Why this game will fail in the West (no trolling)

BishopTx

I'm no troll. I run a large MMO guild (300+members) and have worked in the gaming industry for more than 20 years - Origin, Blue Byte, EA etc. Only reason I provide that reference is so you know I'm not here to troll or defame anyone or anything...

 

I am here to provide a sobering view of FFXIV RR in America in 2013 - a game that will fail for a number of reasons.

For starters - FF fanboys and girls, check your arguments at the door. Most of you are very biased and blind to actual facts and therefore do not offer an argument sound in reason and critical judgment. If you can be reasonable, read on, with caution. if you're a FF Fanboy, what is said below won't change your mind and will just make you mad.

 

For starters, in order for SQE to be profitable and FFIVRR to be successful, the game MUST reach beyond the small but strong fandom it garnered in 11. It must appeal to the masses. SQE is in dire financial straits and have pulled back their focus on the Western market because their games don't appeal (en masse) to the culture. For XIV to do so it must stretch beyond and do so in a big way.

 

Here's why it won't. And yes I've played the beta.

 

1. The initial 60 min of gameplay = THERE IS NONE. I give the game props for the character creation system, it has lots of options. That's cool. The graphics have a nice fidelity to them as well. But once the luster of that has worn off reality sets in and its 60+ min before you actually get to play the game.

An hour minimum of boring text based only clicky conversations (more on that in a minute) that makes no sense and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story, your character or the world. Three starting areas and they all take an hour just to get to, all of them talking to some doofus in cart/carriage about nothing.

The initial introduction, for SOMEONE THAT'S NOT A FANBOY, will be utterly BORING and nonsensical. Most will quit because Western gamers have ADD and short attention spans. You may not like it, but it's nonetheless true. Once in town the get started stuff is so BAD and boring its laughable. Fetch quests galore, use the emote system to dance and after another 30 min of mindless fedex courier stuff you get to kill some lady bugs. Yipee!

 

2. NO Voice acting, at ALL. Talk about a game that looks like a 2013 game but sounds like one from 1999. WoW had more spoken dialogue than this game at its launch in 2004 and so did every other game released since then. For a game today to not even have NPCs say hello or have some sort of canned response when you click on them is shameful. And the amount of mindless text you have to click through or god forbid actually read - hmph, no one will do that.

 

3. HOT BAR games are so 2005. Click, watch animation, wait for global cool down, click, click, rinse repeat. With games like GW2 and Neverwinter paving the way for fluid gameplay in MMOs Western based players will see FFXIV combat as old school, and not in a good way.

 

4. It's still too -- well FF-ish. Yep. I get it, for the fanboys they love it. The everyone looks like fairies and the effects are all outlandish is a good thing. Monsters sitting beside Pokemons and killing fuzzy lady bugs are cool. For westerners, well it's not. It is odd, goofy and well it bit off putting. The dialogue and writing are obviously translations and don't make sense all the time. I appreciate their efforts to Westernize it, but they didn't do enough of it.

5. All of these reasons combine to make a very strange and boring combination, and one that most folks not already SOLD on FF will throw away like a bad Jet Li film.

Again, I'm not here to be critical for the sake of making anyone mad. I'm not calling your kid ugly, so don't do it to me, please. I'm simply providing a view that will be very widely held by the largest gaming market on the planet, and that is the West, specifically the U.S.

 

Margulis

I don't even really follow this game but saw this topic on the main page.  If you seriously think the 4 weak reasons you gave would be the failure of any mmo - you're living in a fantasy land.  And I'm pretty sure I heard there is voice acting being added for the release anyway so now you're down to 3 weak arguments.

azzamasin

While I doubt it will fail, the game definitely doesn't appeal to me solely because of your #3.  Slow, tab target based multi hotbar combat is just so bad in todays modern MMO development.  Doubly so in a Themepark MMO.