I'm not sticking my head in the sand, it's just that nobody has been feeding me information on the new titles! Even when you mention them I still have to bug you to actually tell me which ones they are and which ones are doing what.Originally Posted by Ouch!
Obviously the gaming sources I go to don't delve into MMO's as much as they do other games, because with some of them I've never heard of them at all and others I know little about. I'm not unwilling to learn, if that were the case I wouldn't be asking you questions about them. It's a bit hard to learn about these up and coming MMOs when people bring them up saying "they will be better" without actually telling me why unless I push them for it. >=P
It sounds like GW2 is going to be dramatically different to GW and if that's the case, good, because while I liked the cost model for GW I was never keen on what I read about the heavily instanced side of it. I know FFXIV is putting in a chunk of instanced stuff too, now, and personally it's not of massive interest to me. The biggest thing for me about MMOs is the social side rather than the other things. I enjoyed FFXI because of the people I met, the people who would pass by and so on. Some of the best fun I had was not actually spent leveling but rather wandering around talking to people who were leveling, not being part of their official party but just chatting away with them while they did their fighting. I've done that on FFXIV while Danielle was partying with people, too. There's no statistical benefit in it for me, but I enjoy the social benefits (if it can be said that there are social benefits to playing in an MMO).
I've never really been a fan of Star Wars. Something about it doesn't really appeal to me... more of a Star Trek guy, but I hear the Star Trek MMO sucks. I've looked into Rift but from what I've been told, the rifts - while initially feeling awesome - eventually become more and more annoying. I'm not keen on being forced into action. I like to do things in my own time when I can. Oh, and I looked up Blade & Soul but from what little news I can access at work, it sounds like it has pretty much what every other MMO has. Perhaps more gaming-specific sites (which are all blocked at work) will have more information. *dunno*
At what point did I say we shouldn't develop the car? My defence isn't saying that FFXIV should stay as it is, my defence is saying that it's moving in the right direction and nobody is paying a subscription. It's effectively in a very long beta and until the game reaches the point of subscriptions, it's still going through big changes and therefore shouldn't be judged until it's got to the place that it wants to be. If that happens to be an old-school style, so be it, but I know that FFXIV made a pretty different approach when it first came out and either the players weren't ready for it or the game couldn't get it done right, but in the end when everyone could heal and everyone could fight at the same time, people actually started missing the old style of tank, healer, damage dealer. I know I definitely did. When people have jobs, I don't know why but it feels a lot more fun. This probably explains why I enjoyed Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory a lot more than I enjoyed Halo 3. It was shoddy graphics, it was an old game, but being able to take on roles made it so much more fun for me. I love having a job rather than being told I can do everything with one class. I look forward to the introduction of jobs (and hopefully that means healers, damage dealers and tanks, with maybe a few twists for support) because it just works for me.
But I am open to other ideas if they turn out to be a lot of fun, and I am very interested in what changes are expected in the MMO world. I'm just not going to buy every MMO and try it out, I simply can't afford that. I can't play a game that's not available to play, obviously, either. So it's just down to what news I can find, and even if the news is good, the release date is often unknown for these games so if it's going to be released in 2013 then... well, you get the idea. I'm not saying FFXIV is going to be the best MMO ever, I'm just saying that, at the moment, looking at the games available, I don't see any reason why the game can't eventually be seen as a good one when you consider how much time the development team are willing to invest in it and the solid starting position they have already. Yes, it has flaws, but the devs are working on those and finally it seems that they are being given the time they need to really get things moving. I do agree that they shouldn't have released so early, that they should have listened to the fans more, etc. etc. but at the same time that was Tanaka who had his fingers in his ears, while Yoshi seems much more open to the thoughts of the community. New producer, new game. This is Yoshi's game's open beta. Let him have his chance.
I'm not defending it blindly, I'm saying you shouldn't dismiss the future version of the game as crap without playing it or giving it a chance to actually become that future version of the game. They are starting where they need to start as they need to get the battle system changed before they can realistically make end-game content. I'm sure the end-game content will come, and if it's good, then obviously that's one less problem.
I believe in criticism and I actually do criticise the game in other quarters. It just seems I'm very defensive of the game here because you're being so immensely dismissive. I like to think I'm fairly neutral to the current game (I don't currently play, so obviously I don't think it's great) but optimistic about the future game. You seem to be negative to the current game and have already confirmed it in your head that the future game will be bad. If it will be, okay, but let it happen before you make that decision rather than making assumptions.
EDIT: Just read that GW2 won't have a healer class either. I hope they don't go so far as FFXIV did, because it really does take something special away from an MMO as far as I'm concerned. It seems they too are going for the solo-friendly option and all that did for me in FFXIV was make me solo more. I miss the slow realisation that I was going to have to party up if I wanted to get anywhere. I am one of those kind of people that does need to be forced into that sort of thing. =|
EDIT: omg I Iceglow'ed
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