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Reality check
MagicBubble
Member Posts: 20
To those of you who are now getting your hopes up regarding the recent staff changes with FFXIV, here are some thoughs for your consideration:
Imagine the monster code that is FFXIV. Now Imagine a new person taking over that job as lead programmer. Realistically, it will take months for the new person to reach a somewhat full understanding of a code that size, regardless of how familiar that person already is with the general engine.
Thats just 1 single dimension of the entire puzzle that makes up the entire FFXIV team, but there are many more dimensions: Producer/Director,Lead Game Designer,Lead Combat System Designer,Technical Advisor,Lead Programmer,Senior Concept Artist,Lead Artist,Lead UI Designer/Lead Web Designer.
In addition to their individual roles, they also have to communicate and interact with eachother, thus each person will require some small degree of understanding of what the others are doing - this is also very time consuming.
My point is: It will take many months or even perhaps a year for the new core team to be "caught up" to where the old team has ended. That said, one can not expect any significant changes to the game to happen until that "transition period" has occured.
Now, if the new core team is any good, they will have reached the same conclusion that most of us (ex)-players have: everything is garbage except the graphics. Essentially, the entire game (minus the graphics) needs to be redone. This is so clearly true regardless of your degree of denial - even SE has admitted it by firing everyone of their FFXIV core team members and replacing them. Just look at the evidence and be realistic.
Given how long this will take, there is now also a very real possibility of the game being completely dead at that point and no interest remaining from us gamers.
Most probably, this game is as good as dead. Perhaps the new team will be able to "reincarnate" it into some more playable and enjoyable form, but that alone would take years to accomplish and it will probably be under a different title.
Good luck to all in your MMO journeys, they will most probably not be in FFXIV!
Comments
Ok, whatever you say.
That's your opinion. You are right about them to just get something done in the next couple of weeks of course. Nothing NEEDS to be redone, just tweaked in my opinion. Also, the old team had things already on the table. They'll probably implement certain parts of it still until they can get things squared away. My opinion of course.
Don't know how the game is as good as dead. But hey, we'll find out when we do won't we? I wouldn't say anything like that until the PS3 comes out or doesn't. Then you might actually be onto something. Until then? Your opinion, if I didn't make that clear.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
Obviously its an opinion, which is why i started my post with "...for your consideration". Which means: you may consider these points, however it is up to you to draw your final conclusion.
a little reality check to the one calling for reality check. unlike most jobs. when they turn over in game jobs they have plenty of info to catch up faster than u would on most jobs. probaly the most hardest thing is not the code but the tools to use for the game if they coming from another game otherwise.
With regards to programming, im quite aware of how long it takes to pick up where someone else has left off on a huge project - its actually part of my job in real life. This is no easy task by any means, and becomes even more complicated when you have many different people involved. Its just a time consuming task, regarless of the degree of difficulty. If you expect new people to come in and understand and take over everything in a matter of weeks, you are not thinking clearly or may simply have no life experience in this matter. Again, looking at the bigger picture, programming is just 1 aspect of the entire puzzle, things become exponentially more complicated as you add more roles. It will take many months to complete the entire transition.
I would imagine naoki yoshida was closer to the creative team than we'd like to assume.....or even if he wasn't...they maybe had the move to fire tanaka in play behind the scenes possibly for at least the last month....which they came him time to familiarize himself....which wouldn't be enough time by any means, but either way it's all speculation....only proof will be in the pudding so to speak.
Played:FFXI, WoW, LOTR,EQ. Playing:FFXIV.
Looking Forward To:DCU, SWTOR.
Thanks for the reality check.
But don't speak for me. I plan to jump in right away when the game is more playable. And I plan to play for a long time.
You shouldn't underestimate the power of loyal fans to keep the game on life support, if needed, long enough for a revival
Also, I agree with Colossus1979; the new team is probably not as far removed as you are claiming.
Give me an auction house, a map that doesn't take up the entire screen, and icons over the heads of NPCs, and we're golden.
Can you name a single game, let alone a recent MMO, in history that ever successfully pulled off a revival? Let alone from ground up ashes? I can't.
Hmm, well, DDO got a revival when they made the F2P move. Besides that, EVE Online got a very lukewarm reception at its launch, and only continued to grow in popularity and richness in the course of years.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
EVE launch can't be compared to the mess we call FFXIV release and DDO revival was mostly due to its F2P model. So sorry, not relivant comparisons
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
I agree with the making of an auction house...but....the icon over the npc is a little too "hand holding" for SE (and alot of other's) tastes......that's not something they're known for.
Played:FFXI, WoW, LOTR,EQ. Playing:FFXIV.
Looking Forward To:DCU, SWTOR.
To be fair there is plenty of hand holding while doing leves. Putting icons over npc is not a big deal.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
FFXI was released in Japan before the states. And from what I understand, it angered a lot of Japanese players. It was fixed up for NA release, almost a year later, and even longer for PS2.
There.
other than the UI code, i dont think much code on the game needs to be redone (IE i dont think the lead programmer really has his hands full),,,,, I think most of what makes the game , er, less than great right now is some bad decisions made by SqEnix concerning things that, had they listened to their players, they would have never let happen (Market wards, lack of content). Code wise it probably isnt too far from ff11 which is fine.
It needs work to be good but it can happen pretty quick IMHO if the people in charge come off their high horses and listen to the fans.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
If this was 30 years ago and there hadn't been protocols and syntex created to remedy all of your worries, I'd be right there with you.
Fact is, a well educated Pakistani student could be thrown at the code and be more than apt to take over and change things accordingly.
That's why they get paid very very very very very very very well. It's not easy, but it's far from impossible now a days.
I'll agree the arrows on the leves are helping hand.......i just don't see them putting up a big flashing ring or exclamation point over an npc's head....ruining the oh-so beautiful backgrounds and scenery. i'd see them maybe marking it on the map....but never over the actual npc.
Played:FFXI, WoW, LOTR,EQ. Playing:FFXIV.
Looking Forward To:DCU, SWTOR.
"hand holding" is just a myth drummed up by jaded old school MMORPG players who think nuking MMORPGs back to the stone age will somehow bring back their fading interest in the genre.
Being able to successfully locate quest areas, merchants, quest givers, menders, and what have you says absolutely nothing about the difficulty of that game. If you put those things in EQ, the game would be no less difficult than it always was. It would simply be less time consuming. Devs should include an option to turn off quest markers for the crowd who would rather discover quest updates on their own, but calling the rest of that stuff "hand holding" is just silly and makes me glad I'm not playing the game if people share such an opinion.
Says the guy who played 450+ hours of WAR hahaha
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
Well when you picture it that way, of course an icon seems ridiculous. SE can come up with their own, unique way to mark a character and still fit the environment.
Regarding your earlier comment, that it was unlike SE to do something like that, I was playing Final Fantasy 12 the other day, and the merchants are definitely marked as merchants. But its nice, and very appropriate for the scenery.
A) The "monster code" is very similar to the code found in XI.
C) The two teams collaborated with each other during the development process in 2006-2010. If you were involved with XI development during that time, you were also involved with XIV.
D) Producer/Director does not have to know details about the code, he only needs to understand the big picture and adjust the "direction" accordingly. This will probably take a few months.
E) The lead game designer is the former director of the game. I think he knows what he's doing.
F) The old team's plans are going to be implemented, which gives the people few months to get familiar with everything. In addition, the greater picture is not going to change (expansions, storyline, new classes).
G) Only few features need to be 'redone', many more will need adjusting, and the rest is good as-is. They wouldn't be even trying to fix the game if they thought everything needed to be redone.
Even better, can you name another current, or even past, mmo where its own developers admit it's shit and needs a do-over?
Didn't think so.
Edit: By the way, your analogy is flawed. FFXI launch in NA was not a revival of the game, merely an extension of its reach.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Redoing the maps so it dosent just feel like a exp grind isnt just a minor tweak IMO.
Me neither. Altho Everquest 2 somehow managed to pull it off tho with their Echoes of Faydwer expansion a couple years ago.
But seeing the rate of new MMO releases current day. Those chances are pretty much nullified.
The PS3 release being pretty much canned (delayed just means that. Just look at Funcom and their xbox360 release of AoC).
I think that says more than enough about the current state of the game and the future prospect they have for it themselves (SE).
They really screwed the pooch on their own franchise with this one. And it's going to haunt them a long long time.
Or they can...
they can...
implement more shit to do! I wonder if the new team has thought of that!