When a game has over 1 million people trying to get into beta, you would think people would have the common sense to realise that this game could easily be a success. If that's not enough of a reason here is a few more just off the top of my head.
1. FFXI has been around for over a decade with several expansions released over the years. This would lead one to believe that SE has the same plans for FFXIV, which means plenty of future content, level cap increases, new classes etc. Lots to look forward to I would say.
2. The game is being released at a perfect time where it doesn't have to compete with any top shelf contenders being released later in the year. (Archeage, TESO, EQN take your pick). No competition. With a sea of gamers looking for something new (Even if its only to get them closer to their desired release) Its box copies sold, and subs paid for a few months. Some will stay some will go, life goes on.
3. I have checked a number of Canadian game retail sites and see that FFXIV is #7 on the top selling list for ps3, and #1 on the PC list. I imagine if I checked American sites I would probably see close to the same results. (I live in Canada and don't care enough about this post to look that far into it). Anyways this shows that this game has much more going for it then just an Asian and fan boy following
4. Its P2P, enough said.
If the OP opened his eyes and took a look at the facts about this game before posting a bunch of biased horse shit that you can tell he literally made up on the spot. We wouldn't have 8 damn pages of nothing helpful to people who are actually interested in the game and are looking for a reason to buy or not buy it.
No reason to group ?? Umm i think perhaps play the game.PLENTY of reason to group,you won't get some of the content done without it and you definitely can't do Behests/guild content.
The reason EVERY game is struggling is because the market is completely saturated far too many games/developers not enough players.I just tripped around 3 different SOE games and all look like they are going to die if not already dead.
I always thought Wow killed this industry for certain reasons but now i realize what WOW really did.It gave the impression there is a ton of money to be made,so every developer and new ones started cropping up,now there is literally hundreds if not well over a thousand games.
Farmville did the same thing for Facebook type gaming,everyone jumped on the bandwagon but only a small % actually made money doing it.There were money moguls buying up the rights to use Farmville brand in their country,millions of dollars spent, i wonder how those operations are doing now,probably not getting their millions they invested back.
Sadly what will need to happen is just like a recession,many developers will need to fold up shop to allow the others to have a chance.It used to be SOE and Blizzard and Square,now i see SOE is near dead.Trion has recently stepped into the scene i know they are not going to remain at this level,defiance failed and Rift is imo hanging on trying to use f2p to keep the cash flow going.Problem is one success does not make a developer,if you invest all that money into newer games and they fail,you have just lost a ton of your profit.It is a really bad cycle,they are afraid to invest much into their games and relying on marketing/hype to get their game popular.
IMO FXIV will do ok,definitely not what they had hoped,just like FFXI,it is going to take them a long time to recoup their investment.I just hope this doesn't end up as weak expansion packs/content.I don't think so because they choked FFXI badly with recent poor xpacs to fund this game,now that the game is decently ready,they might return to their old ways of releasing really good content.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
First, we must define what a success is. In this case success is attaining or surpassing the goals set by developers and the expectations for the game. The goals are set by the developper, the expectations come from the fans. Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game, they expect a new adventure, a ground-breaking innovative game and new game mechanics. Why? Because in the past, that is what Final Fantasy has been all about.
The goals, we can only speculate on, but the seem to be along the line of "people play X so lets do X or something similar to that, as long as we make money". While it is normal for a company to want to make money, it is also when you focus on making money instead of meeting expectations that you lose money. When you do not meet a customer's expectations, few customers will stay and hope you improve. Players in this day and age want much more than "a playable game".
So what does this game offer? Does it offer groundbreaking, new, innovative combat? No. Does it offer a new, groundbreaking, innovative story? At the moment, it seems not. Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No. Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them. Unless, of course, a playstation release is considered new, then there is something, but it is hard to imagine how that will draw enough attention to attract people.
So who is the target audience? It seems it is new players, newcomers to the MMO world. Veterans are being forced through boring design principles from the beginning. MMOs are just like stores. If a customer walks into a store and sees nothing of interest within 5 minutes, you most likely lost him for a very, very long time if not forever. MMOs get more than 5 minutes though, they get 2 hours to impress. If they can't, he's gone. Likewise, if he gets bored within the first week, he's gone. I guess such a display of ignorance is the price to pay when you let someone who is not an analyst lead production.
So the big question really is, are there enough newcomers to sustain a game long enough for it to stay afloat especially after the 3rd month exodus (that happens even in successful games, but it seems like an interesting phenomenon - Every 3rd month of a new game is where players seem to give up on it the most)? The last game that lacked innovation, which was touted as the next big thing, was SW:TOR. It barely made it thanks to going F2P and it is still very far from a success, it is only playable.
Given that nostalgic Final Fantasy fans will still give the game a try, it still seems like FF11 is the better game of the two. There is no reason for a max level player from FF11 to switch over to FF14 at this point in time. For this reason and those listed above, this game will never be a success, but, with some luck, it might be able to stay afloat. Best of luck to them, but for me, its time to move on and wait for something else as this will never meet my expectations.
Your post lacks any real evidence. Just a lot of hunches, assumptions, and opinions. If your post was supposed to make a point, it failed to make it.
Why does he need Evidence? What is wrong with Hunches? Assumptions? and his Opinion? If you were suppose to make a point you failed Sir/Ma'am.
I agree OP...I see no success. I am sad as well Love the FF series. That is how I feel. I enjoyed reading how you feel and think that anyone who expects you (OP) owe some kind of explanation really don't get it.
think it'll be a half-success on console but as for PC im not sure.....maybe with controller support & any1 thats fine with tab tab 12345 click click 12345 (every 1 -2 seconds all day long on casters ex. conjurer)
fan of action combat so i cant really stick with that.
really hope other devs get a hold of the engine used on this game tho coz i think its quite something & makes other mmo engines look like poorly optimized trash that take way too much resources
So the big question really is, are there enough newcomers to sustain a game long enough for it to stay afloat especially after the 3rd month exodus (that happens even in successful games, but it seems like an interesting phenomenon - Every 3rd month of a new game is where players seem to give up on it the most)? The last game that lacked innovation, which was touted as the next big thing, was SW:TOR. It barely made it thanks to going F2P and it is still very far from a success, it is only playable.
Just on the "3rd month exodus" it seems to me (at least for subscription games) it goes like this:
Month1 came free
Month2 the subscription hit, oh well I will play a bit longer
Month3 OMG I forgot to cancel the subscription! Better do that now.
Actual enjoyable play may have stopped in week 2 or 3, play continued into week 6 and then stopped. But from the subscription info it looks like 3 months. This has happened to me more than once, the most painful being SWTOR.
Originally posted by Korzeam Neobahamut20, the neverending hater.
The reasons you are exposing are just points of view. Basically you're saying that ARR will fail because you don't like it very much. And you extrapolate with saying that a majority won't like it.
You're not the center oh the world you know. Don't you read forums ? Don't you see that a lot of people are enjoying the game ?
You don't like it, okay. Don't pretend to have universal knowledge.
I am a skeptic first and i was one of those that scoffed the original release but i have been having fun during Beta and actually miss playing in between.I think many others share the same feeling.
As to whipping through content and talking about levels,this is NOT an altaholic game,you have tons of classes/jobs to level and a lot of work to do crafting.
If you want to really enjoy your player then crafting will be a large part of it,if all you want is to fly through levels,then i guess EVERY game will end up boring.Then on the same topic,if you play that way and expect some miracle end game to save it,i doubt that will happen.
I wish i could help them ,i have many good ideas to create longevity and ways to get around grind and just leveling.I feel most developers right now are terrified of the market,they are afraid to take many risks.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Heh. In a company's point of view. success is to make back what they invested then make a profit out of it. That alone will determine if a product is a success or a failure for them.
There was something Yoshi P. brought up which I quite liked and really shed the light on why we have seen many promising mmos over the years just bunk and fold.
The point of investors and publishers , having a time frame to deal with these 2 things and the subscription model. Many mmos we seen come out in the past years that have went badly had to suffer on being released early, alot of the ideas planned for the game cut short, an unfinished product. little to no endgame. Why, simple. Investers wanted their money back thus pushing the game out quicker, same thing with publishers. Their intervention on a mmo would just destroy it. In the end cover ups would be made, game would be hyped off the charts to get as many to buy the unfinished product to recover as much money to try to break even as possible.
This would lead to severing the dev team to a barebone minimum which would mean little to no content updates and mostly focus on fixxing the prexsisting bugs. Many , like what happened to swtor , would run for a free to play model to try to collect money to pay off its debts. some games would fold. others would bearly break even and keep a small player base.
Few mmos have been successful and have thrived.
But why Blizzard, and what could make square enix so different to this.
Simple, they do not need investors or publishers. Blizzard paid for its own game and due to it kept a big team to provide updates, new content, ect.
But the big question, what has square -enix have done.
They released ff 14 , a shitty game. I tried the beta and it was horrible , i did not buy. But people did buy the game, there were people who did like it. so what did square do?
Instead of doing what many other companies have done, after screwing customers out of their money getting them to get collectors editions and lifetime subs and all that crap then laugh and take a new subscription model. Square let the people who bought their game play for free for a good while.
They kept working on the game and did improvements /while/ working on a different engine and different mechanics.
The apologized that they released a horrible bad game and even admitted to it.
They kept people updated, even those who stood loyal to their bad product, they showed their new promises and then delivered.
After playing the new ff14 aar It changed my tone on the game and i saw their commitment. this is not a rehash its a new game.
anyone who purchased the game the first time get 30 days of play time. they do /not/ have to buy the game again. Square is not suckering people out of their money again. People who bought the collectors edition will get the new collectors edition items.
The game is priced at 30$ for pc. half of what a new mmo would cost, they are not charging new price here.
So square at least said hey we fucked up. but look we did this and that and to all those who paid for our mess, they get this new one for free. how many companies do that? Most say hey we fucked up, but we screwed ya guys. hey we are releasing another game to screw you over also. come n buy it for 60 bucks.
Square is taking a big loss here. And they are doing it for their loyal customers. With this dedication, chances are, they will succeed on recovering their losses and make a profit.
Does it have to surpass wow in subs . Hell no, they are not aiming for that. They are aiming for a niche and its quite obvious. They are not competing against other mmos They are just making a game for the people who like their games.
Was WoW successful when it first launched within a few months? No.
Err... Actually... Yes, WoW was a massive success from its very start. An unprecedented success. It was successful beyond Blizzard's expectations; to the degree that they had to ask stores to pull copies from shelves and stop selling them until they could get more servers up online to handle them all.
Did WoW have problems when it first launched? Yes. Almost every game does.
Yes, that it did. I still remember clicking on a dead mob to loot it, and my character being stuck in the "crouched" position for long periods of time while the servers caught up with what I was doing. This was largely due to them not being prepared for the amount of traffic their servers were getting. Their databases were being slammed.
That said, I think ARR will do fine. Will it be an "omg millions of people" success? Probably not. But as long as they can gain and maintain a few hundred thousand people, paying and playing month to month.. they should be fine.
A MMO doesn't need gargantuan populations to be considered successful. The only people who measure a MMO's worth by those standards are people who need to feel like they're playing "the most popular MMO".
One must be a fan because the general concensus is that this game is aimed at FF fans, not MMO players, a concensus you seem to agree with given your second paragraph. So in the event that you are right, those fans really need to be willing to drop 15$ a month. Sure if there are content updates every month like they do in GW2, I may be tempted to give it a shot after 6 months or so if people still play.
Unknown franchises have to compete against other similar franchises, but expectations are not there. No one comes in saying how they expect the spells and classes to be because it is like that in other games. Competing is very different than expectations. Example: A game like FFXIV must compete with all the other games, but most fans expect them to be well above the competition because of their reputation. Someone logs into FFXIV and sees thaumaturge and not Black Mage and hasn't played FF since FF10? He might be gone soon. If Wildstar goes and calls a mage class the "Pointy Hat" class, it won't make a difference as long as the gameplay is on a high enough level to compete with other games.
From what I gather, people seem to consider the encounters too long, thus, boring. Perhaps it is not the difficulty, but the lack of guidance that they like, but there have been games that are different in Japan and the Americas because they had to simplify and lower the difficulty level of American versions.
The competition shapes the expectations. The game MUST have the features the competition has, preferably more. How are you going to sell an initially unknown product that doesn't meet the expectations set by the rest of the genre?
Expectations for an IP do not work the way you described. The fact that the game *is* a Final Fantasy is what makes it well above the competition. Of course the game can't be trashed by the rest of the genre's population, but this is about meeting standards rather than surpassing them.
I don't see how you can assume that a fan is so fickle that if he doesn't encounter every FF staple ever the first 5 mins of playing, he's gone. Where does he even go? To a fan, there is no other MMO. He wants to play a Final Fantasy MMO, not just an MMO. He might even be new to MMO's, there is a lot to discover other than a chocobo.
I'm afraid to tell you your gatherings have gone awry. You are trying to shoehorn the Japanese into a stereotype here, but it isn't really accurate in the least. "Perhaps not this that they don't like, but this?" You don't know what they do or do not like, to tell you the truth. In the 90's the Japanese thought that Americans don't like difficult games - they have long moved past those kind of silly ideas. For the longest time the difficulty in a Final Fantasy was determined by how much you were willing to grind levels.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
I don't see how you can assume that a fan is so fickle that if he doesn't encounter every FF staple ever the first 5 mins of playing, he's gone. Where does he even go? To a fan, there is no other MMO. He wants to play a Final Fantasy MMO, not just an MMO. He might even be new to MMO's, there is a lot to discover other than a chocobo.
All Neo's been doing since they started this thread is making assumptions, wild conjecture and generally rambling aimlessly on about things they seem to be picking out of thin air, all in pursuit of one simple goal: To try and turn people off to ARR.
Seriously. I've been reading their posts, and every one of them is all over the place. They're chaining together a series of "hit and run" arguments, making stuff up as they go, presenting it as "fact", providing no citations or basis for their arguments...and then quickly moving on to the next.
Originally posted by Roin Originally posted by neobahamut20First, we must define what a success is. In this case success is attaining or surpassing the goals set by developers and the expectations for the game. The goals are set by the developper, the expectations come from the fans. Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game, they expect a new adventure, a ground-breaking innovative game and new game mechanics. Why? Because in the past, that is what Final Fantasy has been all about.The goals, we can only speculate on, but the seem to be along the line of "people play X so lets do X or something similar to that, as long as we make money". While it is normal for a company to want to make money, it is also when you focus on making money instead of meeting expectations that you lose money. When you do not meet a customer's expectations, few customers will stay and hope you improve. Players in this day and age want much more than "a playable game".So what does this game offer? Does it offer groundbreaking, new, innovative combat? No. Does it offer a new, groundbreaking, innovative story? At the moment, it seems not. Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No. Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them. Unless, of course, a playstation release is considered new, then there is something, but it is hard to imagine how that will draw enough attention to attract people.So who is the target audience? It seems it is new players, newcomers to the MMO world. Veterans are being forced through boring design principles from the beginning. MMOs are just like stores. If a customer walks into a store and sees nothing of interest within 5 minutes, you most likely lost him for a very, very long time if not forever. MMOs get more than 5 minutes though, they get 2 hours to impress. If they can't, he's gone. Likewise, if he gets bored within the first week, he's gone. I guess such a display of ignorance is the price to pay when you let someone who is not an analyst lead production.So the big question really is, are there enough newcomers to sustain a game long enough for it to stay afloat especially after the 3rd month exodus (that happens even in successful games, but it seems like an interesting phenomenon - Every 3rd month of a new game is where players seem to give up on it the most)? The last game that lacked innovation, which was touted as the next big thing, was SW:TOR. It barely made it thanks to going F2P and it is still very far from a success, it is only playable.Given that nostalgic Final Fantasy fans will still give the game a try, it still seems like FF11 is the better game of the two. There is no reason for a max level player from FF11 to switch over to FF14 at this point in time. For this reason and those listed above, this game will never be a success, but, with some luck, it might be able to stay afloat. Best of luck to them, but for me, its time to move on and wait for something else as this will never meet my expectations.
Your post lacks any real evidence. Just a lot of hunches, assumptions, and opinions. If your post was supposed to make a point, it failed to make it.
I agree. Your post is very opinionated and is based on very loose ideas and previous games.
I think overall it is getting MUCH higher positive publicity than the previous version. This is a good thing and you are trying to condemn it before it is even released which is really a shame.
Overall I agree that this isn't the WoW killer or the sandbox/pvp every is looking for but I think that FFXIV ARR will be a success and is a success in it's own right. Maybe not to your definition of a success, but a success none the less.
I think it will be so much better than the first go around but as far as longevity I don't know. I think there is a lot of mechanics here we have already seen and played in other mmos. One thing though the world does look quite beautiful to play in and it does have a lot of good immersion.
Oh look, another hater post about a good game filled with opinion and conjecture and presented as fact. That's a rare occurrence on mmorpg..... /sarcasm
As someone who bought the CE for the original FFXIV and was severely disappointed, I get 1 free month of play to see whether its for me or not, so awesome. No worries on my part.
I think you are right on all points. After the 1.0 disaster it seems SE's approach is to play it as safely as possible by creating yet another generic wow-clone that is at least decently polished and playable with better graphics.
The game is getting good traction from the crowd that hops from MMO to MMO, and there is a lot of hunger out there for a new game as there has not been a major MMO release for nearly a year.
A lot of people are curious to see is SE can really revive a dead game, and how big the PS3 market will be for a wow-clone remains to be seen.
That said you are 100% correct about how people should be concerned about the 3 month exodus. Tons of people have made it to the middle 30s in only a few days of limited beta and that is with a story that stops at lvl 20. Its safe to say loads of people will be maxed and doing raids in under a week.
If the endgame content isn't extremely good, the exodus will happen and SE will be scrambling to keep a playerbase by time Wildstar and TESO roll out.
Squareenix is a business. so they see wow and GW2 as the top mmorpg in the world (GW2 NA). Why wouldnt they want a piece of the action? Just like microsoft launching the XBox way back when....now Xbox is a reputable company in gaming. FF14 trying to do a little of what WoW does and GW2 (as far as the events). It also adds from what the trailers seem a gripping story on top of the beautiful world they created.
I just recently went into business and my one friend that has been in business for years said very plainly '' Dont try and reinvent the wheel''. Whats going to make square FF14 succesful is catering to both hardcore and casual. Giving people with little time things they can do successfully and people with alot of time things to do.
First you have to think about the people who played FF14 to the bitter end. They are coming back to ARR. Then the people ( like us) that are mmorpg players to try it out (thats why its not at 60 bucks). Then get the newcomers to mmorpgs or Rpgs (teens). Then get ps3 and 4 players that arent pc players but love mmorpgs or rpgs (semi casual players).
Its really going to depend on the advertisements. So far if I wasnt going to mmorpgs sites I wouldnt know too much about it. They need to heavy advertise when its closer to their release date to grab as many people attention as possible.
And people say I make "Troll" threads and Bait people shish !
I wish I could link my Beta Phase 3 Test 1 is over post from the Beta forums ( Im not sure if that is breaking NDA so im not doing it ) You would see about 20 or 30,000 vies and like 30 pages of posts that all say how great it is a few not so great but over all great. From all walks of the gaming world . From WoW , To SWTOR , to TERA to game devs from other games tlking about it , and even people from gaming websites talking about how awesome it is . I am sure if the testers from MMORPG.com could speak freely unedited they would say this game is hella good . Witch they do in the Beta forums
I couldn't get into FF11 Online, it was just to grindy and group centric like EQ1, and because I had already done that for 7 years, it just didn't seem to work. I need more solo friendly in my games now, or at the least a friendly dungeon finder/raid finder.
Now, if FF11 Online had/has a friendly pug grouping mechanism like WoW, and battlegrounds to pop into for pvp and cool stuff to make leveling easier even without the soloing, I'd still probably pick Final Fantasy 14 ARR out of the two choices...
It just for some reason didn't hook me when I tried it several years ago. Ran around doing some Halloween and Christmas quests, took a long boat ride super long run from one newbie town to main civilization city, without a chocobo took forever.
I'm hoping that FF14 ARR is more fun for soloing and can have important technology improvements, because I just never had it in me to grind all those exp groups again, and never did manage to get anywhere on leveling... In fact, I had wanted to be a Summoner in FF11 Online, and just got bored...
Originally posted by Wicoa It already is a success. You are forgetting that FFXARR has a home market in Japan and Asia. While selling copies in the west is a plus it does not hinge entirely on the success of the game.
I wonder why this theory didn't work for first FFXIV?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
When I see somebody is trolling about how bad will be, how fast will perish, ... etc etc ... reply as now and that troll has made even more chances for game I WILL try.
To you my good sir, I say kudos. You presented your arguments and opinions in a way that -- although questionable in it's intent -- is a fairly well write up showcasing why you think a particular game with fail. There was one area in particular that you tried to write as an observer of what some people are -- by human nature -- prone to do. I just want to say that I appreciate your write up and your thoughts. Now allow me to show you the same such respect by respond to each paragraph of my own thoughts; most of these will be backed by my first essay at the beginning with the sources therein. Others you may have read or heard of in the past, as you seem to have been in this genre for some time.
Originally posted by neobahamut20
"First, we must define what a success is. In this case success is attaining or surpassing the goals set by developers and the expectations for the game. The goals are set by the developper, the expectations come from the fans. Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game, they expect a new adventure, a ground-breaking innovative game and new game mechanics. Why? Because in the past, that is what Final Fantasy has been all about."
I think that the rendition of the first game absolutely destroys the theory that "Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game". If this weren't the case, the the first game would've been vibrant success of praise from Final Fantasy Fans when in fact it was met with almost universal decimation by critics and fans alike who did not appreciate or enjoy many of the things put into that game. In fact, one could actually assert that the "innovations" of the original were the exact downfall of the game. For an example of such (more in the following paragraphs for this section, but still not all inclusive), we had a system that actually took "grinding" to the next level by limiting the experience a class could get, only to be reset the next week so that power levelers could not get past a specific point. Allow me to quote another on this matter who has also played FFXIV 1.0 to display just what a playable game is crucial to the series.
"Yoshi-P knows why people hated 1.0. It wasn't too unique, it was @#%^ing stupid. It was stupid to have "surplus xp" as if it was really a surplus and not the "diminishing xp" that it really was. It was stupid to have to do quests at an Aetheryte and only have so many you could do a day as your main way of leveling. The armory system was dumb. The jobs weren't even Final Fantasy jobs they were mish mash generic mockups that were shadows of what FF is. The interface was lagtacular and didn't make ANY sense at all. Collision was even worse than it was in FFXI and I didn't think that was possible. The game brought even the most powerful systems to a crawl, and it wasn't even worth it considering the main way they made the game seem large was by copy-pasta areas to artificially expand the terrain. That's what Yoshi-P set out to change, and I have complete faith that he's done it." (1)
Add to that we also have the recent (I'd say informed) rantings of a public figure about the very aspects of Innovation and how people are pinning too much faith on it. He essentially asserts that people are too focused on such a concept -- and past experiences with the genre -- that they forget to look at a game and instead judge the game based on the genre. That innovation for the sake of innovation is a bad thing when you're looking for a core foundation and have a set goal on something that can then be built up. (2) This show very much depicts how we treat Innovation in this day and age, and harkens back to my previous point of why Innovation in part killed the first rendition of the game.
It was hubris that helped lead the downfall of the first verison; not listening to fans during the beta about the horrible systems that no other game had meant specifically to provide "more challenge" (world maps being mazes, the combat system, the forced class switching in armory to provide efficient experience of other classes, the limit of the amount of experience once class could get per week, not being able to just play whatever class you wanted, wanting to provide a tough leveling experience which sparked some of the above and more. Not to mention that the game offered almost no tutorials on what to do. These were just a few of the -good- things about FFXIV when it released and only a fraction of what was "different" from other games). To quote a Final Fantasy representative with regards to the first launch,
“We took our fanbase for granted,” he says. “We lacked the knowledge of the global standard for MMOs, the knowledge of other titles. We didn’t have the heart, the spirit or the passion to challenge the market.” He then goes on to check off a list of the game’s gigantic errors – an unpalatable progress structure, inadequate server architecture, a woeful interface – none of which, we can presume, Square Enix will be making in its ground-up renovation." (3)
Not to mention that their original statement of intent with regards to the refounding of the entire numbered game came with the quote "To realize this vision, and in doing so, provide our customers with a better game experience," when addressing their fanbase. (4)
What makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game is in the eyes of the beholder. Though this very game oozes it in nearly all respects what with all of it's fanfare, it's job system, story, articulate writing, etc. The Warriors of Light, the Crystal Tower (for all those old school FF fans), the job system (again an old school), the crystals (os), the Magitech Empire, the Judges (Legatus), and even throw backs to the first online version. Even places such as Gold Saucer and Costa Del Sol, the chocobo racing, Moogles being mail carriers (9), the Materia System, Primal Egis (XII), the list literally goes on and on. Could fanfare be depicted as gimmicky, even if they're well executed? Absolutely. But what is so called "innovation" if not something to put on your front box to cash in on people who don't the difference in how to separate a game from it's genre (Oh look! We have dynamic quests... Action combat? It's all the craze! Why don't we implement Mario's double jump into our game? That's MMO Innovation!" Buy our boxes! Screw our fan base! We need moar innovation, even if it alienates people! Rawr!")(5)
"The goals, we can only speculate on, but the seem to be along the line of "people play X so lets do X or something similar to that, as long as we make money". While it is normal for a company to want to make money, it is also when you focus on making money instead of meeting expectations that you lose money. When you do not meet a customer's expectations, few customers will stay and hope you improve. Players in this day and age want much more than "a playable game"."
While the first essay touches up on this (quite a bit in fact), I'd like to note the contradiction of "Players in this day and age want much more than a playable game." The first paragraph very much said that Final Fantasy fans (which it also hints are the target audience for this game) don't need a playable game. While I gave sources disagreeing with this, I just wanted to note the discrepency.
Aside from that, going back to the quote of Innovation just for Innovation's sake, how could one assert that picking up on what may or may not be popular at a time and giving it it's own flare or soul as a bad thing? Let's take a look at Final Fantasy XI, for instance. That was widely inspired by Everquest. World of Warcraft, anyone? Take into account that this is a remake of a failed project that tried to use it's own ideas without ever looking at western MMOs (most notable from it's shoddy UI and many other questionable features), and one could easily come to the conclusion that hey, maybe this was in fact a good idea to finally employ. Especially when one lost so much money as is, and the future of a company may be riding on the success of a specific game.
Taking a look at these things we will see that the most successful games to date are ones that did exactly this. There may be a growing movement of people who want "innovation for the sake of innovation," but this has little proven track records. In fact, we use it as a means to sell a box and not to truly "push" the genre forward. Take a look at some games that claim to boost innovation and typically we will see a niche playerbase. Indeed, we even see Everquest Next boosting Innovation (or at least players claiming it will). But when was a Sandbox game Innovation? It's just a new trend that is starting to regain popularity after it was beat out by Sandbox games. We hardly have learned anything about it as of yet. Though oddly enough, it's a popular franchise, and people are yelling "innovation! Innovation" and without knowing a single thing about it, is has dominated the hype meter. So really, one could say that anything that provides something "different' is typically met with scrutiny of the wallet rather than scrutiny of the mouth. That people play a Franchise to date, and if it does things that hype both sides, it will just dominate the hype meter charts.
To solidify this, was look at the most successful games along with ones that had hype and initial sale boosts (and perhaps why they may have declined). First we have Ultima Online, a franchise of Ultima. Final Fantasy XI, of Final Fantasy. Star Wars SWG of Starwars. World of Warcraft, of Blizzard's Warcraft. Everquest 2 of Everquest. Warhammer Online, of Warhammer. Age of Conan, of Conan the Barbarian. Star Wars TOR of Star wars. Final Fantasy XIV of Final Fantasy. Elder Scrolls Online. Dragon Quest X of Dragon Quest.
Ultima Online: Still a subscription based game, one of the first sandbox MMOs. It struck me as a true Ultima Game when I played it, and reminded me of Ultima VII in a lot of ways, but with no story as it was a sandbox and you made your own. Though since it was one of the first MMOs it has an advantage (the Same with Everquest).
Final Fantasy XI: Uses the Final Fantasy Name to sell and widely copied Everquest while also attempting to recreate some of Ultima Online's housing to some degree with Mog houses.
Star Wars SWG: Uses the Star Wars Name and takes many concepts of Ultima Online and puts it into the Star Wars Brand. It also had a sort of a Star Wars flare or soul to it while accomplishing this.
World of Warcraft: Uses the Warcraft name and widely used Everquest as basis to build up on. Made leveling easier (not exactly innovative) and quests more apparent. I remember my first time traveling through Azeroth and trying to relate it to my times playing their games. Many wanted to fight the Lich King, but it would be years before it happened. Consequently, once we did fight the Lich king, numbers started to drop (though that just may be a coincidence) as many were still playing simply because it was World of Warcraft and they were fans of WCIII.
Everquest 2: While many old school Everquests fans don't like it more than the first, it still had and has a large following just based on name and some changes that they like. Though widely still follows the traditional themepark path, basically "World of Warcrafting" it since it did so well using it as a starting point and thing building upon.
Warhammer Online: These guys used the Warhammer liscense and tried to innovate for the sake of innovation. The so called "public" quests seemed tacted on, and many would say that the PvE isn't that great in the game. The PvP was good for a time, but over all it seemed to have the same skin of WoW wow trying to lie to itself in not being WoW by creating what some would call shoddy "Improvements" or "new things" to do or how to go about things with different chapters and the like.
Age of Conan: This game also tried to innovate quite a bit. The combat system was innovative (though I found it tedious after a while), it had ample voice acting, execution systems, interesting concepts in PvP that just weren't implemented and only used to increase hype and spread words like "innovation". The beginning seemed fresh and new, but by the time you left, it seems like they just wanted to give that feeling as it just didn't seem as good. Again, innovation and "new" just for the sake of it as opposed to focusing on strengths and established features to make their own and then build off of.
SWTOR: Let's not even talk about SWTOR. Well, aside from full voice acting and responses that you could pick for such. Though ultimately they seemed to invest more in that innovation that making the rest of the game the best it could be. Just another feature to boast about (and they did boast about it) innovation and how they're the future. People bought into it yet again, and the focus wasn't where it needed to be.
FFXIV: This is covered in the first essay portion.
Elder Scrolls Online: The team is very much "Elder Scrolls"ing that game up of late. With a recent interview by Angry Joe saying that they are now focusing on making the game feel like the next Elder Scrolls chapter (the main reason for it's delay). They added first person combat for this reason as well after saying it may be too time consuming / resource demanding to do so. They also have 1.2 million facebook likes just because they're Elders Scrolls. The initial videos and the leak video had complaints of it being too WoW like, and now people are in lvoe with it because they're giving it the "Elder Scrolls" feeling and soul.
Dragon Quest X: Not much known about this except that it's name brand and popular in Japan (with a rumored release in the west at some point).
Those are just examples of what is being talked about by all of these critics of innovation and why any success with something "new" is the exception rather than the law when it comes to this genre so far.
The Producer Director has said different things as to what he believes Makes a FF game, but they tend to be in unison.
The Japanese game developer Square Enix held a conference in Tokyo last weekend to discuss its recent real-time tech demo Agni's Philosophy: Final Fantasy. During the conference, the creators of the tech demo presented a list of five elements that make a Final Fantasy game:
Magic
Summoning
Gorgeous beauty
Refinement
Change and challenge
Notice the word "refinement" in that phrase. This could be interpreted from refining what is already established in a previous title, but also what they see in competition. This is -- for the most part -- what they did not do in XIV 1.0. Whereas they are finally doing research on what western MMOs are doing, going so far as to look to Themeparks to look for inspiration and add the Final Fantasy Soul to. To build a core and then infuse it with something fantastic for a Final Fantasy Fan.
Although it could be interpreted in different ways, the point Change and Challenge is also indicative of A Realm Reborn. Many things change in increments as you level -- especially past level 10-15-20-25-30... etc. More systems open up, or change, story progresses, ends, starts up new stories, etc. Villains are defeated and new ones appear. The game also spikes in difficulty at around level 15 as well when it comes to these systems and the storyline.
Though if I were to add to that list, I would put Music as well as articulate writting. Along the vein of Baldur's Gate back in the day, but put into MMO form what with all the amounts of reading.
"So what does this game offer? Does it offer groundbreaking, new, innovative combat? No. Does it offer a new, groundbreaking, innovative story? At the moment, it seems not. Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No. Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them. Unless, of course, a playstation release is considered new, then there is something, but it is hard to imagine how that will draw enough attention to attract people."
This is again touched up upon in the above essay. Though much of what you said seems to be conjecture that only implies an acknowledgement that a good deal of quests and story aren't in the game in beta. Though there are a few (in my opinion) flaws to this paragraph as a whole. Allow me to elaborate on this.
"Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No."
This is something that you can see many people, on these forums even, saying does in fact exist. In fact, it is one of the main principles of the game. While I am unsure how anyone could have missed this if they played the game a significant amount of time, I'm just elaborating what I have noticed myself. The game has ample reason to group up -- in fact, it is the most efficient to do so when you finished the main story and the side quests. There is group leveling and partaking in the many, many systems that unlock as you progress in the game. There is the level sync system to help your friends with, join dungeons with, partake in FATES or perhaps even Guildhests (Another group system, the first of which teaches you how to perform in a group), hamlets, etc. Honestly, I've written a guide pertain to some of this (the stuff for low levels mainly) that doesn't even touch on mid level activities. Being more efficient to level is definitely a reason to group -- as is playing with a friend -- or even wanting to tackle old dungeon or game content. This may be up to the person, but people who played FFXI for years will no doubt agree that it was just much more fun -- and efficient -- to level in groups rather than to slowly fight solo (or as a beastmaster).
"Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want."
I'm not sure the basis you're placing your argument on the "Classes" with. Though each class plays differently once you're at a decent level (even at start), has their own animations, their own storyline (even crafters and gatherers which are leveling classes), along with having Advanced Jobs for each classes (two for each planned, and more classes to be released with patches such as the Samurai, Ninja, Red Mage, Musketeer, Dancer, etc. Though as a whole now, the game focuses on group utility and game play with such abilities as reducing one's own damage by 20% just to increase the strengths of party members (such as the bard does with the singing). It should also be mentioned that said classes will have to be leveled (again with groups is more efficient) to earn their abilities in the armory system and to have a fully maxed level character.
"No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them."
One might say that using any controller they want in a MMO is something special. Especially since they did a fair job in doing such (they even have the option to use 1.0 legacy controls and not just 2.0 ones). So that's a control that defies convention out of need and not necessity. Though I'm a little sad that you would use "all MMO players" as if you're speaking for the majority. This is a personal preference of yours, and you've yet to provide any reason, evidence, sources to the contrary. Just simply statements saying "all". The game never hid it's intentions or said it is some amazing and innovative game. Few players would even claim that. It does, however, take an older game back a ways with all it's references that the younger generation might not get. I know someone who hates MMOs, but loves this game because of all the text; his favorite games were Baldur's gate and Planescape. The game does try to inform one that it is what it easy early. Perhaps that's a weakness, perhaps it should do what some others have and try to really bring you in at start. But it starts off slowly and begins to ramp up. It does what it's predecessor did not and try to have a tutorial (which you can turn off) for those new to the game. It also -- which some may find a weakness -- tries to mingle multiple gaming systems into the game. You mentioned that the console version has a potential in boosting it's sales -- and that's true -- but it would likely come to pass that even fewer than you give credit for would actually stay if there was no such tutorials (or the slow start).
So who is the target audience? It seems it is new players, newcomers to the MMO world. Veterans are being forced through boring design principles from the beginning. MMOs are just like stores. If a customer walks into a store and sees nothing of interest within 5 minutes, you most likely lost him for a very, very long time if not forever. MMOs get more than 5 minutes though, they get 2 hours to impress. If they can't, he's gone. Likewise, if he gets bored within the first week, he's gone. I guess such a display of ignorance is the price to pay when you let someone who is not an analyst lead production.
This is a bold guess based on what could be vast experience in a genre. But I reiterate my previous point (and many different posts), that people just play this game for a little bit and come to conclusions based on it's genre and not on the actual gameplay. You yourself seem to do this as well in the previous paragraph stating that "people know the game is not for them really early" (I myself did this with ArcheAge a ways back, but want to give it an honest chance when it comes out when people who played it longer than I told me it gets better). Again, it may very well be the game's weakness, the start. But it most certainly isn't not indicative of the later gameplay, the systems therein or the game as a whole. Two hours to impress? This again makes me sad, though it may in fact be a sad truth. That people judge the genre and not the game. I would actually agree that, from a third party outlook, this is just how things tend to be with a lot of MMO gamers nowadays (no matter how unfortunate it may be).
Though as a whole I don't believe "new players" were the target audience given how the game performs later on. Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn does an excellent job in teaching people how to perform within their own game. The early Guildhests are a prime example of this, and encourage people to play in groups. There were many articles by game developers -- and WoW devs -- that they taught how to make players lazy. They didn't teach them how to participate in hard raids during gameplay and that was the flaw of their design. Final Fantasy XIV does this, in fact. Though it seems to be now interpreted as being a game for "new players", simply it wants to teach people how to participate in a utility based party and under the strenuous conditions that will exist in future systems and gameplay. WoW has admitted to this on it's devspeak/watercooler chats in the past and want to rectify such, though here are a few others who agree with such speculation.
Personally I think it's our own folly that we judge a game based on 2 hours of game play if it's in a specific genre. There are many who say that you can't judge a MMO without spending months on it. But the public just doesn't want to do that and instead use the genre and past history therein to say "been around the block before" or "Played one, played them all".
"So the big question really is, are there enough newcomers to sustain a game long enough for it to stay afloat especially after the 3rd month exodus (that happens even in successful games, but it seems like an interesting phenomenon - Every 3rd month of a new game is where players seem to give up on it the most)? The last game that lacked innovation, which was touted as the next big thing, was SW:TOR. It barely made it thanks to going F2P and it is still very far from a success, it is only playable."
Given that it will be on PS3 and PS4 I'd say there would be a new generation of players. This is a good thing as this genre needs new blood to get away from that "MMO Veteran know-it-all itis" when judging games the first hour or two of play.
Though as a whole there are posts on the ARR beta forums that are from 40+ year olds and veterans to the genre who are absolutely in love with this game. Old gamers who, as I said before, played Baldur's Gate and Planescape and enjoy all the love (and the amount of) the text and story is getting. It may be a Themepark, but it brings back nostalgic feelings of how RPGs used to be. Not to mention it has nearly every fanfare of Final Fantasy possible. It quite literally takes something from almost every numbered title in the series up to XII.
If the updates of the first version (up to 1.23) is any indication, we should expect a great story given in patches (as is promised). In addition to more classes and jobs (also promised), new systems, additional PvP, additional dungeons, FATEs, side quests, improvements to existing systems based on feedback and an overall focus to the storyline and the multiple progression paths (be it companions / houses / free companies / free company housing / primal fights / primal fights on the open world / capturing said primals on the open world to be used at a one time and change the weather of the world for a time / Gold Saucer / raiding / PvP / PvP Progression as skills useds are different and earned over time / etc.
"Given that nostalgic Final Fantasy fans will still give the game a try, it still seems like FF11 is the better game of the two. There is no reason for a max level player from FF11 to switch over to FF14 at this point in time. For this reason and those listed above, this game will never be a success, but, with some luck, it might be able to stay afloat. Best of luck to them, but for me, its time to move on and wait for something else as this will never meet my expectations."
Quite the opinions again in this. Though given that in the above you said that you pretty much did not give the game an ample try, I find it hard to believe that you could reasonably say with certainty that FFXI is better than FFXIV. Especially with how FFXI is nowadays compared to how people remember it. All I would say is, if you really want to see if a game meets your expectations, you should really play it for more than a few hours. Get to a point where you will see that groups do in fact matter. That there are many systems within the game that support it and other things. Though especially try it when the game is released and not just testing systems one at a time with weekend betas.
As a whole, I don't think anyone could reliably claim this game will be a success or not. I understand this post was likely in retaliation to the "it will be a success", but again, I don't see that being reliable either. Still negative feedback -- even if it's only from a few hours experience -- helps keep the hype down, so ultimately it will likely help the game. Still, though, it kind've makes me a little sad whenever I see titles such as "it will be" or "it won't be" when the game isn't even out and hasn't been released for some time. We have experience with the genre, not the games that come out with it. Also, we all hate or like different things. It's one of the most different communities you will ever see. With puzzle games, you have puzzle fans. With MMOs, you have fans of every genre congregating on something. Therefore, one's likes will likely be less than 1-5% of the entire population. Therefore again, asserting one thing or the other would not be the most wise thing to do in my opinion.
P.S. This post was long and so it's hard to regulate. If it seems in any way to be an offense, then I apologize. Please quote such and I will change it. Though as a whole I enjoyed writing this bit, and again thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts to words. (I may also have gotten something mixed up with another post I'm responding to, so I'm doubly sorry if this is the case!)
tl;dr Good write up! Here are my thoughts with regards to this, as well as some citations and things you may have heard in the past to help back up my points.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Please don't talk as if you know the entire fanbase's expectation of the game as well as the developer's goals.
For one, the fanbase is vastly divided into many factions even on the beta forum. However the overall consensus is that people are happy with the direction of the game and are willing pay the sub. If you were serious enough about your post then you should have at least spend some time on the beta forum and read the overall mood of the fanbase.
Sadly, I doubt you have even experience the beta or keep in touch with the game's progress for me to give you any credibility.
People keep saying mmorpg players "want somethign new"
I dont !!!!!!!!!!! i been playing them for over 10 years and its the new mmorpgs that i find crap gw2 (no trinity) CRAP it didnt work, age of conan crap crap crap crap Tera crap crap crap neverwinter crap crap crap swtor crap crap crap Rift (wasnt too bad but got boring) .
everytime a new mmorpg comes out people end up going back to their original mmorpg that they left usually wow but then they quit it again because now it has changed and is basicly something different to what it once was aka its crap now.
people want the old not the new make a mmorpg that requires braincells and none of that flyign combat , teleporting to dungeons instantly bullshit, worlds are supposed to be immersive , how is teleporting everywhere gonna help to do that.
i think mmorpgs need to take a step back and stop trying to be new and cater to noobs that play the games like a singleplayer game and burn through all content after 5 mins and then move on to teh next mmorpg.
People keep saying mmorpg players "want somethign new"
I dont !!!!!!!!!!! i been playing them for over 10 years and its the new mmorpgs that i find crap gw2 (no trinity) CRAP it didnt work, age of conan crap crap crap crap Tera crap crap crap neverwinter crap crap crap swtor crap crap crap Rift (wasnt too bad but got boring) .
everytime a new mmorpg comes out people end up going back to their original mmorpg that they left usually wow but then they quit it again because now it has changed and is basicly something different to what it once was aka its crap now.
people want the old not the new make a mmorpg that requires braincells and none of that flyign combat , teleporting to dungeons instantly bullshit, worlds are supposed to be immersive , how is teleporting everywhere gonna help to do that.
i think mmorpgs need to take a step back and stop trying to be new and cater to noobs that play the games like a singleplayer game and burn through all content after 5 mins and then move on to teh next mmorpg.
You lost me at 'crap'.
AOC has holy trinity, so does Tera, Rift and NW and SWTOR. All these MMOS just like FFXIV ARR had some new things added to them but over all they were following the same tried and tested themepark formula. So i find it ironic you call all these MMOS crap and then write 'i don't want something new'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Comments
When a game has over 1 million people trying to get into beta, you would think people would have the common sense to realise that this game could easily be a success. If that's not enough of a reason here is a few more just off the top of my head.
1. FFXI has been around for over a decade with several expansions released over the years. This would lead one to believe that SE has the same plans for FFXIV, which means plenty of future content, level cap increases, new classes etc. Lots to look forward to I would say.
2. The game is being released at a perfect time where it doesn't have to compete with any top shelf contenders being released later in the year. (Archeage, TESO, EQN take your pick). No competition. With a sea of gamers looking for something new (Even if its only to get them closer to their desired release) Its box copies sold, and subs paid for a few months. Some will stay some will go, life goes on.
3. I have checked a number of Canadian game retail sites and see that FFXIV is #7 on the top selling list for ps3, and #1 on the PC list. I imagine if I checked American sites I would probably see close to the same results. (I live in Canada and don't care enough about this post to look that far into it). Anyways this shows that this game has much more going for it then just an Asian and fan boy following
4. Its P2P, enough said.
If the OP opened his eyes and took a look at the facts about this game before posting a bunch of biased horse shit that you can tell he literally made up on the spot. We wouldn't have 8 damn pages of nothing helpful to people who are actually interested in the game and are looking for a reason to buy or not buy it.
No reason to group ?? Umm i think perhaps play the game.PLENTY of reason to group,you won't get some of the content done without it and you definitely can't do Behests/guild content.
The reason EVERY game is struggling is because the market is completely saturated far too many games/developers not enough players.I just tripped around 3 different SOE games and all look like they are going to die if not already dead.
I always thought Wow killed this industry for certain reasons but now i realize what WOW really did.It gave the impression there is a ton of money to be made,so every developer and new ones started cropping up,now there is literally hundreds if not well over a thousand games.
Farmville did the same thing for Facebook type gaming,everyone jumped on the bandwagon but only a small % actually made money doing it.There were money moguls buying up the rights to use Farmville brand in their country,millions of dollars spent, i wonder how those operations are doing now,probably not getting their millions they invested back.
Sadly what will need to happen is just like a recession,many developers will need to fold up shop to allow the others to have a chance.It used to be SOE and Blizzard and Square,now i see SOE is near dead.Trion has recently stepped into the scene i know they are not going to remain at this level,defiance failed and Rift is imo hanging on trying to use f2p to keep the cash flow going.Problem is one success does not make a developer,if you invest all that money into newer games and they fail,you have just lost a ton of your profit.It is a really bad cycle,they are afraid to invest much into their games and relying on marketing/hype to get their game popular.
IMO FXIV will do ok,definitely not what they had hoped,just like FFXI,it is going to take them a long time to recoup their investment.I just hope this doesn't end up as weak expansion packs/content.I don't think so because they choked FFXI badly with recent poor xpacs to fund this game,now that the game is decently ready,they might return to their old ways of releasing really good content.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Why does he need Evidence? What is wrong with Hunches? Assumptions? and his Opinion? If you were suppose to make a point you failed Sir/Ma'am.
I agree OP...I see no success. I am sad as well Love the FF series. That is how I feel. I enjoyed reading how you feel and think that anyone who expects you (OP) owe some kind of explanation really don't get it.
Late
think it'll be a half-success on console but as for PC im not sure.....maybe with controller support & any1 thats fine with tab tab 12345 click click 12345 (every 1 -2 seconds all day long on casters ex. conjurer)
fan of action combat so i cant really stick with that.
really hope other devs get a hold of the engine used on this game tho coz i think its quite something & makes other mmo engines look like poorly optimized trash that take way too much resources
hallo ~_~
Just on the "3rd month exodus" it seems to me (at least for subscription games) it goes like this:
Actual enjoyable play may have stopped in week 2 or 3, play continued into week 6 and then stopped. But from the subscription info it looks like 3 months. This has happened to me more than once, the most painful being SWTOR.
I am a skeptic first and i was one of those that scoffed the original release but i have been having fun during Beta and actually miss playing in between.I think many others share the same feeling.
As to whipping through content and talking about levels,this is NOT an altaholic game,you have tons of classes/jobs to level and a lot of work to do crafting.
If you want to really enjoy your player then crafting will be a large part of it,if all you want is to fly through levels,then i guess EVERY game will end up boring.Then on the same topic,if you play that way and expect some miracle end game to save it,i doubt that will happen.
I wish i could help them ,i have many good ideas to create longevity and ways to get around grind and just leveling.I feel most developers right now are terrified of the market,they are afraid to take many risks.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Heh. In a company's point of view. success is to make back what they invested then make a profit out of it. That alone will determine if a product is a success or a failure for them.
There was something Yoshi P. brought up which I quite liked and really shed the light on why we have seen many promising mmos over the years just bunk and fold.
The point of investors and publishers , having a time frame to deal with these 2 things and the subscription model. Many mmos we seen come out in the past years that have went badly had to suffer on being released early, alot of the ideas planned for the game cut short, an unfinished product. little to no endgame. Why, simple. Investers wanted their money back thus pushing the game out quicker, same thing with publishers. Their intervention on a mmo would just destroy it. In the end cover ups would be made, game would be hyped off the charts to get as many to buy the unfinished product to recover as much money to try to break even as possible.
This would lead to severing the dev team to a barebone minimum which would mean little to no content updates and mostly focus on fixxing the prexsisting bugs. Many , like what happened to swtor , would run for a free to play model to try to collect money to pay off its debts. some games would fold. others would bearly break even and keep a small player base.
Few mmos have been successful and have thrived.
But why Blizzard, and what could make square enix so different to this.
Simple, they do not need investors or publishers. Blizzard paid for its own game and due to it kept a big team to provide updates, new content, ect.
But the big question, what has square -enix have done.
They released ff 14 , a shitty game. I tried the beta and it was horrible , i did not buy. But people did buy the game, there were people who did like it. so what did square do?
Instead of doing what many other companies have done, after screwing customers out of their money getting them to get collectors editions and lifetime subs and all that crap then laugh and take a new subscription model. Square let the people who bought their game play for free for a good while.
They kept working on the game and did improvements /while/ working on a different engine and different mechanics.
The apologized that they released a horrible bad game and even admitted to it.
They kept people updated, even those who stood loyal to their bad product, they showed their new promises and then delivered.
After playing the new ff14 aar It changed my tone on the game and i saw their commitment. this is not a rehash its a new game.
anyone who purchased the game the first time get 30 days of play time. they do /not/ have to buy the game again. Square is not suckering people out of their money again. People who bought the collectors edition will get the new collectors edition items.
The game is priced at 30$ for pc. half of what a new mmo would cost, they are not charging new price here.
So square at least said hey we fucked up. but look we did this and that and to all those who paid for our mess, they get this new one for free. how many companies do that? Most say hey we fucked up, but we screwed ya guys. hey we are releasing another game to screw you over also. come n buy it for 60 bucks.
Square is taking a big loss here. And they are doing it for their loyal customers. With this dedication, chances are, they will succeed on recovering their losses and make a profit.
Does it have to surpass wow in subs . Hell no, they are not aiming for that. They are aiming for a niche and its quite obvious. They are not competing against other mmos They are just making a game for the people who like their games.
That said, I think ARR will do fine. Will it be an "omg millions of people" success? Probably not. But as long as they can gain and maintain a few hundred thousand people, paying and playing month to month.. they should be fine.
A MMO doesn't need gargantuan populations to be considered successful. The only people who measure a MMO's worth by those standards are people who need to feel like they're playing "the most popular MMO".
The competition shapes the expectations. The game MUST have the features the competition has, preferably more. How are you going to sell an initially unknown product that doesn't meet the expectations set by the rest of the genre?
Expectations for an IP do not work the way you described. The fact that the game *is* a Final Fantasy is what makes it well above the competition. Of course the game can't be trashed by the rest of the genre's population, but this is about meeting standards rather than surpassing them.
I don't see how you can assume that a fan is so fickle that if he doesn't encounter every FF staple ever the first 5 mins of playing, he's gone. Where does he even go? To a fan, there is no other MMO. He wants to play a Final Fantasy MMO, not just an MMO. He might even be new to MMO's, there is a lot to discover other than a chocobo.
I'm afraid to tell you your gatherings have gone awry. You are trying to shoehorn the Japanese into a stereotype here, but it isn't really accurate in the least. "Perhaps not this that they don't like, but this?" You don't know what they do or do not like, to tell you the truth. In the 90's the Japanese thought that Americans don't like difficult games - they have long moved past those kind of silly ideas. For the longest time the difficulty in a Final Fantasy was determined by how much you were willing to grind levels.
All Neo's been doing since they started this thread is making assumptions, wild conjecture and generally rambling aimlessly on about things they seem to be picking out of thin air, all in pursuit of one simple goal: To try and turn people off to ARR.
Seriously. I've been reading their posts, and every one of them is all over the place. They're chaining together a series of "hit and run" arguments, making stuff up as they go, presenting it as "fact", providing no citations or basis for their arguments...and then quickly moving on to the next.
I agree. Your post is very opinionated and is based on very loose ideas and previous games.
I think overall it is getting MUCH higher positive publicity than the previous version. This is a good thing and you are trying to condemn it before it is even released which is really a shame.
Overall I agree that this isn't the WoW killer or the sandbox/pvp every is looking for but I think that FFXIV ARR will be a success and is a success in it's own right. Maybe not to your definition of a success, but a success none the less.
Squareenix is a business. so they see wow and GW2 as the top mmorpg in the world (GW2 NA). Why wouldnt they want a piece of the action? Just like microsoft launching the XBox way back when....now Xbox is a reputable company in gaming. FF14 trying to do a little of what WoW does and GW2 (as far as the events). It also adds from what the trailers seem a gripping story on top of the beautiful world they created.
I just recently went into business and my one friend that has been in business for years said very plainly '' Dont try and reinvent the wheel''. Whats going to make square FF14 succesful is catering to both hardcore and casual. Giving people with little time things they can do successfully and people with alot of time things to do.
First you have to think about the people who played FF14 to the bitter end. They are coming back to ARR. Then the people ( like us) that are mmorpg players to try it out (thats why its not at 60 bucks). Then get the newcomers to mmorpgs or Rpgs (teens). Then get ps3 and 4 players that arent pc players but love mmorpgs or rpgs (semi casual players).
Its really going to depend on the advertisements. So far if I wasnt going to mmorpgs sites I wouldnt know too much about it. They need to heavy advertise when its closer to their release date to grab as many people attention as possible.
And people say I make "Troll" threads and Bait people shish !
I wish I could link my Beta Phase 3 Test 1 is over post from the Beta forums ( Im not sure if that is breaking NDA so im not doing it ) You would see about 20 or 30,000 vies and like 30 pages of posts that all say how great it is a few not so great but over all great. From all walks of the gaming world . From WoW , To SWTOR , to TERA to game devs from other games tlking about it , and even people from gaming websites talking about how awesome it is . I am sure if the testers from MMORPG.com could speak freely unedited they would say this game is hella good . Witch they do in the Beta forums
http://absoluteretribution.enjin.com/ Guild Website and Recruitment link
I couldn't get into FF11 Online, it was just to grindy and group centric like EQ1, and because I had already done that for 7 years, it just didn't seem to work. I need more solo friendly in my games now, or at the least a friendly dungeon finder/raid finder.
Now, if FF11 Online had/has a friendly pug grouping mechanism like WoW, and battlegrounds to pop into for pvp and cool stuff to make leveling easier even without the soloing, I'd still probably pick Final Fantasy 14 ARR out of the two choices...
It just for some reason didn't hook me when I tried it several years ago. Ran around doing some Halloween and Christmas quests, took a long boat ride super long run from one newbie town to main civilization city, without a chocobo took forever.
I'm hoping that FF14 ARR is more fun for soloing and can have important technology improvements, because I just never had it in me to grind all those exp groups again, and never did manage to get anywhere on leveling... In fact, I had wanted to be a Summoner in FF11 Online, and just got bored...
I'm a max level player from FFXI and I'm switching to FFXIV.
So there.... your point has been nullified. Sorry.
I wonder why this theory didn't work for first FFXIV?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
stopped reading @ "first we need to define what a success is. in this case..."
i usually stop reading posts when the OP tries to convince me of something I already know by twisting some meaning to fit their opinion.
other key phrases "lets be honest", "we all know"
To you my good sir, I say kudos. You presented your arguments and opinions in a way that -- although questionable in it's intent -- is a fairly well write up showcasing why you think a particular game with fail. There was one area in particular that you tried to write as an observer of what some people are -- by human nature -- prone to do. I just want to say that I appreciate your write up and your thoughts. Now allow me to show you the same such respect by respond to each paragraph of my own thoughts; most of these will be backed by my first essay at the beginning with the sources therein. Others you may have read or heard of in the past, as you seem to have been in this genre for some time.
Originally posted by neobahamut20
"First, we must define what a success is. In this case success is attaining or surpassing the goals set by developers and the expectations for the game. The goals are set by the developper, the expectations come from the fans. Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game, they expect a new adventure, a ground-breaking innovative game and new game mechanics. Why? Because in the past, that is what Final Fantasy has been all about."
I think that the rendition of the first game absolutely destroys the theory that "Final Fantasy fans don't expect a playable game". If this weren't the case, the the first game would've been vibrant success of praise from Final Fantasy Fans when in fact it was met with almost universal decimation by critics and fans alike who did not appreciate or enjoy many of the things put into that game. In fact, one could actually assert that the "innovations" of the original were the exact downfall of the game. For an example of such (more in the following paragraphs for this section, but still not all inclusive), we had a system that actually took "grinding" to the next level by limiting the experience a class could get, only to be reset the next week so that power levelers could not get past a specific point. Allow me to quote another on this matter who has also played FFXIV 1.0 to display just what a playable game is crucial to the series.
"Yoshi-P knows why people hated 1.0. It wasn't too unique, it was @#%^ing stupid. It was stupid to have "surplus xp" as if it was really a surplus and not the "diminishing xp" that it really was. It was stupid to have to do quests at an Aetheryte and only have so many you could do a day as your main way of leveling. The armory system was dumb. The jobs weren't even Final Fantasy jobs they were mish mash generic mockups that were shadows of what FF is. The interface was lagtacular and didn't make ANY sense at all. Collision was even worse than it was in FFXI and I didn't think that was possible. The game brought even the most powerful systems to a crawl, and it wasn't even worth it considering the main way they made the game seem large was by copy-pasta areas to artificially expand the terrain. That's what Yoshi-P set out to change, and I have complete faith that he's done it." (1)
Add to that we also have the recent (I'd say informed) rantings of a public figure about the very aspects of Innovation and how people are pinning too much faith on it. He essentially asserts that people are too focused on such a concept -- and past experiences with the genre -- that they forget to look at a game and instead judge the game based on the genre. That innovation for the sake of innovation is a bad thing when you're looking for a core foundation and have a set goal on something that can then be built up. (2) This show very much depicts how we treat Innovation in this day and age, and harkens back to my previous point of why Innovation in part killed the first rendition of the game.
It was hubris that helped lead the downfall of the first verison; not listening to fans during the beta about the horrible systems that no other game had meant specifically to provide "more challenge" (world maps being mazes, the combat system, the forced class switching in armory to provide efficient experience of other classes, the limit of the amount of experience once class could get per week, not being able to just play whatever class you wanted, wanting to provide a tough leveling experience which sparked some of the above and more. Not to mention that the game offered almost no tutorials on what to do. These were just a few of the -good- things about FFXIV when it released and only a fraction of what was "different" from other games). To quote a Final Fantasy representative with regards to the first launch,
“We took our fanbase for granted,” he says. “We lacked the knowledge of the global standard for MMOs, the knowledge of other titles. We didn’t have the heart, the spirit or the passion to challenge the market.” He then goes on to check off a list of the game’s gigantic errors – an unpalatable progress structure, inadequate server architecture, a woeful interface – none of which, we can presume, Square Enix will be making in its ground-up renovation." (3)
Not to mention that their original statement of intent with regards to the refounding of the entire numbered game came with the quote "To realize this vision, and in doing so, provide our customers with a better game experience," when addressing their fanbase. (4)
What makes a Final Fantasy game a Final Fantasy game is in the eyes of the beholder. Though this very game oozes it in nearly all respects what with all of it's fanfare, it's job system, story, articulate writing, etc. The Warriors of Light, the Crystal Tower (for all those old school FF fans), the job system (again an old school), the crystals (os), the Magitech Empire, the Judges (Legatus), and even throw backs to the first online version. Even places such as Gold Saucer and Costa Del Sol, the chocobo racing, Moogles being mail carriers (9), the Materia System, Primal Egis (XII), the list literally goes on and on. Could fanfare be depicted as gimmicky, even if they're well executed? Absolutely. But what is so called "innovation" if not something to put on your front box to cash in on people who don't the difference in how to separate a game from it's genre (Oh look! We have dynamic quests... Action combat? It's all the craze! Why don't we implement Mario's double jump into our game? That's MMO Innovation!" Buy our boxes! Screw our fan base! We need moar innovation, even if it alienates people! Rawr!")(5)
(1) http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=152&mid=1366056893272761822&h=50
Post 13
(2)
(3) http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/22/ffxiv-a-realm-reborn-interview-we-took-our-fanbase-for-granted-we-lacked-the-knowledge-of-other-titles/
(4) http://www.onrpg.com/articles/news/square-enix-apologize-for-final-fantasy-xiv/
(5)
"The goals, we can only speculate on, but the seem to be along the line of "people play X so lets do X or something similar to that, as long as we make money". While it is normal for a company to want to make money, it is also when you focus on making money instead of meeting expectations that you lose money. When you do not meet a customer's expectations, few customers will stay and hope you improve. Players in this day and age want much more than "a playable game"."
While the first essay touches up on this (quite a bit in fact), I'd like to note the contradiction of "Players in this day and age want much more than a playable game." The first paragraph very much said that Final Fantasy fans (which it also hints are the target audience for this game) don't need a playable game. While I gave sources disagreeing with this, I just wanted to note the discrepency.
Aside from that, going back to the quote of Innovation just for Innovation's sake, how could one assert that picking up on what may or may not be popular at a time and giving it it's own flare or soul as a bad thing? Let's take a look at Final Fantasy XI, for instance. That was widely inspired by Everquest. World of Warcraft, anyone? Take into account that this is a remake of a failed project that tried to use it's own ideas without ever looking at western MMOs (most notable from it's shoddy UI and many other questionable features), and one could easily come to the conclusion that hey, maybe this was in fact a good idea to finally employ. Especially when one lost so much money as is, and the future of a company may be riding on the success of a specific game.
Taking a look at these things we will see that the most successful games to date are ones that did exactly this. There may be a growing movement of people who want "innovation for the sake of innovation," but this has little proven track records. In fact, we use it as a means to sell a box and not to truly "push" the genre forward. Take a look at some games that claim to boost innovation and typically we will see a niche playerbase. Indeed, we even see Everquest Next boosting Innovation (or at least players claiming it will). But when was a Sandbox game Innovation? It's just a new trend that is starting to regain popularity after it was beat out by Sandbox games. We hardly have learned anything about it as of yet. Though oddly enough, it's a popular franchise, and people are yelling "innovation! Innovation" and without knowing a single thing about it, is has dominated the hype meter. So really, one could say that anything that provides something "different' is typically met with scrutiny of the wallet rather than scrutiny of the mouth. That people play a Franchise to date, and if it does things that hype both sides, it will just dominate the hype meter charts.
To solidify this, was look at the most successful games along with ones that had hype and initial sale boosts (and perhaps why they may have declined). First we have Ultima Online, a franchise of Ultima. Final Fantasy XI, of Final Fantasy. Star Wars SWG of Starwars. World of Warcraft, of Blizzard's Warcraft. Everquest 2 of Everquest. Warhammer Online, of Warhammer. Age of Conan, of Conan the Barbarian. Star Wars TOR of Star wars. Final Fantasy XIV of Final Fantasy. Elder Scrolls Online. Dragon Quest X of Dragon Quest.
Ultima Online: Still a subscription based game, one of the first sandbox MMOs. It struck me as a true Ultima Game when I played it, and reminded me of Ultima VII in a lot of ways, but with no story as it was a sandbox and you made your own. Though since it was one of the first MMOs it has an advantage (the Same with Everquest).
Final Fantasy XI: Uses the Final Fantasy Name to sell and widely copied Everquest while also attempting to recreate some of Ultima Online's housing to some degree with Mog houses.
Star Wars SWG: Uses the Star Wars Name and takes many concepts of Ultima Online and puts it into the Star Wars Brand. It also had a sort of a Star Wars flare or soul to it while accomplishing this.
World of Warcraft: Uses the Warcraft name and widely used Everquest as basis to build up on. Made leveling easier (not exactly innovative) and quests more apparent. I remember my first time traveling through Azeroth and trying to relate it to my times playing their games. Many wanted to fight the Lich King, but it would be years before it happened. Consequently, once we did fight the Lich king, numbers started to drop (though that just may be a coincidence) as many were still playing simply because it was World of Warcraft and they were fans of WCIII.
Everquest 2: While many old school Everquests fans don't like it more than the first, it still had and has a large following just based on name and some changes that they like. Though widely still follows the traditional themepark path, basically "World of Warcrafting" it since it did so well using it as a starting point and thing building upon.
Warhammer Online: These guys used the Warhammer liscense and tried to innovate for the sake of innovation. The so called "public" quests seemed tacted on, and many would say that the PvE isn't that great in the game. The PvP was good for a time, but over all it seemed to have the same skin of WoW wow trying to lie to itself in not being WoW by creating what some would call shoddy "Improvements" or "new things" to do or how to go about things with different chapters and the like.
Age of Conan: This game also tried to innovate quite a bit. The combat system was innovative (though I found it tedious after a while), it had ample voice acting, execution systems, interesting concepts in PvP that just weren't implemented and only used to increase hype and spread words like "innovation". The beginning seemed fresh and new, but by the time you left, it seems like they just wanted to give that feeling as it just didn't seem as good. Again, innovation and "new" just for the sake of it as opposed to focusing on strengths and established features to make their own and then build off of.
SWTOR: Let's not even talk about SWTOR. Well, aside from full voice acting and responses that you could pick for such. Though ultimately they seemed to invest more in that innovation that making the rest of the game the best it could be. Just another feature to boast about (and they did boast about it) innovation and how they're the future. People bought into it yet again, and the focus wasn't where it needed to be.
FFXIV: This is covered in the first essay portion.
Elder Scrolls Online: The team is very much "Elder Scrolls"ing that game up of late. With a recent interview by Angry Joe saying that they are now focusing on making the game feel like the next Elder Scrolls chapter (the main reason for it's delay). They added first person combat for this reason as well after saying it may be too time consuming / resource demanding to do so. They also have 1.2 million facebook likes just because they're Elders Scrolls. The initial videos and the leak video had complaints of it being too WoW like, and now people are in lvoe with it because they're giving it the "Elder Scrolls" feeling and soul.
Dragon Quest X: Not much known about this except that it's name brand and popular in Japan (with a rumored release in the west at some point).
Those are just examples of what is being talked about by all of these critics of innovation and why any success with something "new" is the exception rather than the law when it comes to this genre so far.
Allow me to post a site with regards to what a Japanese Game Developer at Square Enix thinks Final Fantasy is all about: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-11-26/square-enix-lists-5-elements-that-make-a-final-fantasy-game
The Producer Director has said different things as to what he believes Makes a FF game, but they tend to be in unison.
The Japanese game developer Square Enix held a conference in Tokyo last weekend to discuss its recent real-time tech demo Agni's Philosophy: Final Fantasy. During the conference, the creators of the tech demo presented a list of five elements that make a Final Fantasy game:
Magic
Summoning
Gorgeous beauty
Refinement
Change and challenge
Notice the word "refinement" in that phrase. This could be interpreted from refining what is already established in a previous title, but also what they see in competition. This is -- for the most part -- what they did not do in XIV 1.0. Whereas they are finally doing research on what western MMOs are doing, going so far as to look to Themeparks to look for inspiration and add the Final Fantasy Soul to. To build a core and then infuse it with something fantastic for a Final Fantasy Fan.
Although it could be interpreted in different ways, the point Change and Challenge is also indicative of A Realm Reborn. Many things change in increments as you level -- especially past level 10-15-20-25-30... etc. More systems open up, or change, story progresses, ends, starts up new stories, etc. Villains are defeated and new ones appear. The game also spikes in difficulty at around level 15 as well when it comes to these systems and the storyline.
Though if I were to add to that list, I would put Music as well as articulate writting. Along the vein of Baldur's Gate back in the day, but put into MMO form what with all the amounts of reading.
"So what does this game offer? Does it offer groundbreaking, new, innovative combat? No. Does it offer a new, groundbreaking, innovative story? At the moment, it seems not. Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No. Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them. Unless, of course, a playstation release is considered new, then there is something, but it is hard to imagine how that will draw enough attention to attract people."
This is again touched up upon in the above essay. Though much of what you said seems to be conjecture that only implies an acknowledgement that a good deal of quests and story aren't in the game in beta. Though there are a few (in my opinion) flaws to this paragraph as a whole. Allow me to elaborate on this.
"Does it offer new, groundbreaking, innovative dungeons, reasons for grouping, reasons to interact? No."
This is something that you can see many people, on these forums even, saying does in fact exist. In fact, it is one of the main principles of the game. While I am unsure how anyone could have missed this if they played the game a significant amount of time, I'm just elaborating what I have noticed myself. The game has ample reason to group up -- in fact, it is the most efficient to do so when you finished the main story and the side quests. There is group leveling and partaking in the many, many systems that unlock as you progress in the game. There is the level sync system to help your friends with, join dungeons with, partake in FATES or perhaps even Guildhests (Another group system, the first of which teaches you how to perform in a group), hamlets, etc. Honestly, I've written a guide pertain to some of this (the stuff for low levels mainly) that doesn't even touch on mid level activities. Being more efficient to level is definitely a reason to group -- as is playing with a friend -- or even wanting to tackle old dungeon or game content. This may be up to the person, but people who played FFXI for years will no doubt agree that it was just much more fun -- and efficient -- to level in groups rather than to slowly fight solo (or as a beastmaster).
"Does it offer new classes? No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want."
I'm not sure the basis you're placing your argument on the "Classes" with. Though each class plays differently once you're at a decent level (even at start), has their own animations, their own storyline (even crafters and gatherers which are leveling classes), along with having Advanced Jobs for each classes (two for each planned, and more classes to be released with patches such as the Samurai, Ninja, Red Mage, Musketeer, Dancer, etc. Though as a whole now, the game focuses on group utility and game play with such abilities as reducing one's own damage by 20% just to increase the strengths of party members (such as the bard does with the singing). It should also be mentioned that said classes will have to be leveled (again with groups is more efficient) to earn their abilities in the armory system and to have a fully maxed level character.
"No. New controls? No. So what does this game offer? Nothing new, just the old content all MMO players looking for a new game do not want. So right off the bat, they simply step back and understand that the game isn't meant for them."
One might say that using any controller they want in a MMO is something special. Especially since they did a fair job in doing such (they even have the option to use 1.0 legacy controls and not just 2.0 ones). So that's a control that defies convention out of need and not necessity. Though I'm a little sad that you would use "all MMO players" as if you're speaking for the majority. This is a personal preference of yours, and you've yet to provide any reason, evidence, sources to the contrary. Just simply statements saying "all". The game never hid it's intentions or said it is some amazing and innovative game. Few players would even claim that. It does, however, take an older game back a ways with all it's references that the younger generation might not get. I know someone who hates MMOs, but loves this game because of all the text; his favorite games were Baldur's gate and Planescape. The game does try to inform one that it is what it easy early. Perhaps that's a weakness, perhaps it should do what some others have and try to really bring you in at start. But it starts off slowly and begins to ramp up. It does what it's predecessor did not and try to have a tutorial (which you can turn off) for those new to the game. It also -- which some may find a weakness -- tries to mingle multiple gaming systems into the game. You mentioned that the console version has a potential in boosting it's sales -- and that's true -- but it would likely come to pass that even fewer than you give credit for would actually stay if there was no such tutorials (or the slow start).
So who is the target audience? It seems it is new players, newcomers to the MMO world. Veterans are being forced through boring design principles from the beginning. MMOs are just like stores. If a customer walks into a store and sees nothing of interest within 5 minutes, you most likely lost him for a very, very long time if not forever. MMOs get more than 5 minutes though, they get 2 hours to impress. If they can't, he's gone. Likewise, if he gets bored within the first week, he's gone. I guess such a display of ignorance is the price to pay when you let someone who is not an analyst lead production.
This is a bold guess based on what could be vast experience in a genre. But I reiterate my previous point (and many different posts), that people just play this game for a little bit and come to conclusions based on it's genre and not on the actual gameplay. You yourself seem to do this as well in the previous paragraph stating that "people know the game is not for them really early" (I myself did this with ArcheAge a ways back, but want to give it an honest chance when it comes out when people who played it longer than I told me it gets better). Again, it may very well be the game's weakness, the start. But it most certainly isn't not indicative of the later gameplay, the systems therein or the game as a whole. Two hours to impress? This again makes me sad, though it may in fact be a sad truth. That people judge the genre and not the game. I would actually agree that, from a third party outlook, this is just how things tend to be with a lot of MMO gamers nowadays (no matter how unfortunate it may be).
Though as a whole I don't believe "new players" were the target audience given how the game performs later on. Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn does an excellent job in teaching people how to perform within their own game. The early Guildhests are a prime example of this, and encourage people to play in groups. There were many articles by game developers -- and WoW devs -- that they taught how to make players lazy. They didn't teach them how to participate in hard raids during gameplay and that was the flaw of their design. Final Fantasy XIV does this, in fact. Though it seems to be now interpreted as being a game for "new players", simply it wants to teach people how to participate in a utility based party and under the strenuous conditions that will exist in future systems and gameplay. WoW has admitted to this on it's devspeak/watercooler chats in the past and want to rectify such, though here are a few others who agree with such speculation.
http://blues.wowraider.net/blue/us2/9309301649/This-Game-Does-Nothing-To-Teach-Bad-Players..
Personally I think it's our own folly that we judge a game based on 2 hours of game play if it's in a specific genre. There are many who say that you can't judge a MMO without spending months on it. But the public just doesn't want to do that and instead use the genre and past history therein to say "been around the block before" or "Played one, played them all".
"So the big question really is, are there enough newcomers to sustain a game long enough for it to stay afloat especially after the 3rd month exodus (that happens even in successful games, but it seems like an interesting phenomenon - Every 3rd month of a new game is where players seem to give up on it the most)? The last game that lacked innovation, which was touted as the next big thing, was SW:TOR. It barely made it thanks to going F2P and it is still very far from a success, it is only playable."
Given that it will be on PS3 and PS4 I'd say there would be a new generation of players. This is a good thing as this genre needs new blood to get away from that "MMO Veteran know-it-all itis" when judging games the first hour or two of play.
Though as a whole there are posts on the ARR beta forums that are from 40+ year olds and veterans to the genre who are absolutely in love with this game. Old gamers who, as I said before, played Baldur's Gate and Planescape and enjoy all the love (and the amount of) the text and story is getting. It may be a Themepark, but it brings back nostalgic feelings of how RPGs used to be. Not to mention it has nearly every fanfare of Final Fantasy possible. It quite literally takes something from almost every numbered title in the series up to XII.
If the updates of the first version (up to 1.23) is any indication, we should expect a great story given in patches (as is promised). In addition to more classes and jobs (also promised), new systems, additional PvP, additional dungeons, FATEs, side quests, improvements to existing systems based on feedback and an overall focus to the storyline and the multiple progression paths (be it companions / houses / free companies / free company housing / primal fights / primal fights on the open world / capturing said primals on the open world to be used at a one time and change the weather of the world for a time / Gold Saucer / raiding / PvP / PvP Progression as skills useds are different and earned over time / etc.
"Given that nostalgic Final Fantasy fans will still give the game a try, it still seems like FF11 is the better game of the two. There is no reason for a max level player from FF11 to switch over to FF14 at this point in time. For this reason and those listed above, this game will never be a success, but, with some luck, it might be able to stay afloat. Best of luck to them, but for me, its time to move on and wait for something else as this will never meet my expectations."
Quite the opinions again in this. Though given that in the above you said that you pretty much did not give the game an ample try, I find it hard to believe that you could reasonably say with certainty that FFXI is better than FFXIV. Especially with how FFXI is nowadays compared to how people remember it. All I would say is, if you really want to see if a game meets your expectations, you should really play it for more than a few hours. Get to a point where you will see that groups do in fact matter. That there are many systems within the game that support it and other things. Though especially try it when the game is released and not just testing systems one at a time with weekend betas.
As a whole, I don't think anyone could reliably claim this game will be a success or not. I understand this post was likely in retaliation to the "it will be a success", but again, I don't see that being reliable either. Still negative feedback -- even if it's only from a few hours experience -- helps keep the hype down, so ultimately it will likely help the game. Still, though, it kind've makes me a little sad whenever I see titles such as "it will be" or "it won't be" when the game isn't even out and hasn't been released for some time. We have experience with the genre, not the games that come out with it. Also, we all hate or like different things. It's one of the most different communities you will ever see. With puzzle games, you have puzzle fans. With MMOs, you have fans of every genre congregating on something. Therefore, one's likes will likely be less than 1-5% of the entire population. Therefore again, asserting one thing or the other would not be the most wise thing to do in my opinion.
P.S. This post was long and so it's hard to regulate. If it seems in any way to be an offense, then I apologize. Please quote such and I will change it. Though as a whole I enjoyed writing this bit, and again thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts to words. (I may also have gotten something mixed up with another post I'm responding to, so I'm doubly sorry if this is the case!)
tl;dr Good write up! Here are my thoughts with regards to this, as well as some citations and things you may have heard in the past to help back up my points.
Please don't talk as if you know the entire fanbase's expectation of the game as well as the developer's goals.
For one, the fanbase is vastly divided into many factions even on the beta forum. However the overall consensus is that people are happy with the direction of the game and are willing pay the sub. If you were serious enough about your post then you should have at least spend some time on the beta forum and read the overall mood of the fanbase.
Sadly, I doubt you have even experience the beta or keep in touch with the game's progress for me to give you any credibility.
People keep saying mmorpg players "want somethign new"
I dont !!!!!!!!!!! i been playing them for over 10 years and its the new mmorpgs that i find crap gw2 (no trinity) CRAP it didnt work, age of conan crap crap crap crap Tera crap crap crap neverwinter crap crap crap swtor crap crap crap Rift (wasnt too bad but got boring) .
everytime a new mmorpg comes out people end up going back to their original mmorpg that they left usually wow but then they quit it again because now it has changed and is basicly something different to what it once was aka its crap now.
people want the old not the new make a mmorpg that requires braincells and none of that flyign combat , teleporting to dungeons instantly bullshit, worlds are supposed to be immersive , how is teleporting everywhere gonna help to do that.
i think mmorpgs need to take a step back and stop trying to be new and cater to noobs that play the games like a singleplayer game and burn through all content after 5 mins and then move on to teh next mmorpg.
You lost me at 'crap'.
AOC has holy trinity, so does Tera, Rift and NW and SWTOR. All these MMOS just like FFXIV ARR had some new things added to them but over all they were following the same tried and tested themepark formula. So i find it ironic you call all these MMOS crap and then write 'i don't want something new'.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney