I think that the spotty history of beta -> release reinforces the idea that what is promised may not be part of the game. Especially when what is promised is not in beta less than a week from release.
That doesn't make sense to the OP?
Thats not what the OP is saying, what was promised that isnt in levels 1-20 at the moment then hmmm?
Well OP, hold true to your game and let us know how it turns out. I was seriously considering trying OB until I saw all the problems with the download and install. I am no PC nerd and feel that games of AAA type should not require a player to hours of download, shift this file to there and get another downloader assist thing and hope it does not stop in the process. This was reported after bench runs. I have a medium rig and refuse to upgrade at this point. If I was to play with controllers I would save a ton of money by stealing my kids ps3. Yea, I think combat has a big part in the game wlhich appears to be lacking. I am reading on various fourms that some high end PC's run excellent with no problems while others reporting the game is unplayable. I refuse to run macro's after spending hours leanring how to do so then figuring out controller operations from M/K ops.
All of which I hope you will report back upon release and tell me that all is well and these elements were the case of whiners and those who complain that they need hand-holding. While I admit that each new release brings in new trolls and haters, I find it hard to seperate the fanboies from the trolls. Maybe one or two OB reports were somewhat balanced and the others went from one extrem to the other like a pendulum. Certainly you sound as if you are well aware of the game and its content and would never provide information on a bias bases.
I'll be watching for a review from you should you decide to place one up here.
I think that the spotty history of beta -> release reinforces the idea that what is promised may not be part of the game. Especially when what is promised is not in beta less than a week from release.
That doesn't make sense to the OP?
Thats not what the OP is saying, what was promised that isnt in levels 1-20 at the moment then hmmm?
Nothing that I know of.
I just understand the why there might be fears pre-release.
FF XI was released BEFORE the drastic paradigm shift that's called WoW. Before WoW the competition was sparse and 500k subs where considered a massive success.
Today it's completely different. The market has become extremely brutal. APB, a game that ate up 50 Million $ to develop shut down yesterday after just FOUR MONTHS. Cataclysm, Guild Wars 2, Tera and Star Wars TOR are just around the corner and FFXIV is just barely playable.
And i quote 1UP from their FF XIV Pre-Release Event:
"While there was certainly some good information in here, this part of the presentation basically confirmed everyone’s suspicions that the game is being rushed to market: there was a lot of apologizing for the current state of the game and many promises to improve things, not to mention discussion of a variety of features that were planned for launch that weren’t going to make it."
FF XI was released BEFORE the drastic paradigm shift that's called WoW. Before WoW the competition was sparse and 500k subs where considered a massive success.
Today it's completely different. The market has become extremely brutal. APB, a game that ate up 50 Million $ to develop shut down yesterday after just FOUR MONTHS. Cataclysm, Guild Wars 2, Tera and Star Wars TOR are just around the corner and FFXIV is just barely playable.
And i quote 1UP from their FF XIV Pre-Release Event:
"While there was certainly some good information in here, this part of the presentation basically confirmed everyone’s suspicions that the game is being rushed to market: there was a lot of apologizing for the current state of the game and many promises to improve things, not to mention discussion of a variety of features that were planned for launch that weren’t going to make it."
Wow. Canceled my CE Pre-order. 1-Up knows exactly what I like / dislike, so since they said it's bad, it must be bad. So glad you saved me my 75 bucks Clubmaster. Thanks!
Ok fine! For those of you playing XIV, you are obviously the most hardcore MMO gamers in the world! I get it!
Those 10 million + gamers playing WoW must be the biggest tards on Earth....
Or... maybe Blizzard does a good job at offering content for pretty much all audiences. A huge majority of those subs don't raid, they just play to craft, dungeon crawl, RP, or whatever.
I guess those FFXIV players can sit happily on their throne knowing they are the most elite gamers ever.
Don't be surprised to see server merges and low populations, thus slowing down the development of patches and expansions because only the hardcore gamer need play this title...
You can always tell a WoW-player aimed game by the presence of stuff like large floating question marks above npcs heads. The lack of this in FF XIV tells you it simply not competing for that audience.
You can always tell a WoW-player aimed game by the presence of stuff like large floating question marks above npcs heads. The lack of this in FF XIV tells you it simply not competing for that audience.
Actually to be honest so far ffxiv shares more thins with wow than i would like to admit.
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
And instead catering to elitist pricks that extract self worth through insulting other people's gaming choices.
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
And instead catering to elitist pricks that extract self worth through insulting other people's gaming choices.
I am not insulting anyone, I am just pointing out that this game isn't being made for the same audience as World of Warcraft. Are BMW "elitist pricks" for not making a car that's affordable for the vast majority of people? No, they are simply catering to a different type of customer. I can't afford a BMW, so I don't even go to the dealership to look at them. If you don't like FFXIV, then why the fuck are you here?
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
And instead catering to elitist pricks that extract self worth through insulting other people's gaming choices.
I am not insulting anyone, I am just pointing out that this game isn't being made for the same audience as World of Warcraft. Are BMW "elitist pricks" for not making a car that's affordable for the vast majority of people? No, they are simply catering to a different type of customer. I can't afford a BMW, so I don't even go to the dealership to look at them. If you don't like FFXIV, then why the fuck are you here?
"I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world."
FF XI was released BEFORE the drastic paradigm shift that's called WoW. Before WoW the competition was sparse and 500k subs where considered a massive success.
Today it's completely different. The market has become extremely brutal. APB, a game that ate up 50 Million $ to develop shut down yesterday after just FOUR MONTHS. Cataclysm, Guild Wars 2, Tera and Star Wars TOR are just around the corner and FFXIV is just barely playable.
And i quote 1UP from their FF XIV Pre-Release Event:
"While there was certainly some good information in here, this part of the presentation basically confirmed everyone’s suspicions that the game is being rushed to market: there was a lot of apologizing for the current state of the game and many promises to improve things, not to mention discussion of a variety of features that were planned for launch that weren’t going to make it."
First of all the author added their own "spin" to that article. I could critique their journalism skills easily in the same manner everyone around here critiques an MMORPG.
Confirmed "everyone's suspicions" Who? Everyone in his office or everyone on the Internet? The statement itself is spin because I didn't know or suspect they were rushing this to market, which invalidates everyone thinking that. He could say confirmed "my" suspicions. See it's easy to throw around my thoughts as irrefutable.
Not playing fanboi just devil's advocate. Sure I am buying FF14 but I have the same amount of reserve that I do for every AAA MMO released these days. Nothing has been OMG! awesome in the last 3-4 years. Not since WoW burnout.
Regarding 500k that number is fairly recent not something from the peak years of FF11. Eve Online has less than that and is considered a significant success. So we can't imply numbers on their own = good or successful.
Who are we to judge what's enough in the market? Are we career maket analysts? No developer releases a title to initial development specs. Even the sacred WoW cow required post launch patches to include content that was incomplete at launch. So sick of WoW capstones but when you are the big boy... MS, Apple, Google, Blizzard, or any other giant corp/evil empire. *shrug* Opinions...
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
And instead catering to elitist pricks that extract self worth through insulting other people's gaming choices.
I am not insulting anyone, I am just pointing out that this game isn't being made for the same audience as World of Warcraft. Are BMW "elitist pricks" for not making a car that's affordable for the vast majority of people? No, they are simply catering to a different type of customer. I can't afford a BMW, so I don't even go to the dealership to look at them. If you don't like FFXIV, then why the fuck are you here?
"I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world."
Whatever.
OK, you got me. I am an elitist prick. I'll admit it, it feels good to better than most people.
First of all, I do expect more content when the game is released. If nothing else, I hope that party play is encouraged by the difficulty level actually meaning something. Or make it worthwhile to grind in a group.
But mainly I think the complaints about lack of content is because ffxiv doesn't do anything to disguise the quests. In other games, like WoW, you'd get quests with lame little stories along with them, many of which didn't even make sense (not that anybody read them anyway). They all amounted to the same thing- killing a bunch of mobs. The main difference being that in ffxiv, all the quests originate in one place, there's easy transportation to and from the quest-starting points, and there's little story invovled. As far as what you're actively doing, it's the same.
I personally like it this way because it's convenient if I only have an hour or two and want to still progress and I don't have to run 10 minutes to turn in one quest. You turn them in right where you complete them.
It seems some are confusing lack of conveinence with "content".
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
Oh get over yourself, I wasnt hating on WoW, im hating o nthe community that expects every game to give you a clap for breathing. its not elitism, why is it that everyone that wants something different from simplicity or a godamn game aimed at the lowest common denominator is somehow an elitest? idiots rebutal to the truth isnt it?.
17 dungeons? oh please??? buttering up with "wings" lol.
You missed the simple point, yet another person that saw WoW critism and blew it out of porportion.
WoW is designed for simpletons, it dumbed down the concept of spells, its constantly been dumbed down since each expansion. if this fact is too hard for you to accept then fine, but its the reality.
But mainly I think the complaints about lack of content is because ffxiv doesn't do anything to disguise the quests. In other games, like WoW, you'd get quests with lame little stories along with them, many of which didn't even make sense (not that anybody read them anyway).
The first time around, almost everyone reads them. They make perfect sense, and many are plays on words, have great pop culture references, and are generally humorous and interesting.
They all amounted to the same thing- killing a bunch of mobs. The main difference being that in ffxiv, all the quests originate in one place, there's easy transportation to and from the quest-starting points, and there's little story invovled. As far as what you're actively doing, it's the same.
Completely incorrect. There were plenty of kill x, there was also collect x off mobs, collect x off of interactive objects, escort character to a certain location, provide npc with specific crafted item, explore a certain area/cave, defend point from incoming mobs, etc etc etc. What's amazing is that many mmos incorporate several of these quest types, but ffxiv is so backwards it's hard to find a serious p2p mmo that has a similar lack of content.
I personally like it this way because it's convenient if I only have an hour or two and want to still progress and I don't have to run 10 minutes to turn in one quest. You turn them in right where you complete them.
So all this time when fanboys were telling dissenters that their problem is that they weren't sophisticated enough to appreciate ffxiv's fine use of inconvenient UI, they were completely wrong. Instead ffxiv is in actuality the fast food of mmo gaming, not WoW. Interesting reversal.
It seems some are confusing lack of conveinence with "content".
More like people will make excuses for just about anything.
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
WoW is designed for simpletons, it dumbed down the concept of spells, its constantly been dumbed down since each expansion. if this fact is too hard for you to accept then fine, but its the reality.
Your post won't get removed, and you won't get warned, but if I were to reverse this and say that I've seen more simpletons defending ffxiv than I ever saw in all my time in WoW, I would probably get banned. It's unfortunate that I have to hold my tongue when such ignorance is spewed all over this forum. There are many mmo's that are simpler than WoW, ffxiv outside of it's UI is one of them.
There IS such a thing as too much simplicity.
What do you think half the criticisms about ffxiv are?! I'm fairly certain simplicity in UI is not a bad thing though.
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
WoW is designed for simpletons, it dumbed down the concept of spells, its constantly been dumbed down since each expansion. if this fact is too hard for you to accept then fine, but its the reality.
Your post won't get removed, and you won't get warned, but if I were to reverse this and say that I've seen more simpletons defending ffxiv than I ever saw in all my time in WoW, I would probably get banned. It's unfortunate that I have to hold my tongue when such ignorance is spewed all over this forum. There are many mmo's that are simpler than WoW, ffxiv outside of it's UI is one of them.
There IS such a thing as too much simplicity.
What do you think half the criticisms about ffxiv are?! I'm fairly certain simplicity in UI is not a bad thing though.
If you didn't noticed them, you are one of them.
Its a well known fact; WoW is full of retards. You can't escape it when you have 11 mils players.
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
WoW is designed for simpletons, it dumbed down the concept of spells, its constantly been dumbed down since each expansion. if this fact is too hard for you to accept then fine, but its the reality.
Your post won't get removed, and you won't get warned, but if I were to reverse this and say that I've seen more simpletons defending ffxiv than I ever saw in all my time in WoW, I would probably get banned. It's unfortunate that I have to hold my tongue when such ignorance is spewed all over this forum. There are many mmo's that are simpler than WoW, ffxiv outside of it's UI is one of them.
There IS such a thing as too much simplicity.
What do you think half the criticisms about ffxiv are?! I'm fairly certain simplicity in UI is not a bad thing though.
Whatever, for the last year and a half threat has been nothing in World of Warcraft, the classes are all near identical in what they offer because it "was ufair" (load of crap), stats are being removed. oh sure theyre making the heroics actual take alittle effort now.... but too little too late, crafting is nothing either, something to be powerleveled in in 2 days as a minor extention to your character.
Sorry, critics and lowest common demoninator alike, games like WoW purely being blizzard will get 9.5s based on mass appeal along. and games like EVE Online will continue to get thier 6.0-7.0s and here in 2010 in a genre thats starved for anything that goes outside the rules of World of Warcraft are the only games flourishing at this point.
People have already tried copying a World of Warcraft interface to see if they can get those millions of players. Lord of the Rings Online. Warhammer Online. It didn't work, they got no more subscriptions than the average capably-executed MMORPG, a few hundred thousand. Now, any developer who knows what they're doing will tell you that if you want to have a chance in this market, you don't get anywhere near World of Warcraft's niche, because nobody can be better at being World of Warcraft than World of Warcraft.
Honestly, considering the overwhelming evidence to teh contrary, anyone who thinks copying World of Warcraft is a surefire path to at least a million players is clueless, or perhaps blinded by greed. The Lowest Common Denominator will not come due to any or all aspects of World of Warcraft that you may copy, because apparently they don't even have the capability to recognize your game. If you want Blizzard-like numbers, you need to have games made by Blizzard, because a brand name is something simple enough that they can understand it.
Knowing this, Square-Enix is doing the right thing by catering to their existing fanbase via using interfaces their existing fanbase is comfortable with. It's not like World of Warcraft players are budging. Even if the game played remotely like World of Warcraft, players who prefer WoW wouldn't suddenly prefer Final Fantasy.
Whatever, for the last year and a half threat has been nothing in World of Warcraft, the classes are all near identical in what they offer because it "was ufair" (load of crap), stats are being removed. oh sure theyre making the heroics actual take alittle effort now.... but too little too late, crafting is nothing either, something to be powerleveled in in 2 days as a minor extention to your character.
Sorry, critics and lowest common demoninator alike, games like WoW purely being blizzard will get 9.5s based on mass appeal along. and games like EVE Online will continue to get thier 6.0-7.0s and here in 2010 in a genre thats starved for anything that goes outside the rules of World of Warcraft are the only games flourishing at this point.
I played EVE quite a bit and I will agree with you there, it is a pretty fun game. At the same time, it is a huge niche game. I.e. 95% males play it according to http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/feature/3599/By-The-Numbers-EVE-Statistics.html. It has a very difficult learning curve and I'm sure subscription growth is due to the fact that lots of people have more than one account. Anway, I'm sure CCP does quite well and are pretty highly regarded for continuously putting out free expansions and generally being a 'good' company, etc.
However, the reason why WoW gets a good critic score is this: You really have to think very deeply about this. Because it goes past just WoW and really extends into the psychology and logic of game design.
MMO's have been evolving over time. With better technology and AI design, more things are possible. WoW and many modern games employ these system, which have been getting 'smarter' for the average consumer. These systems are in place to encourage a much greater demographic. Whether you think they are 'better' can be debated, but they are systems in place to make the gaming experience smooth, logical, and fun. Just as an example of what I'm calling these 'systems', I mean things like, quest NPC's, various types of quests, skill bars, talent trees, combat, and economic systems like crafting and AH's. Even art style and presentation can be grouped in this category.
Now, thinking psychologically for a second. Humans have basic psychological needs. Most successful gaming producers know this. They design the game and its employed systems with this pretty much at the top of the list. It should 'feel' fun, it shouldn't play and 'feel' too much like a grind, people shouldn't 'feel' frustrated when they play it, etc. Granted, cultural differences and the fact that each person 'feels' things in their own personal way do also contend with the notion of what is the ideal game. At the same time, if a majority of gamers have a generally positive 'feel' for the game and the producers have the resources to consistently make a large portion of the gamer demographic think the game is awesome, it will be a critically well received game.
Look at games like Startrek Online. The game felt to most people like it was totally rushed, and the critical score it received reflected that. Of course the game was fun to a small demographic, but most games have their niche audience. To truly 'succeed' MMO's have to logically employ various modern systems and make a wide variety of people 'feel' happy or excited to play the game. In the case of FFXIV, if there is any discomforting 'feeling' over a particular feature, lets say, the cumbersome menu's or lack of PvP or sluggish UI, whatever it may be. Logically, other people are going to feel the same way, while others are ok with it. But, if there is a great enough population of people feeling like a particular function of the game is lacking, it is something that will have to be addressed or suffer critically.
Whatever, for the last year and a half threat has been nothing in World of Warcraft, the classes are all near identical in what they offer because it "was ufair" (load of crap), stats are being removed. oh sure theyre making the heroics actual take alittle effort now.... but too little too late, crafting is nothing either, something to be powerleveled in in 2 days as a minor extention to your character.
Sorry, critics and lowest common demoninator alike, games like WoW purely being blizzard will get 9.5s based on mass appeal along. and games like EVE Online will continue to get thier 6.0-7.0s and here in 2010 in a genre thats starved for anything that goes outside the rules of World of Warcraft are the only games flourishing at this point.
I played EVE quite a bit and I will agree with you there, it is a pretty fun game. At the same time, it is a huge niche game. I.e. 95% males play it according to http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/feature/3599/By-The-Numbers-EVE-Statistics.html. It has a very difficult learning curve and I'm sure subscription growth is due to the fact that lots of people have more than one account. Anway, I'm sure CCP does quite well and are pretty highly regarded for continuously putting out free expansions and generally being a 'good' company, etc.
However, the reason why WoW gets a good critic score is this: You really have to think very deeply about this. Because it goes past just WoW and really extends into the psychology and logic of game design.
MMO's have been evolving over time. With better technology and AI design, more things are possible. WoW and many modern games employ these system, which have been getting 'smarter' for the average consumer. These systems are in place to encourage a much greater demographic. Whether you think they are 'better' can be debated, but they are systems in place to make the gaming experience smooth, logical, and fun. Just as an example of what I'm calling these 'systems', I mean things like, quest NPC's, various types of quests, skill bars, talent trees, combat, and economic systems like crafting and AH's. Even art style and presentation can be grouped in this category.
Now, thinking psychologically for a second. Humans have basic psychological needs. Most successful gaming producers know this. They design the game and its employed systems with this pretty much at the top of the list. It should 'feel' fun, it shouldn't play and 'feel' too much like a grind, people shouldn't 'feel' frustrated when they play it, etc. Granted, cultural differences and the fact that each person 'feels' things in their own personal way do also contend with the notion of what is the ideal game. At the same time, if a majority of gamers have a generally positive 'feel' for the game and the producers have the resources to consistently make a large portion of the gamer demographic think the game is awesome, it will be a critically well received game.
Look at games like Startrek Online. The game felt to most people like it was totally rushed, and the critical score it received reflected that. Of course the game was fun to a small demographic, but most games have their niche audience. To truly 'succeed' MMO's have to logically employ various modern systems and make a wide variety of people 'feel' happy or excited to play the game. In the case of FFXIV, if there is any discomforting 'feeling' over a particular feature, lets say, the cumbersome menu's or lack of PvP or sluggish UI, whatever it may be. Logically, other people are going to feel the same way, while others are ok with it. But, if there is a great enough population of people feeling like a particular function of the game is lacking, it is something that will have to be addressed or suffer critically.
Long ass post to say if a monkey can play it, it a sign of success.
Glad you like that philosophy, but seriously, go back waiting for D3.
Comments
Thats not what the OP is saying, what was promised that isnt in levels 1-20 at the moment then hmmm?
Well OP, hold true to your game and let us know how it turns out. I was seriously considering trying OB until I saw all the problems with the download and install. I am no PC nerd and feel that games of AAA type should not require a player to hours of download, shift this file to there and get another downloader assist thing and hope it does not stop in the process. This was reported after bench runs. I have a medium rig and refuse to upgrade at this point. If I was to play with controllers I would save a ton of money by stealing my kids ps3. Yea, I think combat has a big part in the game wlhich appears to be lacking. I am reading on various fourms that some high end PC's run excellent with no problems while others reporting the game is unplayable. I refuse to run macro's after spending hours leanring how to do so then figuring out controller operations from M/K ops.
All of which I hope you will report back upon release and tell me that all is well and these elements were the case of whiners and those who complain that they need hand-holding. While I admit that each new release brings in new trolls and haters, I find it hard to seperate the fanboies from the trolls. Maybe one or two OB reports were somewhat balanced and the others went from one extrem to the other like a pendulum. Certainly you sound as if you are well aware of the game and its content and would never provide information on a bias bases.
I'll be watching for a review from you should you decide to place one up here.
V/R,
SEA
Nothing that I know of.
I just understand the why there might be fears pre-release.
FF XI was released BEFORE the drastic paradigm shift that's called WoW. Before WoW the competition was sparse and 500k subs where considered a massive success.
Today it's completely different. The market has become extremely brutal. APB, a game that ate up 50 Million $ to develop shut down yesterday after just FOUR MONTHS. Cataclysm, Guild Wars 2, Tera and Star Wars TOR are just around the corner and FFXIV is just barely playable.
And i quote 1UP from their FF XIV Pre-Release Event:
"While there was certainly some good information in here, this part of the presentation basically confirmed everyone’s suspicions that the game is being rushed to market: there was a lot of apologizing for the current state of the game and many promises to improve things, not to mention discussion of a variety of features that were planned for launch that weren’t going to make it."
Source: http://www.1up.com/1upblogs/5/1ups_rpg_blog
This really isn't enough in todays competition.
Wow. Canceled my CE Pre-order. 1-Up knows exactly what I like / dislike, so since they said it's bad, it must be bad. So glad you saved me my 75 bucks Clubmaster. Thanks!
Now this gave me a good laugh.
Actually to be honest so far ffxiv shares more thins with wow than i would like to admit.
FFXIV will be successful even if no one but the Japanese play it. People forget that this game isn't even being made for westerners, and SE don't give a shit if you don't think it's "user friendly" enough. I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world.
Considering WOW is a terrible game, who cares? Being popular with the masses has never and will never indicate quality.
And instead catering to elitist pricks that extract self worth through insulting other people's gaming choices.
Wow another WoW hate thread, were have I seen one of those before.Oh yes on the forum of every mmo that has seen its subscriptions drop like a rock after the first month. Age of Conan, Warhammer etc.
First, OP you are a plain and simple liar, and once again you try to sit on a throne of selfproclaimed elitism build on jealousy of one of the most succesfull mmo's to date.
Leveling from 20-80 at the release? Wow thats kinda difficult to do back then since the levelcap was around 60 back then.
17 dungeons at launch with several dungeons having multiple wings, with several high level dungeons like Maraudon and Dire Maul patched in a couple of months after.
True a lot of the quests were average Kill this kill that collect stuff. But some like the battle for Darrowshire were pretty damn epic.
Lag etc can be atributed to an inexperience in server capacity, you know Blizzards first mmo.
Just another white knight saying "This game might offer almost nothing at launch but WOW WAS WORSE AND ITS SUPER POPULAR RIGHT NAOW!"
Oh btw if SE doesnt care about what we westerners have to think about their game, this ship has allready sunk.
I am not insulting anyone, I am just pointing out that this game isn't being made for the same audience as World of Warcraft. Are BMW "elitist pricks" for not making a car that's affordable for the vast majority of people? No, they are simply catering to a different type of customer. I can't afford a BMW, so I don't even go to the dealership to look at them. If you don't like FFXIV, then why the fuck are you here?
"I commend them for not catering to the unwashed masses of the gaming world."
Whatever.
First of all the author added their own "spin" to that article. I could critique their journalism skills easily in the same manner everyone around here critiques an MMORPG.
Confirmed "everyone's suspicions" Who? Everyone in his office or everyone on the Internet? The statement itself is spin because I didn't know or suspect they were rushing this to market, which invalidates everyone thinking that. He could say confirmed "my" suspicions. See it's easy to throw around my thoughts as irrefutable.
Not playing fanboi just devil's advocate. Sure I am buying FF14 but I have the same amount of reserve that I do for every AAA MMO released these days. Nothing has been OMG! awesome in the last 3-4 years. Not since WoW burnout.
Regarding 500k that number is fairly recent not something from the peak years of FF11. Eve Online has less than that and is considered a significant success. So we can't imply numbers on their own = good or successful.
Who are we to judge what's enough in the market? Are we career maket analysts? No developer releases a title to initial development specs. Even the sacred WoW cow required post launch patches to include content that was incomplete at launch. So sick of WoW capstones but when you are the big boy... MS, Apple, Google, Blizzard, or any other giant corp/evil empire. *shrug* Opinions...
OK, you got me. I am an elitist prick. I'll admit it, it feels good to better than most people.
First of all, I do expect more content when the game is released. If nothing else, I hope that party play is encouraged by the difficulty level actually meaning something. Or make it worthwhile to grind in a group.
But mainly I think the complaints about lack of content is because ffxiv doesn't do anything to disguise the quests. In other games, like WoW, you'd get quests with lame little stories along with them, many of which didn't even make sense (not that anybody read them anyway). They all amounted to the same thing- killing a bunch of mobs. The main difference being that in ffxiv, all the quests originate in one place, there's easy transportation to and from the quest-starting points, and there's little story invovled. As far as what you're actively doing, it's the same.
I personally like it this way because it's convenient if I only have an hour or two and want to still progress and I don't have to run 10 minutes to turn in one quest. You turn them in right where you complete them.
It seems some are confusing lack of conveinence with "content".
Oh get over yourself, I wasnt hating on WoW, im hating o nthe community that expects every game to give you a clap for breathing. its not elitism, why is it that everyone that wants something different from simplicity or a godamn game aimed at the lowest common denominator is somehow an elitest? idiots rebutal to the truth isnt it?.
17 dungeons? oh please??? buttering up with "wings" lol.
You missed the simple point, yet another person that saw WoW critism and blew it out of porportion.
WoW is designed for simpletons, it dumbed down the concept of spells, its constantly been dumbed down since each expansion. if this fact is too hard for you to accept then fine, but its the reality.
There IS such a thing as too much simplicity.
If you didn't noticed them, you are one of them.
Its a well known fact; WoW is full of retards. You can't escape it when you have 11 mils players.
Whatever, for the last year and a half threat has been nothing in World of Warcraft, the classes are all near identical in what they offer because it "was ufair" (load of crap), stats are being removed. oh sure theyre making the heroics actual take alittle effort now.... but too little too late, crafting is nothing either, something to be powerleveled in in 2 days as a minor extention to your character.
Sorry, critics and lowest common demoninator alike, games like WoW purely being blizzard will get 9.5s based on mass appeal along. and games like EVE Online will continue to get thier 6.0-7.0s and here in 2010 in a genre thats starved for anything that goes outside the rules of World of Warcraft are the only games flourishing at this point.
People have already tried copying a World of Warcraft interface to see if they can get those millions of players. Lord of the Rings Online. Warhammer Online. It didn't work, they got no more subscriptions than the average capably-executed MMORPG, a few hundred thousand. Now, any developer who knows what they're doing will tell you that if you want to have a chance in this market, you don't get anywhere near World of Warcraft's niche, because nobody can be better at being World of Warcraft than World of Warcraft.
Honestly, considering the overwhelming evidence to teh contrary, anyone who thinks copying World of Warcraft is a surefire path to at least a million players is clueless, or perhaps blinded by greed. The Lowest Common Denominator will not come due to any or all aspects of World of Warcraft that you may copy, because apparently they don't even have the capability to recognize your game. If you want Blizzard-like numbers, you need to have games made by Blizzard, because a brand name is something simple enough that they can understand it.
Knowing this, Square-Enix is doing the right thing by catering to their existing fanbase via using interfaces their existing fanbase is comfortable with. It's not like World of Warcraft players are budging. Even if the game played remotely like World of Warcraft, players who prefer WoW wouldn't suddenly prefer Final Fantasy.
I played EVE quite a bit and I will agree with you there, it is a pretty fun game. At the same time, it is a huge niche game. I.e. 95% males play it according to http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/feature/3599/By-The-Numbers-EVE-Statistics.html. It has a very difficult learning curve and I'm sure subscription growth is due to the fact that lots of people have more than one account. Anway, I'm sure CCP does quite well and are pretty highly regarded for continuously putting out free expansions and generally being a 'good' company, etc.
However, the reason why WoW gets a good critic score is this: You really have to think very deeply about this. Because it goes past just WoW and really extends into the psychology and logic of game design.
MMO's have been evolving over time. With better technology and AI design, more things are possible. WoW and many modern games employ these system, which have been getting 'smarter' for the average consumer. These systems are in place to encourage a much greater demographic. Whether you think they are 'better' can be debated, but they are systems in place to make the gaming experience smooth, logical, and fun. Just as an example of what I'm calling these 'systems', I mean things like, quest NPC's, various types of quests, skill bars, talent trees, combat, and economic systems like crafting and AH's. Even art style and presentation can be grouped in this category.
Now, thinking psychologically for a second. Humans have basic psychological needs. Most successful gaming producers know this. They design the game and its employed systems with this pretty much at the top of the list. It should 'feel' fun, it shouldn't play and 'feel' too much like a grind, people shouldn't 'feel' frustrated when they play it, etc. Granted, cultural differences and the fact that each person 'feels' things in their own personal way do also contend with the notion of what is the ideal game. At the same time, if a majority of gamers have a generally positive 'feel' for the game and the producers have the resources to consistently make a large portion of the gamer demographic think the game is awesome, it will be a critically well received game.
Look at games like Startrek Online. The game felt to most people like it was totally rushed, and the critical score it received reflected that. Of course the game was fun to a small demographic, but most games have their niche audience. To truly 'succeed' MMO's have to logically employ various modern systems and make a wide variety of people 'feel' happy or excited to play the game. In the case of FFXIV, if there is any discomforting 'feeling' over a particular feature, lets say, the cumbersome menu's or lack of PvP or sluggish UI, whatever it may be. Logically, other people are going to feel the same way, while others are ok with it. But, if there is a great enough population of people feeling like a particular function of the game is lacking, it is something that will have to be addressed or suffer critically.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Long ass post to say if a monkey can play it, it a sign of success.
Glad you like that philosophy, but seriously, go back waiting for D3.