"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Margalis]

Maybe I will after a couple more patches. It's pretty clear that this is going to be a long transition and this is just the first leg of it.

[Rendakor]

Well, if they get their shit together the PS3 launch will be their best shot at recapturing some lost players. I never actually bought the game (only beta'd extensively) or I'd take one for the team. I really wanted to like this one though.

[Mrbloodworth]

Me too, I really wanted to have some fun in a FF world. This was just too "different just to be different" and grindy as hell for no reason. Does it still take like 7 clicks to equip something?

[Lantyssa]

The tone was fine with me.  I liked my character and the class change system was nice.

As a game it just sucked.  If they fix that, then I'll consider playing.

[ghost]

It's still pretty bad.   

[Segoris]

I'm shocked!

Did they ever start charging?

[01101010]

I'm shocked!

Did they ever start charging?

Better question is how the fuck they are keeping it up and running?

[luckton]

I'm shocked!

Did they ever start charging?

Better question is how the fuck they are keeping it up and running?

The current team leader for the project answered this months ago.  Basically boils down to "Because we don't just make MMOs, and because there's still 5 people that want to play it, we just take the profits from our offline games and keep the boat afloat."

Same logic applies to FFIX as well, and could explain why Ultima, DAoC and Warhammer haven't fucking died....yet.

[Amaron]

Have they even got US servers yet?  That's pretty much the first conditional on the "Does this MMO suck?" flow chart.

[Rendakor]

I still hope they get this to a half-decent state because I really wanted to like it. Thanks for reporting that this has yet to occur, however.

[Rasix]

If there's a good game to come out of this, it won't be FFXIV.  Game was just too fucking bad.  Start the hell over, reuse your art assets (again *snort*) and engine and burn the rest.

[Rendakor]

But but but...the class system!!!

[Shatter]

I enjoy watching them try to pull their sunk boat out of the water.  It makes me tingle

[luckton]

If there's a good game to come out of this, it won't be FFXIV.  Game was just too fucking bad.  Start the hell over, reuse your art assets (again *snort*) and engine and burn the rest.

FFXVII, 2015, in 3D   

[01101010]

If there's a good game to come out of this, it won't be FFXIV.  Game was just too fucking bad.  Start the hell over, reuse your art assets (again *snort*) and engine and burn the rest.

FFXVII, 2015, in 3D   

FFXVII: The finding of the left wing., 2015, in 3D 

[Margalis]

But but but...the class system!!!

Honestly I think the game has a lot of cool systems and interesting design choices, but it feels like those choices weren't made with respect to the whole. For example you can change classes at any time by changing your main hand equipment. But when you change your class your equipment doesn't swap and your MP amount / spell timers reset. So while you CAN change classes anywhere doing so sort of gimps you and is inconvenient.

The game is full of stuff like that. It kind of reminds me of the Tactics Ogre remake. (I might have made this point before) A bunch of systems that don't work so great together.

[Velorath]

But but but...the class system!!!

Was actually somewhat of an issue I had with FFXIV.  The job system of FFXI was actually one of my favorite things about that game, and I don't know why they had to change it up for FFXIV.  XI had the iconic FF classes like Red/White/Black Mages, Dragoons, Summoners, etc...   For the life of me, I can't figure out why with XIV they went with such generic classes.  It's fitting that all you have to do to change class in XIV is switch weapons, because really switching weapons is pretty much all it feels like you're doing.

[luckton]

From Nerfnow.com.  Sums up FFXIV quite nicely, along with some other MMOs as well  



After-post thought:  Are they still not charging a monthly subscription to play this?  Why don't they just say it's Free 2 Play and join the bandwagon?

[koro]

From what I understand it still has no subscription, but the timeliness of the Nerfnow comic is likely because Square's pushed out some major (supposedly) game-improving updates recently.

[Samprimary]

The other pertinent issue with the fix is that it has improved an amazingly shit-poor game to be only fairly shit-poor. They are legitimate improvements for most of the ghastliest design failures, but given the relative position of the starting point, it's not really saying much. The most intransigent and difficult to modify elements are all still there as an indelibly underwhelming framework for a game, so there's a cap to what improvements can be made via tinkering.

I guess I still have to be a bit amazed that they've put this much effort into it, though. Especially considering that the well is poisoned, they're getting no revenue from the game, and the only people around to celebrate the changes are stockholm syndrome cases cloistering in contracting ghost servers.

[Paelos]

So does this qualify as the worst POS ever released on the public for an MMO?

[Hawkbit]

I'd have given that title to Wish/Irth or Dark and Light, but I'm sure FFXIV sold a lot more copies than those two.

[Lakov_Sanite]

So does this qualify as the worst POS ever released on the public for an MMO?

Horizons.

[Lantyssa]

Dude, WISH was awesome.  (The one that never left beta, not the assets Irth absorbed.)

[Reg]

This was a bigger failure to me mainly because I was actually looking forward to it.  I liked FFXI and was hoping that it'd be an improved version with the sucky stuff removed.

[Hawkbit]

Yep, Wish was awesome, but the failure was what became of the whole thing (Irth).  That seriously pissed me off. 

Also, I wouldn't call Horizons at utter failure.  Somehow, it's still alive.  What's as close to an utter failure as you can get, without actually being one?

Also, Alganon? 

[Ard]

Wish and Irth were two completely separate games.  The Irth team just bought the assets from Wish after it tanked, and still managed to make an even bigger pile of failure with it.   If memory servers their goal was to make a 3D UO, and instead, created a giant engine of lulz and pain.

[Numtini]

I'd list Wish as a non-failure because they had the sense to pull the plug, the same reason I'd consider Horizons the worst. But that's just personal perspective.

[luckton]

I'd list Wish as a non-failure because they had the sense to pull the plug, the same reason I'd consider Horizons the worst. But that's just personal perspective.

I would agree with this assessment.

[HaemishM]

Wish... as in I wish I had more goats to tame. 

[Lantyssa]

I still miss my chicken, Feathers, and scaring her into laying eggs by waving a sickle at her.

[ghost]

Good god this is still awful.  I'm amazed that someone could fuck something up this badly.  They should honestly just shut it down and start over.  It would probably be cheaper than trying to resurrect this piece of shit.

[Reg]

It'd be interesting to someday hear the story of what really went wrong with this game.  They did a decent job with their first MMO. It's like nobody making FFXIV ever even played it.

[Lantyssa]

Pretty sure that was exactly it.  They farmed it out and didn't bother having people check their work.

[luckton]

I would love to see them just scrap XIV, take all the art and gameplay assets, add a fucking story, make it single player and release it as FF XV.