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EQ2 all over again.
Gorakkh
Member Posts: 694
don't get me wrong I love FF just as much as the next hardcore FF fan, but I'm a little bothered by some of criteria that is displayed thus far with XIV. I've played and owned every single final fantasy and completed about 85% of them. I really love the Final Fantasy series just as much as the next ff fan but there are still some things that bother me with XIV.
As far as I am concerned, the first large batch of races they have revealed are all XI races and it feels a little cheap to me. If they're going to reuse all of the old races, they could atleast balance it out by releasing an equal number of new races.
I'm also unimpressed with the generic classes so far, I mean yeah It was fine when they reused some of the basic classes for the first 5 titles in the series, but It's 2009 now, where's the creativity? Even though in FFIX they used the classic classes for characters, the characters themselves gave a very unique and creative twist to those classes.
Now some of the innovative game design they have revealed so far seems quite interesting and impressive but I'm concerned it may cheapen group play, player interactivity and congruency and create another SRPG/MMO with online components.
It really looks like It's on a similar path to EQ2, with the same core races, classes, and a watered down game design that is heavily non-epic quest and solo based.
Again, I could be completely wrong and the game could turn out to be a blast, let's hope so.
Maybe they will surpise me and some great things wil be revealed but knowing Square-Enix, once they release the core of the game info, not much will probably change or have a large volume of things added.
Comments
I feel it's a little underwhelming to announce a new online FF game and use characters from an old online FF game that's set in a completely different world. It is pretty early on though so there is still hope that SE will announce new races.
I am not at all unimpressed by the classes so far. I think what they are doing with the armoury is a great concept and knowing the FF series , specifically FFT and FFXI, they have a large variety of classes to choose from and expand upon. SE has already stated they wanted to keep the job system and now that we know about the disciplines of hand and land we know they can add several other classes just based off of gathering and crafting alone.
What innovative and impressive game designs are you talking about that you think will lead this game to be another SRPG/MMO with online components? With the little details we have I'm curious about where your basing this opinion from. All I have heard on the topic is that SE has said it plans on making XIV more solo friendly then XI is and thats a pretty vague "game design"
As for this game heading down the same path as Everquest II, well I think it's a little early to tell that one considering we just got our first tidbits of information concerning details of the game this week and it probably won't be releasing until this time next year (my guess). Sure EQ2 reused some characters from EQ1 and FFXIV is doing the same copying classes from FFXI but again, what facts are you using to justify that this game won't have epic quests and will be mostly solo content only?
I think you guys are being too hard of them.
Square-Enix may treat NA like crap, but they sure as heck know what they are doing. They've had about 4 to 5 years of dev on this game already. They aren't doing anything cheap -- they never do. They always produce solid titles. They are reusing the same look and feel of characters, game play, classes to appeal to the existing FFXI player base. If they didn't they would lose a huge numbers of players (myself included) so I am glad they are keeping the FFXI traditions and styles alive in FFXIV.
At this point, who knows what SE is going to do. It's all speculation up to this point, but I do share in your uneasiness.
Now, I never played EQ2, but I know the history of that game quite well. For those of you who do not get what Neverland is getting at with comparing FF XIV to EQ2, here is my take on the reason:
EQ at the beginning was a hardcore group game (you could solo, but it was much more difficult and more dangerous to do than being in a group). Thus, EQ's fanbase was based on hardcore group players. Eventually, the developers decided to create a sequel to a game that was far more successful than they had originally thought. However, the developers this time wanted to tap into the casual crowd, which was a huge mistake.
EQ2 ended up being extremely casual. You could solo it easier, aspects weren't extremely focused on group play, and the game was a complete turnoff to the EQ fanbase that was mostly hardcore group play-based. Thus, they ignored the game, and not enough casuals came to play the game, so EQ2 flopped (it's still up and running, but it was nowhere near as succesful as originally predicted).
What happened here? It seemed like a good idea at the time to try to tap into the casual crowd, right? Well, the developers failed to realize a few things:
1. EQ's fanbase were hardcore group players. EQ2 was not tailored towards that, so the fanbase for the most part rejected EQ2 and felt betrayed by the developers for ignoring the fanbase and trying to get people of a different play style to play the sequel.
2. Casuals are not always dependable. Sure, WOW showed you can have a dependable casual fanbase, but EQ2 was a sequel of a group game with harsh death penalties. So, casuals didn't flock to the game or didn't always stick around.
3. The gameplay was different in EQ2 than it was in EQ. Not to a point of being unrecognizable, but to a point that the fans really didn't feel like EQ2 was similar to EQ.
The same could happen to FF XIV for these reasons:
1. SE is trying to draw in the casual crowd. That means more soloists, more people demanding over time that FF XIV becomes even more solo and casual friendly (the two are separate), and it means grouping with soloists from time to time.
2. SE is trying to use a "neutral" class system. It remains to be seen whether or not this will be good, but remember that FF XI was based on roles. This idea could alienate the FF XI fanbase if FF XIV "neutral" classes do not have the feel of role play. This also means alot of "jack of all trade" classes will be built by people, thus wrecking the role play feel.
3. SE believes it can somehow get group and casual aspects to mesh together well. Now, I understand it was boring to wait for a group, and it was hard to solo with some roles in the game. But making the game very soloable wrecks group aspects. Simply put, if FF XIV ends up being too solo friendly, then there will be soloists. And that will wreck the group aspect that FF XI fans grew up on.
4. If the FF XI fanbase ends up being alienated from FF XIV, there's a good chance that FF XIV will flop like EQ2. Does anyone remember that Star Wars game where half-way through its lifetime the developers decided to overhaul the game's mechanics? Now, if FF XIV ends up being a different game from FF XI, then either the game starts new mechanics and is fun or it fails and the original fanbase feels betrayed, thus SE loses trust with the fanbase.
Now, this is all speculation. Perhaps SE will surprise us with these new concepts. On the other hand, this could be the next EQ2.
I would not worry, these guys are genius and have yet to really let anyone down big time with a game. I would also like some new races and who knows we may get them. As for classes, I think the system will be much deeper then you think, we just have very little information still. Picking a swordsman will be a base but with the gear idea of theirs I think we will see a lot of subs based on gear combos.
As for it being like EQ2...I dunno what you mean? EQ2 is nothing like EQ1 now as they tried to make it more WoW like and when EQ2 launched and was group centric and did not have solo content really it was still nothing like EQ1.
The only thing at all that we can say is the same as FFXI is the races, that is it, and that could also change and as well at least the races themselves have changed a lot with the (forget new names) taru growing much taller now, Galka have grown bigger and lost their tails and so on.
small edit for poster above me about EQ2...
EQ2 at launch was not solo friendly at all, you had to group for just about everything and you had shared xp debt which meant if you sucked you would not get invited to groups any more. I had a lot of friends who had to much trouble getting into groups or having to wait forever to find one that they quit the game as EQ2 aside from harvesting had nearly no solo content. Even the crafting back then required you to work with other crafters to advance.
What turned people off from EQ2 was that a lot of these EQ1 players did not have computers to run EQ2 and those that did still had issues because back then EQ2 was very unstable and a total computer hog. They went to far with their graphics for the time and was buggy to boot. Then the fact that if you did not have a group you were left sitting around forever was another huge turn off.
All of this and WoW was out there and while it had it's share of problems it had more players, more stuff for them to do alone or with others, easy computer reqs and of course the media were praising WoW while EQ2 was sorta forgotten or given scores well below that of WoW.
EQ2 did not become solo friendly until later when they shifted the entire game around to become more like WoW and attract that fan base. When they did that they lost many of their more raider / power gamer types I know friends who had their whole guild up and leave as EQ2 became more and more watered down and funny thing is they then went to WoW. EQ2 did get more casuals and it has always done well holding onto role players and female gamers for some reason.
As for this relating to Final Fantasy stuff, well XIV is starting off on the right foot by making sure that the current moderns core mmo players will be attracted to their game. If they launched just how FFXI was it would not do nearly as well as FFXI did back then because the demographic has vastly changed.
Raman, your history of EQ2 isn`t correct. When the game was launched, it was very group oriented. It also had death penalty as well. I remember playing EQ2 at launch and it was such a nightmare for a soloist. You were right on the money about the game playing differently from EQ1 though. I have always felt like EQ2 and EQ1 are totally different.
I left EQ2 for WoW because you could accomplish things on your own in WoW. A lot of people did. I wound up going back to EQ2 after it became solo friendly and I played it for close to 4 years. I just liked to group when I wanted to instead of haveing to group just to do anything.
I don`t play EQ2 or WoW anymore though. I just play Vanguard now. Surprisingly, it`s a group oriented game.
Very well written Sandblox. And so true.
Like I said in my earlier post, EQ2 was not drastically different from EQ1, but it was different. Now, I am going on the various posts I listen to, as well as other sources, so like I said, I'm not completely knowledgeable of the situation.
I've heard that eventually solo play aspects were introduced to EQ2, and judging by angry posts from the EQ fanbase at the time, that didn't turn out well.
Also, just because it's group oriented doesn't mean it's the same. EQ2 might've eventually drew in a solo crowd at some point, and it seems like that changed grouping. Grouping with hardcore or casual group players is one thing (I prefer the hardcore group players more, casuals can sometimes be asshats), but grouping with soloists (meaning people that have a solo mentality rather than a group mentality) is another thing.
In the end run, the main point here is that alot of us really don't like the idea of FF XIV becoming another EQ2. In fact, FF XIV might even have more in common than before. FF XIV might start off group oriented, but brings in a solo crowd (as well as a casual crowd) and eventually FF XIV becomes a completely different game from FF XI. That's speculation of course, but it is a chilling possibility....