We're all aware of the fact that Final Fantasy XIV bombed at release. It was catastrophic, up there with the crash caused by The Spirits Within. In fact, Naoki Yoshida says that another flop like it would probably destroy the company. With a mountain of pressure on Yoshida, it's comforting to see the constant updates through the Letters from the Producer as well as the new dev blog for A Realm Reborn. These updates are allaying fears and showing fans that the game is in good hands.
So what went wrong the first time? Yoshida puts it down to the lack of vision shown by the original development team. Their goal to just create a game that was different to Final Fantasy XI was a misstep, and one which put the team in a bad position. Despite the poor reception Final Fantasy XIV received during Beta testing, the game was pushed through to be released on time. All in all, it was a bit of a mess.
With Yoshida at the helm, a second catastrophe will easily be avoided.
Naoki Yoshida has announced a new developer’s blog for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The first and as of now only post teases some future behind the scenes info as well as other rare inside scoops of FFXIV’s development. Future updates of the blog, according to Yoshi-P, will be done primarily by the project managers, meaning we should see more detailed, technical information, along with all the pretty screenshots.
In closing, the inaugural blog entry posted some artwork of a baby chocobo and what Yoshi-P referred to as a “super-deformed bomb.”
Also: as mentioned in our last update, the last stage of Alpha has begun today, with another round of alpha tester invites being sent out internationally. Good luck to all of those who applied!
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North Americans can get excited as they've just scored a neat little Final Fantasy spinoff for iOS and Android. Time to live out those sky pirate fantasies as you take to the skies with your own airship and adventure with friends! Japan has already been enjoying this one for a while - they are pretty big on their social games after all - but interested NA folks can pre-register so they're alerted as soon as the game is available. You'll also score a free 3-month exclusive Cloud Strife in-game card! Goodies all around, that's what I'm talking about.
I’m now going to bow to popular opinion. You may recall with my first song, Bartz's theme, I received numerous comments for not going with Gilgamesh's piece, Battle on the Big Bridge. I put forward the view that it was more a battle song than a character song. Well, okay, I'll give you what you want. And I guess the title of this song, The Man With the Machine Gun, can refer to only one man.
That opening little beat. I don't know about you, reader, but that's all I need to hear before my foot is tapping without me having any say in it. The beat and indeed the entire song are so vibrant and fast-paced, providing a really sharp contrast to the last two songs I chose.
The main melody then kicks in. I think this melody is actually rather great, because it has to do two things at once. First, it has to build the tension and get the blood pumping for the battle ahead. Does it do that? I'll say. There's a real intensity to it, and a sense of something that I've been struggling to put a word to for the past five minutes. The best I can do is "challenge".
Before I talk about the next task this song has to perform, I just want to quickly show you the Distant Worlds
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The latest Letter from the Producer went live today. Unfortunately, there are no pretty pictures this time around. The discussion focuses almost exclusively on the progress and future for alpha testing. You can read the whole letter here.
The main takeaways from the article are as follows:
We are currently in phase three of the alpha which will end December 2.
The final alpha phase begins December 3. Thousands of new applicants are expected to be invited to join.
Approximately 1/4 Japanese applicants, 1/6 North American applicants, and 1/3 European applicants have been accepted so far.
Phase four will see the addition of a third world for alpha testing and will involve stress tests for server mergers. New alpha testers are encouraged to join the new server (existing servers are Chocobo and Moogle).
Each world is designed to allow up to 5,000 simultaneous connections.
A Realm Reborn features approximately 40 areas, each of which can support approximately 1,000 active players at a time.
Square Enix hosted a live conference showcasing the power of its Luminous Engine, the tool behind the absolutely gorgeous Agni's Philosophy tech demo. While there are rumours that Agni's Philosophy might actually be a game, the engine itself is already proving to be super impressive. The video below shows parts of the tech demo being edited on the fly. I can't even comprehend how detailed all of this is. It's like playing with the Sims Creator except on steroids. Magical.
We'll be keeping our eyes on Agni's Philosophy and the Luminous Engine, because they're just too beautiful to look away!
Almost a month ago we caught wind of a remake of the seventh installment in the Dragon Quest series. The game was being remade from the ground up, with a complete graphical overhaul. The first screens from this 3DS remake have been released, showcasing the player characters, enemies and locations. And, honestly, they look much better than the original Dragon Warrior VII.
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Last time, we were taken on a tour of Gridania. This time, the development team for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has given us a look at the forested area that surrounds the city-state: the Black Shroud.
The environment looks great, as usual, and you can tell they’ve been really working on immersion. You see the characters jumping over fences, climbing on top of rocks, standing next to a waterfall, and exploring every aspect of the environment. We also get to see an aetheryte camp, which looks pretty cool, and it also has a moogle hot air balloon. At the end, one of the characters explores an underground dungeon area, where the lighting really helps set the atmosphere.
An important feature in this video is that for the first time we see a previously discussed change in action: the world map will only reveal itself by your character actually exploring it. This is to encourage player exploration and discovery of little known parts of the world. Currently this revealing of the map seems
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Yoshi-P announced a while ago that the 1.x servers will come back online after the finale, with all data simply unsaved for A Realm Reborn. And it has just been disclosed that this will happen… tomorrow! Well, at midnight PST on November 21, to be exact (8 AM GMT).
The game content will revert to patch 1.23b (released on September 13, 2012) but some bonus content from the finale mini-patches will remain in effect, including an increase in the anima recovery rate, the gear repair cost reduction to 1 gil, the chance of obtaining a special weapon on login from an inn room, and certain relaxed quest requirements.
As was previously reported, if the login numbers for 1.x drop down below 30% of active subscribers, the servers will be shut down again, and the numbers will be recalculated every month. So if you’re interested, you should make sure to login every month.
Number 4 on our list is the faithful retainer of Doma, a man with the courage and strength of a thousand men. I do of course mean Mr. Thou! ...and by that I mean Cyan Garamonde, of Final Fantasy VI. I would also like to take the opportunity to say FFVI has two representatives in this list, simply because of how astounding the songs are to me. I think this piece is truly underrated among Final Fantasy fans and it saddens me. Let's listen.
It's amazing how this song can convey so many emotions at once. The initial flute and the steady drum beat convey to me a sense of regality. It makes me think of a castle, of Cyan's service to his liege. In comes strings, in a brief transition to the next part, giving you time to pause, and then bam. Out comes the main melody and it hits you. I get such conflicting feelings, that of nobility and honour, but also of loneliness. Then if you listen, you can hear a flute in the background as well, and this short burst is so full of hope.
I know I'm sounding a bit pretentious with this but I truly love this song and it really speaks to me. Cyan perhaps was never one of the major players in
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In the down time between the epic finale of Final Fantasy XIV and the opening of A Realm Reborn, we're going to be bringing you all the latest news and updates on how things are progressing. But, judging from what we've seen so far, it's shaping up to be a much tighter experience. Join us here and share what you're looking forward to most!
For me, the exploring of the newly created world ranks very high up in my list. I really love how they've implemented the fog of war so that you have to explore to unveil the map. Can't wait to die many times over while trying to get to awkward corners. xD
Beyond that, housing is a massive thing for me - particularly LS housing rather than personal housing. I want to make our LS the most awesome place there ever was. Probably won't be the best place on the server or whatever, but dammit, it'll be ours, and that makes it amazing in it's own right.
Last year at E3 we saw the beautiful tech demo of Agni's Philosophy. It showed off Square-Enix's powerful new real time graphic engine for their future games called the Luminous Engine. Before they just insisted it was a tech demo to show off the graphics and what they were capable on the next generation's systems. Take a look again at the demo!
Pretty right? Many fans thought that was all there was, some holding out hope for its actual game production. In a recent interview with the CTO of Square Enix, Julien Merceron at Paris Games Week with the french website ffdream.com, let a little information slip about the possible future of Agni's Philosophy.
So, around June of next year, there will indeed be something different around Agni's Philosophy, which will be presented on perhaps different platforms as those which have been used before. I can not tell you more, I can tell you that it will not turn ONLY PC.
With the expectation of the next gen consoles making an appearance at E3,
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After last night’s finale, Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida sat down on a live Youtube video feed to answer some player questions about A Realm Reborn. The official video is not up yet, but it was all in Japanese anyway; instead, you can find a full list of the questions and answers here. Here are some highlights:
With regards to the ongoing development, the first stage of the alpha test has been completed, and if all things go according to plan, the global alpha test will start on November 26, 2012. According to Yoshi-P, this development is behind schedule, but quality is the first concern above rushing to get things done, which I would certainly hope so after the original debacle. Currently, the hope is that the beta test will start in late January/early February. A new development roadmap will be released in late November/early December.
Yoshi-P also detailed more information about two new dungeons: the Crystal Tower and the Great Labyrinth of Bahamut (the latter of whom was a highlight of the 1.x finale!). The Crystal Tower will be a raid encompassing an alliance, which
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It finally happened. The moon of Dalamud has come crashing down, signalling the end of Final Fantasy XIV 1.x. If you weren't there to witness the of the game yourself, then you're not quite out of luck - I have a video showing the epic climax to 1.x right here. Almost as good as being there, right?
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Things have been started looking pretty grim for Square Enix in the past few weeks. Dampening the successful updates coming out of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn are reports that the company posted a half-yearly loss of around US$68 million.
And now, a former Square head honcho has hit them hard.
[IMG]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs50/i/2009/329/1/f/FF_XIII_Serah_Farron_sad_look_by_Angelhawk_MCMLXXXI.jpg[/IMG]
Vanille and Serah are just as sad as Square Enix must be feeling.
Hisashi Suzuki, former Square Enix president, slammed the 2003 merger via twitter and said the company lacked vision for the future. Pretty harsh words; will they prove true?
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