I wish they would show more than low lvl skills and tactics in these vids, but they seem to only use the Alpha version for them. You can't get a good picture of gathering and crafting till you see the skills you get later that allow for more strategy. They need a much better bunch doing PR vids, they where terrible doiing 1.0 previews too, and somehow made it look even lamer.

Hi, welcome to the forums. I never got into FFXI, but I wish I did so I could judge how much of it is influences ARR. FFXIV 1.0 was the worst mmo I've ever played but also the most interesting, as you could glimpse some unique ideas there. Thankfully I you can appreciate them a whole lot more now; (I have to be vague about ARR for reasons you can guess).

The hard part is convincing people to give it a chance, you can't blame them, but close minded attitudes irritate me anyway.

It will be interesting to see how the PS3 version runs and what the UI is like, I played the PC version of XIV, and one of the reasons it was so painful was that the UI was for the console, and felt so counter intuitive even with a controller.

If you want to know anything about what you missed with XIV 1.0 (lucky you), I've been known to rant during my trauma induced flash-backs, but recently what disturbs me more is the people who try to defend it. ARR has a difficult task, to make up for 1.0, to convince a general audience to try it, and not alienate those who don’t want it to be to WoW (mainstream) and who want either XIV 1.0 or FFXI features included. So far I think Yoshida has done the best he can, but some 1.0 fans will not be satisfied as their tastes cannot be catered to without losing absolutely everyone else.

I hope you like ARR as I do, but it will be up to your tastes, and whether you appreciate the odd fix of modern western mmo and FF elements.

Rift's expansion makes it worthwhile now I guess, it depends on how well you tolerate WoW clone-y elements. You may find going back to such an old mmo as FF11 a tad hard, if you are used to more modern features and conveniences now, personally I would try out FFXIV:ARR’s beta, it has more elements from FF11 now. I take it you have no problem with subs?

(housing isn't with RIft's base line)

Originally posted by Seillan

Well, you pretty much described precisely why I'm disappointed about Uematsu being replaced. I like that retro style, and personally, I think the music he did through the FF4-8 era was the best of his career. I also love his Black Mages stuff, so I'd hardly call the combat music "laughable".

To each their own though.

I get your point, and I liked his work on FF8, but you need more than nostalgia to justify a composition choice, I am sure he could have made good themes without alienating players who don't happen to have the memories of previous FF games. This is supposed to be a multi-generational franchise, not just a trip through FF history for those of us in our late 20s, early 30s, that's for side games, not a main numbered one, which typically look forward, not back. The fact is that even I didn't get at first why the music sounded so dated, and it certainly didn't help the games reputation when so many who tried XIV at launch also felt the controls and gameplay where out of touch by a decade as well.

One compromise I would like is to keep some elements, music, story quests, enviroments of 1.0, along with the original cut scenes using the echo thing, so even new players can see and play through parts of the past era.

Also some themes remain in ARR, (I really hope they find a use for the Goobbue mount theme) but others such as the battle music had to go, I stand by my original statement, synth orchestral and prog rock do not age well.

Originally posted by Reizla
I had an eMail from Se for an alpha application and I actually did apply for it. I hope FFXIV:ARR will be a lot better than the original FFXIV - I might even gonna play (subscribe) it if it is ;-)

If you get in, remember, most of the content isnt in this version, (some people have been very quick to judge and break NDA).

Indeed goosh, if you choose to fixate on out of context clips of quests and combat you can convince yourself ARR is a WoW clone, boring etc, but when you are playing the game the quests and combat are just part of a broader experience that flows very well, and is light years ahead of XIV 1.0. Though I admit my positive attitude is of relief at first, due to the standard features I could get into socializing, exploring, crafting, etc and find the fun for myself. All they did was provide a familiar starting point.

After 2 yrs of waiting I am ready to sub.

Originally posted by ZizouX

 

 people felt royally screwed by Tanaka's FFXIV.  It's hard to ask people to be patient and give it a chance.  They already did, and it was horrible.

Yes, but that was the old team, Yoshi doesn't deserve such distrust (though Tanaka does, no question), nor does the game as it's built from scratch, we need to keep reminding people it seems. Yoshi made the absolute best and bravest call from the start, they literally couldn’t be doing more to fix XIV. But it’s a difficult balancing act, Yoshi has to make ARR appeal to a broad audience, and the 1.0 fanboys, and the FFXI fans, and both of them seem to expect him to cater just to them.

 However, if the gameplay is boring, with no depth, I won't hesitate to leave. 

Fare enough, however remember it may be that most will judge the game at launch, and ignore what happens after, but Yoshi has made it clear that many great elements may not be in time for launch but be part of the first major update. Not saying it deserves a 3rd chance, but spread out your play time and wait a few months before deciding if its worth subbing longer.

 REgardless of what happens with FFXIV ARR... i'm a fan of Yoshi's and will check out anything he works on.

Me too, I just hope he doesnt need to change projects for a long time.

I wouldn’t have bothered to visit XIV 1.0; despite Yoshi's work it was still very fundamentally flawed. Unless you could afford pay for a sub for the legacy status and not play it.

As to the controversial quests and combat video, it is important to note that was a low lvl demo that doesn’t apply to the 1.0 vets that are hating on it, as they will start at 50 for most classes. Questing is more minimal than other mmos as exp chain grinding is more valid, and the 2 classes in the combat section where the least effective at that level to show the changes.

There is also a backlash from people who actually somehow liked 1.0, even before Yoshi took over, it is important to remember their tastes do not reflect the overwhelming majority, and as a very vocal, if largely now irrelevant minority they create more controversy that reflects the games potential success among a general audience. In short, they had their chance to convince the world and the devs of Tanaka’s “vision”, the majority get their FF mmo now.

Also the degree to which people are making up their minds based on 4 mins of Alpha footage indicates that there is a lot of closed minds out there with no patience, I think after all Yoshi has done he deserves the benefit of the doubt, at least until open beta.

New servers, no wipes.

Older players from 1.0 will have their own servers so they don't effect the economy and crafters that start fresh, everyone wins.

Originally posted by Siveria

 I rather liked the orignal game other than a few things 

Most people didn't.

That is rather an important factor in this issue. I apologise if I am reading you wrong and you are not a member of the "1.0 is right and every other game is wrong!" crowd, but none-the-less I feel the need to get a few things of my chest.

(way to easy to kill stuff, way to easy to level, game was a total joke diffculty wise, 

That may be for those that got into it, but it was very hard for everyone else, having to fight the nightmare UI, controls, server lag, combat mechanics, world layout, lack of engine optimisation and quest system on top of all the mobs.

lving speed of combat able jobs was MUCH to fast you skip most of the world),

At this point I thought you were being satirical, it was a tedious grind that never ended, and skipping the world? What world? Empty, copy and pasted and therefore uniform, server stressing boredom zones isn’t a world. Why do you think they are going to the expense of completely re-designing them?

and now square has gone and made it WORSE than it was. I mean how in the hell is it possible to screw up THAT bad? Seen this video and it pretty much did it for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N4G854ANo0&feature=g-all-u

Seen these? You do know this is basic demo footage of one feature from an ALPHA right? have you seen alpha footage of FFXIV 1.0? (few have and lived to tell the tale, after they died laughing) Seriously, this is just basic combat and questing, industry standard, to ease players who arent part of the FFXIV 1.0 cult of "Tanaka the Martyr".

Unless the gameplay majorly changes from now till release, I don't think i'll bother resubbing to the game again.

They can't afford to pursue subs from players like you, there aren’t enough who like the asinine design philosophy of 1.0, (how weird is that right?) that’s the whole point of re-booting the game, and a large franchise requires mainstream appeal. This isn’t an indie project aiming for a niche player base.

If you check the offical ff14 forums people there are as shocked/pissed off as I am.

Yes I know, and also a bunch of people pointed out what a bunch of elitist cry babies they are. (you should hear what they say about them on the Alpha forums)

I was actually looking forward to it,

What where you looking forward to exactly? Everything we saw was what Yoshida said would be there over a year ago.

but a better ui and prettier graphics won't be enough for me,

Its not about prettier graphics, the previous engine was crap and wouldnt run on a PS3

I was hoping the gameplay would get better but insted they sort of went backwards. 

How is going for more fluid real-time combat backwards from a jarring turn-based camera and NPC/PC lock? Backward would be going into a separate, fixed camera screen after hitting a random invisible spawn, into a turn based, side view to cheesy synth-rock and dramatic camera pans during combat animations. Heck, that sounds more fun and at least would fully exploit turn based strategy better than this half-arsed nonsense.

FFXIV 1.0s combat wasn't just backwards, it was slow and lacked immersion as all you did was trigger combat animations, not actually fight yourself.

The combat in the orignal game was already piss easy, and now it has been made even easier since you now start fights with full tp, well it'll prob be the same as it was for mages, but for anything that has tp based special attacks the game has just become even more of a total joke.

All you saw was a couple of low lvl battles against mobs lower than the player, how can you make such an evaluation? Especially as you seem to think 1.0 was too easy already? what is your point of reference? Why not just play Dark Souls if everything is too carebear for you?

I need to ask how the hell does square screw up this badly?

All they've screwed up so far is their gameplay trailers. I agree that this is not well presented, but this trailer is not the entire game at launch. 

you think they would know better, what with all the wow-clone mmos crashing and burning lately. 

Yes, I am sure they know this, so perhaps it isn't going to be a WoW clone just have the standard elements that a overwhelming majority of people that abandoned the game at launch asked for? Maybe they know what they are doing and it is too soon to jump on the WoW-clone band wagon over a couple of mins of alpha footage? Maybe?

The game already had a bad reputation, but at least it wasn't called a generic wow clone..

No, it was just the worst mmo ever made, a truly original disaster that cost 10s of millions of dollars, 1 veteran dev his reputation and that of a leading game franchise and its publisher, and required more people to fix it than made it originally.

  I can’t go into details without breaking the NDA, but Yoshida has managed to make a far, far better engine in less than 2 years than “Tanaka the visionary” managed to in 5. That, due to a vastly better server, UI, npc interaction and quest system you can now appreciate the fundamental parts of the game such as the armoury, crafting and lore that where hidden under the most counter-intuitive design I have seen in 30 yrs of computer gaming. 

sadly, now thats what the game seems to be, just the newest generic wow clone.

That bandwagon must be made of chocolate or something...

I'll keep checking to see if it changes for the better but to me the most important thing is a mmo is gameplay,

Well, at least we agree of something.

and ff14 has somehow managed to have gone backwards on that aspect with the current changes from what I seen so far. 

Backwards from endless leve grinding?  sub-titled cutscenes and constant back-tracking across a sprawling empty world? The Link pearl system????? You think FFXIV 1.0 was a step forward from WoW????

I dunno I am just tired of every mmo thinking that copying wow is the way to go lately.

There is a reason people copy it (and no one will ever copy FFXIV 1.0) apart from laziness, it’s a good design, now many parts can, and should be ignored, but try to re-invent the UI, combat, world and town layout, npc interaction, basic movement etc with no knowledge of what has already been shown to work and you alienate all but the most "unique" tastes.

ARR is not going for just a WoW friendly audience, they have stated many times that there are still features from 1.0 such as leves, crafting, armory, etc remaining, and other parts from FFXI and previous FF games now. All they did was change from leves/behests only to a few quest hubs that you only get to see with your first few classes and combat that doesnt put you in a coma.

Our only shining hope is the fact this is a alpha video and hopefulyl square is smart enough to listen to their testers/fans this time, and change things,

They are listening to everyone, the changes from alpha to beta will be extensive, but they are not going to remove user friendly and standard features because of it reminds some people of WoW, (what a shock) or, based on some posts I've read, whiny elitists stuck in the past.

the whole reason ff14 flopedd orignally is because they totally ignored their beta testers and released the game,

Not quite true. By the time FFXIV 1.0 was in beta it was too late, Tanaka was an arrogant fossil that built the entire game from the very start on the wrong engine designed to run cut-scenes, not render multiple players in the same area, dooming expansions, the PS3 release and any hope of getting people with cheaper PCs to play. 

The server code was impossible to work with right to the end, hence the issues with the server shut down event. None of the devs could process so many complaints and demands for features known to work in other mmos as none of them knew of any other mmos. Nothing but a complete scrapping of the game and dev team would have worked in the long run, the testers where wasting their time.

Thus the game launched and did horribly due to the dev team not listening,

Again, what could they have done? You cant patch away the wrong engine or server tech. Even if they had tried to implement every request, it would have delayed launch by at least a year, and been pointless anyway with no sound foundation.

then they patched it and changed alot of the aspects of the game and it got alot better, 

Not when I played it, engine, server, UI, combat, npc interaction, quests, still shite. Yoshida did add some thing for mid to high lvl players, but if you couldnt get past the flaws they didnt change anything. That's why they didnt bother to get new players in, just keep the old ones sweet. ARR is designed to appeal to those not already in, i.e. not you. Most of the early content won't apply to you anyway.

 I am just completly taken aback at how they could have actually managed to have gone backwards with the game in terms of gameplay.

Again I don't get this phrase "backwards" 1.0 wasn’t like anything I have ever played, it wasn’t an improvement on WoW or any FF game before. FF7 or 8 had better UI and combat. As did the earlier Square Soft games like Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger. How is a game built with no knowledge of mmo industry standards, not even of the most well known mmo somehow ahead anything? If this was the case why did it get a unanimous panning from the critics? Is everyone outside the small 1.0 appreciation society missing something?

Also P.S. I find it halarious how comments are disabled on that youtube video, because we all know people would just call it a wow clone since thats bascally what it might become.

Comments are disabled on all SquareEnix YouTube videos, it's standard company policy.

this is not meant to be a troll post because I actually enjoyed the game when I played it like less than a year ago. 

That doesn’t make you a troll; it simply damaged the credibility of your taste in games.

I am just extremly worried about what I am seeing/hearing/reading.

Even though it was what everyone asked for from the start, and what Yoshida always promised?

The problem is that a lot of those that decry the current changes do not want 1.0 to go away, cannot see the flaws, know very little of other mmos outside of FFXI, and therefore do not know what XIV was/is missing, and react to anything that is remotely like WoW as a unholy blasphemy against their dark Gods of shitty game design. (I am not saying you are one of them, not knowing your gaming background, but their mentality means many criticisms of ARR cannot be taken seriously).

I’ve been reading posts from the old guard with growing disbelief, and one question keeps popping into my mind.

Are these types of 1.0 fans on crack?

I’ve seen posts on the Alpha forums defending the inventory’s list system. THE LIST SYSTEM!? What are they? Anal retentive librarians from the 50s?

Are they really so out of touch that they don't realize how their preferences will kill not only XIV, but possibly the FF franchise and even SE if they had their way? They are the pitiful few that remained when everyone else on the planet took a whiff of Tanaka’s turd, and threw up. We'll be lucky to get even half of them back, and who can blame them?

I am very glad there are plenty of people on this and the offical and alpha forums that argue against this mentality so well.

It is the height of irresponsibility for any competitive company in the 21st century to produce a product with only a previous version from a decade ago as a model (and to even neglect many good elements of that), and no knowledge of any alternative to go on. 

I thought the image of out of touch fossils defending 1.0 was a stereotype, to see it for myself makes me thank Yu Yevon that we live in a democracy, and the worst they can do is waste their vote on the 3rd party candidate who wants to bring back stoning and a leech based medical plan.

This issue isn't a matter of opinion, but consensus, standards, extensive comparisons and an avalanche of well written critiques over the last 2 yrs, though not everyone likes all aspects of WoW, no one (sane) likes counter-intuitive, clumsy, ugly and tedious time-vampires.

The End.

Originally posted by Seillan

Hmm, that's a bit disappointing to me actually. I've always been a huge fan of Nobuo Uematsu, especially his work in the FF series, so it seemed fitting for him to be the composer. I can't knock the new guy though, considering I haven't really heard much of his stuff yet.

Thanks for the info.

The problem is that Uematsu either hasn't updated his studio in a decade or decided to go for a retro style to most of the music that made the game feel old, (the archaic UI and combat added to this impression). Maybe he was calling back to FF7 or 8, (why though? FF is more than just that era) Now certain themes where very nice, and I will miss some used in towns and cut-scenes, but synth orchestra never sounds good, and the progressive rock used during combat was laughable. The new stuff has a more timeless, fantasy feel, and sounds like it was made on a bigger budget.

A change of business model would be very welcome, I think the main reason so few bought the game at launch was timing, coming between TERA and GW2, charging box price, sub and cash shop for an un-tested game style and theme was bad planning.

If that isn't what they are doing then even I will start calling them Failcom.

Why are so many people unwilling to give Yoshida and Co. a chance? Name another mmo project that has done more to make up for a bad launch. OK, it was really bad, no one hated XIV 1.0 more than I did, but the shear amount of effort and sincerity on display from the new team is heart warming. (to those with a heart)

Between the butt hurt 1.0 cultists who don't want any changes and the jaded mmo vets dismissing the game based on the mention of the word WoW I hope there will be enough left to keep the game afloat, but at least these unreasonable people won’t be whining in general chat all day.

I mean seriously here we have a game that launched, and like so many mmos, was a disappointment, and unlike all the others the devs are replaced, the game is re-built from the ground up, and all the elements it lacked that made it so uncomfortable to play are now included. AND STILL PEOPLE COMPLAIN. Jesus.

Does everyone forget it's condition 2 yrs ago? (watch every ep of this for a reminder) How alien the game felt with controls, UI, game play and quest mechanics, and world layout? What do you think most players where comparing it to? WoW or something similar. Not because we wanted a clone, but because it was well designed, and few mmos did it better. Every one of the changes naturally followed from the flaws in the original, there are no surprised, and no one paying attention to the re-development should miss-understand what is being done here. An FF mmo, with mass appeal, not the end of the world, stop pretending you’re too good for it. 

Wow, shots of a laptop! *swoons*

Why don't they just release the bloody benchmark, are they really that short of ideas that they have to tease us with some guy's jpgs of a machine running it?

Let's hope they give us juicier stuff, and more of it next time.

Originally posted by Magiknight

Exactly. Dead, dumb, blind. Some people will admit that it is a WoW clone and argue that it's a good thing. At least they can admit that they can read what Yoshi said.

What the translator has Yoshi say more precisely. What he may mean is open to interpretation, but I and others have been trying over and over again to point out, being like WoW can mean many different things, ultimately the game itself will determine what Yoshi intends. Some will rush to dismiss it with the usual cries of "WoW clone"; others will actually play it and see there’s more to an mmo than quest mechanics and UI.

Those "WoWish" elements Yoshida incorperates are common features, expected in all mmos, yes this is a good thing, but when the exp chains, leves, crafting, armory and story elements remain original you have a solid FF mmo.

I guess SE don't want to risk losing too many of the community to other games before ARR is out, turning XIV 1.0 into a glorified chat room. Too good for it I say.

 It’s kind of annoyed, like the 1.0 fans aren’t pandered to enough, (not that they appreciate it) I just hope keeping this thing alive isn’t taking too much resources from ARR’s development. I often wonder how sooner and how much better ARR could have been if they had just shut down 1.0 when Yoshida took over.

 On the plus side the FFXIV forums should be getting less visitations from the cult of Tanaka about how terrible ARR is because it isn’t aimed at a bunch of out of touch masochistic FFXI fossils. The community is already divided enough, the old guard Tanaka followers remain, (despite he never showing any respect to them) to nit-pick and whine, and the backlash against them is growing. We may end up with no 1.0 players (that liked it) at all at launch, I just hope we get enough new blood.

Still, it's better than the alternative, Yoshida caving to the idiots and losing the rest of the mmo world. My hatred for XIV 1.0 is rapidly being replaced with the disgust at those that defend it. It's one thing to like aspects of it, (as I do) it's another, very selfish and ignorant thing, to hate on ARR for features it needs to have to survive, that no rational person should be surprised are now being incorporated.

I wish people would stop complaining about the new quest system.

1. Would they rather it was just leves like in 1.0? I don't hear any better suggestions, apart fom GW2's DEs, which FFXI had, and ARR will now too.

2. Most mmos still have this questing system, you expect some groundbreaking all dynamic or sandbox system when SE only just found out other mmos exist? Give them time. The quests don't need removing, just complimented with newer mechanics.

3. These quests are non-repeatable and for your first and possibly second class, there are many other leveling mechanics beyond them.

4. They often serve to introduce new players to areas, npcs and mechanics of the game, as well as provide a logical flow to each area, FFXIV did nothing to ease new players into the game.

5. There is a minimal use of quests from npcs per "hub" compared to other mmos as grinding mobs provides as much exp as the quest rewards. This is a massive improvement from WoW, SWTOR, Rift and others that put way to much npc based quests in each zone (alone with back-tracking), so that you are left with many you cannot be bothered to finish. Devs being afraid to revisit the spectre of old grind mmos. ARR went for a balance.

6. This mmo needs mainstream appeal given its budget, what other levelling mechanic is used by a large proportion of mmo players?

7. All anyone outside of Alpha has seen are a few samples, with no indication of how linear they may feel, their frequency, context or the quality of the writing. People are ignoring that they made it clear there will be more alternatives for leveling at launch that most other mmos.

8. You are complaining about questing in an online rpg , seriously people.

9. Final Fantasy is an IP that pre-dates WoW, it has more right to quests than it or it's many clones. Yoshida made it clear that the presentation and quality of life standards of WoW style mmos is what is being incorporated, not the bulk of the game play, many elements from FFXIV 1.0, FFXI and previous FF games are added to ARR.

10. It has chocobos, see you in game.

Originally posted by DarknessReign
thanks can't edit posts on cell phone

I wouldnt post using a cell here, it just gives people more things in your posts to nit pick. I would stick to the informative posts, its best not to get into the flame wars, no one comes out looking good.