"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Margalis]

Slapping FF7 art assets on an already bad game is only going to result in tarnishing the image of FF7. 

Wut?

I'm pretty sure all he said was that he liked FF7 and he wanted players to have the same feel you get playing an MMO as you did that game. Not that they are going to copy all the systems and even the graphics!

[ghost]

I generally liked the "feel" of FF VII, but it could be a bit grindy in points toward the end, if your level wasn't high enough.  There was a broodying mysteriousness to it that had a good vibe though, which I would like to see in FFXIV.  And I think the point of making your character just "level up" and you can switch abilities around is kindof what the developers were going for in the beginning with being able to switch careers by switching your tools.  They just fucked it up royally by making it a pain in the ass for the player to implement. 

[Murgos]

I think I liked FFVII so much because it's the first game I really broke over my knee like a rotten twig.

I figured out pretty early a couple of mechanics that would multiply damage outputs by orders of magnitude and so that by the end of the game I pretty much one shot the final battle(s).

So, yeah, make it more like FFVII!

[sam, an eggplant]

I assume they're talking about translating story and strong characters to the MMO.

Also your fireball spell will conjure a badass 666 foot tall obsidian titan from the forbidden depths who pulls a flaming mountain from the sky, expounds at some length on the meaning of the immediacy of experience as it pertains to Hegel's notion of time in a faux-scottish accident, then spinning-drop-kicks the meteor right into your target's balls. This animation will take 47 seconds to conclude each and every cast.

[Modern Angel]

Pouring more money into an attempted second chance is insane. This sounds like the death knell of Squeenix as a top flight studio if they sink too much into this.

[01101010]

Pouring more money into an attempted second chance is insane. This sounds like the death knell of Squeenix as a top flight studio if they sink too much into this.

I still say they are shooting for the console market and thus all these people paid $50 to pc beta test it. The results said, its broke and here's why.

[ghost]

I'd kinda like to see the actual interview rather than this summary, because as it stands right now this doesn't make any sense.  You can't really say that you're going to make the game better by somehow infusing it with elements of a game they made 13 years ago, then when asked for concrete plans just say you're going to fix up the UI a bit.

Here's a translation of the interview.  It may be the best you can get, unless you can read Japanese. 

[Shatter]

Just to consider playing it it would have to be free, give BJ's and make coffee. 

[Samprimary]

Pouring more money into an attempted second chance is insane.

Maybe it is, but it might be the least insane option available. They have to at least say they're trying; to just say 'this is hopeless, we're cutting our losses' (while the most appropriate option behind the scenes) puts a dagger in the heart of the star franchise.

[ghost]

As fucked as it is, I still think the game may be fixable to a reasonably fun state.  They're going to have to create some actual content for that to happen though.  Thankfully they have a pretty fucking clean slate to start over with. 

[Velorath]

I'd kinda like to see the actual interview rather than this summary, because as it stands right now this doesn't make any sense.  You can't really say that you're going to make the game better by somehow infusing it with elements of a game they made 13 years ago, then when asked for concrete plans just say you're going to fix up the UI a bit.

Here's a translation of the interview.  It may be the best you can get, unless you can read Japanese. 

Thanks.

The user interface is set to undergo some significant changes to accommodate for the vast difference in play styles between a game controller and keyboard/mouse setup. Yoshida admits he is a stickler for a smooth UI as well, and Minagawa was brought in as someone who is "second to none" at UI development. Interface lag is another key problem the developers are looking to stamp out, and they are working to identify the technological issues behind the slowdown people are experiencing.  Yoshida also shows his experience regarding MMOs, and sees games like WOW as an example of how users can also help reinvent the UI through add-ons.  This is a big change from the days of FFXI, and something Yoshida wishes to support fully.

If they had just sunk their money into upgrading FFXI's UI like this so it doesn't play like shit on the PC rather than make FFXIV, they might have been better off.  I might actually be playing FFXI right now if they had gone that route.

[Reg]

An improved and updated FFXI would have been a success. Not to WoW levels but at least it wouldn't have been the public humiliation that FFXIV was.

[Lantyssa]

They still would have needed a new continent and launch.  Maybe the new world with the bonus of being able to access some of FFXI's.  A new UI wouldn't have brought the people of a new game.  Of course with what they did produce, it would have been an improvement, but we have to assume they intended to grab a few more than that.

[Kageru]

An improved and updated FFXI would have been a success. Not to WoW levels but at least it wouldn't have been the public humiliation that FFXIV was.

There was no IP that was going to make the product coming out of the development process they used worth anything.

They're a big company though, nothing stopping them wasting immense amounts of money and time and re-launching it. And they've got enough fanatics there's probably people who would sub/re-sub. Especially with the PS3 launch. But they still would have done better if someone with common sense has stopped them launching a product destined to fail in such an impressive way.

[ghost]

The January updates are out.  Here is the list of January 18th changes from Lodestone.  Here is January 12th. 

Jan 18th

January 12th


 

This is a pretty paltry update for a game that is such in the shitter.  Methinks it's not too long until they round file this one.  

[Kageru]

It's a valuable lesson for those who believe a new team can come in and release massive fix-it-all patches on a weekly basis.

[CaptainNapkin]

Have they started charging the monthly fee yet?

[ghost]

It's a valuable lesson for those who believe a new team can come in and release massive fix-it-all patches on a weekly basis.

How about a fix anything update? 

[palmer_eldritch]

Just because a game needs a big update doesn't mean a small update is necessarily wrong. Are they meant to ignore fixable bugs until they're ready to release megapatch?

[ghost]

Are they meant to ignore fixable bugs until they're ready to release megapatch?

Exactly.  And they have a lot of fixable bugs to choose from. 

[Shatter]

So did they start charging monthly fees yet or is it still f2p? 

[01101010]

Are they meant to ignore fixable bugs until they're ready to release megapatch?

Exactly.  And they have a lot of fixable bugs to choose from. 

I concur HOWEVER... going through and fixing bugs now is a nice gesture, but if they are planning a major overall, most of those bug fixes would probably be bugs again, or at least more code to go through to make sure the overall doesn't break that shit too...

[Bzalthek]

Binary, I don't think that word means what you think it means. 

As it stands I don't really know what SE doing.  I don't think SE knows what it is doing.  It'd be one things if they were stringing paying customers along with little bits of hope, but as far as I can tell it's still in the free trial stage for everyone.  If they were serious about shaping their shit up there would be a lot more interaction and development.  If I were to guess I'd say there's a lot of infighting going on, and the people who want to change shit are butting heads with the people who think it's fine. 

I dunno.

[rattran]

Perhaps they're still translating all the code documentation from Cantonese. 

[Kageru]

Chinese code shops don't write comments. And yes, that's from experience.

I imagine they're under political pressure to release frequent updates (looks like weekly) to demonstrate commitment. But at the same time re-engineering a program of this size just doesn't generate impressive looking weekly progress until closer to the end.

[ghost]

So they're under political pressure to write shitty updates.  Woo.   

[Kitsune]

On a note unrelated to the game's abject failure, going from a nvidia 460 to 560 and from a Core 2 Quad to one of the Sandy Bridge i5s brought my FFXIV benchmark on high quality from 2500 to 4300.  The benches reminded me just how beautiful the graphics are, it's a terrible shame that they neglected to include a game with them.

[Samprimary]

If I were to guess I'd say there's a lot of infighting going on, and the people who want to change shit are butting heads with the people who think it's fine. 

I dunno.

I would put more money on the people who want to change shit butting heads with the people who just want to shelve the game.

Faction no. 1 wants to keep pouring money into this to save face for the company, faction no. 2 wants to sunset the fucker, with a skeleton crew keeping it vaguely operational until the servers are all virtually empty, then quietly shut the game down.

[Trippy]

Perhaps they're still translating all the code documentation from Cantonese. 

Cantonese is a spoken dialect not a written one. Also Shanghai and Beijing are the main game development locations for foreign companies on the mainland (e.g. EA and Ubisoft both have studios in Shanghai), neither of which use Cantonese as their primary spoken dialect.

So basically double fail

[Margalis]

Are people actually serious about this Chinese developer stuff? It's so super dumb.

[01101010]

I honestly didn't know this game was still running. 

[Trippy]

Are people actually serious about this Chinese developer stuff? It's so super dumb.

You should take it as a compliment and stop trying to dissuade people otherwise. Otherwise it makes the FF XIV team look a lot worse.

[Outlawedprod]

I honestly didn't know this game was still running.

Merely a setback.  They appear to be up and running again
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/news/detail?newsId=7926574eb5c7c8c20d6976461401a3e6091969af

[Margalis]

So the first major patch from the new team has arrived, by "major" I mean begins moving the game in a new direction. Lots of system and content changes - MP costs on everything wildly changed, multi-target spells became single-target, removal of stamina bar and the return of auto-attack, fatigue system removed, repair changed to always use the same materials and repair to full, instanced dungeons with bosses, etc.

Seems like it may be a step in the right direction but it's a little hard to tell, given that that step is being taken by the game equivalent of a guy who wandered into a minefield and has already had both legs blown off. And like a guy in a minefield getting his bearings and slowly crawling towards safety while bleeding to death it appears that whether or not it's a good change may not matter - like the blood leaking out of severed stumps (I'm going to milk this analogy for all it's worth!!!) the player base seems departed and not coming back. It's very hard to find meaningful impressions, positive or negative.

I updated, I may log in myself and have a look-see. Or I may just wait a while. A few more patches of this magnitude would be fairly transformative.

[Reg]

The only game I know that successfully recovered from such a botched launch was EVE and I think they were helped by being a niche game with no real competition.  I'm not sure if FFXIV will manage it.  I'd be curious to hear the impressions of someone who actually plays though. So log in and give us a review.