"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Abelian75]

Was Grunk one of them?

Wow, that's a blast from the past.

Actually, when I was making my FFXIV character, I flirted with the idea of creating one of those big ogre-like dudes (Roegadyn, which I just looked up and copy-pasted here), and I looked at it for a moment and said to myself, "This is what hardcore looks like," in honor of Grunk.

[Draegan]

I don't think Grunk would of even bought this piece of shit game.

[palmer_eldritch]

would have

[Draegan]

I don't believe that post has the proper punctuation.

[Morfiend]

I don't think Grunk would of even bought this piece of shit game.

You are giving this guy way to much credit.

Hmm is grunk the new falc, but for pve....

know what that taste in your mouth is? 
A) mah big hairy nuts
B) mah big hairy nuts
or...
Nah its just mah big hairy nuts.

As i drop mah hairy balls in your face, realize you nuttin but a disgrace.  Throw your shitty draws in the hamper, next time come strapped with a fucken pamper.

[Soln]

I thought we had a best of Grunk thread around somewhere. 

[Special J]

Maybe we could get him to do a review.

[tazelbain]

Ya, I am curious which are the best rehab clinics.

[Samprimary]

Wired decided to collect the wider tale of XIV's universal panning and points out the last time Square Enix had a PlayStation 3 port of a poorly-reviewed game get delayed, it just outright scrapped it.

I decide to ask a question.

"The Last Remnant," I said, "was originally announced to be Square Enix’s first multi-platform game. But the PlayStation 3 version hasn’t come out yet. Is it still happening?"

Silence.

No one wants to speak. Finally, someone ventures: "Well, the PC version came out this week."

Me: "Yes, it did."

More silence. Everyone’s kind of glancing around.

Takai: "Well, as for the PS3 version, I can’t say anything about that."

Me: "Alright, then."

Meanwhile, Square has gone very contrite and said they have to work immediately on 'regaining trust.'

Sales figures for a game which was completely broken at launch: 630,000.

[Shatter]

630,000 morons

[Koyasha]

That's actually amazingly bad for box sales, for a title of this magnitude, I would say, considering that other big title MMO's recently have sold more.  Doesn't Aion still have around that many subscribers, and sold well over a million boxes?  That number has got to look incredibly bad for Square.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm going with the open beta word of mouth killed all but the hopeless fan of FF series.

[LK]

That honestly seemed like a lot for box sales. Not OMG FUCKING HUGE SUCCESS but given the universal condemnation of the game...

[Lantyssa]

For a Final Fantasy title it's bad.  Consider that a lot of those sales were probably by people who knew nothing more than "OMG FF14 *SQUEE*".

[tmp]

For a Final Fantasy title it's bad.  Consider that a lot of those sales were probably by people who knew nothing more than "OMG FF14 *SQUEE*".

Bulk of Square's fanbase is probably equipped with Playstations, though.

[Rasix]

It's a large fanbase.  You've got to think that it's bigger than random Conan fans who also play MMOs. 

There was no positive press for this game anywhere.  The only way you pick up this game is if you're purposely ignoring reviews, never ready ANY reviews, or are a complete delusional fanboy idiot.   The third bucket is probably the largest.

This game underperformed by at least 40% at the most conservative estimate and is a gigantic failure.

[Abelian75]

The only way you pick up this game is if you're purposely ignoring reviews, never ready ANY reviews, or are a complete delusional fanboy idiot. 

Don't forget the tiny bucket of people that just picked it up to see if it was really THAT bad.  I like to believe me and my handful of brethren in that category are at least slightly less crazy than the "delusional fanboy" category.

I mean, man, I wouldn't give up my first hand experience of the tragedy that is FFXIV for the world!  Even beta testing can't match the pure, childlike wonder provided by playing a game like this on release day and knowing that hundreds of thousands of people around the world are seeing something so primordial and unprofessional released by such a prominent company to such a large market (or at least what was supposed to be a large market).

[Hawkbit]

It's all fun and games until you realize that chances are good we'll never see a decent non-FF game from SE again.  They're going to be in the hole so bad after this they'll need to cut a ton of development just to keep their top projects on track. 

I have to imagine they spent an assload on FF14, from marketing to development.

[Reg]

How much could it have cost them though really? It was developed by a half dozen guys in a basement in Shanghai. 

[Rendakor]

What was the last decent non-FF game SE actually developed anyway? I know they publish a lot of stuff, but aside from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy and a few handheld titles, do they make anything else?

[LC]

I think I have said this before, but they need to look at the games before FFX and try to figure out where they fucked up the formula. I think the first mistake was removing the freedom to explore the world map.

[Rendakor]

Sakaguchi Hironobu, creator of the FF series, left Square after the release of FFIX. I fully agree that removing an open world map (complete with airship) really hurt the series.

[Margalis]

Sakaguchi Hironobu, creator of the FF series, left Square after the release of FFIX. I fully agree that removing an open world map (complete with airship) really hurt the series.

Are these two sentences supposed to be related?

[Rendakor]

No, not really. Just replying to LC saying that the FF series has been going downhill since FFX (when Sakaguchi left), and that removing the world map is bad.

[Simond]

What was the last decent non-FF game SE actually developed anyway? I know they publish a lot of stuff, but aside from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy and a few handheld titles, do they make anything else?

Nier is better than the last, oh let's say four FF games. Mind you, that's mainly because FFIX was the past real FF game.

[Rasix]

Are we really going to do this again? Here?    

Fucking FFIX loving weirdos.                                            

[Samprimary]

That's actually amazingly bad for box sales, for a title of this magnitude

It's still 629,999 more titles than should have been sold.

[Simond]

Are we really going to do this again? Here?    

Fucking FFIX loving weirdos.                                            

FFIX was Square's love-letter and farewell to their old games, before they started basing everything on The Worst FF Ever (AKA FFVIII). So it's still a valid point.

[Rendakor]

Nier wasn't developed by Squeenix.

And honestly, I'm not a HUGE fan of FFIX, it's simply the last one I really got into; the series had been on a steady decline since FFVI.

[Margalis]

Nier wasn't developed by Squeenix.

SE is a publisher, this is a distinction without a difference.

[Samprimary]

Compared with the previous year, sales at Square Enix were down 25%, operating profits were down 56%, ordinary profits were down 71%, and net income was down 36%.  Sales of Final Fantasy XIV were actually the biggest positive contributer, with 630,000 copies sold (190,000 in Japan, 260,000 in North America, and 250,000 in Europe).  However, FFXIV may now also prove to be the company's biggest problem.

Wada was reported to have been deluged with questions regarding the status of FFXIV and the maelstrom of negativity surrounding the game.  On stage, Wada did admit that, "the customers are not satisfied with the state [of FFXIV]."  Current plans include big updates in November and December, and of course, the PlayStation 3 release coming next March.  While other details were not to be divulged at the time, Wada stated, "We must put our full effort into regaining the user's trust."

However, the CEO was not let off easily.  Attendees continued to bring down tough questions and harsh criticisms.  When asked about user numbers, Wada dodged by saying he could not predict how things will change once FFXIV ends the free trial period and institutes the monthly fee.  Another attendee asked, "Do you test your games to make sure they're complete?" to which Wada admitted, "There may be some areas of testing that were lacking or too rigid," before quickly bringing it back to, "In the short term, we're working hard on restoring user trust."

this has got to be a great time to be a CEO. You just released a product which is a heaping pile of ass on toast, hold the toast. "Sir, your game is so bad that exposure to the game makes people act like infected people in that movie "The Crazies." Was there any kind of "Quality Control" that might have theoretically prevented this had you engaged in it?"

"Now, I admit, some of our testing may have been too lacking or too rigid! We were hypothetically both too bad and too good at it! We are working to ensure that in the future our game does not cause people to become cerebrally hemorrhagic and immediately start wanting to murder others uncontrollably."

[01101010]

Fastest game I ever ran away from. Hell, for giggles, I got on my alpha/beta linkshell forums to say hey and get a reaction. Last post was 4 weeks ago. And these were some diehards during beta.

[Modern Angel]

Yes, punch your QA. Always punch QA when the blame starts coming down.

[Rendakor]

Even the beta was fucking clownshoes, as only select people could report bugs. I wasn't one of the chosen few, so every time I ran into something broken my only recourse was to throw my hands in the air and hope someone ELSE reported it.

[Lantyssa]

That's what got me more than anything about beta.  It's one thing to be able to enter bugs and have no one read them.  At least I think someone is because it'd make sense, right? But to know that no one can do it, even if they've got solid data?  That pretty much made me give up right then.