4.0 the new 8.8?

[Mirage]

Any game that was not primarly an online game would never have gotten away with this...

Oh come on, get off your high horse. This is always the major complaint for any new MMO that's been released. Always. As an MMO, if they kept holding off the release date to fix and add things, then it'll never get released! Not to mention they would practically have little to no user feedback to help them in the process (which is absolutely needed for video game development, and MMO's have the advantage of it).

I quite like it up on this horse. Just because it's the status quo i shouldn't be allowed to dislike it? What do you know about when I started playing other MMOs? Did I start playing WoW and FF11 at the day of their releases? Even if I did, neither of those two games were released as prematurely as FF14.

It's not about delaying the release over and over again to iron out every small, new bug that is found, it's about not moving it forward and release it before you've fixed even a fraction of the bugs and issues reported by alpha and beta testers. I used to be rather optimistic about many of the bugs that people were complaining about, saying "nah i'm sure at least those bugs won't be a problem in retail". For a lot of those, I was wrong.

[Lionx]

I am going to have to agree with the score and criticism given in the article along with Mirage. Despite the horrible customer support that i have been given, all those things that article said have been true playing it thus far. It looks great at first but then there are pitfalls everywhere. Things certainly have improved since beta but not enough. I will still play it for a lil while give it a more than deserved chance, but if it fails to entertain i might just go to WoW.

This is an FF board, and of course theres going to be more supporters than otherwise. But as an MMO by itself it is not impressing me or most others in this day and age outside of graphics. I expected more (and by that i meant the standard that MMOs have evolved to presently).

It's not about delaying the release over and over again to iron out every small, new bug that is found, it's about not moving it forward and release it before you've fixed even a fraction of the bugs and issues reported by alpha and beta testers. I used to be rather optimistic about many of the bugs that people were complaining about, saying "nah i'm sure at least those bugs won't be a problem in retail". For a lot of those, I was wrong.

Agreed. A lot.

I really tried to defend this game, and by the end of it, i have to think back and go "They are right". That article along with the majority of people, is correct.

[Rostum]

but if it fails to entertain i might just go to WoW.

No, dude. We can find better solutions! Maybe play more SC2!

I expected more (and by that i meant the standard that MMOs have evolved to presently).

I honestly don't know what I expected. There is something not quite grabbing me, but I don't know what it is to be honest - I just know it's none of the issues that people keep bringing up.

[Loony BoB]

What exactly are these bugs people keep talking about? Bug-wise, I experienced more problems in FFXI 6 years after it's release than I have in FFXIV one week after it's release. I've hardly had a problem at all. The only bug I can think of off the top of my head is the UI lag. I can understand saying that there aren't enough features, but it barely crashes at all and runs smoothly on my PC. I never get "stuck" physically in the game, and my inputs have a result that matches what I wanted - unless you mean the speed at which it does what you want, in which case again, that's UI lag.

Inventory sorting, map marking, etc. - all features, not bugs.

[Goldenboko]

Square releasing half-finished MMO's is not a new topic guys.

[DMKA]

Eh, everyone complained about FFXI on intial release too, didn't stop it from becoming a (still growing) cash cow. Although the reviews it's recieved so far are incredibly bad.

Of course, this game has Final Fantasy (number) for a title. Lets not kid ourselves; all the bad reviews in the world aren't going to greatly hurt it's sales, but man is it providing some great trollbait right now.

I never had any plans to play it anyway, as I never played FFXI as MMORPGs do absolutely nothing for me. But I'm sure it'll become a decent game in the eyes of the MMO world at some point down the line.

[Rostum]

I'm going to use this as an example because of how freakin' huge the game is. WoW had just as, if not a more horrible launch. A lot of people forget about that because the launch of it wasn't the success of it, it was how Blizzard dealt with it from there on in (and damn they did a good job). So now that FFXIV is released, it's really up to what Square-Enix do now as to whether it's a success or not - in the case of Aion, NCSoft just didn't act fast enough to get that 1.9 patch out and lost of lot of subscriptions.

Over the decade I've really turned from hardcore MMO player to extremely casual. In fact the only reason I play MMO's now is mainly for the community aspect and teaming up to do stuff - which I have not found in FFXIV since no one is on Fat Chocobos and everyone else in the game is so quiet. Maybe that's what's killing it for me.

[Madame Adequate]

There's a difference between a game having room to grow and a game being released in an unfinished state. There is also a difference between gameplay problems and technical problems (Though the latter aren't really justifiable when you have an open beta specifically to stress-test things).

[Mirage]

Hey, at least gametrailers gave it a better review!

[Loony BoB]

The fact that they gave presentation a 6.9 says to me that they're incredibly biased against the game. In fact, every time they brought up something I consider to be awesome they didn't talk about it for longer than a couple of seconds, instead going "but..." about it in some way, shape or form. A pretty unfair review. I'm honestly baffled at that one. Genuinely. I mean, I can understand some people who are getting upset at certain aspects of the game but this guy, someone who has apparently got through to level 15 going by what I can see in the review, didn't mention the UI lag or in fact the UI in general once? This is the flaw almost everyone agrees on, probably the biggest flaw in the game. I question how much the individual involved in writing that review played it.

And the visuals are utterly amazing. I only have it on 'medium' settings, too. Still astonishingly good. And he points out that the battle is crap by having a solo against a dodo while using a single attack, repeatedly, despite having about 10 commands listed in his actions? Nice. I don't use standard attack longer than a few hits in a row at the start to build up a bit of TP before launching into an almost constantly changing set of attacks, and I'm level 16.

It seems this is a love it or hate it game. Maybe it's because I haven't played much of WoW, maybe it's because I haven't played GW/Aion/Warhammer, but I adore this game. I can see the flaws but I can also see them being resolved as time goes by. Also, I've got to rank 15 on three classes and rank 10+ on seven more. Is this guy impatient or something? 'cause that's four main story quests so far for me completed. He says they're few and far between... what was he expecting? A new story quest every rank? And if you do solo a single rank for a week, you'll probably get all four story quests done in that week. Does he want a new main story quest every day? 365 main story quests per year? Blimey.

It made the Gamespot review look credible.

But I suppose this will always happen, and it's amusing how people who dislike the game will only link to bad reviews and people who like the game won't. I'll stick to a balancing act and, for other critic reviews, please see below.

Final Fantasy XIV Online Review for PC - 4.2/5 "Great"
HonestGamers - Final Fantasy XIV review (PC) - 7/10
Final Fantasy XIV Review: In Progress - PC Feature at IGN - In-depth progressive review, no rating as yet.
Final Fantasy XIV MMO Log One: What’s My Motivation? | Kotaku Australia - Weekly progressive review, no rating as yet.
Final Fantasy XIV Field Report, Feature Story from GamePro - Pros & Cons review, no rating, but didn't seem to like it

[Rostum]

And the visuals are utterly amazing. I only have it on 'medium' settings, too. Still astonishingly good.

I agree that the visuals are technically amazing, but the one thing that gets me is the lack of landmarks throughout the landscapes which would make things much more interesting when running through them. Other than that the character models, armor models, textures and mo-cap animation are really, really nice.

And he points out that the battle is crap by having a solo against a dodo while using a single attack, repeatedly, despite having about 10 commands listed in his actions? Nice. I don't use standard attack longer than a few hits in a row at the start to build up a bit of TP before launching into an almost constantly changing set of attacks, and I'm level 16.

That's one thing I picked up on. He had so many commands to use but he was just pressing the one over and over again.

I haven't played much of WoW

I must admit, WoW is much better in terms of introducing you to the game and just the ease of use. It'd be nice if SE could learn a few things from Blizzard.

Thanks for those reviews, I'll check 'em out!

[Kenshin IV]

From everything I've read (not played, as I will never touch a game that charges me a monthly fee) the franchise has finally hit rock bottom with this entry. Honestly, with the path this series was on, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

[Carl the Llama]

You shouldn't pass judgment on a game you haven't played, I personally love the game and it just seems to me people were expecting it to be this be all end all of MMO's upon its release... these things take time, time I myself am more then willing to take part in this game, for all its flaws and bugs.

At the end of the day every person in the world has their own tastes and if they don't like the game then that is their own choice, people looking for an easy ride should trundle over to WoW, I myself am most likely never going back to that game as I personally prefer XIV, I also feel more and more people are jumping on the "lets hate XIV cause its not like wow bandwagon" not that I am saying all people who dislike the game has that opinion but it seems to me there are some who are threatened by what this game can represent, again not fact but this is what I feel about the game.

[Mirage]

You shouldn't pass judgment on a game you haven't played, I personally love the game and it just seems to me people were expecting it to be this be all end all of MMO's upon its release... these things take time, time I myself am more then willing to take part in this game, for all its flaws and bugs.

At the end of the day every person in the world has their own tastes and if they don't like the game then that is their own choice, people looking for an easy ride should trundle over to WoW, I myself am most likely never going back to that game as I personally prefer XIV, I also feel more and more people are jumping on the "lets hate XIV cause its not like wow bandwagon" not that I am saying all people who dislike the game has that opinion but it seems to me there are some who are threatened by what this game can represent, again not fact but this is what I feel about the game.

Just for your information, the complaints of europeans and americans are largely the same as the the complaints the japanese have, and WoW is not very big over there (I don't think it's even officially released in japan). So no, it's not because it's "not wow".

[Carl the Llama]

You shouldn't pass judgment on a game you haven't played, I personally love the game and it just seems to me people were expecting it to be this be all end all of MMO's upon its release... these things take time, time I myself am more then willing to take part in this game, for all its flaws and bugs.

At the end of the day every person in the world has their own tastes and if they don't like the game then that is their own choice, people looking for an easy ride should trundle over to WoW, I myself am most likely never going back to that game as I personally prefer XIV, I also feel more and more people are jumping on the "lets hate XIV cause its not like wow bandwagon" not that I am saying all people who dislike the game has that opinion but it seems to me there are some who are threatened by what this game can represent, again not fact but this is what I feel about the game.

Just for your information, the complaints of europeans and americans are largely the same as the the complaints the japanese have, and WoW is not very big over there (I don't think it's even officially released in japan). So no, it's not because it's "not wow".

You seriously are deluded if you believe that... no offense, but imagine the following:

WoW Fanboi: I don't like that there is another MMO out there that can potentially knock my game off of the throne given time, why don't I bash the game using the complaints others who have actually played the game said so this game will hopefully die and people can come back to my way of thinking that my game is supreme ect ect.

All you have to do to see what I'm talking about is watch the review on Game Trailers, or indeed listen to what BoB has written:

The fact that they gave presentation a 6.9 says to me that they're incredibly biased against the game. In fact, every time they brought up something I consider to be awesome they didn't talk about it for longer than a couple of seconds, instead going "but..." about it in some way, shape or form. A pretty unfair review. I'm honestly baffled at that one. Genuinely. I mean, I can understand some people who are getting upset at certain aspects of the game but this guy, someone who has apparently got through to level 15 going by what I can see in the review, didn't mention the UI lag or in fact the UI in general once? This is the flaw almost everyone agrees on, probably the biggest flaw in the game. I question how much the individual involved in writing that review played it.

And the visuals are utterly amazing. I only have it on 'medium' settings, too. Still astonishingly good. And he points out that the battle is crap by having a solo against a dodo while using a single attack, repeatedly, despite having about 10 commands listed in his actions? Nice. I don't use standard attack longer than a few hits in a row at the start to build up a bit of TP before launching into an almost constantly changing set of attacks, and I'm level 16.

Incredibly Biased... like some rabid WoW fanboi has come along and felt threatened about the potential of XIV.

At the end of the day I no longer care whether or not people like this game or not, I do and so I will continue to pay Squeenix to play this wonderful game and any who think otherwise can play their WoW's and GW2's and that is just fine by me.