"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Mrbloodworth]

Games so punitive, i'm sure gold sells will make large profits even with a tiny fanboi population.    Of course none of the true believes will EVER taint the economy like that, no no, its also imposable, for sure. 

[Samprimary]

someone is trying to explain to me how it is now mathematically impossible to gain more experience in a group than if you solo, and that's okay because now either 'groups' or 'guilds' are kind of broken right now.

Is your (or "someone's") complaint that groups get too much XP relative to solo or not enough?

Too little. Apparently they adjusted the game's equivalent of experience gain such that groups got hosed, and there was no reason not to solo.

But about the same time they also dicked up groups and guilds so it was a moot point for a couple of days, since nothing worked. Well, more nothing worked than usual.

[Rendakor]

Uh, I'll go ahead and ask who in their right mind would want to breach FFXIV accounts?

Someone trying to do the poor addicts a favor and give them a reason to quit. 

[Chimpy]

Uh, I'll go ahead and ask who in their right mind would want to breach FFXIV accounts?

Someone who wants to direct market total piles of dog shit?

[Numtini]

Am I wrong or is "go to this url and change your password" the wrong message to send to subscribers?

[Rendakor]

I probably would've just deleted the email assuming it was a phishing attempt.

[Reg]

That's exactly what I thought when I saw that message too.  I get four or five messages a week from people trying to lure me into entering my WoW ID and password into their phony websites.

The Square Enix guys don't seem to inhabit the same reality as the rest of us.

[Paelos]

Am I wrong or is "go to this url and change your password" the wrong message to send to subscribers?

Yes, they fucked up how to tell people that they fucked up their security in their game that's fucked up.

It's like a series of snowballing fails that end with Final Fantasy fanbois in the fetal position clutching a gigantic tin foil sword as they weep to Josh Groban songs in the background.

[Samprimary]

the heads start to roll, ps3 version delayed, and the free period is extended yet again.

The email to people still subscribed:

http://i.imgur.com/L9orD.jpg

kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/5711039/heads-roll-over-final-fantasy-xiv-ps3-version-delayed

[ghost]

Wow.  It actually seems as though SE is going to make some changes more quickly than Mythic did on WH, so maybe they can pull it out.  You have to wonder about the company that entrusted such a big project to idiots that didn't figure it would be a good idea to use hardware mouse. 

[Shatter]

Even if they hired Jesus they couldnt pull this game out of the shitter

[Lantyssa]

It's kind of refreshing to hear a company admit they royally screwed up, even if it's due to a desire to salvage the investment.

[Margalis]

XIV shipped with hardware mouse.

[Mrbloodworth]

Wow.  It actually seems as though SE is going to make some changes more quickly than Mythic did on WH, so maybe they can pull it out.  You have to wonder about the company that entrusted such a big project to idiots that didn't figure it would be a good idea to use hardware mouse. 

The game shipped with hardware mouse.

It was a toggle in a config that they simply refused to turn on. Until some fans did. THEN they turned it on, and fans claimed miracle. 

[Shatter]

They have already planned out fixing most of the gripes people have some of which has already been done, having a new team now doesnt impact anything.  I see this as more of a PR move, hey look we removed the people who screwed up the game and put new people on so come on back!! 

[Ard]

It matters from the perspective that they very publicly removed the guy at the top who is pretty much responsible for this cock up in it's entirety.  The game is still probably a lost cause at this point though.

[Reg]

Seems to me if they manage to delay the PS3 release until the game is actually worth playing they might salvage something.  PS3 is where most of their fanbase is, right?

[Hawkbit]

The PS3 version will be infinitely delayed, imo.  They will not be able to pull the PC version out of the red and due to word of mouth it won't launch.  When non-PC people that haven't heard about this tragedy of a launch see a FF launch on PS3 and become interested, they're only going to have the 4/10 rated reviews to go on... and won't buy it.  Launching a PS3 version simply isn't financially responsible. 

[Draegan]

FF13 is probably the last FF I'll ever buy.

[Samprimary]

Wow.  It actually seems as though SE is going to make some changes more quickly than Mythic did on WH, so maybe they can pull it out.

This is not really a game that can be fixed in any real way. The whole thing is filled with toxic assets that you can't just scrap entirely, but which are completely worthless overall. This includes, but is not limited to, the design of the entire world map. It's all copy-pasted terrain and with little or no regard towards appropriate distances and travel times for mmo players. You have to work with it unless you're willing to redesign and rebuild from the ground up (unlikely) but it's absolute shit you can't do anything with, so for all intents and purposes it seems like an intractable design failure. Even all the gui improvements, town and quest improvements, combat overhauls in the world can't make them good, it can just offset the worst aspects of that miserable thing and give you a slightly less bad but still ultimately uninspired and skippable game.

[ghost]

XIV shipped with hardware mouse.

Yes, but you have to go into a separate program and check a box.  Why even bother not making it standard if the default is so shitty?

[Simond]

FF13 is probably the last FF I'll ever buy.

Haha you bought FF13. 

[Abelian75]

It's kind of refreshing to hear a company admit they royally screwed up, even if it's due to a desire to salvage the investment.

I suspect it's actually due to the fact that it isn't just an investment to salvage (which may not be even possible, I dunno), but that the final fantasy franchise itself is pretty damaged by having a flop this colossal in the main, numbered series.  They may be trying to turn it into something that is respected, even if it is unreasonably costly.

Edit:  That said, if that's something they care about, it was utterly crazy of them to release the game.  It's not like it was open to interpretation whether it was a good game or not, it was blatantly unfinished not in the common perjorative sense you see used a lot... it was, like, actually unfinished in the sense that it was what you would expect to see in a solid, on-track project about 1 to 1-1/2 years before release, imho.  Not just buggy and hacked together like a lot of releases, but rather not a GAME yet.  The only possible justification I can imagine to releasing a game in that state is if you just don't give a shit about it being a bomb and want to get a little money back, and have no interest in building your brand value.  In reality, what probably happened is that the people making those decisions don't find MMOs interesting in the least, and therefore could not recognize the difference between their game and popular MMOs.

[Abelian75]

This is not really a game that can be fixed in any real way. The whole thing is filled with toxic assets that you can't just scrap entirely, but which are completely worthless overall. This includes, but is not limited to, the design of the entire world map. It's all copy-pasted terrain and with little or no regard towards appropriate distances and travel times for mmo players. You have to work with it unless you're willing to redesign and rebuild from the ground up (unlikely) but it's absolute shit you can't do anything with, so for all intents and purposes it seems like an intractable design failure. Even all the gui improvements, town and quest improvements, combat overhauls in the world can't make them good, it can just offset the worst aspects of that miserable thing and give you a slightly less bad but still ultimately uninspired and skippable game.

While I'm obviously not actually privy to the way their engine works, I've witnessed similar endeavors, and I have a feeling you are right.  Specifically, my guess is that they made way too many sacrifices to get an MMO running on consoles that also looks as pretty as current-gen games.  With all the focus on next-gen graphics and the PS3, there were probably a ton of limitations placed on the way the world can be built, how many monster models can be shown at one time (is the answer "one", by the way?  I seem to recall each area just had one kind of monster.), etc.  The way the game plays just reeks of sacrifices for the sake of prettiness and console portability.

(Not that I have anything against consoles at all... I'd love a great console MMO.  But they is hard and I think they killed their game to make it possible in this case.  Obviously there are other flaws, but this is the most problematic when it comes to a "new direction" I suspect)

Oh, and yeah, now that I think about it, the guildleve thing was probably actually done largely so that it would let them show only one monster model for the quest.  You can only take one at a time, and you can never see monsters that you aren't on a quest to kill.  Perfect!  One or two monsters at a time should be good.  No problem.  Ship it.

[Samprimary]

It's certainly fun to theorize, but what makes this interesting is that you really can have little clue whether or not something was a calculated sacrifice that they thought would pay off, or if it was because of a panicked desperation move after things went to shit, or if it's just there because they were honestly, blitheringly clueless as to the fact that it was dumb as shit.

[Margalis]

It's fairly apparent that neither of you has any idea of wtf you are talking about. Laughably so.

With all the focus on next-gen graphics and the PS3, there were probably a ton of limitations placed on the way the world can be built, how many monster models can be shown at one time (is the answer "one", by the way?  I seem to recall each area just had one kind of monster.), etc.  The way the game plays just reeks of sacrifices for the sake of prettiness and console portability.
...
Oh, and yeah, now that I think about it, the guildleve thing was probably actually done largely so that it would let them show only one monster model for the quest.  You can only take one at a time, and you can never see monsters that you aren't on a quest to kill.  Perfect!  One or two monsters at a time should be good.  No problem.  Ship it.

Literally everything in the above is false.

[Samprimary]

wait am I making stuff up too or

[Abelian75]

It's fairly apparent that neither of you has any idea of wtf you are talking about. Laughably so.

With all the focus on next-gen graphics and the PS3, there were probably a ton of limitations placed on the way the world can be built, how many monster models can be shown at one time (is the answer "one", by the way?  I seem to recall each area just had one kind of monster.), etc.  The way the game plays just reeks of sacrifices for the sake of prettiness and console portability.
...
Oh, and yeah, now that I think about it, the guildleve thing was probably actually done largely so that it would let them show only one monster model for the quest.  You can only take one at a time, and you can never see monsters that you aren't on a quest to kill.  Perfect!  One or two monsters at a time should be good.  No problem.  Ship it.

Literally everything in the above is false.

I did kinda outright state that I was guessing, so yeah.  It is entirely possible that the the console requirements didn't cause design limitations, as it's just a guess.  That said, it's a pretty reasonable guess that that might have happened.  In fact I'd be fairly surprised if the weird world construction doesn't have something to do with it.

I don't really know how to defend against the claim that what I was saying is false, though, since I wasn't actually stating a fact in the first place.  I also may be misunderstanding what exactly you took issue with.  Something specific, or just the general idea that console MMOs can be hard to pull off?  I can explain more why the latter is true if you actually are interested.  It may not have been a big factor for this particular game, absolutely, but it inarguably can make a difficult project even more difficult.

Now, I do totally love to babble and speculate, granted, but I am aware that I am doing so and try to make it explicit.  That said, I am not talking from a completely ignorant and inexperienced standpoint, scout's honor.  (And, again... that doesn't mean I claim to have perfect understand and knowledge, far from it)

The guildleve thing is speculation, totally, but it does seem a nice way of making sure you can control exactly what creatures you see when, unlike in other games where you can drag Kazzak to Stormwind or whatever.  That system avoids that by making every Kazzak-equivalent require that you be on a guildleve to see it (and note the "notorious monsters" they are introducing can only be seen on a guildleve, meaning you can only see one at a time), and thus you can budget your memory such that you reserve enough to draw one "special" encounter a time, rather than an arbitrary number.  Now, I may be wrong about this particular game, but I'm not wrong that this would, in general, be a possible method to make an MMO more console-friendly due to memory limitations.

Edit:

It's certainly fun to theorize, but what makes this interesting is that you really can have little clue whether or not something was a calculated sacrifice that they thought would pay off, or if it was because of a panicked desperation move after things went to shit, or if it's just there because they were honestly, blitheringly clueless as to the fact that it was dumb as shit.

And yeah, this is true, obviously, my ranting aside.  In reality, I imagine there was a delightful blend of all of these things amongst various peeps.  I think the gist of my babblings was "I am frustrated that people are bad at cancelling things and/or cutting features."

[Rendakor]

Can we give Margalis his red name back, so it's a little more obvious why he's defending this shit game?

[Samprimary]

i am just wondering what I am supposing which is laughably false. unless you were talking about someone else in which case w/e

[Abelian75]

I'm guessing I just communicated something badly, which I'm exceedingly good at.  Also I could just be flat out wrong about the limited number of monster models at a time in the wilderness, although I really seem to remember all the mob fields being just one single type of mob, and the guildleve mobs being in their own little spots.  Also it may not have been clear that I meant one type of model (or one skeleton, allowing multiple models that use the same animations), not literally a single monster at a time.  The specific number I'm using isn't the significant bit, all I'm gettin' at is that the system allows you to control the number and type of monster models/skeletons/animations that need to be in memory at any given time.  Even if it's a total coincidence and it was created for an entirely different reason, the fact remains it would be a great way to give you that control.

(And I mean, given that the PS3 version got delayed just a few months before launch, and has just been delayed further, I don't think it's all that unreasonable to assume it's giving them trouble.)

[Kitsune]

So, bets on when some Square execs start committing seppuku?  They're running out of tiers of public atonement short of ritual suicide at an alarming rate.

[Velorath]

It matters from the perspective that they very publicly removed the guy at the top who is pretty much responsible for this cock up in it's entirety.

It's a bit of a shame, in that the guy is really old school Square (went to University with Sakaguchi and they both dropped out to work at Square ,worked on the NES FF games, and stuff like Xenogears and Crono Cross).  Not that any of that excuses the game's problems, but just like with Sakaguchi, I think it sucks when you've got a guy who has helped put out a lot of successful products in the company's history, but they publicly highlight the one time he fucked up really bad.

[Margalis]

Can we give Margalis his red name back, so it's a little more obvious why he's defending this shit game?

I'm game if we give fibbers a pink name.

If I'm "defending" the game by calling out people who are just making shit up the guilty as charged.

I don't think that any user experience can be invalid. All impression are legit and if someone didn't like the game they didn't like it - cool. What I don't get is the idea that ignorance is bliss and that correcting know-nothings is wrong.

These things are not a matter of opinion. When you activate a leve normal world enemies do not disappear - the end. Grouping is highly advantageous - period. To claim otherwise is to be either severely misinformed or an outright liar.

I am just wondering what I am supposing which is laughably false

A group of 4 people will go through mobs at least 4x as fast and will earn 4x the sp over time.. If they are doing leves they can do 4x the number of leves. Total SP gain in a party is 4x to 16x that of solo. So you tell me, why is there no advantage to grouping?

The reality is that you should always form a group if you can, there is no downside and a huge upside. The bonus for grouping is greater than in any MMO I'm aware of. If you disagree feel free to throw numbers back in my face.

[Trippy]

The game fucking sucks. Square Enix has publically admitted as such. You can argue semantics and nitpick other people's criticisms as much as you want. Doesn't make the game any better.