[Interview] Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Catching Up with FFXIV at E3 2013

BillMurphy · June 2013

With Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn set to launch in just over two months, we caught up with game director Naoki Yosihda at this year's E3 to find out how the game is coming along.

Fast forward a year later to E3 2013 and I was set to meet with Mr. Yoshida once again. I approached our meeting with a follow-up on our previous conversation in mind. As a longtime Final Fantasy fan, I was never drawn to the EQ-like Final Fantasy XI and, at least at face value, FFXI was what I saw in Final Fantasy XIV on the run up to launch, ensuring that I would pass over it as well. I explained this oddity to Mr. Yoshida in our prior discussion; I just didn’t feel like FFXI or FFXIV screamed “Final Fantasy” at me. As someone who loves Final Fantasy games and MMOs, you would think that games like FFXI, and more particularly, FFXIV, would be an easy sell. They weren’t. How could that be?

Read more of Michael Bitton's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Catching Up with Naoki Yoshida at E3 2013.

BadSpock · June 2013

Why no MMORPG.com beta key giveaway eh?

Sandric · June 2013

If they do this, it will likely be in Phase 4. As I understand it, phase 4 will be persistent (no or limited wipes) and 5 will be full open beta. Currently in phase 3 with short weekend/multi day CB periods working various parts including testing the FFXIV character transfers starting later this week. I would bet phase 4 (closed beta but very high number of keys sent out) will start early or mid July and last till early August where Phase 5, open beta will ramp up for launch for a couple to few weeks.

*Note this is just my personal opinion and suppositions and the limited time I have spent on the forums as a Phase 3 tester.*

Foomerang · June 2013

Non instanced housing? I am impressed! Thank you for the update.

Tsuru · June 2013

Originally posted by BadSpock
Why no MMORPG.com beta key giveaway eh?

Because Square-enix didn't give any to give away. It was by invitation only. Phase 4 is coming soon which will be open beta.

Khebeln · June 2013

Sound good

Waldoe · June 2013

Originally posted by Sandric

If they do this, it will likely be in Phase 4. As I understand it, phase 4 will be persistent (no or limited wipes) and 5 will be full open beta. Currently in phase 3 with short weekend/multi day CB periods working various parts including testing the FFXIV character transfers starting later this week. I would bet phase 4 (closed beta but very high number of keys sent out) will start early or mid July and last till early August where Phase 5, open beta will ramp up for launch for a couple to few weeks. *Note this is just my personal opinion and suppositions and the limited time I have spent on the forums as a Phase 3 tester.*

Phase 4 is open beta. There is no phase 5.

Razeekster · June 2013

Seriously impressed with 2.0. They really redeemed themselves. Also limit breaks are going to be epic!

shanert · June 2013

The housing-zones ARE instanced, but not every single house.

Housing is coming 2,5 - 3 months after launch, with the first content-patch. They will bring content-patches every 3 months. The reason for housing coming later is, that they will see how much money the players have and adjust the costs of housing, so that you need 3 max-lvl-chars to buy a house.

Mothanos · June 2013

Its kinda strange tbh, hearing of the abomination off FF XIV ( dint play it) and then get invited to ARR and seeing one of the best themepark mmo on the market.

I think many people dint expect that much from SE anymore.

Specialy when you look at FF 13 and FF 14, i wrote SE off and it made me realy sad to see how awfull those games where.

FF XIV has totaly blow me away, for some1 looking forward to Wildstar / AA / EQN i can safely say that if you ever played a FF game before this one will rock your world.

Even if you have never played a FF game before and dig mmo's like WoW / Rift / GW2 /SWTOR or any other tripple A mmo you can have acces to something realy special.

Sunworshiper · June 2013

Originally posted by shanert
The housing-zones ARE instanced, but not every single house.

Housing is coming 2,5 - 3 months after launch, with the first content-patch. They will bring content-patches every 3 months. The reason for housing coming later is, that they will see how much money the players have and adjust the costs of housing, so that you need 3 max-lvl-chars to buy a house.

Well, bummer on the instanced housing. Would have been interesting to see housing in the open world. 3 max level characters? do you mean 3 maxed job levels?

Murugan · June 2013

Originally posted by Sunworshiper
Originally posted by shanert
The housing-zones ARE instanced, but not every single house.

Housing is coming 2,5 - 3 months after launch, with the first content-patch. They will bring content-patches every 3 months. The reason for housing coming later is, that they will see how much money the players have and adjust the costs of housing, so that you need 3 max-lvl-chars to buy a house.

Well, bummer on the instanced housing. Would have been interesting to see housing in the open world. 3 max level characters? do you mean 3 maxed job levels?

Housing is located in neighborhoods, if you fast foward in the attached youtube video you can see an example of the beta version of a limsa housing area.

So yes they are "instanced" in that it is a zone and there may be multiple versions depending on the demand for land, however there will be a limit to plots. Plots are sellable. So it retains many of the features of open world housing like in Vanguard.

You just can't build a house anywhere in the world such as by a dragon spawn and piss people off like in SWG.

Just realized you can't see the youtube video unless you are reading this in the forum section. So here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjoh3VEPyLU&feature=youtu.be

Etherignis · June 2013

I think housing would be like aion, which i like.

MondoA2J · June 2013

Great article.

Loved hearing about Housing and seems like they are really trying to give this a Final Fantasy feel.

On the other hand....I seriously doubt the implementation of the Summoner job. Summoners were amazing cause of the massive creatures they could summon. If you take out the massive part...it kinda becomes lame. *shrug* just IMO.

Azureblaze · June 2013

I'm glad Summoners won't have huge summons around all the time, would just put too much on the screen considering everyone can get chocobos and use them as pets + summoned "pets" and all other kinds of mounts/pets - it would be crazed.

Then again, having the option to turn on / off other players pets/summons would be a way around this...

Wraithone · June 2013

Thanks for the update, MikeB. I'm quite looking forward to this game. Lets see how it plays.

shojikun · June 2013

Primals will be summon by guild instead

ElRenmazuo · June 2013

it would be funny if summoners can summon knights of the round lol have 13 pets all at the same time. Or Summon Alexander a giant castle that shoots a massive beam of laser.

observer · June 2013

Originally posted by Murugan
Originally posted by Sunworshiper
Originally posted by shanert
The housing-zones ARE instanced, but not every single house.

Housing is coming 2,5 - 3 months after launch, with the first content-patch. They will bring content-patches every 3 months. The reason for housing coming later is, that they will see how much money the players have and adjust the costs of housing, so that you need 3 max-lvl-chars to buy a house.

Well, bummer on the instanced housing. Would have been interesting to see housing in the open world. 3 max level characters? do you mean 3 maxed job levels?

Housing is located in neighborhoods, if you fast foward in the attached youtube video you can see an example of the beta version of a limsa housing area.

So yes they are "instanced" in that it is a zone and there may be multiple versions depending on the demand for land, however there will be a limit to plots. Plots are sellable. So it retains many of the features of open world housing like in Vanguard.

You just can't build a house anywhere in the world such as by a dragon spawn and piss people off like in SWG.

Just realized you can't see the youtube video unless you are reading this in the forum section. So here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjoh3VEPyLU&feature=youtu.be

This sounds like Lotro's housing system then. There were multiple instances of neighborhoods.

Ayulin · June 2013

Originally posted by Murugan
Originally posted by Sunworshiper
Originally posted by shanert
The housing-zones ARE instanced, but not every single house.

Housing is coming 2,5 - 3 months after launch, with the first content-patch. They will bring content-patches every 3 months. The reason for housing coming later is, that they will see how much money the players have and adjust the costs of housing, so that you need 3 max-lvl-chars to buy a house.

Well, bummer on the instanced housing. Would have been interesting to see housing in the open world. 3 max level characters? do you mean 3 maxed job levels?

Housing is located in neighborhoods, if you fast foward in the attached youtube video you can see an example of the beta version of a limsa housing area.

So yes they are "instanced" in that it is a zone and there may be multiple versions depending on the demand for land, however there will be a limit to plots. Plots are sellable. So it retains many of the features of open world housing like in Vanguard.

You just can't build a house anywhere in the world such as by a dragon spawn and piss people off like in SWG.

Just realized you can't see the youtube video unless you are reading this in the forum section. So here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjoh3VEPyLU&feature=youtu.be

I believe the "3 fully leveled characters" was their rough target to afford the largest housing, not smaller housing. The largest will be "Free Company" housing (think: Guild Housing), which should be huge.

What's also been mentioned by Yoshi-P is that you'll be able to continuously build on to your house, limited only by the size of your property. You'll be able to have Chocobo stables, where you'll keep your actual personal chocobo(s) when not using them, etc. It's going to be a very nice and flexible system.

As far s the instancing, I envision it like in LoTRO. There are a number of instanced "neighborhoods", with houses of varying sizes in each. The difference is, instead of having the houses already built, ARR will just have empty property. The player buys the land, and then builds their own house on it.

Great overview/article, MikeB.

Ayulin · June 2013

Originally posted by MondoA2J
Great article.

Loved hearing about Housing and seems like they are really trying to give this a Final Fantasy feel.

On the other hand....I seriously doubt the implementation of the Summoner job. Summoners were amazing cause of the massive creatures they could summon. If you take out the massive part...it kinda becomes lame. *shrug* just IMO.

There's more to it than that, though. Which wasn't covered in the article, so it's understandable that it would leave people with ???s.

First, classic summons like Ifrit, Shiva, Titan, Garuda, etc, are called "Primals" in Eorzea. They're basically "Lesser Deities", and each of which is worshiped by one of the world's beastmen races.

Further, for a Primal to be summoned draws on the Ether contained within the world, and is a drain on it. Every Summoner being able to summon them at will would make no sense at all in the context of the lore. The very act of summoning them involves a major rite, undertaken by leaders of the beastman races. So, it wouldn't make sense for some individual summoner to be able to do so on their own.

So basically, Ifrit and co. are kind of a big deal in Eorzea and beyond the grasp of any individual Summoner.

Now, it is said that at some point - through some evolution of the storyline, etc - these Primals will come to exist permanently in Eorzea, wandering the world. At that time, Free Companies (guilds) will be able to fight them and attempt to take them down. Doing so earns that Company the right to summon it for a one-off attack, after which the Summon returns to the world and may be fought and captured by other Companies. At least that was the plan last I knew. It may have changed, but I haven't seen any mention of anything otherwise. There will be a week limit on how long a Free Company can "hold" a Primal in their control. If they don't use it by then, it automatically returns to the world. This is so no one Company can monopolize it.

As for Summoners, they'll get lesser summons which will still be quite effective and useful, they just won't be a big-ass Primal following them around.

redcloud16 · June 2013

Originally posted by Ayulin
Originally posted by MondoA2J
Great article.

Loved hearing about Housing and seems like they are really trying to give this a Final Fantasy feel.

On the other hand....I seriously doubt the implementation of the Summoner job. Summoners were amazing cause of the massive creatures they could summon. If you take out the massive part...it kinda becomes lame. *shrug* just IMO.

There's more to it than that, though. Which wasn't covered in the article, so it's understandable that it would leave people with ???s.

First, classic summons like Ifrit, Shiva, Titan, Garuda, etc, are called "Primals" in Eorzea. They're basically "Lesser Deities", and each of which is worshiped by one of the world's beastmen races.

Further, for a Primal to be summoned draws on the Ether contained within the world, and is a drain on it. Every Summoner being able to summon them at will would make no sense at all in the context of the lore. The very act of summoning them involves a major rite, undertaken by leaders of the beastman races. So, it wouldn't make sense for some individual summoner to be able to do so on their own.

So basically, Ifrit and co. are kind of a big deal in Eorzea and beyond the grasp of any individual Summoner.

Now, it is said that at some point - through some evolution of the storyline, etc - these Primals will come to exist permanently in Eorzea, wandering the world. At that time, Free Companies (guilds) will be able to fight them and attempt to take them down. Doing so earns that Company the right to summon it for a one-off attack, after which the Summon returns to the world and may be fought and captured by other Companies. At least that was the plan last I knew. It may have changed, but I haven't seen any mention of anything otherwise. There will be a week limit on how long a Free Company can "hold" a Primal in their control. If they don't use it by then, it automatically returns to the world. This is so no one Company can monopolize it.

As for Summoners, they'll get lesser summons which will still be quite effective and useful, they just won't be a big-ass Primal following them around.

To touch on what you said, summoning a Primal requires massive amounts of Aether, and remaining in the physical plane is a drain on the lifeforce of the land around it. So if you were to have 30+ Ifrits unning around in one zone, you'd literally be killing the planet XD

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QbF3jq04c80

Enjoy

Chrisbox · June 2013

Looking forward to testing this weekend

MondoA2J · June 2013

Originally posted by redcloud16
Originally posted by Ayulin
Originally posted by MondoA2J
Great article.

Loved hearing about Housing and seems like they are really trying to give this a Final Fantasy feel.

On the other hand....I seriously doubt the implementation of the Summoner job. Summoners were amazing cause of the massive creatures they could summon. If you take out the massive part...it kinda becomes lame. *shrug* just IMO.

There's more to it than that, though. Which wasn't covered in the article, so it's understandable that it would leave people with ???s.

First, classic summons like Ifrit, Shiva, Titan, Garuda, etc, are called "Primals" in Eorzea. They're basically "Lesser Deities", and each of which is worshiped by one of the world's beastmen races.

Further, for a Primal to be summoned draws on the Ether contained within the world, and is a drain on it. Every Summoner being able to summon them at will would make no sense at all in the context of the lore. The very act of summoning them involves a major rite, undertaken by leaders of the beastman races. So, it wouldn't make sense for some individual summoner to be able to do so on their own.

So basically, Ifrit and co. are kind of a big deal in Eorzea and beyond the grasp of any individual Summoner.

Now, it is said that at some point - through some evolution of the storyline, etc - these Primals will come to exist permanently in Eorzea, wandering the world. At that time, Free Companies (guilds) will be able to fight them and attempt to take them down. Doing so earns that Company the right to summon it for a one-off attack, after which the Summon returns to the world and may be fought and captured by other Companies. At least that was the plan last I knew. It may have changed, but I haven't seen any mention of anything otherwise. There will be a week limit on how long a Free Company can "hold" a Primal in their control. If they don't use it by then, it automatically returns to the world. This is so no one Company can monopolize it.

As for Summoners, they'll get lesser summons which will still be quite effective and useful, they just won't be a big-ass Primal following them around.

To touch on what you said, summoning a Primal requires massive amounts of Aether, and remaining in the physical plane is a drain on the lifeforce of the land around it. So if you were to have 30+ Ifrits unning around in one zone, you'd literally be killing the planet XD

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QbF3jq04c80

Enjoy

I am sure far as the lore goes yes it all makes good sense but I was more referring to the feel of the class itself will not feel as impressive as Summoners in the other Final Fantasy games.

Cause of said lore you mentioned. Summoners will be summoning "Lesser Ifrit Elemental" lol just as a joke example but you get my idea. Not as impactful as lets say summoning Ifrit or Shiva etc.

I understand what the lore states and im okay with that. I am looking at this from a game mechanics angle.

ElRenmazuo · June 2013

Originally posted by MondoA2J

I am sure far as the lore goes yes it all makes good sense but I was more referring to the feel of the class itself will not feel as impressive as Summoners in the other Final Fantasy games.

Cause of said lore you mentioned. Summoners will be summoning "Lesser Ifrit Elemental" lol just as a joke example but you get my idea. Not as impactful as lets say summoning Ifrit or Shiva etc.

I understand what the lore states and im okay with that. I am looking at this from a game mechanics angle.

I agree cuz there were no problem in FF11 where summoners could actually summon some of the actual summons we all know and love like Garuda and Fenrir.

Dreamo84 · June 2013

Originally posted by tkreep
Originally posted by MondoA2J

I am sure far as the lore goes yes it all makes good sense but I was more referring to the feel of the class itself will not feel as impressive as Summoners in the other Final Fantasy games.

Cause of said lore you mentioned. Summoners will be summoning "Lesser Ifrit Elemental" lol just as a joke example but you get my idea. Not as impactful as lets say summoning Ifrit or Shiva etc.

I understand what the lore states and im okay with that. I am looking at this from a game mechanics angle.

I agree cuz there were no problem in FF11 where summoners could actually summon some of the actual summons we all know and love like Garuda and Fenrir.

I wouldn't have minded summons being similar to previous FF games like FFVII and just being a single shot thing. Summon Ifrit have him do some big hit and then go away.

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[Interview] Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Catching Up with FFXIV at E3 2013

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[Interview] Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn: Catching Up with FFXIV at E3 2013

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