Square-Enix Unveils Upcoming Final Fantasy MMO Demo

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I hear Realm Reborn is actually pretty good, but I doubt it's going to go anywhere, as it's reputation is already bad, and the whole game is "yesterdays news".
 
[citation][nom]s3anister[/nom]I have enjoyed many Final Fantasy titles, however, there are way too many MMOGs and nearly all are equally boring.[/citation]

Meh, I disagree on that point. Sure there are a ton of MMOs, but there are a ton of most genres. I played every FF up to FFX, and I love them still. However, being a gamer that enjoys games of all types, MMOs offer so much more than a standard game. With a persistant community, a world that lives and breathes, and the progression of a character that takes so much more of an investment and dedication than a standard casual game.

Sad thing is however, many MMOs are straying away from offering the difficulty and reward for the dedicated few who can grind it out and tweak their character to some sense of perfection, both in build and skilled execution. Anyone who blanket-statement says "All MMOs are equally boring" isn't really a player with an opinion worth considering on the topic.
 
Wow ... ok where to begin.

First off I'm a long time player of Final Fantasy XI aka FF11, SE's first MMO. I also play Turbines Dungeons and Dragons Online, along with this I've experimented and played many other MMO's out there.

To understand whats going on with FFXIV you must first understand some of the management behind FFXI and SE in general. First is that SE is a Japanese corporation, seniority and boss worship are how things get done. The man primarily responsible for the development of both Final Fantasy XI and XIV is Hiromichi Tanaka. This guy also is responsible for many of their console games dating all the way back to the 1987 Final Fantasy game. Tanaka has unquestionable ability to produce story driven plots and beautiful gaming environments and immensely epic adventures. He's a good guy for single player console RPG's. He also worships the status-quot and believes that games should not change from their original designs / vision. Anyone here who's played MMO's should immediately be able to tell that's a big issue.

FF11 had huge issues for many years yet retained a faithful fan base due to the forced social grouping required to actually play the game (soloing was nigh nearly impossible). The jobs system allows one character to switch between all available jobs while in the citys, this allowed for every player to experience every job style and lead to deep character development. You didn't max one "character" out, you could max twenty out with overlapping gear and skill sets. Over time newer and more popular MMO's have since been created which introduced new concepts, namely in that the game shouldn't be about long term multi-month grinds and instead about smaller bite sized accomplishments. Tanaka, for the most part refused to allow FFXI to change with the times and resulted in a deep stagnation between 2007 and 2010.

Something happened near the end of 2009 / early 2010 though, there seemed to be a new unnamed head of development. Tanaka was primary involved with the creation (and failure) of FFXIV, during this time a different man was put in charge of FFXI development. That man was Akihiko Matsui, he was the director of FFXI during the time Tanaka was screwing up FFXIV. Matsui implemented many changes including an expansion pack broken into three miniature sections released over a years worth of time. It changed the game from long grind accomplishments into short term micro achievements more in line with modern MMOs. Subscriptions went up and it was believed FFXI had turned a corner and was being developed on again, the status-quot has been violated. Near the end of 2010 it was revealed that FFXIV had failed completely and that SE would be required to redevelop it. Matsui was chosen to lead the re-development of the game and Tanaka was redirected to head FFXI again (technically he was always the *producer*). Tanaka had gone on record claiming that he didn't like the direction Matsui had taken the game and wanted to re-implement the previous status-quot. From fall 2011 to summer 2012 there was a great lagging in the content developed by SE for FFXI. Everything seemed to be designed to take an arbitrary long period of time, reward acquisition rates were slashed and the depth of content released was mostly just rehashes of things that already existed. Nearly no new development was made on the game itself. During this time FFXIV under Matsui had been exhaustively redeveloped, you could see the sheer number of changes and the extremely rapid pace he was having updates released. It had become clear to anyone keeping up with the two games that Matsui intended to do to FFXIV what he did to FFXI, rejuvenate the game by making it more similar to other modern MMO's while keeping the unique jobs system that Final Fantasy is known for.

Then recently (summer 2012) something incredibly big happened. It was announced that Tanaka would be retiring from Square Enix due to "health issues" (Japanese culture word for forced retirement from big company) and that Matsui would replace him as "producer" for both FFXI and FFXIV. Since then Matsui has come onto the official forums for the game and requested direct input from the players on what we wanted to see changed in FFXI. He has indicated that he intends to ramp up development for the older title while continuing development and release of the newer one.

Sorry for the large amount of text, it's required to understand the utter difference from FFXIV 2.0 (our name for it) and the original FFXIV. Two completely different leaders with radically different visions of how to build a MMO. It's also a demonstration on how just because someone has the skills to successfully make one type of game, they may not have the skills to make a different flavor of that game.
 
@ Palladin9479

While all of what you had to say is most certainly interesting, the problem is, they are redesigning a game that already existing. The 2 most glaring issues with trying to do this are 1. The current population may die off completely as they, for whatever reason, like what the current rendition accomplished and 2. The fickle nature of the MMO community and it's adoption of new titles is already so strained, that a game that flopped is EXTREMELY unlikely to get a second chance in the eyes of a gamer.

There are just too many titles coming at a gamer these days to re-visit a broken title that has been fixed. There may well be some players that look on with anticipation to this release, but more likely it will be the players that have already invested their time into the game. Taking a look at attitude of player's posting responses to the Diablo 3 ( not an MMO I am I aware ) posts that TH likes to put up. Players will give devs time to fix some things, but if you go 3 - 4 months with glaring issues, the game attains a reputation for the flaws. Fixes or complete overhauls may come, but they won't see any surge of note in the new player department. Their money spent on development for these changes will come as a loss :-(
 
[citation][nom]tanjo[/nom]I wish they didn't count the FF MMOs together with the original series. Just call it FF Online I/II or whatnot.[/citation]

Fully agree with this, it's not a true FF game in my opinion in comparison to the "True" FF games.
 
[citation][nom]malice81[/nom]Meh, I disagree on that point. Sure there are a ton of MMOs, but there are a ton of most genres. I played every FF up to FFX, and I love them still. However, being a gamer that enjoys games of all types, MMOs offer so much more than a standard game. With a persistant community, a world that lives and breathes, and the progression of a character that takes so much more of an investment and dedication than a standard casual game.Sad thing is however, many MMOs are straying away from offering the difficulty and reward for the dedicated few who can grind it out and tweak their character to some sense of perfection, both in build and skilled execution. Anyone who blanket-statement says "All MMOs are equally boring" isn't really a player with an opinion worth considering on the topic.[/citation]
and nearly all are equally boring.
You really shouldn't try to misquote people, it's bad form.

Anyway, I've played almost every MMO to some extent including at length EQ1/2, PSO (on Dreamcast and Xbox), Diablo II/III, WoW, FFXI and a few others I don't care to mention. Only EQ1, PSO, and DII in my opinion were worth my time. But that's just my opinion and you shouldn't be peeved by it just as I'm not of yours.
 


Completely agree, its sad too when you look at the sheer amount of effort that went into fixing a bad vision. Many of the issues FFXIV had on release were told to the developers and Tanaka during beta (I was one of the beta testers), yet they refused to fix them. It was no surprise to us when FFXIV failed as we predicted it would. Matsui's team has put so much effort into making it a fun game and it's sad that it'll mostly be popular in Japan only. There is a following amongst the EU and NA populations though, many of us are willing to give it another chance since we've already seen the work of it's current leader. I doubt it'll attract many players from already developed / released MMO's, FFXI wasn't known for being kind to new players either.

That is one thing I really liked about FFXI, there are no renationalized servers. You get JP, EU and NA players all mixed together in the same world, makes for some interesting experiences and interactions. I'm an American who primarily plays with Europeans but also some Hong Kong players in our guide (linkshell in FFXI speak).
 
Yeah, I feel your pain. As a long time WoW vet, I have been craving a new MMO to take me away from the world for a while now. The thrills of discovering a new world and learning it's mountains and valleys is a truly fantastic experience. I have tried to find that again in many places, from Rift to Aion, SwToR to LoTR, dabling in AOC and Tera, Eve and DC ONline. The biggest complaint I have these days, is that the player base makes or breaks any new MMO. Feeling that initial surge as the game begins, a wave that peaks and slides back like the tide, mostly to break upon the rocks. As the player complaints come, the competition to be the next "big dog" like WoW had maintained for so many years, leaves most gamers trying to compare a new offering with a game that has had 3, soon to be 4 expansions. A new game simply cannot match that level of content at opening gate.

So many players, myself included, will play a new MMO, with intentions never to return to Azeroth, and as the population of their new game dies, they return to that familiar place with tail tucked, far more times than they'd care to admit. I for one have high hopes for GW2 as I have been playing the beta and it is truly inspiring, but hey, I've been fooled before 🙂
 
[citation][nom]s3anister[/nom]and nearly all are equally boring.You really shouldn't try to misquote people, it's bad form.Anyway, I've played almost every MMO to some extent including at length EQ1/2, PSO (on Dreamcast and Xbox), Diablo II/III, WoW, FFXI and a few others I don't care to mention. Only EQ1, PSO, and DII in my opinion were worth my time. But that's just my opinion and you shouldn't be peeved by it just as I'm not of yours.[/citation]

I'm not peeved partner, but you should know, the Diablo games are NOT MMOs.

Your statement about there being too many MMO games and NEARLY all being equally boring is like saying, "hey, I guess I don't really like this genre, but I'll keep buying the games because I'm masochistic" lol
 
square... we need to have a little chat, coem on over here. let us discuss you decitions as of late... there is no way to say it, you are bad at mmo's i am sorry to break it to you but you're honestly not good at it and should move back to what you are good at, make some single player rpg's you are quite skilled at that. you made ffvii, ffviii and ffx (let us forget about the one which shall not be named sweriously wtf was up with the tail) please just make me a good game i can play for a hundred hours or so enjoy a good story and look back on it with fond memories

~ from an honest fan of your (non mmo-) rpg's
Smiley
 
Actually, the head of FFXIV development is Naoki Yoshida, not Akihiko Matsui. Matsui is playing a large role in the FFXIV development, but he is not the leader. Yoshida is.
 
Final Fantasy died off after FF7 series. Please stop the MMO franchise. Its not Final Fantasy anymore. I'm a big fan and collector of Final Fantasy, and MMO Final Fantasy is a big let down
 
[citation][nom]Ozias_Ingram_Hyperion_Server[/nom]Actually, the head of FFXIV development is Naoki Yoshida, not Akihiko Matsui. Matsui is playing a large role in the FFXIV development, but he is not the leader. Yoshida is.[/citation]
And he makes great teriyaki sauce. :)
 
There is a really simple reason for the failure of the FF MMO, its tied to the same reason why Star Wars TOR is seeing major fall offs in subscribers. $$$. The market will no longer support a monthly subscription for MMO games. Players want to play more than one MMO at a time, and they want to be able to hop in when they want and invest to the point that they want to invest. The Free-2-Play model is taking over, this model allows casual gamer's to try pretty much any MMO they like until they find one they really like and are willing to invest some $$$ in, and then only on the things that they feel has value.

WoW is the only remaining MMO that can really carry a subscription, and that is only because of the size of its existing customer base and the fact that it has multiple large game expansions worth of content. A person feels the monthly subscription is good so long as they can consume new content, Star Wars once you get past the main story, has little left to drive the player, as such they are seeing large drops in subscribers.

The F2P model takes the games from a subscriber count, to a revenue count for the developer. When it makes money, they concentrate on the things that make them money which usually is the stuff players want anyway since they were willing to pay for it in the first place.

 
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