Where did this game fail?
So, in the wake of glowering reviews, to the point that SE had to apologize for people who bought the game, what made the original version of this game so bad? At the very least, where did this game fail where FFXI succeeded (I don't typically play MMO's)
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It really just wasn't finished. It had little content and crippling, crippling UI lag at first release.
Let me put it this way:
We are two years into the game and you still can't ship things to people via a mail service. You also have to go through a very convoluted system to search for party members, and the tutorial systems are terrible at best.
SE did not listen to those of us who were in alpha/beta and said that the game was not ready, and instead decided to release it anyways to compete with WoW.
I only want your happiness...even if I may never be yours to share it.
There are tons of reasons why the original version was unplayable (fatigue system, no Auction House, no auto-attack, terrible level grind, crashing zones, glacial-speed UI, etc.) but you can find all about those in the circa-2010 reviews of the game. What's way more interesting are the many ways that the game is way more playable now and how that suggests good things for 2.0.
The game still crashes occasionally, but it's orders of magnitude more stable now. They've implemented jobs to go along with the class-based Armoury System. The UI is much cleaner and faster. Market Wards are an acceptable alternative to an Auction House. Fatigue is gone completely, in favor of "Rested Bonus". Obviously there are still problems with loot drop rates and incentivizing content, but those are gameplay tuning issues rather than client running issues. Playing the game at launch and playing the game now are two massively different experiences and I am personally enjoying myself for the most part, playing now.
Sounds about right. That's what I've read off of wikipedia, that the game was really glitchy, unpolished, and needed a lot more development time before it was ready to be released.Originally Posted by Goldenboko
The failings of the initial launch can be explained in a single word: Tanaka.
Not only was it unfinished, but SE failed to use any of the lessons they learned from FFXI. It's just inexcusable to not include features like AH and mail service that were already in your game you released 10 years ago.
The main cause, I feel, is that SE thinks too highly of themselves and overestimates how much they actually know about what their fans want.
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It failed (hopefully to be fixed in the re-release, when I'll be giving it a chance) because of the terrible reputation it immediately got with reviewers. At least, that's why I never even tried it.
And also oddly enough because we knew it'd be fixed but that it'd be in one giant update, so I know I was one of many holding off until I heard about this giant update coming out. Maybe it would've been better for them to say yes there are problems, but we'll be fixing them incrementally starting immediately. Maybe I'd have joined, knowing I'd be seeing improvements over time.
Reputations are got for a reasonThis game was legitimately unfinished upon release.
This is exactly what happened. They moved Tanaka from the project and turned it over to Yoshi-P. FFXIV right now is virtually unrecognizable from launch. It went for over a year being completely free-to-pay while they fixed a majority of the problems in the game within the confines of the existing engine. The re-release is allowing them to take it a step further by creating a new engine from the ground up. But the transformation so far is already phenomenal.
The game was comically unfinished, but Squeenix's response was the typical "smurf the fans, they'll play it and they'll like it." Unfortunately for them, it was just too bad. But Ouch! is right that it has been rebuilt from the ground up, even while Squeenix has made a ton of changes to the current engine. If they had released the current version two years ago, the response would have been much different, albeit the game still needs substantial improvements. I have high hopes for the full 2.0 rerelease.
Alright, that's good to know!
But why didn't Squeenix tell me? I subscribe to their newsletter, so spam my inbox, tell me it's better now!
So in a way, I reiterate its reputation, and their lack of action in correcting that reputation. Good thing I'm regular again here now :3
Wow, it sounding like I should never pick up this game. I figured it had to be pretty garbage. I still hear people talking about XIII, but never about XIV; it's like it doesn't exist.
The servers are closing in two weeks. Alpha for the re-release has already started (and maybe finished?) in Japan. Beta will be coming. You'll start hearing more soon.
streme Wheelie
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Check our frontsite. We've had consistent news updates about Final Fantasy XIV for at least a month.
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