FINAL FANTASY XIV Welcome Back Campaign Kicks Off!

[The Stig]

For those who don't keep much up to date anymore or read the Random Question Thread.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/newsle.../email_en.html

Basically, 10 days free to experience the new things. (nothing to paste, it's a bunch of pics joined up as one)

Who's coming back?

[Karbuncle]

Didn't quite experience much of it. Had enough physical and mental abuse from FFXI to put myself through it in FFXIV again. If FFXIV takes off, Willing to bet they'll stop playing nice and go back to tanakvision-11 and get back to ignoring feedback until its destroying the game again... then continue to ignore it and rush out FFXVII Online so we jump to that while this ones sinking.

Okay, Done being a Negative Nancy. Give them credit for trying, FFXIV is installed on my PC, May give the free trial a whirl to see how much its improved, Cause i am a little interested.

[blythe]

eaux.

[Tomino]

I re-activated a week ago.
While there are plenty of interesting new changes (crafts, skills, combat, overall UI), to me the game still feels very inaccessible in terms of content, especially when compared to any other MMO around, old or upcoming.

WoW
---------------
Level solo, learn your class.
Join a Guild because it gives you bonuses. In time, you may get to know your fellow guild members.
Join LFD parties and see how party combat feels like.
Keep this pace until you reach endgame. LFR to experience top tier content.
You can then start to join players organized runs, guild raids.

FFXIV
--------------
Level solo, learn your class.
Join a LS if you feel like so, except you're not "pointed" to it. There is no LS recruit channel nor anything else.
At lv.30, you're suddenly requested to have 2-3 players helping you. Mind this, it's not a group activity (in a dungeon run, everyone gets something), it's being helped.
Leves become redundant, party experience is the way to go. Again, nothing in the game points you to that. Also, the current party search system still feels like something out of 2001.
As more content becomes available (Totorak, normal primals), you're either supposed to stand idle in Uldah for shouts, or have a very active and friendly LS. Otherwise, it's back to grind.
You reached level cap. It's back to shouting in Uldah for all the group quests you left behind.

Simply put, a game can't be designed on the assumption that players will take the burden to arrange endgame content themselves, via LSes.
This typical FFXI mindset makes the game great for part of its playerbase, and unaccessible by anyone else.

[Karbuncle]

Tom, your post reminded me of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

Mostly along the parts of games shoving tutorials down your throat because they assume you're too stupid to figure out how to play the game without them holding your hand. Luckily its all said within the first 3 minutes, But you should watch it all.. Funny video.

[Burningthought]

I re-activated a week ago.
While there are plenty of interesting new changes (crafts, skills, combat, overall UI), to me the game still feels very inaccessible in terms of content, especially when compared to any other MMO around, old or upcoming.

WoW
---------------
Level solo, learn your class.
Join a Guild because it gives you bonuses. In time, you may get to know your fellow guild members.
Join LFD parties and see how party combat feels like.
Keep this pace until you reach endgame. LFR to experience top tier content.
You can then start to join players organized runs, guild raids.

FFXIV
--------------
Level solo, learn your class.
Join a LS if you feel like so, except you're not "pointed" to it. There is no LS recruit channel nor anything else.
At lv.30, you're suddenly requested to have 2-3 players helping you. Mind this, it's not a group activity (in a dungeon run, everyone gets something), it's being helped.
Leves become redundant, party experience is the way to go. Again, nothing in the game points you to that. Also, the current party search system still feels like something out of 2001.
As more content becomes available (Totorak, normal primals), you're either supposed to stand idle in Uldah for shouts, or have a very active and friendly LS. Otherwise, it's back to grind.
You reached level cap. It's back to shouting in Uldah for all the group quests you left behind.

Simply put, a game can't be designed on the assumption that players will take the burden to arrange endgame content themselves, via LSes.
This typical FFXI mindset makes the game great for part of its playerbase, and unaccessible by anyone else.

A content finder is going to be implemented in 2.0 which should address those problems. It will also be worldless so it'll be able to grab people from any world.

[solracht]

A content finder is going to be implemented in 2.0 which should address those problems. It will also be worldless so it'll be able to grab people from any world.

And in the meantime, Blizzard adds cross-server open-world areas. Way to stay ahead, Square-Enix. I can't shake the feeling off that 2.0 is going to be as hilarious in 2013 as 1.0 was in 2010.

[Izzy]

I re-activated a week ago.
While there are plenty of interesting new changes (crafts, skills, combat, overall UI), to me the game still feels very inaccessible in terms of content, especially when compared to any other MMO around, old or upcoming.

You really hit everything on the head here. I've been sticking this out for a while, and I plan to until 2.0 comes out. If they haven't addressed most of the issues by then, I don't know if I can continue to pay for this when I could just go play MoP.

Mostly along the parts of games shoving tutorials down your throat because they assume you're too stupid to figure out how to play the game without them holding your hand.

I always hated this statement. It's like the condescending fallback argument of the FFXI/FFXIV community. Fine, enjoy your super smart totally convoluted game that you figured out how to play with the 5 people that still play it. Everyone else will be off having fun raiding and killing shit while you spend 5 minutes figuring out how much something costs, running to your retainer, then putting it up in your bazaar.

[Tomino]

A content finder is going to be implemented in 2.0 which should address those problems. It will also be worldless so it'll be able to grab people from any world.

True, but my post was more toward these 10 days trial.

It amuses me that they advertized jobs and primals as reasons to come back, and there is nothing in place to allow newcomers to experience them with ease.
Soon, Uldah will be hosting an impressive shouting crowd, that's for sure.

[Karbuncle]

I always hated this statement. It's like the condescending fallback argument of the FFXI/FFXIV community. Fine, enjoy your super smart totally convoluted game that you figured out how to play with the 5 people that still play it. Everyone else will be off having fun raiding and killing shit while you spend 5 minutes figuring out how much something costs, running to your retainer, then putting it up in your bazaar.

Huh, did I make it sound like i liked how FFXIV did it? No, I don't think i did. I pointed out his post reminded me of a video watched recently. I don't recall anywhere in that statement claiming FFXI/FFXIV executed MMO's perfectly. Considering my last post was basically how horrible they've done in the past. Well, let me clear something up before you blow a blood vessel seething in your own fluids of anger, Because I obvious hit a sore spot with you.

Spoiler: show

Don't worry, If you can't understand what i'm saying, I may include a full on tutorial stage next time

I'm not saying FFXIV Is "doin' it right", I'm saying the idea that the game isn't force feeding you everything like this is the first video game you ever played is a bad thing is a bit convoluted. Sure, Theres some things a game should explain, But any MMO today is going to base around the idea most players going to an MMO are not entirely new to MMOs. Any gamer today getting onto an MMO will know a few things

1) There's an Auction House or Auction house system somewhere. Likely in the Main city.
2) There's likely to be "Raid" Content, And you'll need a group for it.
3) There's likely a Community System, like Guilds, Which you should join if you want to experience end-game activities.
4) Some Quests will likely give you exp and teach you a little of the basics of how to play, through playing, But are usually not the best ways to obtain Exp, Or at least not the Only way.
5) Most great gear will come from Above mentioned "Raids", or High level Rare Monsters.
6) Level cap will be where the game mostly "Begins".
7) Eventually I'll need a party to do content, as its an MMO, I won't be able to solo forever.

These aren't thing i, Or anyone, should need a tutorial to explain, I don't need to be told I should join a Linkshell, Cause I have a brain-stem, and i know in 99% of MMOs, Guilds/Linkshell are a staple for an environment of steady end-game content.

They're basics to just about every MMO on the market. Somehow i feel you're going to try and bend this to me saying FFXIV has no flaws in its execution, Which i'm not saying... and frankly, never did... My only gripe with with the idea that if a game didn't kindly rub your ass and shove direction down your throat its somehow a negative. Part of an MMO is suppose to be exploration of a new world, I don't want to log in and go through a 10 minute forced tutorial that teaches me I can climb a later and I can draw my weapon and fight enemies with it. (TERA did this and it was the most annoying 5-10 minutes of my life trying to play the game).

Basically, Some things need to be explained in a game because its complicated, But some small portion of his complaints can be solved with some degree of brain matter lodged into your skull, or even the most miniscule amount of knowledge on how most MMO's function. Anything not solved can generally be solved by finding a Linkshell/Guild, Which you should do regardless of if an NPC tells you or not, and questions fall into answer-category through your friends/guildmates.

Again, certainly not saying FFXIV has no flaws in how its presented. At all. There's a lot of things that could be done, Personally, I always found retainer systems retarded when the Auction House in FFXI worked just fine, was neater, and a lot more fluid in my opinion. Could be tweaked a little. - I also disliked the Party Search Function when i toyed with it. Both things I feel should be improved on. I don't disagree with everything he said, Just a few of them seemed like basic things any person who's getting into an MMO should know.

[Souj]

I would reactivate my account, except they decided to only do this for 11 days? And they only started telling people about it today? So only 9 days. That's not exactly a whole lot of time to try much of anything out.

[TacoTaru]

If you're already level 50 it is, but if not then you're certainly right. I'm not sure why they didn't do a full month or at least two weeks. Also I would argue even if you're familiar with games, XIV needs a tutorial since it decides to do everything in the most roundabout way imaginable. Even if you understand the concept of an AH, the retainer system is still probably going to give you pause.

[Xanthe]

I would reactivate my account, except they decided to only do this for 11 days? And they only started telling people about it today? So only 9 days. That's not exactly a whole lot of time to try much of anything out.

It was announced 3 weeks ago.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/43218

[Souj]

It was announced 3 weeks ago.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/43218

meh, I only got an email about it today. and then I saw this thread was also only created today.
They think people who don't play ffxiv anymore or going to be regularly checking the ffxiv website?

[ⒻⓊⒸⓀⓎⒺⒶⒽ]

>Game that promotes playing with friends to get shit done.
>Free trial week to milk as much money as they can before 2.0 release.
>Half the servers are closed.

Why the fuck.

[Sup3rB4d]

Because people that stopped playing totally check the FFXIV forums. I thought it was pretty funny the emails come a couple days after the promotion has started.

[Patriarch]

Meanwhile Bethesda works on their Elder Scrolls MMO, which is going full open world.

This game is fucked, im sorry. I don't think 2.0 can pull it off.

[Raldo]

I've never understood why MMOs segregated people by arbitrary servers anyway, but I also have no idea how difficult it would be to shove everyone in the same open world.

[TacoTaru]

Zenimax is diong TESO, not Bethesda. While I'm highly skeptical 2.0 will be a successful relaunch, I don't think I'd look at TESO as some sort of glowing star with those leaked details.

[Lucavi]

And in the meantime, Blizzard adds cross-server open-world areas. Way to stay ahead, Square-Enix. I can't shake the feeling off that 2.0 is going to be as hilarious in 2013 as 1.0 was in 2010.

SE's been three steps behind the ball since their first MMO wasn't the newest game on the block. They'll still have less problems than TERA's system, though, if they allow for more than one class to queue as a tank in the dungeon/quest-finders.

And I still don't see how doing a welcome back campaign pre-2.0 is going to help anything. Most people that left are actually sick of even looking at the game. Sick of the jerky animations, sick of the strange running motions, sick of the wierd leve content, sick of the methods of transportation, ect. The list goes on, and much of what people are sick of is supposedly going to be changed for 2.0. So why give these (and all others, I suppose; I mean, how many people are actually waiting in the wings to get a free 10 days of XIV 1.0 anyway?) players 10 days of free content for the game they aren't looking forward to at all?

If I came back, it would be strictly for trying to grab some AF for my Dragoon. Chances are, however, that I would require a well-trained party to obtain the gear (which the average person that's coming back for any number of the 10 days isn't going to have).

But yeah, hopefully they'll release the figures of how many people partook in the event. If this is for their own internal team to gauge interest leading up to 2.0, we'll see how it goes.