My post must have been misinterpreted. I don't deem it a threat. Anyone with even an Inkling of common sense should easily realize no game is going to "kill" another game. My main points being - A) image is far from everything and B) if Square sees (like all short sighted developers concerned with the short term dollar more than the purity of the genre) that a game deemed "accessible" (read: casual friendly hold my hand easy) is pulling larger numbers, it is more likely to make said hollow changes itself. As ffxiv already has begun too.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them. Out of nothing but laziness and being on my phone, I won't read my original post. I'm likely confusing it with a post made on another forum with a similar topic. The gist is - I don't anticipate ffxiv being the long term home I expected anyhow. It's not going in the direction I hoped and while it is better polished than most current offerings, it's a temporary stop for me until I find a game with the proper balance and community of some of the original greats. Nearly everything post wow has been garbage, blizzard destroyed the genre, self admittedly.
Point is I have played nearly all main stream mmos for over 15 years now, and I continue to follow most. I'll continue to follow ffxiv as well. I'm a mmo hobbyist after all. With that said, I certainly don't care enough to panic or use childish summarizations such as xxx-killer. I was plainly stating that assuming a game will do well or not or even proclaiming this a "discussion" based off polygon count is plain ludicrous. The statement about flopping was only meant to strengthen my point about not basing my opinion off of a bias or due to being a fanboy.
We all like pretty graphics, why else would we spend thousands on our graphics solution. Hell the very pc I built for ffxiv cost me very close to 10k. That said I've set down games that look better than most out at the time based off a handful of other factors. In the same but opposite vein - I played something like wow which looked awful in comparison for years due to the right features being presented at the right time.
Personally, I'm keeping a watchful eye on pantheon. If it does flop based on the average gamers definition, it will still be a success in my book. They know what brings in money. The casual gamer. Instant gratification. Ease of gameplay. (Speaks volumes about today's generation). For me, it's the opposite and having the machismo to move forward with features that challenge such and take back the genre is commendable and will have my support. Hopefully in doing so, more developers in the future won't be afraid to stray from the beaten path.
Ask yourself this, what is "flop" anyhow? Is it subscription numbers? Numbers which are inflated by developers themselves and by the plethora of Chinese farmers who's companies buy thousands of accounts to fame with and bot. The entire marketshare for mmos pre wow was about 10% of what it was post wow. This due to a very large number of wow players being first time mmo players ushered in out of curiosity and loyalty to the warcraft set of RTS games.
Games like everquest, one of the first of it's kind. Never had even a million subs and was considered wildly wildly successful. (Still is) The point is, a game that doesn't appeal to the wow generation may only field 500,000 subs. This demographic is of the same type of gamer that stayed with EQ after it's hayday and when games which were ironically also graphically superior launched. So would wildstar then be a flop if it had 500k subs that stayed subbed for 5+ years? I can't believe the logical mind would say so, however most of the kids today would disagree.
What said children don't yet realize, is these games weren't meant to be FOTM. Their are only so many of us and 9/10 when we find that game which fits our needs, we don't just hop onto the next to launch because it's newer or prettier. Sure their are those that do this, but it isn't the majority by any stretch. Don't expect anything at any time to cause wows subs to go from 7million to 1million.
Anyhow, flopping is subjective - and relative. The end.
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- WildStar vs. FFXIV & "competing" for MMORPG subscribers
WildStar vs. FFXIV & "competing" for MMORPG subscribersFollow
Quote:
Wildstar and XIV are both MMOs built on pretty generic mechanics. The only(consequently massive) edge WS has is their access to a larger group of prospective customers because it's free to play.
Maybe I am just dreamy and wild-eyed at FFXIV at the moment, but I just don't see it as being as 'generic' as maybe 1.0 was. 1.0 I agree, bland, generic, monsters made no sense, abilities made no sense, everything was just... dumb.
2.0 seems like a completely different world, though. The main storyline is gripping and really makes you want to continue. My FC leader logged off at like 10 and I remember telling her I wasn't far behind because I had work too, but the next time I looked at the clock it was after midnight and I still didn't get to open up the titan battle. Hopefully tonight.
As far as jobs go - the initial ones stretch the credulity of FF lore a bit, but not nearly as much as the first iteration of the game. I recognize Dragoon - maybe it's not exactly like XI was, but it's close enough that it's not a generic job with a spear. It *feels* like a dragoon should, and I'm looking forward to the higher levels because it seems like high and super jump make a comeback.
Battle doesn't feel as basic as games like WoW, either. I never had to execute an attack from a certain position to gain a self buff and then move to another position to execute another attack. DPS - you just stand behind the boss. Period. That's all you do and mash your rotation. Stand behind the boss so he doesn't parry you and don't stand in bad.
If anything, the GCD being so much slower and battle being less twitchy makes for an experience that you can really fine-tune and master as opposed to hasting down a GCD to barely a second and then mash mash mash. THAT is generic gameplay. Even as much as I enjoyed playing as a protadin in this last xpac when haste became king, it still felt like the encounters could be more fun if I didn't have to keep my eyes glued to the UI to make sure I wasn't losing a GCD.
I think that for a cross-platform game that is competing with just sheer mmo weight like WoW, they are doing pretty well with the balancing act of adopting proven systems but keeping their own identity. It's NOT a generic experience, not by a long shot.
Hyanmen wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
Quote:
Seriously? We all like eye candy but grow up! Their is SO much more to a game, let alone an mmo. If polygon count and texture resolution made the game, their would be plenty flops that should be AAA and vice versa.
^^^^
This.
Starbound and Terraria are two of my favorite games in my Steam Library and are also the "lowest" graphics of the bunch.
They are also quite popular with other people out there too, judging from the sheer number of people that play these games.
A game needs a mix of everything to be awesome. FFXIV does that: The graphics in some areas can be amazing, the sound (especially some of the music......Hello Daytime Limsa Lominsa!) is very nice, and the gameplay is awesome. Borrowed ideas from other places, but then everybody does that.
All wrapped up in a nice package, FFXIV is very damn solid in all aspects.
Some game going for eyecandy points.... probably not so much.
There's a massive difference between games with "simple" graphics that do their own thing and have a very specific niche/genre and MMO's that compete with each other and can hardly stand out from the bunch with anything other than audiovisuals and the volume of content/polish.
IMO it's a lot more ruthless in more mature genres and a lot harder to stand out with subpar production values.
Minecraft, Lotro, WoW, LoL, and pretty much every other DOTA beg to differ. None of those games have visuals that stand out in any meaningful way, yet all are incredibly popular and successful. I agree that publishing subpar content or a game that isn't polished will most likely fail, but lumping graphics with that in any meaningful way just doesn't add up to me.
Torrence wrote:
Maybe I am just dreamy and wild-eyed at FFXIV at the moment, but I just don't see it as being as 'generic' as maybe 1.0 was. 1.0 I agree, bland, generic, monsters made no sense, abilities made no sense, everything was just... dumb.
ARR is a fresh coat of paint, but it's more that, Generic and Standard pretty much go together now since as said, only one major MMO honestly uses the GCD system currently but pretty much every MMO these days utilizes class skills that apply debuffs on contact of some kind or "combos" that aren't truly combos. This is why in comparison, 1.23 and XI are one of the few "different" MMOs since they were built in a different manner for better or for worst but actually gave it an identity. ARR if you take away the FF elements you have just..any other MMO that Koreans and Chinese pump out what seems like on a monthly basis.
The only remnants of the "uniqueness" XIV had is the positional stuff in the battle system, since even XI does that (e.g attacking a Quadav post WoTG while using a defense boost from the back (thus "striking" its shell) will return 0 damage dealt) but in the transition to 2.0 1.x lost a lot of stuff almost no other MMO did or did properly, for example transition from 1.0 > 1.20ish monsters lost a lot of liveliness, some were no longer curious..some didn't give you a "better get away before I kill you" type of warning before actually aggroing you..crabs no longer retreat into their shell and your weapons deflect off it and so on. In 2.0, it's just...cut and dry which is where I think the "generic" comes into play.
Another thing is, Magitek Vanguards? You used to fear getting aggro from them or running into them while doing story stuff because unlike now, they didn't fall over like tinker toys, you couldn't solo them. Yoshi wanted an element of danger into the world, which he then took out of ARR (heavy is the only "dangerous" element left) but it just seems like..while a lot of care went into the game to get it up to standard, a lot of care was taken out of certain aspects that even made 1.23 an awesome MMO when you look past the issues.
We know Square can be creative and it seems like they took the beaten path route more, which people like even if it's just for awhile, Yoshi isn't secretive about following in Blizzard steps and WoW as his 100% reference point, since he even said ARR is essentially the Japanese answer to WoW as they never officially got it.
For example, where are the incaps? You know, like how in XI you can cut off 2 of Hydra's heads? That's actually a pretty typical thing in FF games when you think about it (incapping certain bosses), even in 1.0 you had to incap the Buffalo legs or you'll constantly take AoE damage from him just stomping (much like in XIII, since same engine) or you'd have to incap horns and the like to get them as drops or to completely remove certain abilities. You rarely see mechanics like that whether it's a boss or enemy in "standard" MMORPGs. Yoshi even admitted through the development of ARR that he's getting rid of a lot of complexity (that made sense) to make this game very friendly for people new to the genre which is why the itemization in this game is ...well below even browser based MMOs. Nothing really 'screams' out to you as it'll boost you or your class, sure it'll push up more damage, but where's the enhancing type of stats? Something to make the 'ultimate weapons' more than just 5-10 more stats? A unique WS? A buff? Something? I think even Maplestory does that lol.
But it also really depends on who you ask and which target audience they're after. For example Tera was an absolute flop when it was P2P, even in Korea, it goes F2P and it's doing better than ever and that game tried many things differently while still retaining the 'standard' design. ARR doesn't really do much differently, this is why even though XI was an EQ Clone, it still did so much differently and threw in something to make it feel like you're playing FF more than just "another MMO", with ARR, it feels like it tries to do that, but is still far too heavily rooted in the 'standard design' that it feels generic at times.
Like you know with Quest Grinds you'll end up fetching laundry or passing out tea in at lest 720 other variants while leveling up and at different camps. Even FF fetch quests felt a bit more rooted into the overall world, whereas the Quest Grind for progression in this style of MMO, just feels like it was thrown in for the sake of it. He said prior to Alpha that we'll get a better idea on the world and what happened in those 5 years...and to be honest, I still don't know what's going on because the quest grind in between the main story just felt so damn disjointed at times it threw me out of it lol. I only honestly ever feel like that when playing mass produced Korean MMOs.
So whether you agree or disagree on that kind of stance, no problem, but it's mostly because people know Square is way more creative than this considering what they've done with XI and 1.23b and it kind of felt like they just took..insanely large steps backwards in design in certain areas while "fixing" the issues of 1.23 at the same time. Square has always been like that, but it just seems...odd. I mean you don't even really need crafting or materia in this version unless you truly don't go end-gaming, and even at that, Materia lost a lot of worth in the transition. So as I said, it TRULY depends on who you ask when it comes to the whole 'generic/standard' thing, because like 1.23, SE could have done so much more. Sure they were revamping an MMO, but it seems like they just felt like throwing out what was actually liked in 1.23 for the sake of it, which isn't the definition of generic essentially 'run of the mill'?
Edit: double post.
Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 7:26pm by Susanoh
Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 7:26pm by Susanoh
klepp0906 wrote:
My post must have been misinterpreted. I don't deem it a threat. Anyone with even an Inkling of common sense should easily realize no game is going to "kill" another game. My main points being - A) image is far from everything and B) if Square sees (like all short sighted developers concerned with the short term dollar more than the purity of the genre) that a game deemed "accessible" (read: casual friendly hold my hand easy) is pulling larger numbers, it is more likely to make said hollow changes itself. As ffxiv already has begun too.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
I have to say I agree with this too. While I've been a fan of SE games for a long time and I currently enjoy my time in FFXIV for what it is, I would have loved for SE to be the one to break the mold and offer a truly different experience to what's on the market today. I remember a time when Square was the one to beat. If ever people were talking about a new or different RPG and had a reference point to compare it to, Final Fantasy was that reference point! I can't tell you how many times I saw people saying "xxxxxx game is better than Final Fantasy!" Why would so many players claim that their game of choice was better than Final Fantasy? I wouldn't say it was because FF games were garbage and every game was better than it. No, it was because the FF series was widely considered a monster in the RPG genre to which other games would often be compared. And no, I'm not some mindless FF fanboy who believes that even back then, FF was far superior to everything else on the market. There were plenty of other great games out there too, and arguments could definitely be made that other games were in fact comparable or better in their own right, but that the franchise managed to become so prestigious among the gaming community was, IMO, still an accomplishment in itself.
Fast forward to today, and the situation seems to have changed quite a bit. Before 1.0 was released, it was looking like it might not be a simple reskin of western MMOs. The armory system looked pretty interesting, especially when crafting and gathering were given their own unique classes and the implications that those classes may be important enough within the game to even try being mainly a career crafter/gatherer. There wasn't a focus on quick, solo leveling to cap, no moving from hub to hub to find a bunch of guys with exclamation points above their heads telling you to pick strawberries and eviscerate sheep until you get to the level cap, crafting and gathering actually were very important, there weren't NPCs selling or simply just giving away anything and everything one needed to reach your goals. Granted, there was a ton wrong with the game too, I think just about everyone agrees on that, but the idea that they were going to take such a game and revamp it to be playable was at the very least, an exciting concept. What we ended up with though, feels so similar to other western games on the market I've played that it hardly feels like it has an identity of its own any more. Which I guess is fine, if that's the game they want to make, but I sort of do miss the days when the FF franchise was an RPG standard, rather than trying to mold itself to the standards set by western devs that haven't even been around as long as Square has been making and releasing games. I think the MMORPG genre is more than ready to see some innovation, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will eventually be some games that truly shake things up and start to bring us away from the "standards" we've seen develop over the past 10 years that have been done time and time again by various games, but I don't believe we are there just yet, and unfortunately I have my doubts if SE in their current form could ever be the ones to do it.
Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 7:32pm by Susanoh
Scholar
23 posts
Susanoh wrote:
klepp0906 wrote:
My post must have been misinterpreted. I don't deem it a threat. Anyone with even an Inkling of common sense should easily realize no game is going to "kill" another game. My main points being - A) image is far from everything and B) if Square sees (like all short sighted developers concerned with the short term dollar more than the purity of the genre) that a game deemed "accessible" (read: casual friendly hold my hand easy) is pulling larger numbers, it is more likely to make said hollow changes itself. As ffxiv already has begun too.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
I have to say I agree with this too. While I've been a fan of SE games for a long time and I currently enjoy my time in FFXIV for what it is, I would have loved for SE to be the one to break the mold and offer a truly different experience to what's on the market today. I remember a time when Square was the one to beat. If ever people were talking about a new or different RPG and had a reference point to compare it to, Final Fantasy was that reference point! I can't tell you how many times I saw people saying "xxxxxx game is better than Final Fantasy!" Why would so many players claim that their game of choice was better than Final Fantasy? I wouldn't say it was because FF games were garbage and every game was better than it. No, it was because the FF series was widely considered a monster in the RPG genre to which other games would often be compared. And no, I'm not some mindless FF fanboy who believes that even back then, FF was far superior to everything else on the market. There were plenty of other great games out there too, and arguments could definitely be made that other games were in fact comparable or better in their own right, but that the franchise managed to become so prestigious among the gaming community was, IMO, still an accomplishment in itself.
Fast forward to today, and the situation seems to have changed quite a bit. Before 1.0 was released, it was looking like it might not be a simple reskin of western MMOs. The armory system looked pretty interesting, especially when crafting and gathering were given their own unique classes and the implications that those classes may be important enough within the game to even try being mainly a career crafter/gatherer. There wasn't a focus on quick, solo leveling to cap, no moving from hub to hub to find a bunch of guys with exclamation points above their heads telling you to pick strawberries and eviscerate sheep until you get to the level cap, crafting and gathering actually were very important, there weren't NPCs selling or simply just giving away anything and everything one needed to reach your goals. Granted, there was a ton wrong with the game too, I think just about everyone agrees on that, but the idea that they were going to take such a game and revamp it to be playable was at the very least, an exciting concept. What we ended up with though, feels so similar to other western games on the market I've played that it hardly feels like it has an identity of its own any more. Which I guess is fine, if that's the game they want to make, but I sort of do miss the days when the FF franchise was an RPG standard, rather than trying to mold itself to the standards set by western devs that haven't even been around as long as Square has been making and releasing games. I think the MMORPG genre is more than ready to see some innovation, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will eventually be some games that truly shake things up and start to bring us away from the "standards" we've seen develop over the past 10 years that have been done time and time again by various games, but I don't believe we are there just yet, and unfortunately I have my doubts if SE in their current form could ever be the ones to do it.
Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 7:32pm by Susanoh
Susanoh wrote:
klepp0906 wrote:
My post must have been misinterpreted. I don't deem it a threat. Anyone with even an Inkling of common sense should easily realize no game is going to "kill" another game. My main points being - A) image is far from everything and B) if Square sees (like all short sighted developers concerned with the short term dollar more than the purity of the genre) that a game deemed "accessible" (read: casual friendly hold my hand easy) is pulling larger numbers, it is more likely to make said hollow changes itself. As ffxiv already has begun too.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
Being a Japanese dev and having the history they have, I honestly expected the opposite from them.
I have to say I agree with this too. While I've been a fan of SE games for a long time and I currently enjoy my time in FFXIV for what it is, I would have loved for SE to be the one to break the mold and offer a truly different experience to what's on the market today. I remember a time when Square was the one to beat. If ever people were talking about a new or different RPG and had a reference point to compare it to, Final Fantasy was that reference point! I can't tell you how many times I saw people saying "xxxxxx game is better than Final Fantasy!" Why would so many players claim that their game of choice was better than Final Fantasy? I wouldn't say it was because FF games were garbage and every game was better than it. No, it was because the FF series was widely considered a monster in the RPG genre to which other games would often be compared. And no, I'm not some mindless FF fanboy who believes that even back then, FF was far superior to everything else on the market. There were plenty of other great games out there too, and arguments could definitely be made that other games were in fact comparable or better in their own right, but that the franchise managed to become so prestigious among the gaming community was, IMO, still an accomplishment in itself.
Fast forward to today, and the situation seems to have changed quite a bit. Before 1.0 was released, it was looking like it might not be a simple reskin of western MMOs. The armory system looked pretty interesting, especially when crafting and gathering were given their own unique classes and the implications that those classes may be important enough within the game to even try being mainly a career crafter/gatherer. There wasn't a focus on quick, solo leveling to cap, no moving from hub to hub to find a bunch of guys with exclamation points above their heads telling you to pick strawberries and eviscerate sheep until you get to the level cap, crafting and gathering actually were very important, there weren't NPCs selling or simply just giving away anything and everything one needed to reach your goals. Granted, there was a ton wrong with the game too, I think just about everyone agrees on that, but the idea that they were going to take such a game and revamp it to be playable was at the very least, an exciting concept. What we ended up with though, feels so similar to other western games on the market I've played that it hardly feels like it has an identity of its own any more. Which I guess is fine, if that's the game they want to make, but I sort of do miss the days when the FF franchise was an RPG standard, rather than trying to mold itself to the standards set by western devs that haven't even been around as long as Square has been making and releasing games. I think the MMORPG genre is more than ready to see some innovation, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will eventually be some games that truly shake things up and start to bring us away from the "standards" we've seen develop over the past 10 years that have been done time and time again by various games, but I don't believe we are there just yet, and unfortunately I have my doubts if SE in their current form could ever be the ones to do it.
Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 7:32pm by Susanoh
XI broke the mold compared to the other MMOs that were available at the time - I just wish they made a more fluid, reskin of XI!
yeeaaaaaah I am now in a position to say that XIV has little to fear from Wildstar. 
Catwho wrote:
yeeaaaaaah I am now in a position to say that XIV has little to fear from Wildstar.
Different strokes for different folks people. The people that are interested in Wildstar are looking for something a little bit different from the current norm. Not going to say Wildstar is exactly groundbreaking, but it has enough difference from the current offerings that it will find its niche, which isn't exactly the same as the one ARR is taking.
Catwho wrote:
yeeaaaaaah I am now in a position to say that XIV has little to fear from Wildstar.
They're both a very different type of MMO and shouldn't even be compared.
Edited, Apr 27th 2014 12:09am by BrokenFox
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/1053318/
Let me put it this way.
When XIV ARR alpha was released in Dec 2012, it was released as a clean and polished game, even if it was only the Gridania areas. The biggest complaint I had about it was the battle music (which was cool but inappropriate - they moved that track over to the guildhests instead and put in the current battle music which is much better.) By the time beta rolled around it was in more or less the form we saw today, with the occasional bug or tweak but no major changes.
What I experienced today in the WS beta was a buggy pile of insects. There's a gorgeous game in there, with beautiful art, great voice acting, and fun combat, but I can't find it past the deluge of things that are utterly broken or that don't make any sense. (There are plot holes you can drive a spaceship through.)
They have a while before it's officially released, but this has been a rather depressing experience for me. I wanted to like this game so bad. I already love my fat mouse girl. But I shouldn't need to get frustrated at UI menus not closing or getting horribly stuck on login like I had an unfortunate teleporter accident. I was also the only one apparently not experiencing painful lag - I think my system was better than average so the graphics were crisp and responsive for me, but everyone else was shouting about horrific lag.
It honestly feels like XIV 1.0 beta all over again. And this is like the major revision for the WS beta - folks who were in the earlier beta sessions said it was ten times worse.
I hope they fix it. It'd be a shame it they didn't.
Edit: I also realized that I care about "story" more than I do "lore." I want character development not just from myself, but from the NPCs around me. I've just started but I really haven't experienced anything remotely akin to a "hook" yet. By level 5 in XIV, you've started your first class quest and probably met some NPCs experiencing emotional conflict outside of yourself. That's the strength of Final Fantasy and one of the things that seem to make both XI and XIV pretty unique in the MMO sphere.
Edited, Apr 27th 2014 1:10am by Catwho
When XIV ARR alpha was released in Dec 2012, it was released as a clean and polished game, even if it was only the Gridania areas. The biggest complaint I had about it was the battle music (which was cool but inappropriate - they moved that track over to the guildhests instead and put in the current battle music which is much better.) By the time beta rolled around it was in more or less the form we saw today, with the occasional bug or tweak but no major changes.
What I experienced today in the WS beta was a buggy pile of insects. There's a gorgeous game in there, with beautiful art, great voice acting, and fun combat, but I can't find it past the deluge of things that are utterly broken or that don't make any sense. (There are plot holes you can drive a spaceship through.)
They have a while before it's officially released, but this has been a rather depressing experience for me. I wanted to like this game so bad. I already love my fat mouse girl. But I shouldn't need to get frustrated at UI menus not closing or getting horribly stuck on login like I had an unfortunate teleporter accident. I was also the only one apparently not experiencing painful lag - I think my system was better than average so the graphics were crisp and responsive for me, but everyone else was shouting about horrific lag.
It honestly feels like XIV 1.0 beta all over again. And this is like the major revision for the WS beta - folks who were in the earlier beta sessions said it was ten times worse.
I hope they fix it. It'd be a shame it they didn't.
Edit: I also realized that I care about "story" more than I do "lore." I want character development not just from myself, but from the NPCs around me. I've just started but I really haven't experienced anything remotely akin to a "hook" yet. By level 5 in XIV, you've started your first class quest and probably met some NPCs experiencing emotional conflict outside of yourself. That's the strength of Final Fantasy and one of the things that seem to make both XI and XIV pretty unique in the MMO sphere.
Edited, Apr 27th 2014 1:10am by Catwho
Catwho wrote:
By level 5 in XIV, you've started your first class quest and probably met some NPCs experiencing emotional conflict outside of yourself. That's the strength of Final Fantasy and one of the things that seem to make both XI and XIV pretty unique in the MMO sphere.
And it's worth nothing that this wasn't really true in version 1.0, at least, not that I saw. There wasn't much of ANYTHING that resembled a story. In fact, I can't believe how much actual content there is now. I took a break from leveling to mess with some crafts and stuff, but that main storyline is looming over my head and I really want to get back to it. There is, of course, the usual "get me x of y" dotted all around the map, but the actual cinematic story is incredibly gripping. I shed tears when... well I don't want any spoilers in here but suffice it to say, I shed some tears at one point when some friends were lost.
The only other company to even come close to this experience was BioWare with Star Wars. It's too bad they ****** up so badly with everything else.
1.0 had a storyline but it didn't pick up until you were already leveled fairly high. I didn't get to finish it, but I did work a lot with younger Minfilia and the group of folks that were with her in the Waking Sands, before they joined up with the Circle of Knowing. I also got into a fight with Urianger when I was level 11 or so XD but I didn't know who he was or that he was an important NPC at the time. I think a lot of that story got added when Yoshi P began to salvage things.
Torrence wrote:
Catwho wrote:
By level 5 in XIV, you've started your first class quest and probably met some NPCs experiencing emotional conflict outside of yourself. That's the strength of Final Fantasy and one of the things that seem to make both XI and XIV pretty unique in the MMO sphere.
And it's worth nothing that this wasn't really true in version 1.0, at least, not that I saw. There wasn't much of ANYTHING that resembled a story. In fact, I can't believe how much actual content there is now. I took a break from leveling to mess with some crafts and stuff, but that main storyline is looming over my head and I really want to get back to it. There is, of course, the usual "get me x of y" dotted all around the map, but the actual cinematic story is incredibly gripping. I shed tears when... well I don't want any spoilers in here but suffice it to say, I shed some tears at one point when some friends were lost.
The only other company to even come close to this experience was BioWare with Star Wars. It's too bad they @#%^ed up so badly with everything else.
Well, 1.0 had a storyline, you just had to level into it since the game was unfinished there wasn't much to pad the in-betweens as they call it. 1.23's storyline picked up and is still a step above even ARR's story at times.
Hell, 1.22's storyline for the Jobs were so much more natural that it actually felt attached to the world and throw in the fact you actually needed help to do some of the AF rather than click an interact point and bam, auto stat armor. The class quests in ARR are a bit more in detail but felt like they tried a bit too hard to lead you into the jobs whereas jobs, even though they were specs, had their own origins and lore in 1.x that made em feel like they were actually special. For example in ARR Lancers just happen to become Dragoons np, but only an Azure one is born every x (yet there's thousands running around now no problem.) In 1.22, while you were the Azure one, you actually seen a bit more of why your 'task' was important, here it just felt kinda thrown in to speed you along through to get your AF.
Once you hit Coil, you'll realize they're actually continuing 1.x's storyline from where it left off, since the only elements in ARR that was part of the 'next quest lines' were Titan and Leviathan, but got delayed for obvious reasons. So yes, 1.0 was unfinished (this is no surprise) but 1.2x picked up so much that in comparison, ARR made strides in some areas but took a step back in many others which Yoshi himself admitted was to make sure people new to MMOs wouldn't be turned off by complexity.
This will be the second time that you have pointed out 1.2's strengths and I admit, I didn't touch the game again until last month after maybe 3 weeks into the failed launch. It doesn't change the fact that the game was terrible when it launched, and perhaps it *did* get better as early as patch 1.2 but I have nothing to compare my experience to except 1.0. So, take my comments with that in mind. Maybe there was story there. I believe you when you say there was. It just wasn't there *soon* enough to keep my interest, and that's completely different from the game in its current state, where immediately the player is pulled into a massive questline.
By 1.23, there was definitely a solid story in there. The moon Dalamud, which until then had just kind of been decoration, started to get big and red and pulse. Nobody knew what it was, but it was seriously menacing. We heard rumors that the Garleans had done it somehow but we didn't have any idea. There were Garlean ships in the sky in many zones. The team did a great job keeping the fact that Dalamud was Bahamut totally under wraps. I don't think any of us had a clue that's what was coming.
1 post
Since 2.0 FFXIV has become a grind fest
Grind for atmas
Grind for tomes
You want to gear up another class, start the grind all over again.
End game content has become extremely easy with the exception of coil which has never been that difficult. Without challenge there is boredom.
I don't think Wildstar has to be that good to take subscribers from FFXIV and unlike wow, where people would come back if they didn't like their new game, i don't see people leaving FFXIV and then coming back. Personally if I don't like Wildstar I will look for a new game.
Edited, Apr 30th 2014 9:48am by nondescript1
Grind for atmas
Grind for tomes
You want to gear up another class, start the grind all over again.
End game content has become extremely easy with the exception of coil which has never been that difficult. Without challenge there is boredom.
I don't think Wildstar has to be that good to take subscribers from FFXIV and unlike wow, where people would come back if they didn't like their new game, i don't see people leaving FFXIV and then coming back. Personally if I don't like Wildstar I will look for a new game.
Edited, Apr 30th 2014 9:48am by nondescript1
One thing nice about Wildstar is that with its hybrid payment system (C.R.E.D.D.) you can actually try it out as a true buy to play game. Kind of similar to EVE online's time sharing system. If you have time to waste farming up in game currency, you can by CREDD from someone who plunked down the real life cash to sell it in game, and everyone is happy.
Orrrrr you can just pay a sub fee for yourself and ignore the CREDD altogether.
Until they fix the menus and give me an option to resize UI elements, I'm not going to buy it to it under any payment method.
Orrrrr you can just pay a sub fee for yourself and ignore the CREDD altogether.
Until they fix the menus and give me an option to resize UI elements, I'm not going to buy it to it under any payment method.
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