This game is not finished - Truth?

[Goldenboko]

This was posted at ffxivcore:


What is wrong with the game? It is not finished. The same answer about 300 other post have gotten.

There is a reason we are playing for free atm, there is no content in the game outside of leveling.

I thought this was common knowledge now... was this whole topic really necessary? It has only been stated 20times now.


If you want to play a complete perfected carbon copied mmo, I suggest playing rift nothing has been more finished near release then that game is currently (assuming you liked WoW, sorta has nothing else to really offer).

If you want to play a game that is not a shallow copy come back in about 6-9 months and check this game out again.

Why do most ppl play this game, one reason FFXI. Sounds stupid but out of all the mmos made since EQ ffxi was probably the only one that does not have shallow gameplay designed for the lowest common denominator (which is not casual it is stupid), the ones leveling to nothing atm are doing it as an investment in the future pretty much because they have faith SE will be able to make this mmo into the kind of mmo FFXI was.

What I said above might sound fanboyish, but this whole post considering it has been covered a million times, and is by a 1 post person is sorta trollish as well.

I've been logging in periodically to try and note any changes, I've noted the UI lag being fixed, but still there are questionable amounts of content. So, is FFXIV truly "unfinished"? Reflecting on other MMO's I've taken part in, I can see how by the end, they were much, much more refined then at their starts, but in most scenarios, their starts at least had content (which doesn't even appear true for FFXIV).

Did Square truly release an unfinished game?

[Jessweeee♪]

Well technically an MMO is never finished, but yeah I think so. It all seemed very rushed. I was surprised it came out so soon.

[nirojan]

Well technically an MMO is never finished, but yeah I think so. It all seemed very rushed. I was surprised it came out so soon.

lol I remember reading that the development team was surprised it was coming out so soon. I think it was E3 or TGS, the team was talking about having alot more to do, but SE went ahead and announced a release date. And let's be honest they could've waited. Releasing two main entry, numbered Final Fantasy's in the same year (in North America) was a pretty bad idea. They should've concentrated on pushing their Eidos studios or brushed their remake-strokes rather than try to hit a home run with their internal teams that were clearly not ready to ship out a massive MMO!

[Rostum]

Yes, it's very unfinished and not polished. They really should have waited another year before releasing, but then I guess Tanaka wouldn't have been called out on his out-of-touch bullcrap.

[Loony BoB]

It is in it's current state arguably in the position it should have been at release. I think if it was released as it is now then people wouldn't have seen it so badly - but now they have put themselves into a situation where they have to get to a point that they have fixed things to the point that they feel they can charge people. Obviously, people will always want more before that happens, so it's a difficult position to be in. I for one imagine they will begin charging around the time that the PS3 version is released, and that they will release that version when the upcoming battle system is implemented and then balanced. They don't want to add much content as they know that they need to save the good content additions for future expansions. So they've stuck to fairly basic quests, but at least they are better than guildleves as they actually make you feel like you're doing something other than grinding.

To say that FFXIV is without content is a bit unfair especially when you (talking to GB here) have such a low rank character. There are currently guildleves (which admittedly for me are nothing but a grind), guild tasks (very quick daily "turn in some items, get a reward" content), notorious monsters (23 of them, I think? Danielle and I took one on the other day and got slaughtered in a few hits xD), story quests (good enough, too, although certainly lacking in difficulty) class quests (much better in my opinion than story quests as they provide a challenge of some sort, although it could be made more difficult), faction leves (I've not done these yet so can't comment, but they seem cool enough going by the one I saw on YouTube... sort of like a guildleve with a boss at the end) and side quests (great for the lore side of things). Dungeons of some kind (rank 30 and rank 50?) are about to be added and I've noticed since getting access to rank 30 guildleve locations that there is a larger variety of them that I didn't know about. Still grinding, but certainly a more interesting change to the standard guildleves. Oh, and obviously the recent festivities for Hatching-tide were there, too, and that was content as well. Sort of even-related sidequests, if you like.

Altogether, there is a lot to do - but little end-game. Notorious Monsters could be classed as endgame although I understand they are fairly easy at the moment for rank 50 characters - but with the mid-June patch introducing the new battle system (and possibly the new job system for all we know), I imagine they are saving the balancing of these notorious monsters until then. They are also introducing "quest hubs" or something similar to that throughout the maps, along with the rank 30/50 dungeons, whatever those might be. So the end-game content will come. Keep in mind, also, that they probably won't introduce the biggest long-term major end game content just yet for rank 50 people as they will likely up the level cap once the PS3 version is released - or at the following expansion - and that means endgame content will no longer be endgame... if that makes sense. :p

There is a lot of work to do, but in it's current state I actually enjoy the game well enough. However, the new battle system will be a fairly significant change so for a while I imagine they will have to work on balancing that out first, especially if it does indeed involve the new job system as well.

As for how it was at release, yes, obviously that was crap. Luckily it's been a long time since then and things have developed well. :)

[Rostum]

I can safely say that even with you explaining the current content, it is still no where near what pretty much every other MMO offers at release. Most of the things you mention are tedious or shortly lived events with no substance to them.

I don't know about anyone else, but you know what's starting to grind my gears? The completely cryptic updates that might give some interesting insight in to the lore they've created for the game, but utlimately falls on deaf ears because it offers no information on the current standing of updates that are needed for people to keep interest in this game. They've done it throughout FFXI, they tried doing it for FFXIV and every where I go there is a lot of backlash - so why don't SE learn from this feedback?

As much as I want this MMO to succeed, I'm almost starting to become convinced that this game won't go anywhere. Which is really sad for me, since I fell in love with FFXI for 8 years and have not been able to experience that feeling in any other MMO I've played.

[Loony BoB]

How much content do other MMO's start off with? O_o I find it hard to be sure just how serious you guys are considering how little you have actually played. What kind of content do you want FFXIV to have that others have at launch, so I can understand better what you are after?

As for the "annoying cryptic updates" you're talking about - most people who are actually playing the game are enjoying it as, when they are not leveling and whatnot, the cryptic messages allow for people to speculate on what is to come and feel immersed in a changing world. The latter of these two things is being applauded around Lodestone's forums where people are delighted at the idea that the game will have a solid feed of rumours and whatnot to fuel the feeling that we are actually in a game that is in motion rather than a game that is static until the next major patch. Even the minor patches change the text that characters are saying, making things match what is said on Lodestone.


As much as I want this MMO to succeed, I'm almost starting to become convinced that this game won't go anywhere. Which is really sad for me, since I fell in love with FFXI for 8 years and have not been able to experience that feeling in any other MMO I've played.
You haven't even played past rank, what, 14 or so? You can get to 20 in a day :p I don't think you can accurately judge a MMO on that short amount of playing time. Especially when it was so long ago... unless of course you've done more since then, and if that's the case, I apologise for my assumption.

[Roogle]

I think that massively multiplayer online role-playing games have a lower standard of what constitutes a finished product than other genres of video games. For example, I think that Final Fantasy XI had very little content, maybe 5% of what it offers now, at its original launch. One could argue that what it is in its current state is a different game altogether from the one that debuted on its launch date.

[Rostum]

How much content do other MMO's start off with? O_o I find it hard to be sure just how serious you guys are considering how little you have actually played. What kind of content do you want FFXIV to have that others have at launch, so I can understand better what you are after?

As for the "annoying cryptic updates" you're talking about - most people who are actually playing the game are enjoying it as, when they are not leveling and whatnot, the cryptic messages allow for people to speculate on what is to come and feel immersed in a changing world. The latter of these two things is being applauded around Lodestone's forums where people are delighted at the idea that the game will have a solid feed of rumours and whatnot to fuel the feeling that we are actually in a game that is in motion rather than a game that is static until the next major patch. Even the minor patches change the text that characters are saying, making things match what is said on Lodestone.


As much as I want this MMO to succeed, I'm almost starting to become convinced that this game won't go anywhere. Which is really sad for me, since I fell in love with FFXI for 8 years and have not been able to experience that feeling in any other MMO I've played.You haven't even played past rank, what, 14 or so? You can get to 20 in a day :p I don't think you can accurately judge a MMO on that short amount of playing time. Especially when it was so long ago... unless of course you've done more since then, and if that's the case, I apologise for my assumption.

I don't feel I really need to explain myself here, but it's not hard to keep up to date with this game without actually playing it full time. I have played it here and there but have recently in the last few days given up on it for now.

I understand you are enjoying it, and my opinion isn't to put your fun of the game down, it's just something I wanted to share since I have played a lot of MMO's over the years to compare this game to.

As for the cryptic updates, it's all well and good if a few people get excited. There are some real hardcore fans of the game, no matter how tedious and out of date the underlying design foundations are, so I expect that. But it does no good for a huge part of the genre's community who are just waiting for SE to announce something that will spark interest in to the game again.

For instance, take the upcomming Guild Wars 2 development team for example. We know more about what they are doing with the game than what Yoshi-P is doing with FFXI, and it's not expected to be released until next year - because the development team actually talks straight forward to their fan base.


I think that Final Fantasy XI had very little content, maybe 5% of what it offers now, at its original launch. One could argue that what it is in its current state is a different game altogether from the one that debuted on its launch date.

Yes, and the genre's expectations, standards and even underlying design structures have changed dramatically since 2001 (a full decade). You pretty much can't compare it now.

Edit: I just want to add I might have been a tad overdramatic with my last comment about the game going no where. I do really hope it does, and I hope Yoshi-P can turn this thing around. But probably not any time soon.

[Ouch!]

A typical expansion for Final Fantasy XI added more content than there currently is in FFXIV. They traditionally introduced a number of new quests, missions (including complete story lines), multiple end-game events, dozens of new enemies and notorious monsters, hoards of new gear, usually additional jobs, and other significant content bonuses. An expansion.

Granted, all this was usually introduced over a period of time, but except for the Wings of the Goddess (which took an ungodly two years to complete largely because of the concomitant development of FFXIV), it was over the period of a few months.

It's not completely that Final Fantasy XIV is lacking in content. It was definitely lacking at launch, but I do think it's starting to get there now. However, it's also disappointing that even though they acknowledged the failure shortly after release, here we are about eight months later with relatively little introduced in the way of content. Granted, a great deal of this has been due to the volume of mechanical and gameplay errors that required correction before they could even think about content, but that's hardly an excuse that leads me to forgive the development team.

I don't mean this as a way to criticize you, Bob, but so far as I know, you're pretty new to the MMORPG scene and don't have much in the way of a basis of comparison. Final Fantasy XIV is woefully far behind the rest of the new titles in the genre, largely because Tanaka failed horribly at keeping up with how the genre had changed. World of Warcraft (remember that FFXI is over two years older than WoW and is very much an MMORPG modeled off of the original successes) shifted the MMORPG landscape, and in the development of FFXIV, Tanaka rebelled against those changes which have already been embraced by the majority of the MMORPG-playing community. I recommend checking out the development blogs for other pending releases. Some big names out there to take a look at are, as Omecle mentioned, Guild Wars 2, but also others like Star Wars: The Old Republic or Blade and Soul. Pay careful attention to how much more involved an active community is in the development of these titles (each from established developers). Star Wars: The Old Republic is probably the closest to Square Enix as they don't have much (read: any) experience with MMORPGs. But look how much more they're involved with building a community. I mean hell, they let their fans name one of the job classes. Square Enix and its approach to developing MMORPGs is downright archaic. Yoshi-P is trying, but he can't single-handedly reverse Square Enix's entire mentality about video game development. Boy does that company love their secrets.

The problem with the content is that a large portion of it is glorified grind. That's not the kind of content that keeps most people coming back. Final Fantasy XIV needs end game. It needs more than 20-some NMs, most of which don't pose threats to alliances. It needs goals for high level characters that are difficult to obtain. It needs gameplay mechanics that people can understand and master. I've followed some discussions about exploration of the mathematics behind player stats (whether you're into it or not, the community of an MMORPG is driven by the few who take the time to derive calculation formulas to exploit them, and the ultimate consensus at this point is that your stats are largely insignificant. These types of developmental oversights are unacceptable.

As much as I would love for FFXIV to become worth playing, the game has not yet deserved such optimism or defense from criticism. It is the sore thumb of the MMORPG community right now, and deservedly so. I am cautiously optimistic that, given time, the new development team is headed in the right direction and can salvage the wonderful parts of this game (it's lore and potential therein, mostly). Unfortunately, time is not a luxury that Square Enix has right now. By the time the new battle system starts rolling out, it will have been almost a year from release. They need to step up their game, or the game is going to become vaporware, no matter how spruced up it is by the time they release it on the PS3.

And I think that's also one of the biggest problems. They're overestimating how useful that PS3 launch is going to be to them. Let's be honest. Outside of Japan, the console MMORPG is almost nonexistent. The largest market share for the genre is dominantly computer. The only value of a PS3 release is another potential shot at reviews, and I'm not sure the larger part of the MMORPG community has already been poisoned against the game anyway.

[Loony BoB]

Again, I'm kind of left asking what content you want FFXIV to have that others have at launch. You're right in that I'm new to MMOs overall, but I did play FFXI and I did experience the content up to level 40 there, and I still think that FFXIV is currently around a similar level of things to do. I do agree that it's not at the same level, but then, I played FFXI in 2008 with four expansions included. It's fair to say that I expected FFXIV to have a lot less, and I was right. Initially I was full on with the criticisms of how there was no content, but I've pushed on and now that I'm playing class quests, story quests and sidequsts along with guildleves, I'm finding myself doing content more often than I'm grinding. Which I like, personally. Obviously you could probably still get a single class up to rank 50, do all the class quests, all the story quests, all the sidequests that the specific class group (DoL, DoH, DoW or DoM) will allow for you and then feel that the game is empty after that... but I've still not got a rank 50 class, I'm still finding dozens of sidequests and I'm still not being able to finish them all. The class quests are very good for me, including lengthy cutscenes and a lot of lore (although I will say that one or two classes had far shorter sidequests than others, something which should be worked on - but then, it was the same for job quests in FFXI).

As for how hard it is to keep up with the game without playing it, well, yes, I suppose you could do so by watching YouTube and whatnot, but if that's your way of keeping up with a game and how it's improving then I do still suggest actually getting at least one class to rank 20 and having a shot at the relevant quest. Unfortunately I know you (Rostum) use a gladiator and that was probably the most boring of the class quests I've done so far. xD The Marauder one wasn't that much better. I prefer long cutscenes, so I really enjoyed the Miner one. I wish they did these class quests more regularly.

The cryptic updates (I do assume you're referring to the Last Word news updates and the Hatching-tide updates?) are more for people playing the game than not playing. I wouldn't consider them to be anything remotely to do with updates to do with what changes are being made to the game. They're lore, basically. If you're wanting actual updates on the game, wait for Yoshida's posts. If those are what you were referring to as cryptic to you, then okay, I can respect that. They don't explain exactly what is happening. It would be nice if they did, I agree.

It's very easy to say how involved fans are with the development of games these days but this is a Japanese company. GW2, SW:TOR, are they being developed by English teams? If so it's perfectly understandable that they would provide a lot of feedback opportunities to English speakers. But it's insanely difficult to get regular conversation going between the likes of Yoshida and ourselves. It's just not workable without inevitable lost-in-translations scenarios.

Regarding the stats being insignificant, we're due an update in June that will update the battle system. There is also a job system in the works. What kind of systems these will be are unsure, but the goal is to make jobs/classes more unique. With this in mind, I'd expect stats to become more significant going forward. Hopefully. :)


Outside of Japan, the console MMORPG is almost nonexistent.
That's weird, roughly half of the FFXI players I knew had it on console. =| Many of them had it on both console and PC for some reason, but hey. I do prefer PC, but when the PS3 version is launched I do think they will get more out of it than "just another shot at reviews" - I know many people who have stated that they were waiting on it being released for PS3. You have to keep in mind that not every average joe out there who wants to play FFXIV is willing to upgrade a PC just to get it running. Yes, the PC market for this is massive compared to the console market, but you do need to take competition into account and where there is little competition, there is more chance for success.

I think FFXIV will get to a worthy place because I can't think of any company out there who would have waited this long with F2P before going P2P without intending on it being a success, one way or another. They're obviously determined and since Yoshida took over he has done a lot to show that he is interested in taking ideas from the community. There is still work to be done with regards to communication but I do respect that a Japanese company will always struggle to communicate regularly with English players. They actually have to accommodate for the French and German, too, which probably makes it even more of a nightmare. But yeah, SE have used FFXI as a cash-cow for what, ten years or so? If that's the case then I think they will happily keep plugging away at this until it works, because when it does work, they will have a cow that they will hope will last them for many years to come.

Defence from criticism is something everything deserves so long as people are willing to defend it. That isn't to say it doesn't deserve criticism, very far from it. But criticism without defence? Going by that, the game should have shut down before it even began. As should almost every othe game out there. Everything deserves criticism, but all criticism should allow for a rebuttal/defence, or at least time to make corrections based on the criticism. Optimism? Well, that's another story. I'll say it many times though: If you haven't played up to even rank 20, it's very difficult to take the criticism laid out at the game too seriously. Experiencing content first-hand is the main way to understand how good a game is or is not.

[Goldenboko]

Lack of content isn't honestly my biggest complaint because I haven't played very much. I created this thread based off reading other's opinions.

My biggest complaint is the lack of direction in the game, I know MMO's are suppose to be free-roaming, but never found any direction or reason why I was grinding in this game. From what I understand there are story quests, but I've literally only seen 1 of them in maybe 10 hours of gameplay? That just doesn't seem right to me, even in shoddy titles like Runescape I'm able to randomly talk to NPC's to find some quests. In WoW basically every NPC has some sort of quest to do, where some are glorified grinds I will run into some notable quests while playing (not that I ever got past level 20). But in FFXIV I just can't find anything to do other than kill monsters.

[Mirage]

The game is without much content, has lots of annoying quirks, looks good but not nearly as good as it should have, considering its system requirements. Its system requirements are also probably keeping many potential customers away, because they don't have a PC that can run it at any sort of agreeable performance.

The world looks technically nice, but both the maps and the actual terrain smells strongly of copypasta. One might argue that FF11 had just as much copypasta, but I guess when the graphics are a lot better, copypasta also gets much more obvious. It's like the uncanny valley for landscapes I guess. There are for example sooo many small cave areas that look *exactly* alike in FF14. For me, this is a thing that easily kills my immersion.

Furthermore, while the character models are more detailed (and the catgirls are really hot :3), I can't help but getting the feeling that these races are just bland copies of races that had much more character in FF11. Roegadyns are galkas that look more like humans. Miqote are mithras that look more like humans, and lalafels are tarus that look more like humans. I liked that the races were as different as they were in FF11, especially mithras are much more different from humans than any catgirl you'll see in almost any other media. Elvaans too are pretty different from "generic" elves, both in culture and appearance. Except that they are fairly good rangers.

[Loony BoB]

My biggest complaint is the lack of direction in the game, I know MMO's are suppose to be free-roaming, but never found any direction or reason why I was grinding in this game.
Despite what I add below to this bit, I will say that I can sympathise with this completely. There's a reason I haven't been rushing up the levels and that's mostly because there is no real reason to do so.

From what I understand there are story quests, but I've literally only seen 1 of them in maybe 10 hours of gameplay?
You can probably get about four story quests done in ten hours, if not more. Rank 20 is easier than ever to achieve and there are story quests at rank 1, rank 1 (again), rank 8, rank 15 and rank 20. So there's that. Also, I think these have been added since you last played, but...

That just doesn't seem right to me, even in shoddy titles like Runescape I'm able to randomly talk to NPC's to find some quests.
There are a fair few sidequests that have been added to the game as well (http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Sidequests).

In WoW basically every NPC has some sort of quest to do, where some are glorified grinds I will run into some notable quests while playing (not that I ever got past level 20). But in FFXIV I just can't find anything to do other than kill monsters.
Aye, but WoW has spent how many years putting those quests together? It's the same with FFXI. As much as people can go "Oh, but they've almost had a year now!" - yeah, and a lot of that has been them holding up their hands and saying "Okay, we got it wrong, but we're going to improve things" and acting upon that rather than just carrying on with adding content as if nothing else was wrong.

It's a slow process, but... well, they're completely reworking the battle system, adding a job system, reworking some of the maps and also the classes, adding genders for Roegadyn/Mi'qote, setting up companies, all while working on getting feedback from users and acting accordingly. And adding dungeons. How many MMOs have committed to such immense changes so early in the game's lifespan? Is this a first in the history of MMOs?

Still, I do sympathise with your first point all the same.

EDIT: Hi Mirage :D


The game is without much content, has lots of annoying quirks, looks good but not nearly as good as it should have, considering its system requirements. Its system requirements are also probably keeping many potential customers away, because they don't have a PC that can run it at any sort of agreeable performance.
Yeah, I can understand this would be an issue. I know they're working on it (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/5874-Dev-Overtaxation-of-PC-Hardware?p=131626#post131626), although I do wonder how much of a priority it is to them.

The world looks technically nice, but both the maps and the actual terrain smells strongly of copypasta. One might argue that FF11 had just as much copypasta, but I guess when the graphics are a lot better, copypasta also gets much more obvious. It's like the uncanny valley for landscapes I guess. There are for example sooo many small cave areas that look *exactly* alike in FF14. For me, this is a thing that easily kills my immersion.
I have to concede to noticing this more lately. It's different to XI for me in that you notice it more due to the vastness of the regions. They're huge, so you see more of each 'copy/paste' bit.

Furthermore, while the character models are more detailed (and the catgirls are really hot :3), I can't help but getting the feeling that these races are just bland copies of races that had much more character in FF11. Roegadyns are galkas that look more like humans. Miqote are mithras that look more like humans, and lalafels are tarus that look more like humans. I liked that the races were as different as they were in FF11, especially mithras are much more different from humans than any catgirl you'll see in almost any other media. Elvaans too are pretty different from "generic" elves, both in culture and appearance. Except that they are fairly good rangers.
This though I've not found much of an issue, but I gues it's more personal preference.

[Lionx]

You know, the only thing i can ask for them to do is NOT LISTEN TO EVERYTHING THE COMMUNITY SAYS.

I used to be a huge supporter for players speaking their minds and the devs taking their sugguestions. But theres a difference to that and the way Blizzard is doing things, with kneejerk reactions, having their forums into QQ-fests, and things changing because people are complaining. This goes to other games as well with the new patching system in consoles. It lowers the challenge and honestly theres alot of dumb changes that eventually makes me like the game ALOT less.

Listen, but listen selectively. DO change the laggy UI, or make things customizable and talk to us. But DON'T listen to every guy that says we need this, or this is OP, or etc. Be firm for some parts..don't make it into a clustersmurf like WoW can be at places.

Basically, i been looking at this forum and other places from time to time and seeing if theres any changes worth noting. Partly cuz i like the game to succeed, and partly because i bought the damn worthless CE edition in anticipation. So far theres nothing that makes me interested or shown that there are significant changes since i last checked up on them to bother logging in for free.

So is it not finished? Damn straight its not...i wish they did not release this game so soon just to beat Cataclysm. Is time running out in terms of grace period since those claims/promises took place? Not yet but its getting close imo. You gotta do this stuff fast, thats just the truth in terms of keeping player's short attention spans. No matter how doable it is or not =/


How many MMOs have committed to such immense changes so early in the game's lifespan? Is this a first in the history of MMOs?

I don't know if its a first or not, but whether it is or not, it only further validates the fact that they really messed up bad. When I read this, its like, why wouldn't they? They HAVE to given their big big big screwup. If that makes any sense.

--

Also console MMOs do not exist outside of the FF series. There are others but they fail, and they are of the last generation of consoles when it was a new thing to try out and venture into. All MMOs are 99% PC, the only 1% would be the FF series. Its so prevalent that pro-console paraders would even say that the only real games the PC can play are MMOs. For many good reasons too.

This gives way to the fact that FFXIV might not ever get the amount of hardcore players that XI ever has. There will be some diehard fans of this game no matter what, but the hardcore MMO players are on the PC and most have moved on. For console type players, i would expect most of them to be casual players. Unless you get a huge hit for people like WoW did, you need hardcore people to sustain the subscription...casuals are just temporary cash flow.

---

For how much stats matter in MMOs, check out ffxionline for Armando's old FFXI's posts, and also elitestjerks.com for WoW. These guys play the game JUST to do number crunching. It evolves the game, by passing it onto the raiders that do well, then into the newer people. Tactics can change radically because of it too.

[Loony BoB]

I don't know if its a first or not, but whether it is or not, it only further validates the fact that they really messed up bad. When I read this, its like, why wouldn't they? They HAVE to given their big big big screwup. If that makes any sense.
Oh, yeah, I was just meaning more that from what I understand, usually games that aren't good enough just fizzle out to about five servers and stay that way or alternatively they just get cancelled. I'm obviously not very well schooled in the history of MMO's but I imagine that what SE is doing is something far different to what any other developer has done when their MMO has initially sucked. I don't know if what SE have chosen to do will end up making financial sense or not, but I do admire their dedication to the title.

[Lionx]

I attribute it to the fact that they have enough money to keep it up being as big as they are. If Blizzard's WoW 2 failed, they would be a-ok financially and have enough diehards to keep the game revamped just like it is now. If it was any independent company or smaller one i doubt this would happen.

Also its an FF title. :D

But there might be other reasons, just thats the only one I can think of realistically...

[Roogle]

Yes, and the genre's expectations, standards and even underlying design structures have changed dramatically since 2001 (a full decade). You pretty much can't compare it now.

Ah, what a good point. I suppose it could have been a lack of foresight on behalf of the company that they expected it to be all right to release a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in a scaffold state. It has been a full decade after all, right? I think that Square Enix should have adjusted their expectations during development and profit forecasting if they were planning to release it as they did.

[Ouch!]

Again, I'm kind of left asking what content you want FFXIV to have that others have at launch. You're right in that I'm new to MMOs overall, but I did play FFXI and I did experience the content up to level 40 there, and I still think that FFXIV is currently around a similar level of things to do. I do agree that it's not at the same level, but then, I played FFXI in 2008 with four expansions included.
Let's take a look at where Final Fantasy XI was at this point in its lifetime. The game launched with each of the nation storylines in development. I'm not sure about the exact time (and can't be assed to do the research), but by this point, players had access to an entire storyline that progressed with missions from level 1 all the way to the Shadowlord at level 50. That was twenty-four story-related missions to complete throughout the grind. That's not to mention that the game launched with a plethora of quests in each town, advanced job quests at level 30, a number of BCNM battles, and loads of NMs. The lack of content at launch was inexcusable, and it's only now getting to the point where it may be compared to where Final Fantasy XI started over a decade ago.


As for how hard it is to keep up with the game without playing it, well, yes, I suppose you could do so by watching YouTube and whatnot, but if that's your way of keeping up with a game and how it's improving then I do still suggest actually getting at least one class to rank 20 and having a shot at the relevant quest. Unfortunately I know you (Rostum) use a gladiator and that was probably the most boring of the class quests I've done so far. xD The Marauder one wasn't that much better. I prefer long cutscenes, so I really enjoyed the Miner one. I wish they did these class quests more regularly.
As I understand it, these job quests are not repeatable, and therefore they're not much in the way of solid content. It's acceptable for the big storyline quests, but it seems that the biggest thing you're arguing for in the way of content is a quest here and there to break up the grind. That's not enough to keep people coming back. The addition of NMs was a step in the right direction, and I think that adding mid- and high-level raids into the mix is taking it the one step further, but as I understand it, most of the repeatable quests are essentially just structured grind in the form of guildleves.


The cryptic updates (I do assume you're referring to the Last Word news updates and the Hatching-tide updates?) are more for people playing the game than not playing. I wouldn't consider them to be anything remotely to do with updates to do with what changes are being made to the game. They're lore, basically. If you're wanting actual updates on the game, wait for Yoshida's posts. If those are what you were referring to as cryptic to you, then okay, I can respect that. They don't explain exactly what is happening. It would be nice if they did, I agree.
Lore is great as long as there's a way to engage with it. Cryptic messages that often seem to have little manifestation in the game (I still remember the poem or whatever at the beginning of Yoshi-P's first post; so far as I know, they've not taken that anywhere) are a poor substitute for content.


It's very easy to say how involved fans are with the development of games these days but this is a Japanese company. GW2, SW:TOR, are they being developed by English teams? If so it's perfectly understandable that they would provide a lot of feedback opportunities to English speakers. But it's insanely difficult to get regular conversation going between the likes of Yoshida and ourselves. It's just not workable without inevitable lost-in-translations scenarios.
Blade and Soul, on the other hand, is being developed by a Korean team. Many games on the MMORPG market are being developed by Korean teams (NCSoft is huge on MMOs), and they understand the necessity for interacting with their market. Sorry, Square Enix, but if you want to take a big share of the MMORPG market, you need to engage an English-speaking audience. If your company is incapable of that, you're archaic. It all comes down to the fact that they have not kept up with the genre.


Regarding the stats being insignificant, we're due an update in June that will update the battle system. There is also a job system in the works. What kind of systems these will be are unsure, but the goal is to make jobs/classes more unique. With this in mind, I'd expect stats to become more significant going forward. Hopefully. :)
"Hopefully," does not deserve praise. We know almost nothing about the changes that they intend to make to the job system. Hopefully they improve the game, but I'm not willing to praise Square Enix based on hopefully. I think the big difference between our approaches to this is that you're willing to believe that Square Enix is working towards improving the game and pulling it out of the gutter. I've spent the better part of a decade having Square Enix slap me in the face with their updates to Final Fantasy XI. I do not have faith in them. I thought that with some of the changes they began to make to FFXI before FFXIV I had cause to be optimistic, but then FFXIV's dismal release dashed all hopes. I do not know how Square Enix has earned your optimism, but they do not have mine.



Outside of Japan, the console MMORPG is almost nonexistent.
That's weird, roughly half of the FFXI players I knew had it on console. =| Many of them had it on both console and PC for some reason, but hey. I do prefer PC, but when the PS3 version is launched I do think they will get more out of it than "just another shot at reviews" - I know many people who have stated that they were waiting on it being released for PS3. You have to keep in mind that not every average joe out there who wants to play FFXIV is willing to upgrade a PC just to get it running. Yes, the PC market for this is massive compared to the console market, but you do need to take competition into account and where there is little competition, there is more chance for success.
Others have already addressed this issue, but I'd like to emphasize that Final Fantasy XI was an oddity among its peers. The console MMORPG has never been very successful, and towards the end of its lifespan, the console not only dragged FFXI down technically (if I have to hear "PS2 limitations" one more time for inventory expansions, I'm gonna choke a bitch), but also became very limited on gameplay. As the MMORPG market moved toward the development of third party tools such as extended macros (which Square Enix outlawed out of an unrealistic fear of abuse--the same fear that led to the dismal UI for FFXIV), PS2 players couldn't keep up. This became even more of a problem as FFXI continued to develop at cap and the distinction between a good player and a bad one became more and more about the ability to swap in the proper piece of equipment for the proper situation--something that became clunky and unwieldy for PS2 users. Now that they've finally decided to expand things such as macros, they can't because of PS2 limitations. Vicious cycle.


I think FFXIV will get to a worthy place because I can't think of any company out there who would have waited this long with F2P before going P2P without intending on it being a success, one way or another. They're obviously determined and since Yoshida took over he has done a lot to show that he is interested in taking ideas from the community. There is still work to be done with regards to communication but I do respect that a Japanese company will always struggle to communicate regularly with English players. They actually have to accommodate for the French and German, too, which probably makes it even more of a nightmare. But yeah, SE have used FFXI as a cash-cow for what, ten years or so? If that's the case then I think they will happily keep plugging away at this until it works, because when it does work, they will have a cow that they will hope will last them for many years to come.
I think you grossly overestimate their time frame to start turning a profit on FFXIV, and also grossly overestimate their ability to really make a splash with this game. There's a very good chance that the game's reputation has already been irreversibly damaged.


Defence from criticism is something everything deserves so long as people are willing to defend it. That isn't to say it doesn't deserve criticism, very far from it. But criticism without defence? Going by that, the game should have shut down before it even began. As should almost every othe game out there. Everything deserves criticism, but all criticism should allow for a rebuttal/defence, or at least time to make corrections based on the criticism. Optimism? Well, that's another story. I'll say it many times though: If you haven't played up to even rank 20, it's very difficult to take the criticism laid out at the game too seriously. Experiencing content first-hand is the main way to understand how good a game is or is not.
And I would still argue that the level of defense you give this game is unwarranted and largely undeserved. At least you acknowledge your optimism. I would, for the record, like to point out how few others seem to take your stance. You are one of the few people I see who so readily defend this game. Most discussions I encounter on the topic are less and less pleased. Also for the record, most of the people I've been seeing criticizing the game are people with a job or two at rank 50. I'm hardly the only person pointing these kinds of things out.