"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Paelos]

But not you guys. If it is a memo about a game being bad after all hype and expectations have faded, you have all already seen it.

Hmmm, let's think. In terms of the ones that have let me down the most, in order:

Trials of Atlantis
SWG
WAR
Horizons
LOTRO
Shadowbane

I'm also pretty sure SWTOR is going to let me down. The release date alone is pissing me off, and all combat videos are pointing to suck.

[Lakov_Sanite]

you forgot age of conan

[Rendakor]

Square hasn't been triple A for a while. They're firmly in the B camp. Very pretty games but their gameplay for most of their titles has been lacking for a while. I often wonder if square just doesn't get 'fun' it's like they have all the ingredients and know the recipe for baking a cake and when it's finished the cake looks and smells delicious but the people at sdqure have no taste buds to the cake ends up tasting bitter.

Go on, try and think of the last square game you 'loved' not just liked or enjoyed. Now for most of you, you're going a decade or so back aren't you?

I agree completely. Nothing from Square has been amazing since the middle of the FF series (6, 7, Tactics). Since then they've put out some decent titles, but nothing worthy of froth or amazement. I wouldn't even say they're the best JRPG developer out there anymore.

Of course not.  That'd be Level-5 at this point.

I was thinking Atlus but YMMV.

[Paelos]

you forgot age of conan

Didn't let me down because i never cared. 

[Samprimary]

I'm also pretty sure SWTOR is going to let me down. The release date alone is pissing me off, and all combat videos are pointing to suck.

I'm severely hoping not, like, I'm trying to maintain that childlike optimism that you will get to play a pew pew lazer sword jedi and it will actually be fun. But I cannot deny the reasoning behind the concern.

In the case of this? FFXIV? Someone says 'hey sit down and try this!' I sit down. I kick up the game. I am immediately hit with a series of thin-slicing sensations. I just automatically know something is very, very wrong. It's The Statue That Doesn't Look Right.

Then of course I play around and it is The Statue That Is Really Wrong and Sucks. Nothing felt right.

[LK]

That is fascinating to read. The more I see and read, the more something looks wrong.

[Triforcer]

Lum's take on this is hilarious.

As a somewhat-getting-fluent Japanese speaker/reader, I can verify that someone in my shoes (who knows SOME Japanese) would may the "ponus" and "subbort" errors that apparently plague the game. 

Plus, its probably easier to make those errors when in an uncomfortable setting, say, a Xinjiang sweatshop.

[Margalis]

Some of you are amazingly gullible.

Also can you really call directly copying and pasting from a source you can't verify or even understand "a take on something?"

Although to be fair Lum's entire website is 90% copy and pasted content.

[01101010]

No more fatigue! < NSFW in most respects.

An xp glitch? Really SE? Really?  

edit: sorry about the NSFW omission. I never even looked at the stuff on the side, most of which was blokt on my pc. Thanks for picking up on it, Lant

[Shatter]

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-09-27/ffxiv_buff_glitch_can_give_you_numerous_exp.shtml

Buff / XP sploit?

[Lantyssa]

No more fatigue!

You might want to mark that site as potentially NSFW given the sidebars.

[tmp]

No kidding; although learning there's a "How to be a trap" guide published in Japan was... enlightening

[Lantyssa]

What's really funny about it being known in beta is that there was no way to report bugs.  You had to be on their special list to have access to bug reports.  And with no communication, there wasn't any way one could strive to get into that special pool of people.

[Nija]

This is precisely what I was talking about a few pages ago - I just couldn't express it well, and still can't really express it how I'd like to.

Basically the entire development team for this project are a bunch of recluses. You can't get any info to them or from them. Exactly like FF11.

[Fabricated]

Where's whats his face. You know, that troll dude who really liked FF11.

[bhodi]

You're of course talking about Mr. Sunny D bottles himself. Grunk. I wonder if he's been saving his pennies?

[Morfiend]

I still contend that Grunk is the best gimmick account ever.

[raydeen]

He's grinding fukkens as we speak.

[Samprimary]

The stories about the FFXIV collector's edition cup, the infinite xp glitches, and just how generally shoddy the game is are leading me to wonder if the game's more likely to be an outright fucking disaster rather than just an 'underwhelming launch.'

[01101010]

The people I ran with in beta are still loosely together in a linkshell. However, they picked the Figero server to play on, which was closed to new character promptly after launch due to pop issues on it - thus some of those linkshell people were left out in the cold to play on other servers - and summarily leave the shell.

[Reg]

Do they have the same worldpass nonsense as FFXI?

[Mrbloodworth]

Square-Enix: Please Wait "3-4 Weeks" Before Reviewing FFXIV

[Reg]

Hah and those adorable PS3 fans seem to mostly assume that Square Enix isn't making this request because the game is a steaming pile of shit.

[LK]

Well it worked for APB, why not for FFXIV?

[sam, an eggplant]

APB had a review embargo. They provided the game for free to journalists early if they agreed to embargo reviews until a certain date. They later changed that date to be 2 weeks after release, which was totally bonkers.

FFXXIXX has a "polite request". There's a world of difference.  They're saying "listen, we're launching a major MMO, can you do us a favor and review after the launch furor has died down a bit and you get a chance to play the live game for a period of time?" That's not an entirely unreasonable thing to request, so long as it's a request and not a mandate.

Obviously nobody's going to do it (except maybe Eurogamer due to Darkfallgate), because the early bird gets the worm, but they're not totally crazy for asking.

[Samprimary]

Kotaku is already doing an in-progress review and it's mainly the guy going 'uhrm, why am I even here again? man this sure is boring. what if I reroll? does someone want to explain to me where i go to get the fun?'

[Dtrain]

I have less interest in playing another FF series game after having played FFXIV. At least for my money, they've done harm to their franchise with this turd of a game.

[Dtrain]

FFXXIXX has a "polite request". There's a world of difference.  They're saying "listen, we're launching a major MMO, can you do us a favor and review after the launch furor has died down a bit and you get a chance to play the live game for a period of time?" That's not an entirely unreasonable thing to request, so long as it's a request and not a mandate.

Obviously nobody's going to do it (except maybe Eurogamer due to Darkfallgate), because the early bird gets the worm, but they're not totally crazy for asking.

Sorry for the double post here, but I agree with Sam - I can see why a developer would feel that the standard review format does not mesh well with a newly released MMO.

On the other hand though, I think that a number of other ways to relate an experience in a game have come about in the last few years to address this problem. Personally, I have always relied on word of mouth and beta testing. But I also think that "first impression" pieces and journal style reviews give me something close to what I want as a  "first day review" substitute.

[waffel]

I mean, was it too much to ask that they learn from their 'mistakes' with FF11 in regard to its impact on American games?

I never seen a divide so clearly in gaming styles between Japanese MMOs and American MMOs than when I made my way to the first 'big'ish city in FF11. I zoned in and made my way across the big bridge to the heart of the city, my computer chugged for a bit and when it finally smoothed out I saw two huge rows of people lined up perfectly on either side of the street, all with their shops open. There had to have been 100+ people. Lined up perfectly like there was an invisible string they were standing up against. It was very  

Not that has anything to do with game design per say, but it was the first time I ever witnessed the divide between a Japanese based MMO and an American based MMO.

[Kail]

Well it worked for APB, why not for FFXIV?

The big difference here is that nobody knew about APB, while Final Fantasy x+1 will automatically see a lot of people pick it up just based on the title, barring some kind of "This game will give you syphilus" warning.

[Samprimary]

works with regular titles. With MMO's? You bleed out a userbase pretty damn fast.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If a game as it is released can't be reviewed, it is not worth my money.

If a game comes out of the box and is not fun, it is not worth my money.

I do not, nor do most people buy things based on their 'potential' for being fun. If something is fun a year from now, six months from now or just a month from now then that is when I will buy it.  MMO's are no different from single player games in this respect and while initial box sales might be good, word of mouth will kill off anything past the first 30 days if the game is not up to par.  MMO's are however in worse shape because they rely on subscriptions beyond the initial game to really get a good profit.

All of this should be known by now, the fact that it isn't makes me very sad. So few companies get that you can't just patch the fun in later, it needs to be there on day one.

Do MMO's grow, change and improve with time? of course they do! However no paying customer should be expected to just endure and cough up cash in the meantime while they improve. If the game deserves a bad review on day one, that's the fault of Square Enix and no one else, they are the ones that put boxes on shelves and started asking for money, they are now directly responsible for the quality that those purchases receive.

[sam, an eggplant]

Of course you're correct, but if I developed a MMO I would certainly do my damnedest to get the press to play for a couple of weeks before posting their final score to be forever recorded on metacritic. Reviewing the newbie experience either leads to Tortage syndrome (which misleads consumers) or the exact opposite (which may not give the game a fair shake).

[Lantyssa]

Expecting a reviewer to put in more than a day of play is silly.  They have other games to play.  Short of offering to pay their salary for a month, they better expect that article to come out the same as any other game.

If the companies don't like that, then maybe they should work a little harder at making the starting experience fun and enjoyable.

[Hawkbit]

This is fucking bonkers. 

Release a game worth playing and you won't have to ask reviewers to wait.  Release a ground-breaking game and they'll be too busy playing to review.