[What?]

WoW Cataclysm. Remember when a ton of people thought there was no way XIV would make it out in 2010, at all? How often do games come out not only sooner than the earliest most people expected it to be done, but over 3 months earlier at that? Someone at SE thought it was a good idea to get this out before Cataclysm and we're going to have a rushed mess because of it. Make no mistake, this surplus exp thing has nothing to do with RMT or casuals or anything. It's to hide the fact that there's no content at all.

Basically this is how it went at SE HQ:

Tanaka: "We've really got nothing we had planned ready in time for September, what are we going to do?"
Komoto: "Why don't we slow players down so that'll give us more time to create endgame content?"
Tanaka: "We could... but that's going to piss a lot of people off. I know! Let's say it's to benefit the casual audience, people will understand then!"
Komoto: "Brilliant! And while we're at it, we can say it will help create a better economy by having people forced to take up crafting classes, to make it look like we actually have things planned out!"
Tanaka: "Brilliant! (insert optional drinking of guinness here)"


I'd like to say this would only be temporary and it'll get scrapped really fast. But it could also last for years and years before being addressed because SE apparently don't give a shit if XI was any indicator. And if you've read the full interview, SE hasn't learned a damn thing about communication or giving more of a shit since then.

This post has been edited by What?: 21 August 2010 - 07:07 PM

[Pluelf]

Corrderio, on 21 August 2010 - 05:04 PM, said:

Sadly I was hoping SE would have done better with it. Like disable /tells until level 10 (Which is the only real time you need them to agree to join a PT and whatnot) since I remember joking RMT would do what the URL spammers on YouTube did back in the day.


Is there anything comming out SE sees as a threat that would have made them rush the game? Since I do agree I'd rather wait for release at the end of the year as during the Holiday season myself.

I'm pretty sure WoW is getting it's biggest expansion released at the end of the year. SE is trying to beat them with the early release, and by doing this they're kind of digging their own grave.

[Corrderio]

Well if that's the case XIV is going to be a disaster at the start unless SE can pull off a miracle within a month

[nahla]

i wouldnt want a rushed mmo but this is the perfect time to release a new mmo if ur going to do it. anyone that goes up against a wow expac will get trampled on. currently in wow people are getting bored, the new content is over for this xpac, and cata is still months away, its the perfect time to try and steal a player base, only issue is if SE can produce something good to keep them around once cata hits

[Corrderio]

It also really depends on the mindset of the player. Since if it looks and feels like sh*t what are the odds of people sticking to it? Let alone play again in the near future?

[nahla]

well i think people r jumping the gun on thoughts on ff14, nothing is set in stone till it actually comes out, and even then things change fast. i played for for 2 xpacs now and both times before they came out, when info was released, EVERYONE complained, bitched, said the changes were stupid, then when it hits half the shit nobody liked didnt even happen, so it wasnt that big a deal. this is how mmos r made, its some trial and error, its what patches r for

[Corrderio]

Oh yes I totally agree trial/error is a huge part of the MMO process, however at the same time you need something fairly solid to fall back on at release, and from what my friend tells me and what I see around the net SE still has a long way to go before retail, and with it being only about a month off I don't know if SE can do that or not.

[What?]

As soon as beta rolled around people had very good reasons to be worried, it wasn't enough of an improvement over alpha and time was ticking down. The game just isn't fun to play and there's nothing to do. It hasn't improved much at all since then and we're now a month from retail. The Gamescom build was the same laggy shitfest as the beta. If you want to call it jumping the gun when there's a month to go, that's fine, except if you look in that interview you can see what's going to be in retail, what isn't and what the overall plan for the game is from here on. That's when people lost their shit. It came right from the horses mouth that there'd be shitty UI, no hardware mouse support, guildleves stuck on a 48 hour cooldown with no other leveling options mentioned or figured out and no endgame content at all other than even more guildleves which will be on that same timer already making people pissed off. Then you find out they have a system in place to gimp people all the way up to 90% exp reduction just so you won't reach cap and it's very hard to find any positive things to say about this game, aside from the fact it looks pretty. It's very, very telling they had to create a system in place to stop people leveling too fast, that should say a lot about the content you can expect at launch. If the game is good come launch and makes great strides from there on out, fantastic, I hope it does. But nothing says this game will be anything but far worse than FFXI ever was, which is just pathetic.

[nahla]

ff11 in its prime was a amazing game, most of the ff series has been, ill keep the faith as long as i can lol, but if it ends up being shit its no biggy to me either, just means ill focus on school more and not a game hahaha.

[Corrderio]

Well I'll still give it a shot and hope for a miracle that SE will open their eyes up in public beta and delay the game.

Either way, even when this comes out I'll be taking a major break in Feb for Portal 2, since I'm looking forward to that more than XIV.

[pathwriter]

Corrderio, on 21 August 2010 - 09:06 PM, said:

Either way, even when this comes out I'll be taking a major break in Feb for Portal 2, since I'm looking forward to that more than XIV.

A major break? It's Portal 2, the sequel to a game that takes no more than three hours to complete unless you're coming off general anesthetic. Take a day off. And, yes, I really enjoyed Portal, but...

Actually, this is pretty much standard behavior, isn't it? You liked something (sort of) and you're damned well going to get yourself worked up about anything else that resembles it, even when logic and experience should dictate that it'll be a steaming pile or more of the same. People who expected FFXIV to be awesome have forgotten who is developing it, to say nothing of the inherent failure of sequels in general and of MMO sequels in particular. Can anyone name an MMO sequel that has surpassed the original? I think Lineage II, and I'm not even sure on that because I know nothing about Lineage. Hell, Phantasy Star Online is still going even as Phantasy Star Universe's servers have been shut down, and those are both rather marginal MMOs.

[What?]

FFXIV will get much better and be a good MMO all around, I'm sure that will happen eventually. The problem is this game was supposed to make the idea of an online Final Fantasy seem at least decent to the majority of people. Have a fresh start and avoid the pitfalls FFXI had while making improvements wherever possible. To not create the same situation FFXI did where people will freak out at the announcement of a new numbered Final Fantasy and then as soon as the words "online" pop up start shouting WTF instead and decide it's going to be shit automatically. Why even make a game 3 times or more the budget XI was if you're going to expect the same numbers?

How many times have you heard "well if any MMO can come close to WoW, it's got to be Final Fantasy"? And this is what they have to show? Something worse than FFXI ever was? This is what they learned in 8 years, 4 of which were spent developing this game while FFXI got meager shitty updates due to the split dev team? The fact is Gamescom was the place where they should have announced a brand new mechanic that wasn't completely fucked up by design to make this game stand apart and all that they showed was their build is just as shitty as the beta with nothing in the pipeline to come. This doesn't appeal to the casual WoW/MMO type player who won't even bother trying to learn how to navigate their shitty UI and controls. This doesn't appeal to the hardcore players either with no content whatsoever, who will get nerfed to high heaven for playing too much. And the amount of diehard FFXI players hyped to all hell for this game, myself included, who have either read about the problems or seen them first hand in the beta who are now seriously considering not even playing the game at all is outstanding. The only playerbase SE seemed to be targetting and had a shot at getting doesn't even want this crap. The fact is I've seen enough to know SE haven't learned a thing and not only that but have managed to completely ruin things they got right before, I have no confidence in this game and if I even do play, maybe if a bunch of my friends jump in, I know I won't be around much longer than a month or two unless major changes are made. The writing is on the wall as far as I'm concerned, if you're on the fence about giving this a shot just wait until PS3 launch and see if it's any better, in my opinion. Look around and you'll see many others with the same opinion, especially those who have played firsthand and dealt with the shit you can expect come launch day.

Quote

Well I'll still give it a shot and hope for a miracle that SE will open their eyes up in public beta and delay the game.

They won't delay it no matter what the feedback was, assuming they even bother reading it. Whoever is in charge just wants the thing out before WoW at any cost regardless of how monumentally stupid it is to focus on the short term instead of long term when a first impression is so important. The sad thing is this game can actually afford a delay and no one would care, delays only hurt a game when there's a lot of hype behind it and FFXIV never had any hype around it. And that was before any of these problems became common knowledge and expected for retail, the feelings around this game right now are unbelievably horrid. A delay would be nothing but good but I just don't see it happening, retards etc etc.

Quote

You liked something (sort of) and you're damned well going to get yourself worked up about anything else that resembles it, even when logic and experience should dictate that it'll be a steaming pile or more of the same.

If only it was more of the same. I liked XI, I wanted to play basically the same damn game again but with a few things tweaked and most importantly with friends that had long quit. Having something even worse than what FFXI started out as is just too much, no one can't defend this shit, even though I damn well should have expected a fuck up of this magnitude from these clowns. I swear the XI/XIV dev team can rival Sonic Team. All logic should say this game gets even worse subs than XI managed due to being a sequel and more importantly being much worse than a game released 6-8 years ago, but somehow I think the pretty graphics and name alone will make sure that isn't the case, at least for the first year or so.

[What?]

Also being a sequel was/is the least of FFXIV's problems. As long as you try to cater to an audience bigger than your predecessor's and succeed there's no reason why a sequel couldn't become more successful. The entire point will be to target people that never played the first game so it'd be impossible for them to feel it was too similar. But of course, one way to make sure you definitely will not get a more successful game is to not only target just the same audience you had but also offer them a far worse game.

[pathwriter]

What?, on 21 August 2010 - 10:09 PM, said:

How many times have you heard "well if any MMO can come close to WoW, it's got to be Final Fantasy"?

Um... never. Who the hell has ever said anything like that? Final Fantasy fans, I'm sure, same as I've heard that shit about Age of Conan, Warhammer, and Vanguard. It's hardly a meaningful statement.

[What?]

Other than Star Wars I don't know what else the majority of people would think is a better candidate to take the throne from Blizzard is, aside from Blizzard themselves. But I'm not saying everyone heard something along those lines and I'm talking about just mainstream gamers, most of which wouldn't recognise Age of Conan or Vanguard. FF has more mainstream recognition than those games in addition to being an RPG series to begin with, but if you want to disagree be my guest. If nothing else Square Enix has the budget to toss around to contend with WoW better than most on that fact alone.

This post has been edited by What?: 21 August 2010 - 10:51 PM

[Corrderio]

pathwriter, on 21 August 2010 - 09:49 PM, said:

A major break? It's Portal 2, the sequel to a game that takes no more than three hours to complete unless you're coming off general anesthetic. Take a day off. And, yes, I really enjoyed Portal, but...

We'll see, don't forget that Valve had no clue how people would react to Portal, which is why it was bundled with the orange box before it became a stand alone title. And now that they know how popular the game is and the fact it's going to be a stand alone title I'm sure it'll be at least ~20 hours long. Not including multiplayer exclusive maps.

But back on track... XIV has potential, however I don't see any way they'll fix the current issues before retail. And that followed by reviews will pretty much hurt this game. Yes I'm aware the game is online meaning issues can be fixed, but that still isn't a valid excuse not to fix said issues before you release it.

[.Sotek.]

What?, on 21 August 2010 - 10:09 PM, said:

Having something even worse than what FFXI started out as is just too much, no one can't defend this shit, even though I damn well should have expected a fuck up of this magnitude from these clowns.

Huh? FFXI didn't have shit behind it until Rise of the Zilart, and that was what, a year or something in? (I don't remember)
Leveling wise you'd probably go from 1>18 on your first choice, then 1>15 on an appropriate (or not) subjob, then 18>30 on your first choice before you realize there were nearly a dozen new jobs to unlock, probably meaning you'd have to go 1>whatever again, having just got to fucking Jeuno. What was the EXP rate back then? 3k/hr, assuming you find a party? Yeah I'm sure you'd manage all that quickly.

I'll admit, the whole leveling thing is annoying, but in no way is it worse than what you'd have to have gone through back in ~2001 in FFXI. Or fuck, pre-AU FFXI. Though I've no first hand experience of FFXIV, so maybe I've been fed lies about gaining experience being easy, regardless of some dumb cap.

FFXI was, itself, rushed to be released. Rise of the Zilart was meant to be part of the original fucking game for crying out load. Certainly didn't hinder our love of grinding here, did it? Stop over reacting with fucking walls of text.

[What?]

.Sotek., on 21 August 2010 - 10:55 PM, said:

Huh? FFXI didn't have shit behind it until Rise of the Zilart, and that was what, a year or something in? (I don't remember)
Leveling wise you'd probably go from 1>18 on your first choice, then 1>15 on an appropriate (or not) subjob, then 18>30 on your first choice before you realize there were nearly a dozen new jobs to unlock, probably meaning you'd have to go 1>whatever again, having just got to fucking Jeuno. What was the EXP rate back then? 3k/hr, assuming you find a party? Yeah I'm sure you'd manage all that quickly.


I'll admit, the whole leveling thing is annoying, but in no way is it worse than what you'd have to have gone through back in ~2001 in FFXI. Or fuck, pre-AU FFXI. Though I've no first hand experience of FFXIV, so maybe I've been fed lies about gaining experience being easy, regardless of some dumb cap.

I don't know at what point leveling an advanced job became mandatory to continue leveling your preferred job. Leveling a subjob was a choice, you chose to be versatile / not a gimp so you did it. People in beta have been doing the exact same thing you're describing, leveling a job up until 16-18 and then leveling a bunch of others for 10+ to sub abilities, but after that's done they still can't advance on their main job. So they level stuff that has nothing to do with it just so they can get back to working on advancing their main job, after they have already finished their "subjobs".

To be honest, I'd rather spend more time leveling a class I want to play as even if it takes ten times longer, than having to level a bunch of other classes I don't care about quickly just so I can get back to doing what I want. If you want to say something like leveling all classes to 20 to avoid surplus on your main in XIV takes so little time it's the same as a 3k/hr old school party in terms of progression (which it might, if guildleves didn't have that timer and as of right now there's no other methods to exp as is, parties are completely unfunctional) you can, but it's not the same thing. In XIV people are already leveling their subjobs, but even after that they have to level something completely unrelated because they're forced to, that's crap. If they want to make it as long as FFXI to level up they should increase the amount per level, don't force people to level crap they don't care about and won't benefit their main jobs at all.

.Sotek., on 21 August 2010 - 10:55 PM, said:

FFXI was, itself, rushed to be released. Rise of the Zilart was meant to be part of the original fucking game for crying out load. Certainly didn't hinder our love of grinding here, did it? Stop over reacting with fucking walls of text.

How is any of that relevant? I said XIV will shape up good like XI did, but it doesn't change the fact they're nerfing progress of players because the game is rushed and unfinished. Correct me if I'm wrong but only JP players played FFXI before Zilart came out, so how is it now we've got a game that is comparable to FFXI before Zilart and it isn't worse than FFXI was for everyone posting here?

[.Sotek.]

Oh I don't disagree that it's stupid, in fact I think SEs idea of casual and hardcore is backwards, it certainly doesn't make sense given the context. A hardcore player is going to want to work on one job, while a casual gamer (like me) probably still has no idea what job to level in FFXIV and doesn't really give a shit if they're forced to play a job they may enjoy. Lack of content be damned, I find it hard to believe people would want to rush to endgame on a new MMO anyway, I'm rather more interested in understanding game mechanics and pissing about looking everywhere for the first couple of months.

As for Rise of the Zilart, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it released with NA release, not finished at NA release? Regardless, I don't think Zilart content is the sort of content anyone wants in FFXIV. Point is FFXI was rushed to meet deadlines and turned out fine (if such a word can be applied to grind), at worse they'll lose a few subscriptions back to WoW, but if it's a good game in the end who gives a fuck? When has subscription numbers meant shit? SE can just combine the numbers for FFXI and FFXIV and piss on Blizzard if they want, even if all SE is doing is getting two subscription fees per person, though I think that would denote higher bragging rights?

[Corrderio]

Yes you are right about Zilart comment however that's not the issue people seem to be having. Most of the issues seem to be with controls/UI/etc. which could be a big cripple for SE at start.

EDIT: Also, I asked my friend for a list of bugs, issues, complaints, and whatnot. I'll try to have something up by tomorrow.