.. XI didn't dwindle to near-death because the game was too hard, it dwindled so severely because they weren't listening to players. Abyssea certainly wasn't listening to players either, but it brought a rush of people in who wanted a 75(99) but couldn't actually play their job.

In my two month return last year, all I saw everywhere was truckloads of blms that "were sorry, but they didn't have that spell" even if it was specifically their spellset they were recruited to the group for.

So true. God i hate this pandering to people who cant play games.

In FF11 partying for exp was fun the biggest problem was getting parties together. I dont really think level sync was as horrible as some people think. I think it was a good way to fix the problem of low population/stratification of the population.

Take level sync- decent way to alleviate a problem.

Abyssea and book burning- going way overboard into a game breaking paradigm.

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

While Yoshida obviously can’t speak for what the original team intended to create, he noted that when he joined the project he realized that the previous team had created something that wasn’t Final Fantasy XI, wasn’t EverQuest, wasn’t Ultima Online, nor was it World of Warcraft. In doing so, they created a game that wasn’t really anything and didn’t take into account many of the established MMO standards.

This is part of the problem in my opinion.  Why is it considered "Nothing" when someone does something that is not like an existing game.  I would call that innovation.  I dont want a copy/clone of an existing game... I want someone to do something new.  Hoping FFXIV turns around and I look forward to checking it out.

 

It's not innovation if it doesn't innovate.  I'm beating a dead horse here but they didn't improve on of the good features of XI.  Instead, they kept all the annoying ones and banked on ooh's and aah's from the graphics engine.

It's been proven recently that you can have great combat and a great looking game.  It still remains to be seen if SE understands what good combat means though.  That's what I'm worried about more than anything. 

The game has always looked good and seems to be improving in that regard with 2.0, but if it's still not fun to play and still has outdated mechanics, then what's the point?

I'm hopefull that Yoshida does understand this but i don't know if he's had enough time to get this stuff fixed while also trying to innovate.

 

 

I wholeheartedly believe that Tanaka needed more time, money and effort as well as a better team under him AND maybe more power to make decisions, because I think SE head honchos, like so many other companies, were saying "no no no put this in, WoW has it" and so we had some weird ass features in the game.

 

I couldn't disagree more.  The man symbolized why Japan is 5 years behind the rest of the world where PC gaming is involved.  The first leaked info on XIV was in 2006 so he had at least 4+ years to work on a successor to XI and failed miserably.  His team failed because he had no clue how the genre had evolved since XI launched.  It was clear then and to some extent still clear that the people working on the game didn't actually play MMO's.

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Deathofsage

 

So true. God i hate this pandering to people who cant play games.

In FF11 partying for exp was fun the biggest problem was getting parties together. I dont really think level sync was as horrible as some people think. I think it was a good way to fix the problem of low population/stratification of the population.

Take level sync- decent way to alleviate a problem.

Abyssea and book burning- going way overboard into a game breaking paradigm.

People hated level sync? I never heard that. I loved it. The only legitimate complaint about it was it hurt your weapon skilling but it was still much better than soloing, and you could go take kill of your weapon skill later.

Originally posted by Deathofsage

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Deathofsage

 

So true. God i hate this pandering to people who cant play games.

In FF11 partying for exp was fun the biggest problem was getting parties together. I dont really think level sync was as horrible as some people think. I think it was a good way to fix the problem of low population/stratification of the population.

Take level sync- decent way to alleviate a problem.

Abyssea and book burning- going way overboard into a game breaking paradigm.

People hated level sync? I never heard that. I loved it. The only legitimate complaint about it was it hurt your weapon skilling but it was still much better than soloing, and you could go take kill of your weapon skill later.

I meant to state that but forgot.

Peoples criticism was "Ohhh no one knows how to play their job because they all leveled up to 75 in Qufim" and "There are so many 75's with gimped weapon skills"

On the pluss side, it created this really cool new form of partying, that was enjoyable in a different way from the exp parties because u didnt neccesaruily want to kill the mob quickly. I liked skillup parties for the diversity they offered.

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

While Yoshida obviously can’t speak for what the original team intended to create, he noted that when he joined the project he realized that the previous team had created something that wasn’t Final Fantasy XI, wasn’t EverQuest, wasn’t Ultima Online, nor was it World of Warcraft. In doing so, they created a game that wasn’t really anything and didn’t take into account many of the established MMO standards.

This is part of the problem in my opinion.  Why is it considered "Nothing" when someone does something that is not like an existing game.  I would call that innovation.  I dont want a copy/clone of an existing game... I want someone to do something new.  Hoping FFXIV turns around and I look forward to checking it out.

 

It's not innovation if it doesn't innovate.  I'm beating a dead horse here but they didn't improve on of the good features of XI.  Instead, they kept all the annoying ones and banked on ooh's and aah's from the graphics engine.

It's been proven recently that you can have great combat and a great looking game.  It still remains to be seen if SE understands what good combat means though.  That's what I'm worried about more than anything. 

The game has always looked good and seems to be improving in that regard with 2.0, but if it's still not fun to play and still has outdated mechanics, then what's the point?

I'm hopefull that Yoshida does understand this but i don't know if he's had enough time to get this stuff fixed while also trying to innovate.

 

 

I wholeheartedly believe that Tanaka needed more time, money and effort as well as a better team under him AND maybe more power to make decisions, because I think SE head honchos, like so many other companies, were saying "no no no put this in, WoW has it" and so we had some weird ass features in the game.

 

 

I couldn't disagree more.  The man symbolized why Japan is 5 years behind the rest of the world where PC gaming is involved.  The first leaked info on XIV was in 2006 so he had at least 4+ years to work on a successor to XI and failed miserably.  His team failed because he had no clue how the genre had evolved since XI launched.  It was clear then and to some extent still clear that the people working on the game didn't actually play MMO's.

hehe I guess we both should be saying IMO.

But in my opinion, the idea that MMO's have moved forward in some progressively positive manner, is a bunch of, as Sheldon would say; "hokum".

Games have moved forwards in terms of visuals and technology. But in terms of game mechanics; the games have begun to stagnate and degenerate.

But everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Im glad to hear you are enjoying the new MMOs of this era. :D

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by Belarion

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

While Yoshida obviously can’t speak for what the original team intended to create, he noted that when he joined the project he realized that the previous team had created something that wasn’t Final Fantasy XI, wasn’t EverQuest, wasn’t Ultima Online, nor was it World of Warcraft. In doing so, they created a game that wasn’t really anything and didn’t take into account many of the established MMO standards.

This is part of the problem in my opinion.  Why is it considered "Nothing" when someone does something that is not like an existing game.  I would call that innovation.  I dont want a copy/clone of an existing game... I want someone to do something new.  Hoping FFXIV turns around and I look forward to checking it out.

 

It's not innovation if it doesn't innovate.  I'm beating a dead horse here but they didn't improve on of the good features of XI.  Instead, they kept all the annoying ones and banked on ooh's and aah's from the graphics engine.

It's been proven recently that you can have great combat and a great looking game.  It still remains to be seen if SE understands what good combat means though.  That's what I'm worried about more than anything. 

The game has always looked good and seems to be improving in that regard with 2.0, but if it's still not fun to play and still has outdated mechanics, then what's the point?

I'm hopefull that Yoshida does understand this but i don't know if he's had enough time to get this stuff fixed while also trying to innovate.

 

 

I wholeheartedly believe that Tanaka needed more time, money and effort as well as a better team under him AND maybe more power to make decisions, because I think SE head honchos, like so many other companies, were saying "no no no put this in, WoW has it" and so we had some weird ass features in the game.

 

 

I couldn't disagree more.  The man symbolized why Japan is 5 years behind the rest of the world where PC gaming is involved.  The first leaked info on XIV was in 2006 so he had at least 4+ years to work on a successor to XI and failed miserably.  His team failed because he had no clue how the genre had evolved since XI launched.  It was clear then and to some extent still clear that the people working on the game didn't actually play MMO's.

hehe I guess we both should be saying IMO.

But in my opinion, the idea that MMO's have moved forward in some progressively positive manner, is a bunch of, as Sheldon would say; "hokum".

 

Games have moved forwards in terms of visuals and technology. But in terms of game mechanics; the games have begun to stagnate and degenerate.

 

But everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Im glad to hear you are enjoying the new MMOs of this era. :D

I did play FF11 for several years and also 14 for the full year. As an FF11 player, I felt Tanaka wasn't as receptive to the player base and their opinions that helps to drive the direction of the game and provide input. I actually am in the minority I feel saying that players don't know everything but Tanaka and his team felt more dismisive than other devs overall.

That being said Yoshida, when he was brought in for FF14, I felt made one thing clear that I think some people who posted don't seem to understand; that in an era where mmo's are more evolved than ever you can't also deviate so far to what your audience knows or has experienced. There are only so many games as far as MMO's can be considered that are really novel and also equally successful. I think FF14's relaunch will go smoother and be more enjoyable give what Yoshida has done. 

You may have tried 14 and hated it and I won't argue with that. But other mmo's have been able to regroup and re-focus their emphasis at times to be successful. EvE is probably one of those titles that have shown what involving and taking into consideration the player base's opinions can result in. I think the relaunch does have tons working against it as far as its image and fears from just 14; they are valid afterall. But I won't dismiss Yoshida's ability to create something where what's familiar are game mechanics and control but what's different is the feel and immersion of the game. He's shown past success in doing so and given how active he has been in addressing the player base, I think it can only lead to good things really. 

haha, how many of you once said you will not play this game ever ever again!!??

Originally posted by Alders

I couldn't disagree more.  The man symbolized why Japan is 5 years behind the rest of the world where PC gaming is involved.  The first leaked info on XIV was in 2006 so he had at least 4+ years to work on a successor to XI and failed miserably.  His team failed because he had no clue how the genre had evolved since XI launched.  It was clear then and to some extent still clear that the people working on the game didn't actually play MMO's.

The game used Crystal Tools, the engine that caused SE huge problems this gen. Merely blaming it all on Tanaka when he had been given such shitty cards in the first place is ignorant.

Originally posted by Epic1oots

haha, how many of you once said you will not play this game ever ever again!!??

Pretty natural reaction for anyone burned that bad by the original game at the time. Also, I don't think restructuring an entire team and re-allocating resources to practically re-doing the MMO in question is a fairly common reaction to a botched MMO launch in this industry. No one could have really seen this effort coming. Most times, in cases like these, the MMO just rides out its mediocrity until the publisher pulls the plug and the fans are unfortunately left heartbroken. I'm not invested in this game's future in any way, but I'm honestly refreshed to see a developer attempt to really turn things around.

Some people will understandably not care and some will, despite being burned, be hopeful for the game's future.

The real question is: what substance are you actually going to contribute to this discussion? :)

Got any of your own thoughts on what Square Enix is planning either way?

so when they say overhaul does that mean everyone who has achieved alot in game will have to start from scratch? to me it sounds like they releasing a whole new game. just want to make sure cause i'm buying the game within this week since its cheap

Originally posted by aligada87

so when they say overhaul does that mean everyone who has achieved alot in game will have to start from scratch? to me it sounds like they releasing a whole new game. just want to make sure cause i'm buying the game within this week since its cheap

Originally posted by Coolit

I think it's an understatement to say its the same game, it looks amazing and I for one will be trying this again when 2.0 is launched. Got the love the fact they have taken a clearly flawed game and completely re-developed it, not many companies would do this. 

Been thinking about this lately.  Not in regard to FF, but it brings up the point.  SE may be the last game company truly interested in restoring/keeping integrity and quality in their IP.  As you say, companies don't usually do this. 

I personally haven't played FF since the nintendo days.  Never tried either MMO.  But it's still good to see a company trying to keep their good name/IP.

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by Alders

I couldn't disagree more.  The man symbolized why Japan is 5 years behind the rest of the world where PC gaming is involved.  The first leaked info on XIV was in 2006 so he had at least 4+ years to work on a successor to XI and failed miserably.  His team failed because he had no clue how the genre had evolved since XI launched.  It was clear then and to some extent still clear that the people working on the game didn't actually play MMO's.

The game used Crystal Tools, the engine that caused SE huge problems this gen. Merely blaming it all on Tanaka when he had been given such shitty cards in the first place is ignorant.

So all the horrible mechanics and decisions were implemented because of Crystal Tools? 

- you can't have an auction house in CT?

- you ca't get rid of animation locks in CT?

- did CT force them to go with boring and uninspired classes instead of tried and true FF classes?

XI had 3 fantastic mechanics going for it.  The class/subclass system, the auction house, and level sync.  To this day i don't think any other MMO has done classes better than XI, including the ability to level everything on one character.

All Tanaka had to do was build on those 3 aspects while updating glaring issues that XI had like combat responsiveness, poor grouping tools, and the UI.

I'm not giving the man a pass.  He created a game that most XI vets didn't want to play and that non Final Fantasy fans had no interest in.

Yoshi is the only one who could have taken the game this far, simple as that, and if 2.0 goes right (which I think it will) hes finally going to get back for everything that he has put into this game. 

FFXI the most profitable Final Fantasy ever, and yet they made FFXIV instead of just making FFXI-2 like their community wanted.

I'm not certain you understand what 'Interview' means. When you say you're going to publish an interview with someone, you publish an interview with them, you don't just publish an article with information the writer got from an interview. That's just an article.