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I am concerned...
reanor
Member UncommonPosts: 441
I am a huge FF fan, play it since my early teens and now in late 30s. I played FFXI long time ago but somehow it threw me off. I can think of a few reasons:
Group related content - a known thing when the game becomes "empty" //for you\ if you can't find a group.
Lack of Storyline and Lore - it was just not enough for me after the real FF games...
Way too big of an Asian accent on style and characters, odd little creatures, unproportional elves etc. - again something I am not used to from playing FF games.
Well, its not that I don't like it. I just got bored of the game. It wasn't a final fantasy I was used to starting from FFIV. World of FFXI was a completely different world without almost any relation to the FF games. It almost felt like some other company created an MMO and stole the name from Square Enix. I was happy to see a chocobo but it wasn't enough to ignore all the rest of strange world.
I see that FFXIV is very beatiful game. But what is it like MMO wise? Is it gonna be like other MMOs? Get skills, put them on a shortcut bar and make the numbers do the fighting? Maybe its because just me, FF series was always some special exception for me. I am used to deep story lines, real RP behind everything... Now FFXI was a complete failure in my opinion of course thinking storyline and lore wise.
I wish FFXIV could be something like LOTRO but in FF universe. I say an example of LOTRO because its probably the only game that developers were able to deliver the story and lore through the way I really liked. World in LOTRO really feels alive, breathing world. Other MMOs compared are dead empty fields with unleashed kids killing each other in PvP. Kinda pathetic, but as long as its fun for some its probably ok. I HOPE that FFXIV will be STORY driven like LOTRO. But then again when I look on FFXIV available information it kinda reminds me of FFXI, just rehashed, with latest gen graphics, differently named jobs and different graphics fx. I am afraid that its gonna be like other Asian games - a lot of grind and very little story. But then again I've always liked what Square Enix did before. I keep my fingers crossed for this one and I hope its gonna be much better than FFXI.
Comments
I see that music is written by Nobuo Uematsu, which is my favorite composer in FF games. The director however is Nobuaki Komoto who was involved with FFIX and FFXI, both of which I didn't like all that much. In all FF series (excluding XI) FFIX is probably the only one I didn't like because it just felt completely different than the rest of series. I see now why FFXI felt different too. Because mister Komoto was behind it. I wish Hironobu Sakaguchi or Yoshinori Kitase were still behind the series and especially behind the MMO versions. I am gonna keep my hopes that Mr. Komoto will keep it going the right direction. But if FFXIV will be as much as remake of XI with the same poor story I'd probably pass and enjoy myself in single version of FF games after i get bored of XIV similarly as to what happened with XI...
My fears for this game are
1. Lack of jumping, FF XI didn't have it and it didn't feel right not to be able to jump over small obstacles.
2. Boxed in feeling FF XI had, again it took away from the experience because I'd always be boxed into pathways.
After that my only concern would be a lack of meaningful pvp.
Full Sail University - Game Design
Well besides me dissagreeing with almost everything here, 1)best and deepest lore/story in an MMO ive ever played (hell this game is know for its well done story more then anything) 2) TONS of FF related thing, everything moggles, jobs,chocobos, Mobs, names,airships...ect..ect. 3) Of course its a diffrenty world, THEY ALL ARE DIFFRENT WORLDS...its kind of the point. 4) you are trying to treat it like an offline RPG, wich its clearly not, MMOs are completely different beasts, never think the MMO version of any series will be just like the normal game, never happens. 5) the fact that you want it to be like LOTRO, wihc is just a WoW clone where you basicly solo all the time (again you want it to be an offline RPG basicly) and LOTRO and FFXI are very very diffrent types of MMOs.6) "Way too big of an Asian accent on style and characters" ....well this is FF...made in an asian country by an asian company....I wonder why? (sarcasum) ALso its an MMo that needs alot more creatures so it made some new ones, just how it goes. 7) you dislike 9 becuase of the setting....but isnt 4-5 in simalar settings?
The only thing i get is yes, the elves are a bit off. That and i can let you know it will be more of a solo game, more like your WoW's and LoTRO's , wich most of the FFXI community isnt super thrilled about. Also its going to be in a more advanced civilazation, though not hugely diffrent. And the elves are back so that might suck for yah.
You're thinking of when FFXIV has run its prime. There really isn't much any game can do at that point. What we do know is that grouping is easier due to being able to change your discipline. When things do thin out population wise, you can still form a decent party with your friends. This is taking into account that you have leveled a few disciplines, and so have your friends.
Final Fantasy defiantly won't be lacking in the lore area. There was even the mention of a game based religion. It will be interesting how that plays into the story. There are plenty of ways the developers can use the retracing feature in the game. This allow players to witness (but not alter) past events.
Seriously? Aside from a few exceptions, few of the FF games ever followed a previous, they ALL had their own world. Why would you assume that any of them were going to do that? I know it's said all the time but please please stop trying to judge everything with "FF" against FF4 or 6. FFXI was a great game with a robust crafting system and economy, beautiful music, the graphics could have been better but everyone knows it was downplayed to be compatible with ps2 and once you were immersed, you really didn't care.
What some of us had to complain about? Lack of parties, missions that were too difficult, a combination of the two, lack of solo capability, endgame content. These are real mmo issues that we can only hope they'll address after hearing player criticism. Drop the older games, wait for the new one, try it out, and judge it on its own, or at least in its own category, not against a 16bit game that's 20 years old. Maybe you'll enjoy it more!
can you really imagine jumping in ffxi? it just wouldnt fit. i get why it annoyed you (for the little ledges sake) though a few were put there on purpose. But over all it wasnt needed. Not sure what you mean by boxed in, maybe becuase of the zones, though they were monsterous and were by no means "boxed into pathways" It just diddnt have that fully open world feel (though 14 seems to be going for more of that)
PvP was not a big thing on purpose, they dont want it to be because its a very PVE focused game that really heavly relyed on you playing with others (group almost everything) so making it with PvP would of defeated that purpose, also that having a major PvP thing, atleast right away mean you have to keep re-balancing everything for everyone to be happy (gimp this or jack up that) wich messes with the balance between the 2 (PVP and PVE elements) I do hope they later put some better PVP in (FFXI's wasnt all that great) but it still has to be a side thing that wont mess with how PVE is handeled (make balance issues a PVP only fix, not touching everything esle) We can only wait and see.
Boxed in and following a certain pathway FFXI wasn t.
If you want all those then FF XIV isn't the game for you. I can guarantee there will be no jumping and no pvp(they said they might add something like balista later on but not at launch). As for you feeling boxed in I don't understand what you mean. Zanfire pretty much nailed everything on the head with the TC and Bainwalker's post.
If it's LoTRO in the FF universe I would bury my mmorpg gaming career for good. This genre is such shit right now, and the LoTRO formula is part of the reason. We need a real living breathing world full of adventure with companions. Something that has been lacking in every game since FFXI. Don't be concerened, be hopeful. If this doesn't deliver then this genre is official 100% completely sold out superficial fluff shit. Thank you Cryptic, Blizzard, Turbine, and Funcom.
LOTRO and FFXI are probabloy my two favorite MMOs. Both games i feel had a great emphasis on story which is what drew me into them. I don't really understand how you feel that FFXI is lacking in story. Did you do any of the missions? I also don't understand the LOTRO hate here. There was PLENTY of group content in LOTRO for people who wanted to group with others. The only difference is unlike FFXI, grouping in LOTRO is optional instead of forced on you. Why is that such a bad thing? Players who don't wish to group can simply skip the plethora of group quests in most every zone, while others who want to group can still take on those tougher challenges.
i didnt hate on it, its just far too close to what WoW is, cept a hell of alot better story. When me and my bro played everyone basicly soloed, when you make solo basicly just as effective as group play, and you come off the heals of a game that you pretty much took a giant note from, everyone in it tends to solo. I enjoyed the game for a short while, but we got to a point when they didnt really have much later level content to so we had to grindon bears and stuff, maybe it changed now, but it wasnt the greatest experience for me, but far from the worst.
Well put. I couldn't agree more.
i didnt hate on it, its just far too close to what WoW is, cept a hell of alot better story. When me and my bro played everyone basicly soloed, when you make solo basicly just as effective as group play, and you come off the heals of a game that you pretty much took a giant note from, everyone in it tends to solo. I enjoyed the game for a short while, but we got to a point when they didnt really have much later level content to so we had to grindon bears and stuff, maybe it changed now, but it wasnt the greatest experience for me, but far from the worst.
I too found myself most of the time alone soloing in LOTR. Sure sometimes u would get bored in FFXI but most of the time you had people around you doing stuff, be it Skill Leveling / XP grinding (and I use this term in the best possible way) / missions / quests / whatever. I loved it that in FFXI you were not strong enough to kill things on your own. It made it all that much more fun. If you wanted to explore on your own you could but because of the RISK it was all that much more fun. I think that is the #1 thing that LOTR got wrong in their game. They took parts of FFXI and parts of WoW and bledned them together. I hope FFXIV takes a LOT more from FFXI then any other game out there. And from the looks of it they seem to have so far.
My only gripe with FFXI wasn't the fact that it took a lot of time investment to achieve high levels, travel, train crafting, etc... but rather that the only thing to do between missions/quests was camping/grinding. More dungeon/dungeon-esque areas to explore between missions that would provide more meaningful content than just finding a spot and camping with a group. More bite-sized content for smaller groups and soloers. The more offerings there are, the better. I don't need to hit max level in a month or two. So long as there is a variety of content, I'll be happy even if it takes months/years to hit max level.
What I don't want to see is the game turn into quest grinds that most MMOs have become. My greatest fear is that we're going to get a wowified version of FFXI which isn't what we need. What we need is a FFXI with additional casual friendly content(small groups/soloers) in addition to the team heavy content of FFXI.
Again, the whole thing about elves being too big, is your conception of what "elves should be like" too small.
First of all, since when were elves suppose to be "one-size fits all"?
Like most of you said here, FF XI/XIV are set in their own world and it's own rules, that applies to their races as well.
Stop trying to put everything in the same bucket...
Learn, Spread and Diversify.
I think the trick to future MMOs will be to invest in layers of content:
1. Group heavy/reliant content (old school EQ/AC/FFXI) - These would be your dungeons, your boss mobs, your raids, etc...
2. Small group content - Some dungeon areas...
1. Solo/bite sized content - Content that is fun/challenging for the solo player...
Players are also motivated by a variety of means:
1. Next level
2. Next great item
3. Upgrades
4. Story
This doesn't necessarily mean giving players a ton of quests each level to complete. Older MMOs did a better job of conveying story. Things were designed more organically. There really wasn't such a thing as a quest-hub. A dungeon for example, may have a variety of things to do(bosses to kills, associated quests, items to uncover). I remember spending weeks just in Blackburrow (a dungeon in EQ that spanned levels 5-25 or so). Whether it was seeing how far I could go by myself, or how far I could go with a group, or looking for items I needed for a quest, or seeing if I could find some better gear.
And thats the other thing, in a level based game, areas need to overlap in level focus. You don't need a huge gameworld to have a varied and exciting one - as long as areas are designed with fairly relaxed level ranges in mind, there will always be a variety of places to go and explore at any one time.
Where to start....
The story ...
FFXi is maybe one of the only games that has an actual story and sticks to it not only in FFXI but all their series on other consoles/phone based systems,it is called the Crystal Chronicles,all about the Crystal Wars.
Lotr in comparison took many years based on books by Tolkien,so ya it has an in depth story but nobody is going to take that much time to create a storyline unless it is a copied movie or book.Personally i don't like games based on movies or books,you are forced to stick to the same theme story and really cannot be creative at all,and Square is the best creative developer going so,that would just tie their hands up,if they copied a movie for example.
As far as Lore goes,no it's not really there in abundance better than most games,but the Everquest series has always been the best for Lore.That would be a nice touch on FFXIV if it had at least the same Lore as EQ/EQ2 but i would not expect it,as i feel they are cutting things out of the FFXI version and adding back very little.
As far as over game play FFXI was the best,hands down it offered the sub class system,the Renkai system and team work,no other developer comes that close.Then you add into the combat their in depth math equations and you can see how much effort and thought they put into it.
As far as it being like other FF games,they were not based on the Crystal wars,witch is Vanadiel and the Beastmen ,the other games all have their own setting but not really based on anything in particular FFXI is.As far as FFXIV goes i believe it is going to be a better looking version of FFXI but extremely streamlined.By that i mean a lot of detail in the combat system will be dumbed down,the thought process on your class is removed with the new "on the fly" class changing.To really sum it up,the game is imo going to be weaker than FFXI,but will offer a few twists[example R/L hand techniques/bars],weather those twists make up for a dumbed down version of FFXI remains to be seen.
I believe this game will be totally unlike other FF games because it will be much more focused on the guild than FFXI was,and of course you don't have guilds in FF games,well LS but none of those either until FFXi came along.
Quests/Missions in FFXI were really focused on Fame advancement a game in itself,however i feel less effort this time around .This game i think will make WOW type players more at home,go grab your quest time after time using it to build your player/Guild/Weapon skills.
The biggest question we are all waiting for is how Square claims to pull off a more solo friendly game and still maintain a decent grouping game,personally i think it is impossible.There will have to be some catch that will evidently make one or the other useless.The only thing i can see is again copying WOW's horrible formula of making the entire game solo play until you get into bosses or instances,i hope to god they don't copy that weak idea,you might as well hire a bunch of students to design your game then.That type of design lacks creativity and they would lose my respect as a great developer.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
My take on the solo vs group balance is that you should be able to solo all the way up, but group xp should be 50% better than solo and group loot should be twice as good as solo. A person should want to group but when no group is available shouldnt feel like soloing is torturous.
I see some ignorance in your words. FFXI was very story driven, but the story didn't open up until later in the game. And to be honest, you can't really make an MMO as story driven as you can make a single player game. It has to allow for more freedom and less linearity than the single player games.
Also, XI was the pinnacle of Final Fantasy when it comes to style IMO. Pure fantasy, good ol' jobs from the first games (Monk, Warrior, White Mage etc.), like Final Fantasy I as an MMO.
I don't know what you're talking about FFXI's story/lore not being there, it was probably the best done story line in an mmorpg to date. LOTRO seemed empty to me, that's why I didn't bother playing it longer.
My guess is that you haven't played other mmorpgs. Besides the regular quests in FFXI, it had town missions that you had to level up all on it's own, each with plenty of cutscenes and story.
LOL everything about FFXI felt like FF to me!
My thoughts exactly.
This is my last hope to get a real MMO. All these other so called MMOs are nothing but poor online RPG's. If FFXIV is pure crap it will probably be my last MMO because SE has been my last hope to deliever a REAL mmo for the past couple of years. I have been anticipating this MMO since 2005, when they first announced it as "rapture" (its code name)
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
My thoughts exactly.
This is my last hope to get a real MMO. All these other so called MMOs are nothing but poor online RPG's. If FFXIV is pure crap it will probably be my last MMO because SE has been my last hope to deliever a REAL mmo for the past couple of years. I have been anticipating this MMO since 2005, when they first announced it as "rapture" (its code name)
same here, i loved EQ and FFXI to death, and nothing has touched either of them since then, if this sucks, then its likely we will have to wait another damn century before anything remotely diffrent from the copy paste games we have now.....honestly im just not letting myself believe that SE is following suit, and that this will be my next grand adventure with many new memorys to make.
My thoughts exactly.
This is my last hope to get a real MMO. All these other so called MMOs are nothing but poor online RPG's. If FFXIV is pure crap it will probably be my last MMO because SE has been my last hope to deliever a REAL mmo for the past couple of years. I have been anticipating this MMO since 2005, when they first announced it as "rapture" (its code name)
same here, i loved EQ and FFXI to death, and nothing has touched either of them since then, if this sucks, then its likely we will have to wait another damn century before anything remotely diffrent from the copy paste games we have now.....honestly im just not letting myself believe that SE is following suit, and that this will be my next grand adventure with many new memorys to make.
I also feel the same. I believe SE isn't the type of developers to jump on the band wagon because they are a company that is doing well. Last few mmorpgs are from companies that was out to make a quick buck so they copy and past from MMO A,B, and C put in thier story, and add in class/race from MMO A,B, and C you got yourself some bored gamer cash coming in. Like others said if this doesn't satisfy me I'm probably through with MMORGPs. It would be a shame though FFXI got me started on MMORPGs and 14(hopefully not) got me to stop playing MMORPGs.
"Lack of storyline" is a GOOD thing. We don't need dev's guiding our mouses and keyboards, forcing us to play out some contrived scene like WOW does.
However, "lore" is a very good thing and I expect this MMO to deliver upon that.
The main thing is that they give us a "world" and not a "story". I am tired of games that make me feel like I am playing-on-rails, being driven down some story path. I want to freely adventure in a "world".
Hoping this game delivers.
Eh, that's actually probably what I've grown tired of. There's no real road to walk down in todays MMOs. IMO, SE (or SS at the time still) did it right by having quests AND missions.
If I wanted to just play freely with no drive to connect with the world, or other people, I'd go back and play the bot fest known as Ragnarok... And it's not like they force you to do those story lines. It's not just MMO, it's MMORPG.