EDITORIAL: Founder's Day in Eorzea: A Misleading AnniversaryFollow

Hello all,

Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of Final Fantasy XIV's launch. But while we celebrate Founder's Day with an in-game event, will the day be scarred by what really happened a year ago? And might there be a better anniversary day worth celebrating as our beginning?

Check out the editorial here!

Discuss it here!

Nice article Thayos! ^^

Thank you! But I guess I'm a Lalafell now... gotta figure out to do with all this Hyur gear....

Lmao!!!

The biggest question on my mind is not what is happening with this event, but when the 1.19 patch is gonna happen.

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 1:22am by StateAlchemist

That would actually be pretty cool if Patch 1.19 came on the anniversary date. Then next year, we'd have something worth celebrating!

Yeah, but the thing that has me worried now is we're only a day prior to a smaller patch that would put this event in, and no word on 1.19 coming with it tomorrow. Granted, they could have snuck in the data during the Hunter's Moon patch, but doesn't seem they typically double-patch events.

The sad thing is that no one bothers to .dat mine now, because nobody cares.

One year ago i signed up with my collectors edition, hoping this game would fill the hole XI left in my heart after the level cap boost. Even though I was in my last year or school i still gave this game more than enough attention. Sadly the game that was supposed to shine and usher a new era for the FF series ended up throwing it in to complete darkness and disorder.

Today at the one year mark instead of the cheer i remember from my XI days it feels more like a gathering around a death bead.... Sure the game may recover however it but even if it does would it have the bravado to fight or barely stand on it's two feet.

It's a good article.

I'm still so surprised that the developement team hasn't made the game playable. Even logging into the game takes way too long and way too many clicks and pauses. Why?

First I enter my account name and password then click log on. Then I wait.
Why do I have to click "play" again? Then I wait.
Then I select the character I want to play. Then I wait.
Then I confirm some message that I've never read but I assume it says to go outside once in a while. Then I wait.

Why does this take so long? Why can't I enter my name and password and then instantly be taken to the character selection screen? Why after selecting my character can't I instantly be taken into the game itself? Why do I have to click so many times and wait for worthless screens and confirmations to load?

Plus this is the least of all the unneccessary clicking and waiting. Everything takes so much time to do anything. There are way too many menus to do the simplest things that all require way too many confirmation clicks. Plus everytime you click anything the game wants to sit and wait for a while before executing your click. Other games have manage to make all this instant, why can't FFXIV?

My problem is that, now that I'm back to playing this game almost regularly, because the UI needlessly makes everything take so long, the slightest little thing makes me want to log off, even if I haven't finished my Leves. So I'm not finishing as many Leves as I could and I don't really care that I'm leaving them on the table.

Then I wonder if that's how I feel, how many other people feel the same way. This train of thought then make me really wonder if FFXIV will just get cancelled sooner or later and is it really worth putting time into a game that may be doomed anyway.

... Plus my expectations have been lowered so much that I no longer hope the game will be awesome but I hope that sooner or later they'll make it barely playable. I just can't recommend it to any of my friends. IDK.

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 12:39pm by M0NKEYSNARF

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 12:41pm by M0NKEYSNARF

Good catch! The greatest thing about articles on the Internet is you can fix mistakes, and it's almost like they never happened!

I can't say I am surprised at some of the responses, but it still never ceases to amaze me about how people will complain over the smallest of things. Logging in takes too long? Login ID and Password...standard. Main Menu screen...standard. Character select screen...standard. Simple message that shows that SE at least wants to sound like they are concerned about your well being and relieves them of any frivolous liability suits...who cares? To me there is only one technically unnecessary click there. Everything else is commonplace in video games.

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 1:23pm by StateAlchemist

I could get over every minor grievance with this game if what happened on my screen actually reflected what was happening on the server, without an enormous delay.

Sadly, no one ever asks about this in interviews, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be years before this is fixed, or it's never going to be fixed.

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 11:00am by RamseySylph

I really don't think that PR are explicitly going to say no to this question, though it's likely the answer might be a bunch of nonsense and essentially a non-answer.

The reality is the game does not trust the client at all, and way too much of the game is handled on the server. Ostensibly for security reasons, but the reality is they need to trust the client more, or the game is going to feel sluggish forever, and it really turns a lot of people off, probably a whole lot more than the lack of things to do.

How long does it take you, exactly?

It only took me (just now) almost exactly 1 minute. (That's with multiple other programs running, on a PC that's not all that great, with broadband.)

How long should it take to log on? Because 1 minute is a breath of fresh air to me compared to logging into FFXI or LotRO or even starting up Civilization V, Age of Empires III...I could go on.

Now that aside if you actually wanteed to use a good example, like say...exchanging items with retainers? Now that is an example of a not-so-great UI.

But a 1 minute log in? Seriously? I'll take it any day of the week.


Whens the last time you played? My PC definitely doesnt stand up to some of the ones people have around here and I have zero lag when it comes to synthesis and combat. Z-e-r-o. :)

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 3:00pm by StateAlchemist

Yeah, it takes an ungodly amount of time for the UI to respond to my commands as well. That's my number one problem with FFXIV--extremely poor interface. It's nice that it's more responsive than before, as the editorial notes, but how much of that improvement is simply due to so few people playing it? If so many UI commands require interaction with servers, then we'll see a huge UI speed boost simply by virtue of fewer clients making requests. IIRC, the performance boosts people reported seeing coincided with the huge drop-off in players the Editorial describes.

The UI is the only thing keeping me from playing more.

I really don't know how SE thinks this game can make a comeback. The majority of the people who tried it at launch have long quit and consider the game to be laughably bad. Those who are left still playing agree.

No I don't agree, the game isn't the greatest in the world, but it's not bad in my opinion, and no where near laughably so. And as far as making a comeback...you do know majority of Japanese MMO players play on consoles right? They haven't even touched their target audience yet.

So am I.

I plan on buying another copy of FFXIV for PS3 so I can dual-box.

I built a beast computer a month after FFXIV release, so it's still pretty decent. Every click takes a few seconds. It feels like when I click, I'm waiting on a response from a server in Japan. Plus my internet isn't bad, it's 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up.

The UI would just be really bad, if every action was instant like in other MMOs. The problem is that the lag compounds the fact that there are too many other menus and confirmation clicks everytime you do anything. I know it's easy to get used to, if you don't think about it, but if you play anything else it's a huge problem. It's so unneccessary. Most of the stuff we have to click serveral times for, and wait for the UI lag to bring up the menus, should just be hot-keyed and instant. Your example of retainers is a good one.

Click the menu button, and wait a few seconds for the side menu to pop out.
Click the top bubble thing and wait for the retainer menu to pop up.
Click summon retainer and wait.
Click which retainer you want and wait.
Click exchange items and wait an even longer time while it brings up both inventories.
Click the item you want to deposit, and wait for the quantity menu.
Click the left arrow to deposit all, then click okay (or whatever it its) to confirm, and wait for the item to disappear in your inventory and appear in your retainers inventory.
Now just start mashing the esc key until you can move again... this will take several seconds but it's the quickest way.

That is the worst way to deposit items I have ever seen in any game. All the clicks and additional menus are just silly. Then the fact that everything is done server side so you have to wait for everything just makes it not worth it.

They need to fix this UI and lag to make the game playable, before they add anything else. IMHO.:)

I still have a little bit of lag in everything I do, but to say it's a few seconds of lag per action would be a bit of a stretch. More like a fraction of a second of lag per action... which still isn't perfect, and I do agree that unless this lag is removed completely, this will negatively impact the tactics of battle as this game matures.

Yeah it probably feels worse than it actually is. I had thought about getting a stop watch, out of curiosity, just to add up how much time is wasted. It’s just that when I hit a change job macro that is switching 8 pieces of gear, the couple of second or fraction of a second or whatever is multiplied and it’s very obvious how clunky the whole thing is(plus you stop moving).

If they could just fix the UI and lag, I’d be happy. I don’t mind leveling up professions and different classes and jobs while I wait for more content. As long as the game is playable, the content that’s already there will be fun.

In 2005(ish) there was an interview in which SE stated that NA and EU gamers preferred PC to console at a near even ratio of 2:1 and that JP players were the opposite. Buggered if I'm going to look for it again, but the info is there if you really want to find it.

Regardless SA, the number of JP players isn't going to salvage the game for anyone here. The only factor in whether or not XIV lives or dies is how much they are able to improve it.

I feel like I give this game a lot of breaks, and I will be honest there are some things I like a lot about it - namely crafting and fishing. I love how -almost seamless- it feels to go from fishing to cooking to smacking things. I love changing jobs in the field.

Unfortunately, it isn't as though all the changes made thus far have been perfect and great. In fact some of them eliminated things I liked (being able to solo effectively as a mage) and many more threaten to do so.

I actually liked the "build your own class" thing, and it is really sad to see that instead of strengthening that model they are tossing it in the rubbish bin (for example). The same with being able to wear gear on any class etc even if it isn't recommended.

I actually don't give a rats damn if someone "can tell I'm a healer" by looking at my clothes.

But apparently people are dying for just 1 more cookie cutter MMO. That's what the whole "jobs" thing is.

And the other stuff they are adding, like materia crafting just seems like a ridiculous time sink.

And to top it all off, it seems like they have utterly abandoned making my favourite classes (Cook, Alchemist, Fisher) viable full-time full classes.

So, yeah, I may complain a lot but I am not just complaining for the sake of complaining - or complaining about the past only. I am seeing that they are stripping all the actually neat things this game had to offer out of the game... as their fix for their horrific failures. Hardly a win in my books.

Nevermind that the things they are doing are so bland and unimaginative. Escort quests for DoW/DoM only? Oh, that is original.

Edited, Sep 20th 2011 3:59pm by Olorinus

I don't really feel I was being pessimistic or QQing, I think I was being objective and realistic.

The statement you made about them touching their target audience is wrong for a few reasons though. Their target audience is anyone willing to plunk down some cash to play, regardless of platform or reasoning for doing it. Releasing this game in the state it is currently in on PS3(or any other consoles for that matter) doesn't equate to more people enjoying the game and sticking around.

Fun fact: Out of over 620k box sales(which doesn't include the prospect of buddy passes), there are currently roughly 40k active players. Just over 6%(optimistic for the buddy pass reason) of the people who purchased this game still play it even though it is currently still free.

That statement is both realistic and optimistic. How? Well personally I was shocked to find that many people purchased it despite the bad press. If SE can pull it together to at least satisfy those 620k people then they have a great chance of not only keeping XIV breathing, but adding more players if/when PS3 launches and from word of mouth about improvements.

Because that's how many unit shipped, whether or not that many sold is unknown as far as I am aware.