Haven't been around in a long while..Follow

Not trolling or anything but this was genuinely funny because I remember back in 2010/2011 when they said the same thing. Maybe they aren't a joke anymore but the delays look bad.

They released a new roadmap a while back and have kept on schedule for the most part. So long as we're not all making videos like this " Click Me! " after ARR's launch, I can handle any delays they throw at us. =)

EDIT: Actually I don't know all the forum rules for posting links. This video has a few curse words in it so if I was wrong in posting please let me know and I will remove it. If not, enjoy! Anyone who was here for 1.0's launch should get a few laughs (or cries) out of it. ^^

Edited, Feb 16th 2013 3:07pm by scorleone

The alpha testers who broke their NDAs and leaked a bit swear that the engine is ten times better than 1.0 was on release.

Ah, well, the legacy beta testers will be able to confirm or deny that in a little over a week.

Agreed.

Keep in mind though that Legacy Players will be under NDA as well until the last stage of Beta which will be open beta anyways. Technically nobody is even supposed to confirm the fact that they're in Beta, but that kinda gets mooted out when they say that every Legacy player will have access.

... soooo.... yeah. Pretty much the majority of the people on FFXIV's Official Boards will be a beta player as well. I'm pretty sure the NDA will be more broke than a toothfairy in a house full of meth addicts.

I'm not talking about gameplay. I'm just talking about the feel of the game, the atmosphere. Vanadiel, the soundtrack, the mobs, the areas, the bosses, it just can't be replicated.

That video is awesome.

OP, go play something else then!

Kordain is unfortunately correct that much of the realism and space of the world came at the direct cost of increased travel restriction. I mean, waiting for an airship made me feel like I was in a realistic, living world, and that was great! Oh, except for the part where waiting for an airship SUCKED. How many times did just missing an airship lead to me unleashing a stream of profanity, followed by 15 minutes of boredom, followed THEN by a boring airship ride, and yes, it was all very realistically boring.

I don't believe it's impossible to create that same sense of space without making travel so burdensome. Allowing players to progressively move more quickly through areas as they move further through the game (but still requiring certain degrees of manual travel) would probably be the solution, but it would be yet another balancing act. And MMORPGs are not known for their excellence wherein balance is concerned.

I miss old school gaming. I wish they would reloaded ffxi how it was when cap was 75 on a single server. My friends would always quit ffxi for the newest latest and greatest MMOs when they came out but we would always come back within a couple months. I have yet to find a new mmo I have liked as much as FFXI. I don't think FFXIV will live up to it either. I think I will be playing ffxi again in march to get my mmo fix. But I miss FFXI how it was when the servers were full.

Most players don't want any kind of grind at all. They want fun and excitement, and a new MMO gives that to them for a while. It doesn't necessarily say much about your first MMO if it was your favorite, because no other game can be your first time. And for most people in the MMO market, WoW -was- their first time.

Most "hardcore" games don't succeed because they have giant design flaws that ensure that new players don't enjoy them. Putting up with ******** is much easier when you already have several years of attachment built into a character. You're already invested in a way that can't be recreated, even by a game that you would have enjoyed twice as much were it your first exposure to MMOs.

Btw, League of Legends is actually more played than WoW now. I would love to comment on that, but I actually have yet to play it.

Everyone always uses the same argument regarding issues such as these... Modern MMOs require "such and such" due to modern expectations. Specifically I'm referring to the expectations of fast travel from the modern consumer of MMORPGs.

To this I would respond, expectations are a minimum requirement. What I mean when I say this, is that while it holds true I might expect fast travel. However, if a system which requires me to explore the world ala FFXI in a manner which is fun and reasonable, then my expectations, while not met in the manner I had... well --expected, can indeed be met in other ways.

This is not to imply that XI's methods of travel would be a valid concept in a modern game. However, forcing the player to travel the world via a non-teleport method could indeed be achieved, and still provide the player with a great deal of immersion and fun. Not to say this would be easy, however I believe it would be achievable.

As the saying goes, nothing that is worth doing is easy.

I'm speaking in generalities, of course. Game designers have to think in generalities because what 90% of the people experience is more important in terms of a game's success than what 10% of the people experience. If we brushed off the major trends as "just an opinion" or "not true of all players," we'd be ignoring what's true for most players.

As for travel, as I said, it can be done, but it would be a difficult balancing act. Perhaps an easier method would simply to create a combat-related battle; e.g., chocobo jousting. As you're traveling from one area to the next, you're still attacking monsters. Perhaps a charged up chocobo lancing automatically kills a monster the same level as you, for example.

There are lots of ways it could be made to work, but the industry, SE being no exception, is not exactly great at experimenting with creative ideas. The bottom line is, they still don't know what makes a game fun, so they aren't willing to take risks. Instead, they assure that the game won't be very fun. Mind-boggling, but I guess that will continue to be the case as long as antsy investors are pulling the strings.

I won't quote it all just because it would be such a long post so I just edited so that it is clear who I am responding to, hope that is okay.

The thing is, when I said there are more and more people who are getting a little bored with what most people call "the new mmo get used to it" I didn't say that is the way it was in early 2007 (WoW primetime even for myself) which is when Vanguard was released. Not to mention that if you played Vanguard at release you would have seen that they released waaaaaaaaay too early to be given a chance by anyone for more than a week really. You could not even see your headpiece at launch just to name one of the things that show how much work the game still needed. It was a release now or never situation because of funding and I doubt anyone was very surprised when it didn't work.

As for Tabula Rasa (Also released six years ago) I didn't play it myself so I can't really say anything about it really except that just because a game is made for "hardcore" gamers doesn't necesseraily mean it is a good game that the players they are aiming for like. Look at how many "regular" mmo there are out there and look at how few there are that actually do well even when they have the money to complete what they start, to market the game beforehand to create incredible hype and have a good brand behind it.

SWTOR is a great example really. It has done pretty well and they spent more money than any other mmo has ever done, they had a well known and loved company in Bioware making it and it had one of the biggest brands behind it in Star Wars. Even with this they went below a million subscribers within six months from release and kept going down, which isn't too bad at all, but you also have to remember it needed 500k subs just to break even. Looking at the stats of how many "regular" mmos being made vs how many that actually do really well I don't really see your argument working out. I mean how many mmos had to be made to actually get a game as successful as SWTOR? Two games aiming for a specifik type of player and doing badly doesn't necessarily mean others have to fail as well. In fact, looking at circumstances like timing, funding, marketing, brand etc suggest they were not very likely to do well even if they had been something more like other mmos (Pure speculation of course, but hardly a bold statement considering how few mmos that are actually really successful).

Like I mentioned earlier I am not saying I don't understand why more or less every new mmo being made aims for a more WoW type of game as opposed to older mmos. On the contrary I completely understand why they do it because they want what WoW has, or at least a part of it while at the same time risking as little as possible and there is a larger crowd for the "WoW-era mmo". However like I mentioned in my earlier post trying to appeal to WoW players with something like that means competing on equal terms with WoW (I am saying WoW, but I mean more or less every mmo out there that isn't niched to something very different from WoW).

I believe there is a market audience that would jump at the chance of playing something different that might be a little more old school (I am hesitant to say hardcore here because I believe hardcore should be about skill rather than how much time people can put into something. Oftentimes playing a lot means more skill, but I think we can all agree that waiting for Japanese midnight to finish quests and the like doesn't improve anyones skill) if there is just something that is as well polished and backed as some of the other more successfull mmos out there. Of course it has to feel new and fresh in a lot of ways and I believe there is a lot to learn and take away from the newer mmos, but work in some elements of the older mmos as well and you just might get a great mix.

I understand why this hasn't happened yet and might never happen (Even though Everquest Next looks interesting), I just believe it might be a mistake. Like I said I am not saying they should "make them as they used to", mmos have to evolve and I would not want to play a pure old school mmo with touched up graphics. I also don't agree that history has shown us that what I have talked about would be a money-losing venture because what I have been talking about is not what Vanguard or Tabula Rasa was, nor do I think it was even the right time for it.

You might be right that my best bet if I am someone who wants to play a more old school-like game is to just go play an old school game, but I hope that in the future there is at least a successful alternative, something with the best of both worlds.

For the record... be it old school, new school or future school, all I want right now is FFXIV. :P

Although, I'm pretty sure a NDA is still going to be in effect for them as well. :X

As for travel, I generally miss it. Yeah, missing an airship sucked, and the airship could be boring (although I always loved watching the world pass by, especially if you used Windower), but I miss that sense of immersion. Games too often constantly remind that you're doing just that, playing a game. I don't mind it much in console games, but MMO's were always different to me. The biggest reason I wanted to get into MMO's when I was younger was because I love pen and paper games. The thought of exploring a new world with other people was just so exciting. For a while, it really was like being someone else for me. Granted, that went away over time (I was like 13 or 14 when FFXI came out), but most of my early experiences truly felt that way. The world felt massive, had substance, and it made everything feel epic, especially since turning the wrong corner could mean imminent death.

Having played WoW for the past few years, I can say I haven't that way ever since TBC was released. The game is completely safe now, you fly everywhere so you can never die. You can fly from side of Pandaria to the other in about 3-5 minutes, making the world feel incredibly tiny. You can do almost everything standing in one spot and queue'ing, and the few things you actually have to go out to do tend to be meaningless. (Pet Battles/Achievement hunting/etc) I don't know, perhaps I'm ranting... Ah well... I just hope FFXIV retains the sense of danger and magnitude that FFXI had. :)

Edited, Feb 18th 2013 3:05am by DevilFruit

Edited, Feb 18th 2013 3:05am by DevilFruit