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exaggerating how much is changed?Follow

#27 Feb 20 2013 at 8:57 AM Rating: Good
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What I'm most interested in is in how far the changes introduced in ARR actually improve what we had in 1.XX. I mean, I don't know whether you had the pleasure to play the 1.0 alpha, but I did. And I remember that back then, the originally intended combat system was at least a bit more involved than what they released for the open beta later. For example, the stamina gauge (which I, personally, liked) was accompanied with a second meter that allowed you to "overcharge" every single action to enhance it just as much as you considered the optimum for the situation at hand (e.g., by enhancing it's accuracy or power in relation to the time spent for overcharging). Quite nifty a system, just unfortunately poorly executed.

What I fear, and what... people who have friends whose uncles played the ARR alpha... claim to have read in an X-File... is that the battle system changes do not necessarily have to be improvements. I mean, in all possible cases. In theory, for example, it would be possible that they increased the speed and flashiness according to popular demand (ha! that much was discernible from the official previews!), and that there could be a major percentage of players who are not too fond of those changes. For example, some might come to the conclusion that spamming the same ultra-moves at the beginning of every battle with a squirrel just because you start combat with a full TP bar (Yoshi explained the reasons for this in an interview) becomes pretty old pretty fast. Theoretically.

I guess, in absence of the possibility to actually quote stuff posted by... E.T.... on the beta forums we can only wait and see, though.
#28 Feb 20 2013 at 12:23 PM Rating: Decent
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aadrenry wrote:
Archmage Callinon wrote:
SWTOR was certainly the more expensive disaster. Though I'm not sure what the cumulative cost of running FFXIV for free for so long was.

SWTOR's biggest problem was that they put all their effort into the leveling progression and the class stories (which were superb btw).


Im sorry to disagree but I couldnt believe how corny/badly done many of the dialogue and character actions were during the storyline element of the game. Everytime they say something its followed by a corny hand gesture and atleast 3/4 of the lines I heard were awkward/lame/poorly done. I thought it was incredibly dissapointing given the fact they poured the majority of the games money into voice acting/dialogue scenes. Usually when you click an option for your character to respond he ends up saying something stupid which doesnt even match the response I chose. Gotta call people out when they claim the stories in the game were still great, I found them incredibly corny with a small percent of good parts during key moments. Id say Swotor failed harder than XIV and I think 14's launch was horrible too.

edit- example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDX8pJhglnA


Edited, Feb 20th 2013 9:02am by aadrenry


Have you seen Star Wars? It is full of corny dialogue and interesting acting. It is a cornerstone of the franchise.

... You're my only hope!
... I have a bad feeling about this!
... Rawr! -Chewbacca
... Beep, beep, beep -R2D2

LOL!
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#29 Feb 20 2013 at 12:37 PM Rating: Decent
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Kachi wrote:
I expect the layout of the starting nations to be the same, [as well as] NPC assets (and probably some of their speech), and I don't expect a significant reform of the guildleves. I expect the combat system to be different though not especially inventive or exciting.

The game can be rebuilt from the ground up and still look very much like every other mediocre MMO launch from the last few years.


This is exactly how to translate "realm reborn" into common speech.

I would expect anyone who looks at screenshots and videos of the game, and who reads developer interviews would feel the same way. The information is widely available and right in front of us.
#30 Feb 20 2013 at 1:23 PM Rating: Good
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I actually really enjoyed SWTOR, as a single player game.

I sometimes grouped, had fun pvp sometimes, but always single player. SWTOR did one thing right:

The story was great and made me want to play all the classes. The few times where the players had to make a choice together we a lot of fun, and group conversations trees were an awesome way of engaging everyone while having a story. (I only grouped with 2-3 friends)

The downside, there wasn't enough story missions to level up a new class without havign to redo 800 other menial fetch tasks just to level up enough to do the main ones.

I had a blast actually role playing as a bounty hunter who only cares about money, and making all decisions based on reward, but there wasn't nearly enough 'MMO' in my 'RPG'.


Edited, Feb 20th 2013 2:24pm by Louiscool
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#31 Feb 20 2013 at 4:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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Louiscool wrote:
I actually really enjoyed SWTOR, as a single player game.

I sometimes grouped, had fun pvp sometimes, but always single player. SWTOR did one thing right:

The story was great and made me want to play all the classes. The few times where the players had to make a choice together we a lot of fun, and group conversations trees were an awesome way of engaging everyone while having a story. (I only grouped with 2-3 friends)

The downside, there wasn't enough story missions to level up a new class without havign to redo 800 other menial fetch tasks just to level up enough to do the main ones.

I'd agree with most of this. While the class quests were mostly interesting, they were few and far between. The biggest problem with this model is the fact that all the other quests in between were all so slow and boring. I've been saying this for a long time, but quests need to be more interesting and engaging to keep the model viable.
#32 Feb 20 2013 at 6:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'm not really even much of a Star Wars fan, but I thought the quest scenarios and voice acting were great... probably better than anything else we'll see for a very long time. It was the foundation that those things were built upon that weren't so great. Gameplay that was too easy, lack of meaningful incentives, etc... same things that kill many games. It's really kind of boggling how developers keep making these same basic mistakes over and over. Not so boggling, I guess, considering they're basically trying to copy existing games.

Quote:
...what exactly do you think competes with FFXIV "today"(IMO what competes with FFXI...lol)? Putting my opinion aside and many of my friends and fellow FFMMO players, I've read many negative responses towards "other modern" MMOs".


Everything. Every other game--and every other activity--is a competitor. If I think I'm going to have more fun ******* around on the internet than playing FFXIV, then that's what I'll do. And you see this all the time-- people are unhappy with "other modern" MMOs, and what do they do? They don't play MMOs. I'm in that group myself.

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What NA console based MMO will compete with XIV?


Considering that the NA console market is rather small for MMOs, maybe nothing will compete directly, but it still won't be enough to save FFXIV. Thing is, at the time that FFXI became a console game, there just weren't really that many games with online play at all. Now, that's no longer the case... tons of games have online play, whether Call of Duty or Rockband, fighting games, racing games, etc. And computers that are built for gaming are just that much more available and viable as an MMO platform to younger players. For example, I didn't have access to a PC capable of running FFXI when it came out, but I had a PS2. Today, there are MMOs that you can run with a pretty standard PC.

So unfortunately, the question is kind of moot today. In 2005, the NA console crowd was pretty relevant as a subscriber base. In 2013, it's much less relevant.

#33 Feb 20 2013 at 11:15 PM Rating: Good
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Just to touch on the voice acting thing; it was definitely a double-edged sword.

Many people developed the same complaint, which was that voice acting prevented them from going out and just moving on with their grinding. This led to lots of people just mashing the spacebar to continue. I don't think the idea was bad, but fully voicing the entire game was definitely a mistake that led to long periods between patches and dull secondary questing.
#34 Feb 20 2013 at 11:27 PM Rating: Default
Kachi wrote:
Quote:
I hear what you're saying... but I think Final Fantasy Online games break the mold a little. Time will tell, of course, but I recall being very excited whenever a Final Fantasy came out because they took years to make and they were (usually) pretty fun when they did show up in the store. So during those long waits, you might play your old Final Fantasy games again while you wished for a new one, but it just wasn't the same.


People had huge hopes for SWTOR as well. SE's clout has only been waning in recent years, but Bioware was maintaining a large, loyal following of players. Combine with that the Star Wars IP, another instant money maker, and the biggest MMO budget on record, and SWTOR was SURE(!!!) to be a huge success! Bethesda is about to make a similar mistake with their Elder Scrolls MMO, which is set up to be a disaster.

Yeah, you'll have some players who are nostalgic, rosey-eyed die-hards, but they won't keep your game alive. In the end, it comes down to gameplay design. It's either really fun, or it's less fun than the competitors. FFXI was for many groups of players the best available game of its time (console NA base, almost the entire JP base, and better than it's chief competitor, Everquest for the NA PC base). That's why it got away with having such mediocre gameplay. It won't get another pass, no matter how much anyone wants it to succeed.


Sometimes you do say things that make the most sense.....
#35 Feb 22 2013 at 11:15 AM Rating: Good
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Kachi wrote:
Xoie wrote:
Kachi wrote:
And short of nailing the game balance, Elder Scrolls stands virtually no chance at being a success. Their plan is basically to make the same MMO as every other MMO, with an Elder Scrolls skin. So unless they execute this tired concept with such exceptional, surgical skill as no other developer has ever done, their fans will be leaving in droves.


I'll have to wager a plate of cookies that fans will make a derivative MMO based on a video game series a success than it will fail because it wasn't innovative enough. I may end up with two plates of cookies this way, but it's worth the risk.

Edited, Feb 19th 2013 8:09pm by Xoie


I will retract judgment on Elder Scrolls for the time being. I recently learned that they are including some action elements in the combat, which will at least ensure that there is some measure of skill involved. If they can actually manage to balance progressive challenges within that, the game could manage to be fun. But if that doesn't pan out, I will bet you a hundred plates of cookies that it's a bust. Seriously, just give me the address to ship to.

I pretty much agree with everything you've said in your posts.

It's possible Elder Scrolls will succeed. I know everyone's new MMO is "new and innovative", until it's released and then it's just the same game with a slightly different back story. I watched a video that said the Elder Scrolls was eliminating the UI, so all game cues will be visual or maybe auditory. This one element seems innovative enough to make ESO at least a little different. I think it's still going to be like you said, based on game play. Game Play is why CoD rules the world. Yes, Battlefield 2 is a better game but no it's not more fun to play than Call of Duty. Yes FFXIV looked awesome but no it's not fun to click "confirm" on 20 different menus to do everything, all the while experiencing server to client and client to server lag, for each click.

I think sometimes developers forget that games should be, first and foremost, fun. Being awesome, epic, innovative, etc. are all nice, but every other attribute takes a second place to fun.
#36 Feb 22 2013 at 2:02 PM Rating: Excellent
Without in-game experience I can't know for sure how much or how little has changed. My spectator's perspective is that ARR is shaping up to be what FFXIV should have been from day one and every game at day one is, in degrees, less than what it is advertised to be.

I am extremely hopeful for ARR and since 1.0 was a big disappointment for me, I fear another disappointment will put me permanently out of the market for Square Enix. That being said, I have to firmly disagree with the idea that anybody has exaggerated the potential for ARR to erase my bad memories. The leadership for ARR has done an outstanding job of being transparent and peeling back every layer of the onion. What has been published seems consistent with what they have promised and with how much they have been sharing I suppose it would be easy to see that as overselling their product.



Edited, Feb 22nd 2013 7:38pm by DanforthWright
#37 Feb 22 2013 at 2:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
I think sometimes developers forget that games should be, first and foremost, fun. Being awesome, epic, innovative, etc. are all nice, but every other attribute takes a second place to fun.


My MMO must have only the most innovative, never been done before super awesome newness. Battles must be fought with magical thinking! No controller input or hot keys allowed! Even the level one bunnies outside the city gates must provide the same challenge as an endgame boss! Harvesting spots must be fought over like the peasants of old! NMs may only be fought by people willing to sit and wait for so long they can't feel their legs by the time it shows up! If it isn't painful to play, then it's not an MMO!!

What is this "FUN" that you speak of?

Smiley: lol
#38 Feb 22 2013 at 5:00 PM Rating: Decent
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DanforthWright wrote:
Without in-game experience I can't know for sure how much or how little has changed. My spectator's perspective is that ARR is shaping up to be what FFXIV should have been from day one and every game at day one is, in degrees, less than what it is advertised to be.

I am extremely hopeful for ARR and since 1.0 was a big disappointment for me, I fear another disappointment will put me permanently out of the market for Square Enix. That being said I, have to firmly disagree with the idea that anybody has exaggerated the potential for ARR to erase my bad memories. The leadership for ARR has done an outstanding job of being transparent and peeling back every layer of the onion. What has been published seems consistent with what they have promised and with how much they have been sharing I suppose it would be easy to see that as overselling their product.



DanforthWright wrote:
Without in-game experience I can't know for sure how much or how little has changed. My spectator's perspective is that ARR is shaping up to be what FFXIV should have been from day one and every game at day one is, in degrees, less than what it is advertised to be.

I am extremely hopeful for ARR and since 1.0 was a big disappointment for me, I fear another disappointment will put me permanently out of the market for Square Enix. That being said I, have to firmly disagree with the idea that anybody has exaggerated the potential for ARR to erase my bad memories. The leadership for ARR has done an outstanding job of being transparent and peeling back every layer of the onion. What has been published seems consistent with what they have promised and with how much they have been sharing I suppose it would be easy to see that as overselling their product.



Well said.
#39 Feb 22 2013 at 5:41 PM Rating: Good
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DanforthWright wrote:
Without in-game experience I can't know for sure how much or how little has changed. My spectator's perspective is that ARR is shaping up to be what FFXIV should have been from day one and every game at day one is, in degrees, less than what it is advertised to be.

I am extremely hopeful for ARR and since 1.0 was a big disappointment for me, I fear another disappointment will put me permanently out of the market for Square Enix. That being said I, have to firmly disagree with the idea that anybody has exaggerated the potential for ARR to erase my bad memories. The leadership for ARR has done an outstanding job of being transparent and peeling back every layer of the onion. What has been published seems consistent with what they have promised and with how much they have been sharing I suppose it would be easy to see that as overselling their product.



It is my hope that they continue on this vein of transparency, actually. This opened discussion board is pretty much the tipping point of restoration of faith for me of the franchise, at least enough to invest in ARR where I was scorned by the 1.0 work. I'm more or less hoping that the model that Yoshi-p creates here begins to spread throughout the company proper and instead of seeing a comapny with its doors shut and we hear nothing but non-information, we begin to see the concept and development process of actual console titles.

However, this has yet to happen which leads me weary of anything SE produces that's not FFXIV:ARR. Here's to hoping for a successful rebirth of the MMO to the degree that it affects the business model of the company as a whole. (Though in my opinion, win lose or draw, its a practice they should spread.)
#40 Feb 23 2013 at 8:20 AM Rating: Good
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I actually liked the original release to some extent.Smiley: smile Of course I was all for a major overhaul as well. It needed it. Mainly what wore me out was the long, free period of not knowing how things were gonna turn out. Then when future plans were established, seeing how it was still gonna be a long while. My opinion of the game began to sour after all that. I was done and less optimistic at that point.

My time over at SWTOR has made me miss FFXI & XIV though. Some things I just prefer with SE's style over western games like that. I missed the 1 character switching jobs instead of rolling a ton of alts. I missed the atmosphere of the game worlds. Even a rushed, incomplete Eorzea had more life in it than SWTOR's dull worlds. Their areas were damn near depressing at times.Smiley: frown

Anyway, so far these changes I'm seeing with XIV look promising. It could easily be enough to get someone like me, who already liked the original to some extent, interested in giving it another go. As for other mmo players, I can't say. We're all over the place nowadays in what we want from our mmos. A good example is SWTOR. Many quickly get bored with it and leave. I've read many posts on here talking about it in the past tense. Meanwhile there are others still enjoying themselves. People preordering an expansion that was initially slated to be a free content update.

One thing promising about the changes with XIV is different UI setups. That's one of the complaints I hear the most if I bring up FFXI/XIV. How their UIs were setup better for controller use. Getting that right could be the difference of someone giving it a quick trial, hating the UI, then bailing, and them sticking around longer.

Edited, Feb 23rd 2013 9:22am by TwistedOwl
#41 Feb 23 2013 at 8:42 AM Rating: Excellent
TwistedOwl wrote:
One thing promising about the changes with XIV is different UI setups. That's one of the complaints I hear the most if I bring up FFXI/XIV. How their UIs were setup better for controller use. Getting that right could be the difference of someone giving it a quick trial, hating the UI, then bailing, and them sticking around longer.

Edited, Feb 23rd 2013 9:22am by TwistedOwl


I think they've alleviated those with several changes:

1) Creating a completely separate UI for controllers, the Cross Hotbar
2) Allowing users even more customization with tweaking the display and moving every element around as they see fit (I heard the tech they're using for the UI is Autodesk's Scaleform)
3) Allowing add-ons 6 months (targeted) after launch to give the gamer community even more control over how they interact with the game

Hopefully those would be enough to give the players you're talking about more of a reason to stay around.
#42 Feb 23 2013 at 8:58 AM Rating: Good
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Wint wrote:


I think they've alleviated those with several changes:

1) Creating a completely separate UI for controllers, the Cross Hotbar
2) Allowing users even more customization with tweaking the display and moving every element around as they see fit (I heard the tech they're using for the UI is Autodesk's Scaleform)
3) Allowing add-ons 6 months (targeted) after launch to give the gamer community even more control over how they interact with the game

Hopefully those would be enough to give the players you're talking about more of a reason to stay around.

Indeed it sounds like it would. I'd even now be interested in trying out the different setups. My time spent at SWTOR saw me transform from a controller only person to keyboard/mouse with one of those fancy gaming mice. Now I find myself wanting to use that expensive mouse on my other games as well. Make it worth the purchase ya know?Smiley: lol

But yea, as simple as it sounds, that's a major thing. The UI & controls are what you'll be using the entire time you play. Ensuring that various types of players are all comfortable with their setup is important. You don't want people quitting over that. Personally I'm not big on add-ons, but I know many PC gamers are so that'll be good news for them as well.




Edited, Feb 23rd 2013 9:59am by TwistedOwl
#43 Feb 23 2013 at 9:05 AM Rating: Excellent
This talk has given me an idea about add-ons. I'm going to suggest the idea that Zam give players a way to host their add-ons and let them be downloadable from our site. Obviously it would be up to the management (I'm just a grunt in the grand scheme of Zam things), but that would be cool if we could be a major host of XIV add-ons, assuming SE will allow third party sites to host them.
#44 Feb 23 2013 at 9:50 AM Rating: Decent
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Wint wrote:
This talk has given me an idea about add-ons. I'm going to suggest the idea that Zam give players a way to host their add-ons and let them be downloadable from our site. Obviously it would be up to the management (I'm just a grunt in the grand scheme of Zam things), but that would be cool if we could be a major host of XIV add-ons, assuming SE will allow third party sites to host them.


~! /grrFace lol; I was going to do that with my site and only allowed non-bot related ones :) But on the flipside; having a home at zam would be the bee's knees for app :P
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Like Final Fantasy XI, the game specs will be extremely high for the time, but in about 5 years, an average machine can run it on max settings with little to no issues. Tanaka also expressed interest in making a benchmark program available.

FilthMcNasty wrote:
I endorse this thread.
#45 Feb 23 2013 at 9:58 AM Rating: Good
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and only allowed non-bot related ones


Remember the difference between addons and bots.

Addons are created with a built-in API. Bots are third-party tools that simulate game inputs to play the game for you.

By definition, addons cannot be bots.
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#46 Feb 23 2013 at 10:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Archmage Callinon wrote:
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and only allowed non-bot related ones


Remember the difference between addons and bots.

Addons are created with a built-in API. Bots are third-party tools that simulate game inputs to play the game for you.

By definition, addons cannot be bots.


You'd be surprised what flash can do :)
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Quote:
Like Final Fantasy XI, the game specs will be extremely high for the time, but in about 5 years, an average machine can run it on max settings with little to no issues. Tanaka also expressed interest in making a benchmark program available.

FilthMcNasty wrote:
I endorse this thread.
#47 Feb 23 2013 at 12:17 PM Rating: Good
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Wint wrote:
This talk has given me an idea about add-ons. I'm going to suggest the idea that Zam give players a way to host their add-ons and let them be downloadable from our site. Obviously it would be up to the management (I'm just a grunt in the grand scheme of Zam things), but that would be cool if we could be a major host of XIV add-ons, assuming SE will allow third party sites to host them.


I was always wary when downloading add-ons for WOW. It would be nice to have approved and reviewed add-on content. So ZAM gods I approve of this.
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#48 Feb 23 2013 at 12:28 PM Rating: Good
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I was always wary when downloading add-ons for WOW


I'm curious... why?
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#49 Feb 23 2013 at 12:37 PM Rating: Decent
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Xoie wrote:
Wint wrote:
I'm just going bookmark this for a future reply. Don't mind me.


Just bookmark? You sure you don't want to deal more forcefully with this obvious NDA-breaker? Smiley: rolleyes


Huh? -- People on the internet are so accusatory.

Edited, Feb 23rd 2013 1:37pm by je355804
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