FFXIV can't fail

Ok, so I've been thinking of making a post like this for a while. I've got several friends interested in FFXIV and when they ask if I think it'll make it, I respond that it can't fail because I won't accept it. After a giggle about it I explain my stance more. If FFXIV fails, I'm pretty sure I'll be done with MMORPGs in general. It's been ~5 years since the last GOOD mmo came out and that's far too long. The vast number of random games I've tried over the years just don't hold up to FFXI and WoW. Oddly enough, the features of each game are drastically different, yet they are still both good games. They really are.

I'm sick and tired of watching the exact same failures game, after game, after game. No in depth and developed crafting system, no group dynamic, no community, lack of PVE content, lack of PVP balance, shotty code, overly generic feel to classes and races, lack of endgame content, too damned easy, etc. They are all so lifeless. Even with all of it's flaws, both FFXI and WoW have so much life, starting from the time you log in back at launch and persisting today. When are they going to really look at WoW and see what they did? It's not that hard if every gamer I know can clearly see it, yet all the dev companies fail. You can't just take a handful of the good features from MMOs and leave the rest. It's all interdependent on itself. Icing worthless without a cake. A solo friendly game might as well be single player if there's no reason to group, a good crafting system is worthless if the game economy is crap, instances are fun as long as you doing make them rare and/or too generic, questing for exp is a great leveling carrot, but only if you don't take that carrot away halfway through the levels, the list goes on and on. I may be tired of Blizzard and how they run WoW but I'm not going to lie and say that it's not a good, well rounded MMO (even if it lacks core requirements to keep me happy). When are developers going to learn that each year of development can easily yield 2-3 years of a player base? Stop going after the quick buck and being cheap about it already. My mind cannot grasp how a company can invest 3-5 years in development of a game only to cut it short by 6 months right at the end. Does this seem counterproductive to anyone else? Warhammer was a prime example. It's painfully obvious that it could have been soooo much better if it was given 6 more months in the oven, yet it didn't even last a year before Mythic was starting to get gutted over it. They had the interest of the players, but the game itself just wasn't ready.

I dunno, maybe I'm just an old jaded gamer but that's where I stand and what makes me sad when I think about my beloved MMORPG genre. I've slowly stopped reading about new MMOs; stopped caring. The only ones that even register as a blip on my screen are FFXIV, SW TOR, and Fallout Online. I know I'll check out Blizzard's new MMO when it comes out; if nothing else to see what having a chance to build it differently means. Aside from those, what else is there? All the good dev companies are getting swallowed up by bigger companies or just fading into oblivion. SE is one of the only ones still standing.

Ya ya, I know. Tare's wall o text crits you for over 9000. Sorry about that.

Tareith wrote:

If FFXIV fails, I'm pretty sure I'll be done with MMORPGs in general. It's been ~5 years since the last GOOD mmo came out and that's far too long. The vast number of random games I've tried over the years just don't hold up to FFXI

Know exactly how ya feel, and may stop playing MMOs for quite awhile if FFXIV doesn't keep me entertained...

If FFXIV fails then I am done. I'll go find a table top 2ed AD&D game and go back to my roots. I do not think it can really fail though. There is enough of a player base in Japan alone to ensure a few years of play. I also know entire guilds in WoW looking to jump ship once it comes out. I would expect 1% of those guild members to stay past a week but when you consider WoWs population numbers ( deducting 30% which we all know are rmt accounts ) that is still enough to keep it going for at least 5 years I would say. Will it ever hit 12 mil? doubt it but do we really want it to?
Now I said the same thing about Warhammer and I was truly disappointed when it turned out there was more hype then substance but I will still act the rabid fan boy for FFXIV until I am proven wrong.

Great thing about FFXIV is it doesn't need any hype. FFXI's past player base and word of mouth is all the hype it'll really need. As far as population numbers, I'd say 2-3 mil after a year of worldwide release, prolly closer to 2 mil. No idea if it'll explode, only SE knows that for sure but, with all they've learned with FFXI, they've got the chance to make the next big MMO. I could be totally wrong, I mean FFXI broke a mil in the first 6 months of NA launch so who knows.

Personally, as long as the servers are high population, I'm happy. That's the beauty of staggered worldwide releases on international servers tho. The population gaps are filled in as other regions open up.

Tareith wrote:

Personally, as long as the servers are high population, I'm happy. That's the beauty of staggered worldwide releases on international servers tho. The population gaps are filled in as other regions open up.

Ain't that the truth...I don't play or live by the norm schedule that quite a few MMO players do and the peak times are like 6pm to 11pm. I like to play after midnight often until early morning or sometimes getting up early and playing in the morning to afternoon or even into the evening.

With international region free servers, once the US peak times end, the Japanese peak starts, and once that one is over around 9-10am, EU peak times start, and by 6pm, back to US peak...always a population to play with no matter what time you are playing. Only US region, its lonely most the time, and when the US peak hits you wanna go hide cause of all the tards and stupid chat...heh

Is it just me or are the development companies in general out of ideas other than to copy WoW or Korean 3d chibi games? You know, Hello Kitty Online has to be one of the few new idea MMOs in the past few years. Funny when you put HKO above the testosterone driven games like AoC and Warhammer...and it's not going bankrupt. lol

Kitty-chan forever~


All kidding aside, I'd kill for a phantasy star online game that was a true MMO and not the half-mmo online game that PSU was. Sad, I really love that series too much I think. Konami should get in the ring with a Suikoden MMO too imo. It's totally setup for it.

Yeah both of those would rock, but sadly I think the Suikoden series went downhill after II. Phantasy Star would be excellent if they made it a full MMO, I mean come on a massive world, slaughtering mobs looking for rare drops instead of dungeon crawling for gear. Would be nice, but most developers don't ever look past WoW or, well WoW.

There are so many ideas yet to explore and create but none of them every try and do more than what WoW has done. Its like WoW succeeded cause they took all the formulas that were popular but only ok, and rewrote them so they were even better and expanded on them. Now all those ideas are boring and old and someone needs to step up and go out on a limb once again. I think FFXIV is striving for that, and will succeed...just the little we know so far is quite different already.

Wish I was able to work on the 2D MMO I wanna create; so many amazing and new ideas for it that have never been done before.

I had my hopes for Stargate..but well..CM dropped that ball in a massive way. No updates from May to November and the only update they can come up with is : "Hi Everyone,

First of all a HUGE thank to our loyal and very patient fan base for hanging in there with us over this long period during which we did not have a lot to report or show. It’s great to be back and we’re excited to give you some fantastic never-before-seen screenshots of armor and weapons for the Goa’uld, Jaffa, Soldier, and Scientist. "
No , unacceptable ..this game had a chance of being something new in a homogenized gaming world . Instead its dev team continues to string people along with empty promises. The lame tie in from the SGU pilot was the last straw for me. Showing in game shots from a game people want but know we will never see felt less of progress and more of a huge middle finger from CM. The in game footage would have been more at home on a ps1 then being listed as a current mmo in development. The fact that the game has a tv series credit before it has even entered a formal beta phase is just stupid in my opinion and shows the lack of foresight by the dev team.
I also looked into the star trek mmo..Klingons must pvp, 90% ship to ship combat and the over all look of the game killed that one for me. Not every player wants to pvp . Telling a player " Oh well care bears can be federation" shows me that devs care less for substance and more for the quick monthly fee. Why develop a solid game when all you have to do is say " You can level by killing other players..dude..it's extreme!!"
Ah well, fingers crossed for FFXIV.

Aye, don't even get me started on the forced PVP being what all the players want... Gods you think they'd have learned by now. Stargate reminds me a ton of Darkfail with it's development, tho I was interested in Star Trek, tho I couldn't for the life of me figure how they'd make a main stream MMO out of it.

Ugh, yeah forced PvP...don't get me started either! :duel:

To be honest we havn't really even seen the next generation of MMO's. I'm the same as about recent new MMO's tareith, most don't hold my interest for more than a glance. The problem is we're still in the era of the same engines and graphical performance as WoW, so unless the story and mechanics are flawless nothing's going to topple WoW yet.

The new breeds of MMO's i'm referring to are SW: TOR and FFXIV. Graphically TOR isn't as rich and lush as XIV, but there's a ton of new additions we've never seen before in MMO's. These kind of innovations are going to be the standard for MMO's come next year. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the biggest struggle XIV is going to face is it's system requirements. Just looking at the screens made me dash for Tigerdirect.com and start planning some computer upgrades. This inaccessibility for the average gamer might turn him/her away. Luckily XI and final fantasy in general has one of the biggest fan-bases of all time for video games, so they should be steadily successful, regardless of said gamer who's unwilling to upgrade.

Still avail on PS3 for $300, very cheap PC that will run it, so there won't be a shortage of access. More MMOs need to start not only releasing on consoles, but also be linked together via regions and systems too.

I mean come on FFXI has proven its successful for 8 yrs now, and not one other company has tried yet saying its not possible...clearly it is, but they're just far too lazy to care it seems. Can you imagine the pop of WoW had they decided to release it on consoles too? sheesh

Without a doubt FFXIV will push the graphics bar hard when it comes out. I'm pretty sure it's the first MMO being developed for multicores (not just multicore enabled), and it shows. The requirements for mid range graphics will be steep, just like FFXI was back in the day. End result is a game that has much better and longer lasting graphics and with any luck, it'll also keep the low end WoWbies away. The PS3 is a very valid option too.

I wouldn't be too worried about higher requirements keeping people away. Just pulling on the former FFXI playerbase and FF fans, it will be at least as big as FFXI was when it launched, if not bigger.

I'll be doing a ps3 if I play FFXIV ( RL may bite me in the rear between now and then so I never commit 100% ) I'm blind as a bat so having the option to play on a huge screen is one of the factors that have me going the ps3 rout. The other being my computer budget for the next few years is tied up in other things .
I just hope there is a usb port on the ps3 for a keyboard...I had that cruddy logitech "ffxi" one before I knew I could plug in a normal usb. ( a few won't work but most do) I would rather not be in a situation where you have to buy a ps3 only key board that may last half a year worth of play.

PS3 supports USB and Wireless KBs...so any will work!

That is good to know.

yeah unfortunately I use the same 22 inch monitor for HDMI hook up to ps3 and VGA hook up to my computer, so come XIV release whichever is more powerful wins my attention lol.

haha, a good read,

i totally understand you guys as im pretty much in the same situation, ever since WOTLk have ruined it for me, i decided im done with MMOs and im just gonna be playing Consoles and any other Single Player

and well it did work for me until SE announces FFXIV, honestly, i was like "meh" at 1st, thinking it would be similar to FFXI but with slight new gameplay, but the more i read and the more i join the FFXIV Community , i felt that this might be the final one for us, MMO lovers

i personally have my eyes on Earthrise before i joined the line for XIV. for me only Earthrise have the potential to make me try them too when they are out, but too bad the FFA PVP kills it off for me, as i am never really a PVP person, that is why FFXIV have the privilege to become my last MMO career