"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[koro]

If they're going to be tiptoeing around the already established playerbase and not simply do the sensible thing and either scrap or revamp the old classes while giving everyone extremely generous credit for what they played already, then this whole endeavor is probably doomed to failure already. I'm sure at least a somewhat decent portion of the few tens of thousands of players left would be willing to take the hit in order to give the game the opportunity to finally get growing.

Or maybe I'm just a weirdo who becomes more of a naive optimist than a jaded cynic as I get older.

[Margalis]

I assume that the old jobs will eventually be phased out or relegated to lowbies, sort of how in EQ2 you started with general purpose jobs then got better more specific ones later.

One issue now is they want people to pay, and saying "we are going to eliminate all the levels you've already gotten" would be a great way to make people jump ship.

Really though it's basically an intractable situation. The starting place is so bad there really isn't any great solution IMO.

[Ingmar]

If they're going to be tiptoeing around the already established playerbase and not simply do the sensible thing and either scrap or revamp the old classes while giving everyone extremely generous credit for what they played already, then this whole endeavor is probably doomed to failure already. I'm sure at least a somewhat decent portion of the few tens of thousands of players left would be willing to take the hit in order to give the game the opportunity to finally get growing.

Or maybe I'm just a weirdo who becomes more of a naive optimist than a jaded cynic as I get older.

They are trying to not make the NGE mistake of pissing off the only customers they have left. It may be doomed to failure, but they're doing what everyone argued SOE should have done instead of the NGE here.

[Count Nerfedalot]

True, but it sure seems like Sony at least had a fun viable game hiding under all the broken, incomplete and horribly misfitted systems that was SWG pre-CU.  I'm not at all convinced that FFXIV has that.  Which makes Square's actions all the more laudable for their altruistic idealism but doesn't bode well for their chances of success.

[Velorath]

If they're going to be tiptoeing around the already established playerbase and not simply do the sensible thing and either scrap or revamp the old classes while giving everyone extremely generous credit for what they played already, then this whole endeavor is probably doomed to failure already. I'm sure at least a somewhat decent portion of the few tens of thousands of players left would be willing to take the hit in order to give the game the opportunity to finally get growing.

Or maybe I'm just a weirdo who becomes more of a naive optimist than a jaded cynic as I get older.

They are trying to not make the NGE mistake of pissing off the only customers they have left. It may be doomed to failure, but they're doing what everyone argued SOE should have done instead of the NGE here.

Difference is that almost from launch, SquareEnix has been telling people that they know they shipped a crap product and are going to be adding and changing a lot of stuff to fix that.

There's a new interview up here which explains their thinking a bit further.  Pretty much in regards to what we've been talking about, they had this to say:

We recently made the announcement of the road map to 2.0, but it wasn’t necessarily for new players. This is more for the players that we have now, to basically show them that there is a bright future on the horizon, that we’ve made the changes, and that if you continue to play, you’ll be able to experience all of this great content over the next year leading up to 2.0. We appreciate your continued patronage, but also that you continue to support and play our game.

[ghost]

Oh wow.  Final Fantasy XIV is finally "good enough" for subscription fees to be implemented.   

In the ten months since the FINAL FANTASY XIV team’s restructuring, we have put forth the utmost effort into not only improving the game’s existing features, but also creating a concrete plan to outline the game’s new direction. Today, I am pleased to announce we can confidently present that plan to our customers. We fully realize this is but a single step towards our ultimate goal, and that to meet the high standards set in the plan, more time is required. In the meantime, however, we will not waver in our commitment to bringing players exciting and engaging content, even as the game moves through its evolution.

With this, it is my hope that we will continue to receive your support as we will need to bring the unbilled period to a close between late November and early December 2011, and introduce our subscription-based billing system. I appreciate that this decision will not be popular, but it is a necessary step in building upon the foundation our fans and development team have made together and to realize the full potential of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

Translation:  our game sucks, has sucked from the beginning, but now we have a plan to make it better.  And now you will pay for it. 

[Hawkbit]

I got an email this morning that said, roughly "An important message from S/E president", then went on to remind me of the announcement they made in October. 

What a colossal waste by charging players before the changes are ready to go.  I think they had a mild chance of getting some new blood if they decided on a full, marketed relaunch with free 14day trial and $20 download+first month.  But this, charging before the plan is in action?  Someone needs to seriously consider falling on a sword.

[ghost]

It's not just a waste, it's absolutely insane.  They've really added nothing new or interesting to the game in the past six months.  I got this as a gift after I already knew it was shit and activated simply because of the free play.  These idiots are going to have about 10 subscribers once they go to their subscription. 

[Paelos]

This kind of decision-making is the stuff that instructional management books use as case examples.

[luckton]

hese idiots are going to have about 10 subscribers once they go to their subscription. 

And to once again quote the Squeenix devs,
 

"As long there's an interest in the game, we'll continue to put money into the game from our offline game sales."

 

I certainly wish 'I' had 10 people that played my game, if I ever got into the biz that is.

[Fabricated]

My favorite thing from the SquareEnix devs/management is the "This has damaged the Final Fantasy brand" comment.

Uh, you must've missed FF8, FFX, FFX-2, and Final Fantasy 13.

[luckton]

My favorite thing from the SquareEnix devs/management is the "This has damaged the Final Fantasy brand" comment.

Uh, you must've missed FF8, FFX, FFX-2, and Final Fantasy 13.

I'll agree with you on X-2, but just because the others tried to innovate and got a little too freaky doesn't disqualify them as part of the FF canon.  I'm actually playing through 13 right now for the first time, and while, yeah, it's a little freaky (fal'cie, l'cie, cei'th, auto-combat AIs and other bits), it still works.

XIV is just fucking broken. 

[koro]

My favorite thing from the SquareEnix devs/management is the "This has damaged the Final Fantasy brand" comment.

Uh, you must've missed FF8, FFX, FFX-2, and Final Fantasy 13.

I'll agree with you on X-2, but just because the others tried to innovate and got a little too freaky doesn't disqualify them as part of the FF canon.  I'm actually playing through 13 right now for the first time, and while, yeah, it's a little freaky (fal'cie, l'cie, cei'th, auto-combat AIs and other bits), it still works.

XIV is just fucking broken. 

Yeah, FF8's chief sin in most peoples' minds was that it wasn't FF7 Part 2; if it had come out in an earlier era, it would have just been relegated to "interesting but quirky" status alongside FF2 and 5. FF10, however, was extremely popular in Japan and was pretty big here too; if the voice direction had been better and too easy of a target to poke fun at, it'd be more fondly remembered here as well.

I thought 13 was abysmal, though, and is the only game I've literally fallen asleep playing out of sheer boredom (as opposed to falling asleep from playing all night because it's so engaging).

[ghost]

I know that I'm in the minority, but I've liked every FF I've played.  I haven't gotten to far into 13 though, and some of them I haven't been able to finish mostly due to time.

[koro]

With the exception of 13 (and 14, naturally), I've liked every main-series Final Fantasy, including 11. I finally came around on FF2 when the Dawn of Souls GBA version made it actually playable. So you're not alone, at least.

[Fabricated]

My favorite thing from the SquareEnix devs/management is the "This has damaged the Final Fantasy brand" comment.

Uh, you must've missed FF8, FFX, FFX-2, and Final Fantasy 13.

I'll agree with you on X-2, but just because the others tried to innovate and got a little too freaky doesn't disqualify them as part of the FF canon.  I'm actually playing through 13 right now for the first time, and while, yeah, it's a little freaky (fal'cie, l'cie, cei'th, auto-combat AIs and other bits), it still works.

XIV is just fucking broken. 

Yeah, FF8's chief sin in most peoples' minds was that it wasn't FF7 Part 2; if it had come out in an earlier era, it would have just been relegated to "interesting but quirky" status alongside FF2 and 5. FF10, however, was extremely popular in Japan and was pretty big here too; if the voice direction had been better and too easy of a target to poke fun at, it'd be more fondly remembered here as well.

I thought 13 was abysmal, though, and is the only game I've literally fallen asleep playing out of sheer boredom (as opposed to falling asleep from playing all night because it's so engaging).

FF8's chief sin was that it was probably the most poorly written Final Fantasy in the entire series.

[Trippy]

What you mean having the main character "say" "......" for every other line of dialog didn't do it for you?

[Fordel]

There's a FF brand? Aren't all these fuckers independent of each other story/lore wise?

[ghost]

What you mean having the main character "say" "......" for every other line of dialog didn't do it for you?

......

[Lantyssa]

Well, 11 and 14 are in the same world.  X and X-2 of course are.  Wasn't 12 set in the same world as Tactics?

I loved 7.  Liked several of the characters of 8.  Liked a few characters of 9 but couldn't stand the world, game, or the two main characters.  Enjoyed 10 quite a bit.

I would have loved 11 if the grind and anti-solo philosophy hadn't scared me off.  12 I was enjoying but had life interrupt early on and haven't made it back to playing.

[Fabricated]

Well, 11 and 14 are in the same world.  X and X-2 of course are.  Wasn't 12 set in the same world as Tactics?

I loved 7.  Liked several of the characters of 8.  Liked a few characters of 9 but couldn't stand the world, game, or the two main characters.  Enjoyed 10 quite a bit.

I would have loved 11 if the grind and anti-solo philosophy hadn't scared me off.  12 I was enjoying but had life interrupt early on and haven't made it back to playing.

FF12 is set in Ivalice like FFT and Vagrant Story, but at drastically different times. FF12 is something like hundreds of years or over a millennium+ before FFT, then Vagrant Story is a few hundred years after that.

[Lantyssa]

I'd say that still makes them not completely independent lore wise.

[koro]

I guess this is where someone should go ahead and link The Rise and Fall of Final Fantasy. It's a fairly good read, even if the author heaps a bit too much vitriol at Nomura than the guy probably deserves.

[luckton]

Final Fantasy VI was the best FF, and I don't care what you fuckers say 

[Zetor]

The POV of someone who doesn't own any consoles -- I only played VII, VIII, and XIV (beta) on the PC. VIII was... pretty bad overall with a broken system and terrible writing (as said above), but it had some amusing moments. VII was ok, but I didn't think it was amazing compared to the cRPGs of the same era. I never tried XI because my friends told me it was grindville EQ1 reloaded compared to WOW. Then by a strange twist of fate I got into the XIV beta and we all know how that story goes... 

After reading that link, it looks like it's time to get me a SNES emulator!

[Margalis]

There's a FF brand? Aren't all these fuckers independent of each other story/lore wise?

Lore has nothing to do with branding. I don't think you get what a brand is...

[Kageru]

Incredibly detailed and quite interesting overview. Especially found his reviews of 11 and 13 interesting. A shame there's not a 14 review, but I can see why not.

[Margalis]

As a Red Mage, my task was to cast Paralyze, Slow, Dia, and Bio (always in that order), use Cure when the designated healers were low on MP or having a hard time keeping up with multiple attacks, and sometimes chip in with melee blows (unless I was ordered by the organizers to stop blocking the damage dealers' line of fire).

What a noob, Bio overwrites Dia!  

More on topic...I like what the new FFXIV team is doing and they are definitely more in touch with what the players want but they are starting from such a bad place I feel sorry for them.

[01101010]

As a Red Mage, my task was to cast Paralyze, Slow, Dia, and Bio (always in that order), use Cure when the designated healers were low on MP or having a hard time keeping up with multiple attacks, and sometimes chip in with melee blows (unless I was ordered by the organizers to stop blocking the damage dealers' line of fire).

What a noob, Bio overwrites Dia!  

More on topic...I like what the new FFXIV team is doing and they are definitely more in touch with what the players want but they are starting from such a bad place I feel sorry for them.

That person forgot Refresh. I never had to heal.. just keep the refresh rotation up and cast debuffs. Melee RDM was usually kicked.

[ghost]

More on topic...I like what the new FFXIV team is doing and they are definitely more in touch with what the players want but they are starting from such a bad place I feel sorry for them.

Well now they're starting from a fucking coffin.  They won't have a playerbase to test their product, I'm assuming.  This is the very definition of "paid beta". 

[palmer_eldritch]

I guess this is where someone should go ahead and link The Rise and Fall of Final Fantasy. It's a fairly good read, even if the author heaps a bit too much vitriol at Nomura than the guy probably deserves.

I'd never seen that. Thanks for the link.

I agree with Luckton that FF VI was the best. It even has an OMG moment to match the death of Aeris, when Celes decides to jump of a cliff (although this only happens if you make certain choices I think).

I'm not sure why there's quite so much hatred for 13. My biggest problem with it though is that the plot was incomprehensible unless you read large text dumps which were in the game but hidden away behind menus. However, the combat is pretty fast and furious and provides lots of opportunities to experiment with different setups. Also, Fang and Vanillie were clearly gay lovers, which is sweet.

[HaemishM]

After reading that bit about FF13 in that article, I think I can see the hate. I had not played any Final Fantasy games since 2 (4 in Japan) and got 13 because I wanted some HD JRPG goodness. 20 hours into the game and I have no real desire to go back to it. I feel THE TUBE very strongly and had hoped that it was just a tutorial (albeit a long one) that made the game feel like that. But really, there's very little gameplay, very little interactino and a whole lot of sitting back and watching. If I wanted that, I could spend 2 hours watching  a movie and more time playing a game that wants to be played. The whole text info dump thing also rubbed me the wrong way. I'm watching beautifully animated CG cutscenes, but for everything important, I have to read text on my TV? It was not good.

[Sheepherder]

Just about the only relatively modern Final Fantasy I have ever had any desire to play through is the PS1 version of Tactics, and it isn't really a Final Fantasy game.

[tmp]

Our game is *really* good enough to warrant the subscription fee nao.

Well, starting January 6th. You've been warned

Monthly subscriptions to Final Fantasy 14 Online will be lowered from £8.99/€12.99 to £6.99/€9.99 until the late 2012/early 2013 launch of Final Fantasy 14 Online Version 2.0. This is when the much-delayed PS3 version of FF14 will appear, too.

[Velorath]

Our game is *really* good enough to warrant the subscription fee nao.

Well, starting January 6th. You've been warned

Monthly subscriptions to Final Fantasy 14 Online will be lowered from £8.99/€12.99 to £6.99/€9.99 until the late 2012/early 2013 launch of Final Fantasy 14 Online Version 2.0. This is when the much-delayed PS3 version of FF14 will appear, too.

Or to put it another way, instead of $9.99 a month for a month to month sub, it's $6.99.  3 month and yearly subs are also discounted.  However, they are also charging $3.00 per character, and from the looks of how they explain it here it doesn't sound like the first character is free, so you're really paying $9.99 a month anyway (which I guess is discounted from the $12.99 it says customers will be paying when 2.0 hits).