Thought about SWTOR vs ARRFollow

I've read all the same information as you, and I certainly didn't see anything saying that this game would be a WoW clone. I read Yoshi say that WoW is a very successful game, and he'd like to incorporate parts of what make WoW successful because they were done properly. Not because it's WoW. So unless you are going to show me something I haven't seen, where Yoshi says something like "we're modelling FFXIV to be a copy of WoW with Final Fantasy flavorings", you are just making assumptions.

Since you haven't played a single quest in ARR, you have no idea what it will be like. Just because a few things are emulating WoW, doesn't mean everything is. That's my point.



I understand how betas work, I have participated in several myself, including the original FFXIV beta and the swtor beta most recently. I never said they were implementing a new battle system, I said there are still plenty of changes that can be made to combat. I believe it was actually talked about in Live Letter 6, that phase 3 of the beta would see considerable updates to the combat system. I know I read it somewhere. When you get to Open Beta, or the last phase of closed beta I agree it's only for tweaking. Before that, plenty can still be modified without starting from the ground up.

Ignoring the false choice you've provided here, here's my opinion..

Yes.

Yes, I want those things. I don't always want one or the other. I'm a person, not a brick.

Sometimes I want some mindless questing where I can just run around accomplishing quest objectives and gain some levels and some loot. Sometimes I want to craft for a while and make cool stuff, or skill up my tradeskills, or gear up an alt. Sometimes I want to farm mobs or herbs or ore. Sometimes I want to shoot things in the face for 3 hours. Sometimes I want to be swept away in a narrative where I really identify with my character because the story has developed around me and through my actions and choices.

I'm also capable of playing more than one game by the way.

I'm looking for FFXIV to give me a Final Fantasy-quality story as well as the MMO aspects I've come to enjoy. I'm hoping for combat that ranges from mindless directed grinding, all the way up to complex bosses that require solid strategy and execution to defeat. I'm hoping for meaningful crafting, but I'm also hoping it won't cause me physical pain to progress through.

And sometimes I want to shoot things in the face. Borderlands 2 is pretty good for that. Also Warframe.

I will be 100% honest with you right here, right now. When FFXIV was first announced back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was honestly hoping for FFXI with WoW-style gameplay. Yes, that's right, my original hope for XIV was that it would be WoW but with Final Fantasy.

So much for nobody wanting that, huh?

I'm glad that SE is embracing modern MMO standards. I'm seriously hoping they can do that and keep it a Final Fantasy game. It's tough, but I think they can do it.

I've never heard of someone asking for LESS things to do in a game. "Oh man all these quests are getting in my way of walking around the world!"

What other forums are you frequenting where you encounter all this dissent? Because I know that hardly anyone here has the uniform opinion that ARR will succeed. That's because no one knows, and hardly pretend to.

The 14 subreddit is pretty much in line with this form of thinking as well, so.. care to share who your people are?

You haven't been around for that long, so I can understand how you'd think that. If you had been around longer, you'd realize that ZAM is not just a bunch of white knights for the game. Sure it has it's fair share, but it also has a HUGE group of people who call stuff like they see it, and a fair number of doom and gloom posters like yourself. Heck, during 1.0 the forums were FULL of people posting about the shortcomings of the game, unlike the SE forums which were still vastly positive and of the do-no-wrong mentality.

Regardless, I tend to believe that making assumptions before even having a chance to see what things look like is a pretty silly way to think.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. And Eve is a good example of player-created systems then?

So that's interesting. I was playing the Neverwinter beta a few weeks ago, and one of their big things is the ability for players to create quest chains for other players. They place all the mobs, write the text boxes, it's pretty cool and definitely emphasizes the D&D aspect of that game.

It also has an on-rails questing system.

Guildhests too.

If you don't want to do the quest chain, don't. After your first job does them I doubt they become available again for other jobs anyway so you can't rely on the quest chain for other jobs. I still think that is a unique feature of FFXI and XIV, being able to level every single job on the same char.

Then by your own definition, FFXIV is exactly what you are looking for.



Add to that guildhests, solo grinding, and party XP and that seems like a great amount of freedom to do what you want to do.

Congratulations, you just became a fan of the game. It's that simple.

You do have that. Pretty sure your just trolling now, because you're ignoring the fact that you can do whatever you want. You can only craft if you like, or level solely on dungeons, or whatever you like.



So you want freedom to explore? I've never heard anything blocking you from exploring, or anyone getting to max level in any game by making maps.

In fact, there is the fundamental flaw in your argument. The world won't be changing THAT much, and as such, there isn't some long tunnel world to move through. 1.0 had 3 majors cities, no central hub (well Ul'Dah was because where everyone went but I hated it.) There wasn't some final destination, and very few areas were "only for high level" content.

Yoshi-P even said somewhere he doesn't want those kinda of barriers, and basically there won't be any aggressive monsters on roads, so as long as you stick to paths you could explore as a level 1.

Why wouldn't it be the case? As has been stated a bunch now, there are tons of ways to level. As has also been stated, those quests are only available once, so clearly the other avenues of leveling will be just as efficient. I'm not sure why you would think that quest chains will be the only efficient way to level other than your obsession that the game must be an exact replica of WoW, something that has never been stated anywhere.

Literally all of your gripes are with these assumptions that you are making. Just open up your mind a bit, and realize that you really have no clue what the game will be like until you play it, so talking about how it's going to be is pointless. You don't know. You think you do, but you don't.

Even most themepark MMOs have some level of freedom to do as you please. I think what you're struggling to articulate is the importance of an incentive structure that actually encourages you to do the things you want to do. For example, you could solo in FFXI at launch, but it would take an eternity compared to people who partied. Allowing players to do something in theory and actually making it a viable way of experiencing the game are different matters. And there are lots of lazy designers out there who will justify a lack of design by saying, "Well, they can do that if they really want to," which is tantamount to saying, "No, we didn't try to design an experience for players who wanted to do that." If that's what you're trying to get at, it's a legitimate concern.

Having said that, FFXIV probably won't do that part very well, but MOST MMOs don't do that part well. So FFXIV might not be especially good in this regard, but nor is it likely to be especially bad.

Are there any MMOs that you actually do enjoy? Seems likely that you're in the rather large boat of people who love MMOs in theory but can't find one they actually like.

So, Skyrim Online?