Comments from the Devs

[Enkidu]

Your $12 monthly fee or whatever doesn't just go to developing content, it also goes towards server maintenance and bandwith. These issues haven't magically become free over the past 15 years, and while technology has improved massively so have the server requirements to run such a massive game so it stays comparable. But even so you do get 10-15 hours of content per month for your sub fee, and way more. If you're only going to do content once then you've got yourself a game where you get a patch every 2 months and you play it for the first 2-3 days. They can't develop enough content to keep you playing the rest of the time, because they don't expect the content they make to be only played once. Of course there is some non-repeatable content by design such as main scenario and main quests but the content they spend the most development time on isn't designed to be thrown away after an hour. It sounds like you should stick to single player games.

Your $12/month is buying snake oil, son. Back in the day it was mostly true that server/bandwidth was prohibitively expensive (especially considering how niche the MMO market was), though even back then the bulk of the cost of an MMO was customer service. Today if you look at operating costs they're next to nothing. Still old, but from 2004-2008 Vivendi said WoW cost $200 million total (including all salaries and what not). They'd have to average 300k subs to pay that off plus some profit, more of money printing factory then Nintendo and the costs only get lower. WoW obviously had the benefit of releasing when only shitty MMO's were F2P - XIV does not have that benefit.

But hey if you feel like dropping $144/year to repeat content ad nauseum, then dropping $40-60 for an expansion, be my guest. Doesn't mean I should stick to single player games, just means you're a sucker. I just want my money's worth and if I'm paying a monthly sub. you better believe I want monthly content. If they deliver on that, great, but I really doubt they will.

[Enygma55]

No different than paying $144 for 2 games on the PS3/xbox, essentially paying $60 per month. $144/year sounds like a bargain in my book to play (suppliment) video games. Most games only last people 2-3 days. And then *gasp* they replay it on a higher difficulty. OMG people replaying content, so unheard of!

>> Most people bitch if a game doesnt have replay value lol.

I highly doubt a person plays only 1 MMO game and nothing else on any other system ever for an entire year. If so then you are one dedicated MoFo. A $60 game to keep me occupied between patches is fine in my book.

[Waraji]

This guy.... comparing an MMO to SP Game? Good times, good times.

[Churchill]

Nah he's right, if you pay a sub you should expect a shitload from the developers and anyone who says otherwise is just apologizing.

If it's too much work, hire more people. Customer service for the game should also be top notch, and SE's will most definitely not be.

[Sephiroth]

Your $12/month is buying snake oil, son. Back in the day it was mostly true that server/bandwidth was prohibitively expensive (especially considering how niche the MMO market was), though even back then the bulk of the cost of an MMO was customer service. Today if you look at operating costs they're next to nothing. Still old, but from 2004-2008 Vivendi said WoW cost $200 million total (including all salaries and what not). They'd have to average 300k subs to pay that off plus some profit, more of money printing factory then Nintendo and the costs only get lower. WoW obviously had the benefit of releasing when only shitty MMO's were F2P - XIV does not have that benefit.

But hey if you feel like dropping $144/year to repeat content ad nauseum, then dropping $40-60 for an expansion, be my guest. Doesn't mean I should stick to single player games, just means you're a sucker. I just want my money's worth and if I'm paying a monthly sub. you better believe I want monthly content. If they deliver on that, great, but I really doubt they will.

Monthly content isn't impossible, but then it becomes a case of whether two small patches are better than one large patch. SE have already stated patches will be every 2.5 months so you don't need to stick around to see if they will "deliver" on monthly content because we know they won't. I will be judging them on how much content they put out in these big 2.5 monthly patches and whether that is worth 2.5 monthly fees. At the end of the day if any of us felt we weren't getting our monies worth we'd not keep playing.

It's clear we have different expectations however, I don't expect cheap throw away content that I'm only going to want to play once. Like I said before if it's not fun enough to repeat a reasonable amount of times the content has failed, it's not interesting enough. On the other extreme if you have to repeat it so many times that it becomes a chore (XI Dynamis) that too is terrible content. Content needs the right balance somewhere inbetween.

Also you mention WoW would have required around 300k subs to pay for upkeep and salaries, that is no small amount. It is for WoW and its 10mil subs but ARR won't come anywhere near that. Sure there will be less servers and bandwidth as a result but less development salaries to pay? Who knows? It's clear the salaries are the bulk of the upkeep, but salaries translate to staff producing content so that's not a bad cost.

[hocus]

Nah he's right, if you pay a sub you should expect a shitload from the developers and anyone who says otherwise is just apologizing.

If it's too much work, hire more people. Customer service for the game should also be top notch, and SE's will most definitely not be.

lol, comedy at its best

[Enkidu]

Monthly content isn't impossible, but then it becomes a case of whether two small patches are better than one large patch. SE have already stated patches will be every 2.5 months so you don't need to stick around to see if they will "deliver" on monthly content because we know they won't. I will be judging them on how much content they put out in these big 2.5 monthly patches and whether that is worth 2.5 monthly fees. At the end of the day if any of us felt we weren't getting our monies worth we'd not keep playing.

It's clear we have different expectations however, I don't expect cheap throw away content that I'm only going to want to play once. Like I said before if it's not fun enough to repeat a reasonable amount of times the content has failed, it's not interesting enough. On the other extreme if you have to repeat it so many times that it becomes a chore (XI Dynamis) that too is terrible content. Content needs the right balance somewhere inbetween.

Also you mention WoW would have required around 300k subs to pay for upkeep and salaries, that is no small amount. It is for WoW and its 10mil subs but ARR won't come anywhere near that. Sure there will be less servers and bandwidth as a result but less development salaries to pay? Who knows? It's clear the salaries are the bulk of the upkeep, but salaries translate to staff producing content so that's not a bad cost.

When did I say I expect cheap throw away content? What do you gain from replaying content? You already know the outcome storywise, you already know the boss mechanics, you already know how to win. Seriously, aside from shitty RNG spewing out items, what do you gain? I already said I'm fine with a difficulty ramp, I just see no need to have to replay old content simply because the company is too cheap to develop more content. We'll see what SE does, I'm not trying to throw them under the bus, but they do not have a good track record.

Also WoW was spending 200 million because it had millions of subscribers. The point is just that cost of upkeep on MMO's is a tiny fraction of it's overall budget. There's no way they need even $2/month from each player to keep servers running. How do you think games survive on microtransactions alone? It's not magic.

[Sephiroth]

When did I say I expect cheap throw away content? What do you gain from replaying content? You already know the outcome storywise, you already know the boss mechanics, you already know how to win. Seriously, aside from shitty RNG spewing out items, what do you gain? I already said I'm fine with a difficulty ramp, I just see no need to have to replay old content simply because the company is too cheap to develop more content. We'll see what SE does, I'm not trying to throw them under the bus, but they do not have a good track record.

Also WoW was spending 200 million because it had millions of subscribers. The point is just that cost of upkeep on MMO's is a tiny fraction of it's overall budget. There's no way they need even $2/month from each player to keep servers running. How do you think games survive on microtransactions alone? It's not magic.

If you're only going to play the content once then surely it is throw away content? It will be cheap because why spend big budgets developing content that will become old the day after they release it? I rather have quality over quantity, but that doesn't mean there's no place for quantity too. All those shitty quests you do for EXP are the quantity, but content designed to be more than that should have quality.

Let's just wait and see what SE does with their patches. Housing and level cap increase have been stated to come in the first "major update" and presumably there will be lots more to support that level cap increase.

[Hyan]

Companies put in as much effort as they need to for as many customers as possible to stick around. At least until they think they can profit more with f2p microtransactions...

SE's "track record" is doing exactly what I described. XI players were content with relatively little. ARR players won't be.

[Izzy]

Customer service for the game should also be top notch, and SE's will most definitely not be.

No matter what anyone has to say about FFXIV, this statement will always be true until the end of time.

[Alkar]

When did I say I expect cheap throw away content? What do you gain from replaying content? You already know the outcome storywise, you already know the boss mechanics, you already know how to win. Seriously, aside from shitty RNG spewing out items, what do you gain? I already said I'm fine with a difficulty ramp, I just see no need to have to replay old content simply because the company is too cheap to develop more content. We'll see what SE does, I'm not trying to throw them under the bus, but they do not have a good track record.

Also WoW was spending 200 million because it had millions of subscribers. The point is just that cost of upkeep on MMO's is a tiny fraction of it's overall budget. There's no way they need even $2/month from each player to keep servers running. How do you think games survive on microtransactions alone? It's not magic.

What's the point in creating content that people will only clear once? Do you really want a game full of raids that you'll touch once and be done with it?
How can they possibly keep up with something like that? Even assuming they can release 3 raids a month those will be done in less than a week and then there's 3 more weeks of nothing until the next patch. Do you even realize what you're asking for?
Heck, money has nothing to do with this, it's time. Unless you want shitty content, they also need time to create the raids/content, balance it and all that other stuff.
MMOs and SP games are nothing alike. For a SP game they get their money from a purchase so there's no need to rehash content because they've sold a game to you. At best they'll release DLC and get some more.
MMOs require people that keep playing and developers (not only SE, everyone) can't keep up with them clearing content if they don't implement ways around it. Stuff like different drops or timed unlocks are pretty much required to make things longer until the new stuff is out. There are plenty of ways to make the raids less repetitive like optional routes, random enemy placement, different requirements and obviously higher difficulty. All things that you won't find in raids that aren't meant to be that complex to begin with.

[Lokus]

There are plenty of ways to make the raids less repetitive like optional routes, random enemy placement, different requirements and obviously higher difficulty. All things that you won't find in raids that aren't meant to be that complex to begin with.

Shouldn't raids just be that complex to begin with then? The more varied an encounter, the less repetitive it'll seem. I can understand leveling instances being straightforward since that's all they are, you do it a couple times to get some exp and maybe some gear and move on. Endgame should absolutely try to be as varied as possible, even within the same instance imo. Even adding something simple like a scoring mechanic to the instance adds some replay value to it.

[Vuitton]

Shouldn't raids just be that complex to begin with then? The more varied an encounter, the less repetitive it'll seem. I can understand leveling instances being straightforward since that's all they are, you do it a couple times to get some exp and maybe some gear and move on. Endgame should absolutely try to be as varied as possible, even within the same instance imo. Even adding something simple like a scoring mechanic to the instance adds some replay value to it.

Weren't people bitching about the old Toto-Rak because you could take 1 of 3 different paths and face 1 of 3 different bosses? That's some replay value right there technically. That's also technically 3 dungeons in one.

[Gulkeeva]

On a side note... don't expect, to be getting your "gear" handed to you like candy. If anything, unless your expecting miracles, don't expect to get "the best gear" from a raid for a long time. I'm sure those that have ran the instances at the upper levels in beta will know what I'm talking about going for "the best" (unless your that 1 lucky class, dam you all, its raining loot on you people!).

Kinda the main reason for people to do raids, not many do it "just t see new content" they do it, so they got gear to rape people/strut in town/massacre people in PVP etc

[Sephiroth]

On a side note... don't expect, to be getting your "gear" handed to you like candy. If anything, unless your expecting miracles, don't expect to get "the best gear" from a raid for a long time. I'm sure those that have ran the instances at the upper levels in beta will know what I'm talking about going for "the best" (unless your that 1 lucky class, dam you all, its raining loot on you people!).

Kinda the main reason for people to do raids, not many do it "just t see new content" they do it, so they got gear to rape people/strut in town/massacre people in PVP etc

Indeed but with these pre-cap raids it's viable to skip any super rare loot and move on to the next raid. The common loot is enough for progression, or crafted items probably.

[Rionel]

On a side note... don't expect, to be getting your "gear" handed to you like candy. If anything, unless your expecting miracles, don't expect to get "the best gear" from a raid for a long time. I'm sure those that have ran the instances at the upper levels in beta will know what I'm talking about going for "the best" (unless your that 1 lucky class, dam you all, its raining loot on you people!).

Kinda the main reason for people to do raids, not many do it "just t see new content" they do it, so they got gear to rape people/strut in town/massacre people in PVP etc

I had no idea how rare those "gears" from the highest dungeon were until I got mine for my CNJ.

I swear I only ever saw maybe 3~4 of those equips the entire Beta.

[Alkar]

Shouldn't raids just be that complex to begin with then? The more varied an encounter, the less repetitive it'll seem. I can understand leveling instances being straightforward since that's all they are, you do it a couple times to get some exp and maybe some gear and move on. Endgame should absolutely try to be as varied as possible, even within the same instance imo. Even adding something simple like a scoring mechanic to the instance adds some replay value to it.

Not really, no. These mechanics are wasted in lower level raids because you eventually move on anyway and the first ones need to be simple enough so people can get into it. We haven't seen an endgame raid yet which is my whole point here, that's where these mechanics should show up because it's the content you'll be repeating the most.

[Charismatic]

Weren't people bitching about the old Toto-Rak because you could take 1 of 3 different paths and face 1 of 3 different bosses? That's some replay value right there technically. That's also technically 3 dungeons in one.

It would have been if that actually mattered.
There was basically a "right" way to run it. If all of the paths were equal and gave different (but about equal so that you want to do them all) rewards/experiences it would have had replay value of sorts.

[Lokus]

Not really, no. These mechanics are wasted in lower level raids because you eventually move on anyway and the first ones need to be simple enough so people can get into it. We haven't seen an endgame raid yet which is my whole point here, that's where these mechanics should show up because it's the content you'll be repeating the most.

We're shooting at the same target here. I don't expect overly complex things in leveling dungeons because they are essentially throwaway content. Not to mention, all the classes are pretty bare bones till endgame limiting the type of encounters you can create.

I personally don't want to run lowbie dungeons over and over. I plan to just get my levels and keep it moving, drops be damned. I suspect the equivalent dungeons for the other nations will end up being the same anyway, but with a different skin and tuned to the classes from that nation. Which reminds.. still only have one dedicated healer in game...

[Grey Jorildyn]

The healer bottleneck is very noticeable in the beta, at least on my server. I can't imagine it's much different elsewhere. It really sucks having to find a CNJ for every god damn thing. I almost want them to foresake traditional trinity for something more open-ended (not exactly GW2 though). I kinda miss the days when THM could heal to that end. This game needs another healer coming out of the gate soon imo. WHM is great and all, but it's so stock and boring to play.