[Vigilous]

From Gamespot:

Quote

Yoichi Wada acknowledges state of Final Fantasy XIV Online has hurt the company's flagship franchise, pledges to continue rebuilding all aspects of the game.

When Final Fantasy XIV Online launched on the PC last year, it did so to heaping critical scorn, so much so that within months Square Enix ousted the game's management team and delayed the planned PlayStation 3 version. At the time, the publisher publicly apologized for the state of the game, but it still hasn't managed to put the fiasco behind it.

According to an Andriasang translation of a Sponichi report, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada provided an update on the game at a Tokyo press conference today. Wada reportedly discussed ongoing problems with the game, acknowledging, "The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged." He went on to say that Square Enix is continuing to work on Final Fantasy XIV, "which basically amounts to fully redoing the game."

Last December, when Square Enix implemented the management changes and delayed the PS3 edition, it said Final Fantasy XIV game would not hit Sony's platform until the company was "confident that the game has reached the level of enjoyability and service befitting the Final Fantasy name." The game has not yet been released for the PS3 and has no current release window.

[Corrderio]

I think the series was way damaged before FF14. It was just the wake up call for the people in denial.

[Vigilous]

I find it hilarious how many people think that a remake of FFVII will somehow save both the company and the brand, though.

To be fair, the games up to FFXII, have been good - if not serviceable - JRPGs. The problem is, the genre is effectively devoid of innovation and stuck in the mid 1990's.

[phunk]

So Wada just got the notice on how Final Fantasy is an empty husk of what it used to be?

I think the series went downhill when they started to focus on making game engines more of a priority than story and character developnent (XIII). I've been enjoying Mistwalker's releases thus far, does anyone else pretend that Lost Odyssey was actually Final Fantasy XIII? =P

[Deo2]

Innovations FFXI brought to my mmo experience:
1. 1 character with multiple classes and custom character classes by adding a subjob
2. item/money delivery box
3. server-wide marketplace
4. in-chat translator
5. character search
6. no corpse retieval
7. Inventory list like all FF games versus item-tetris or filling a small inventory with backpacks that you have to open seperately.
8. custom action macros / gear swapping

[Geothermal]

I feel like it's more of a culmination of things that damaged the name. When you have 14 games in your series lineup, along with many spinoffs, a couple of fuck ups I can more or less accept, like I did with that interminable FFX-2, or Dirge of Cerberus. But with XIII and XIV both falling far below my expectations consecutively, it's pretty clear they are stagnating. No one is saying they need to follow WRPGs, they have their own problems to deal with, but at least take something from the MegaTen series, or some other frequently lauded RPG company.

[phunk]

http://andriasang.com/comycc/

[MrReinhardt]

honestly they should go back to the old style of random encounters instead of enemies upon the map. that i liked, the genuine surprise of what I'd be fighting, also the different modes of transport was cool where you could actually navigate the airship or what have you, instead of picking a location from a list. that's a few things i miss. 13 wasn't too bad imo, but it fell short of the brand. 15 better be fucking amazing.

[Corrderio]

phunk, on 29 September 2011 - 12:07 AM, said:

http://andriasang.com/comycc/

Shit like this to. Fuck micro transactions.

[Sitana]

To be 100% honest and I hope SE read this, be serious, if they took an exact replica of FFXI and polished graphics and started the growth of the game over, how many people would willingly throw themselves into a fresh start, with a HD FFXI game?

This post has been edited by Sitana: 03 January 2012 - 12:54 PM

[Corrderio]

Surprisingly, a lot of idiots were expecting lolFFXI HD.

Either way, this game is as good as dead. The fact SE is expecting people to pay for a game when there is:

-No class balance
-Poor UI
-Overdemanding system requirements
-Hardly any content
-Nothing except promises for the game's future
-Extremely boring grind
-Low populations (Will be fixed in 1.21 when they have people from low population servers move to another, but 1.21 is still far off)
-Dull/Flawed battle system
-Cumbersome craft system

Seriously, the game is a joke. Wada and/or Yoshida must be in denial thinking the game was worth even a subscription. Even F2P games are better than this shit.

I said it once and I'll say it again: It's sad SE, a company that has been making RPGs for the past 20 years can't balance a game. Whereas TF2, a game made by a company that does FPSs, has far better balance than SE ever accomplished.

[Vigilous]

Corrderio, on 09 January 2012 - 07:22 AM, said:

Surprisingly, a lot of idiots were expecting lolFFXI HD.

Either way, this game is as good as dead. The fact SE is expecting people to pay for a game when there is:

-No class balance
-Poor UI
-Overdemanding system requirements
-Hardly any content
-Nothing except promises for the game's future
-Extremely boring grind
-Low populations (Will be fixed in 1.21 when they have people from low population servers move to another, but 1.21 is still far off)
-Dull/Flawed battle system
-Cumbersome craft system

Seriously, the game is a joke. Wada and/or Yoshida must be in denial thinking the game was worth even a subscription. Even F2P games are better than this shit.

I said it once and I'll say it again: It's sad SE, a company that has been making RPGs for the past 20 years can't balance a game. Whereas TF2, a game made by a company that does FPSs, has far better balance than SE ever accomplished.

With a few obvious exceptions, that sentiment perfectly encapsulates why the JRPG as whole has all but died in the US.

This post has been edited by Vigilous: 09 January 2012 - 12:01 PM

[Shippou]

phunk, on 28 September 2011 - 04:25 PM, said:

So Wada just got the notice on how Final Fantasy is an empty husk of what it used to be?

I think the series went downhill when they started to focus on making game engines more of a priority than story and character developnent (XIII). I've been enjoying Mistwalker's releases thus far, does anyone else pretend that Lost Odyssey was actually Final Fantasy XIII? =P

With Sakaguchi and Nomura on board, it's not hard at all. I'm currently on disc 2 and it's the first time I've played it. It reminds me of Final Fantasy, back when Final Fantasy was actually good.

[anyenai]

play wow or swtor and leave this stinking pile of dog do-do.

[6souls]

WoW & SWtOR aren't much better atm. Despite WoW still retaining the largest population base, the game has been turned into "easy mode" because each major update after the last heavily nerfs the previous content. The only reason WoW endgame vets stick around is the same reason us FFXI vets stick around, to keep in contact with those who they have built a friendship with over the years playing together. SWtOR is still in it's infancy, but it is still suffering from the common MMO issues. Let's take for instance the dancing-invincibility bug on Hoth. While engaged in battle with NPC's, if anyone used a dancing emote, they would take zero damage. Also, most recently with their latest patch, a bug was discovered where excessive amounts of Valor Points (EXP) could be farmed during Ilum PVP. It's things like these that are turning the MMO community against Bioware for releasing a flawed game.

In my opinion, that really isn't any great MMO atm. It's flooded with bullshit & pay-for open betas. The only "recently" released MMO that I've had any fun playing with has been DCUO since it has switched to F2P. It's not awesome by any means, but there is enough there if anyone is looking to take a short break from their current MMO. I'd probably be more heavily invested in the game if it didn't cap at level 30 and there were less graphical issues, but C'est la vie.

[Corrderio]

Eh, I'll stick to TF2. Valve may not be the fastest to update, but they're far more balanced than SE will ever hope to be, which I still find pathetic on SE's part. Game goes P2P and all they got to show for it is broken battle mechanics, no class uniqueness, and a flawed "combo system". But at least we got a Goobbue mount that doesn't do anything different than a chocobo.

Would give WoW a shot, but FFS @ the pop culture references they toss around.

[Shippou]

6souls, on 21 January 2012 - 09:55 PM, said:

Despite WoW still retaining the largest population base, the game has been turned into "easy mode" because each major update after the last heavily nerfs the previous content. The only reason WoW endgame vets stick around is the same reason us FFXI vets stick around, to keep in contact with those who they have built a friendship with over the years playing together.

And this is why I came back to XI and have had a great time since.