Comments from the Devs

[Kami]

Apparently, the cool thing to do these days is to go to the one forum (rather: the sole remaining forum) with the highest concentration of endgame FFXI players and then talk about how dumb it is to use Final Fantasy XI as a point of comparison to the new Final Fantasy MMO being released.

This is like going to shoryuken.com and then being dismayed that most people there compare new Street Fighter games to previous Street Fighter games instead of Tekken or Melty Blood. Expand your horizons, bro!

Couldn't agree more but for some reason you have to hate XI if you want to be one of the cool kids here. Even if that means hating on a game you've played - and probably loved - for years. Go figure.

[Stanislaw]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/373

The City of Angels
June 09, 2013

Hello everyone!
Fernehalwes here.

A few hours ago, the FINAL FANTASY XIV team touched safely down in sunny Los Angeles. For those of you wondering, this year's Yoshi-P entourage consists of myself, project manager M, and Foxclon from the Community & service department (not by any means listed in order of importance).

On our way to the hotel, we passed by something that looked eerily familiar...

http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/as...00x266-554.jpg

Wait? Did you miss it because you were driving too fast?
That's okay, because Square Enix America has LINED THE STREETS WITH GAIUS.

http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/as...00x600-556.jpg

But that's not all!
Our American offices went all out and even jacked the room keycards at a bunch of local hotels serving the E3 clientele!

http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/na/as...00x266-558.jpg

Now I have to admit, those are sweet.

Fernehalwes

Click the images for bigger pics.

[Sephiroth]

I always think about this, and realized that if 1.0 had been released 11 years ago, it woulda been the greatest MMO ever to exist.

That's true (minus the horrible UI), but the standard of MMOs was a lot lower 11 years ago. Well, more the expectations were a lot lower because people didn't know any better, hence why many of us loved XI at the time but hate it now. I'm not even sure it's fair to compare XI 2013 with XI 2003 anyway, completely different game. I hear you can go 1-99 in a week now, what is that shit? lol. Not saying that's bad, but I remember 1-75 taking a good 4 or 5 months.

[Elcura]

Couldn't agree more but for some reason you have to hate XI if you want to be one of the cool kids here. Even if that means hating on a game you've played - and probably loved - for years. Go figure.

You don't have to hate XI, but if you think it's a good game then you're fooling yourself. I always say you can love a bad game, it just helps if you know its bad and love it anyway for something rather than not know why it sucks.

[Cutriss]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/373

Click the images for bigger pics.

So first, glad to see Marketing getting it right for once.

Second - I thought Fernehalwes was going to liken that streetlamp to a Moogle pom for a minute there.

[Deuce]

Well it appears as though we're going to get the marketing blitz that we always wanted during E3. The question is will what they show be enough to get the interest of the MMO community aimed towards ARR?

[Kononeko]

Well it appears as though we're going to get the marketing blitz that we always wanted during E3. The question is will what they show be enough to get the interest of the MMO community aimed towards ARR?

I know a lot of MMO players that are really hyped up on FFXIV: ARR I think that its about time that they start focusing on marketing to the common folk. They have a good time to do it to if they want to spend the cash on some ads during the NBA and NHL finals. Both should have a big viewer base this year.

[Deuce]

I know a lot of MMO players that are really hyped up on FFXIV: ARR I think that its about time that they start focusing on marketing to the common folk. They have a good time to do it to if they want to spend the cash on some ads during the NBA and NHL finals. Both should have a big viewer base this year.

Very true, but I believe there are still many players who enjoy MMOs to attract. There is a lot if buzz with titles such as TES:O and even Bungie's Destiny. Personally I'd like to see SE try and steal some of that thunder from those games. It shouldn't be that hard either, with the beta for TES:O suffering a lot of criticism after the leak and the fact that we have yet to see anything compelling from Destiny.

I suppose we are supposed to learn more about Destiny this week, however, I'm still hoping that ARR can be one of the larger titles to come out of E3 as a winner and clear contender for subscription fees in the coming future.

[Cutriss]

Very true, but I believe there are still many players who enjoy MMOs to attract. There is a lot if buzz with titles such as TES:O and even Bungie's Destiny. Personally I'd like to see SE try and steal some of that thunder from those games. It shouldn't be that hard either, with the beta for TES:O suffering a lot of criticism after the leak and the fact that we have yet to see anything compelling from Destiny.

I suppose we are supposed to learn more about Destiny this week, however, I'm still hoping that ARR can be one of the larger titles to come out of E3 as a winner and clear contender for subscription fees in the coming future.

Destiny isn't really going to compete with ARR any more than Halo does, and currently it's not supposed to have a sub fee.

And I'm not really a shooter guy, but I'm pretty interested in Destiny. Only thing disappointing about it is that every time I hear the title, it makes me weep over SG:U.

[Waraji]

I really hope their enthusiasm to ride the coat pockets of ME doesn't fail them on this one. It's hard selling RPG's to brogamers. It's an interesting concept for a Console game, and it can only make the Xjuan more appealing. It certainly is difficult to compare Sub-Free games to Sub-Fee games though, regardless of how RPG alike they may be. The quality of a Sub-Fee game will always be substantially more than a Sub-Free game.

It's going to be a pretty interesting watch from our Sub-Fee seats, how this Sub-Free game will handle "content updates" lolDLC.

[Gokulo]

Apparently, the new beta emails will go out on the 12th? So look out for them and download links etc.

FR Twitter:

[Gulkeeva]

That's true (minus the horrible UI), but the standard of MMOs was a lot lower 11 years ago. Well, more the expectations were a lot lower because people didn't know any better, hence why many of us loved XI at the time but hate it now. I'm not even sure it's fair to compare XI 2013 with XI 2003 anyway, completely different game. I hear you can go 1-99 in a week now, what is that shit? lol. Not saying that's bad, but I remember 1-75 taking a good 4 or 5 months.

1-75 back in the day didn't take that long unless you played drg >.>
Think it took an average of a month, of grinding crabs... more crabs... some goblins then crabs and more crabs and then maybe skeletons/dancing weapons/more crabs and then lv 75


Anyway i've seen a lot of pics from th FFXIV ARR E3 event banners, posters etc all over the place, so they are really getting the marketing out for when its actually open

[Gokulo]

Steelbook design:

https://vine.co/v/blBmbleKz16

[Sephiroth]

1-75 back in the day didn't take that long unless you played drg >.>
Think it took an average of a month, of grinding crabs... more crabs... some goblins then crabs and more crabs and then maybe skeletons/dancing weapons/more crabs and then lv 75

Anyway i've seen a lot of pics from th FFXIV ARR E3 event banners, posters etc all over the place, so they are really getting the marketing out for when its actually open

I was more referring to first job. Certainly no one was 75 after a month on my server. But there was a lot of cock blocks like sub job quest, LBs, AF etc. that slowed people down. But for extra jobs you may be right.

Where are you getting all these pics? Or is it just what has been posted in this thread?

[Spider-Dan]

You don't have to hate XI, but if you think it's a good game then you're fooling yourself.

Have you played Final Fantasy 1 recently? That game is pretty horrible and I don't know why people liked it. There's zero character plot development, the magic system is ridiculous, the enemy targeting system ("ineffective") is childishly stupid, and the game is heavily grind-focused. I mean, while we're applying today's standards to games of past decades.

I'm reasonably sure that nearly all of the supposed problems you associate with XI don't apply to that game as it is today, so are you really doing anything other than hindsight criticism of a ten-year-old game? Just to clarify.

[Spider-Dan]

1-75 back in the day didn't take that long unless you played drg >.>
Think it took an average of a month, of grinding crabs... more crabs... some goblins then crabs and more crabs and then maybe skeletons/dancing weapons/more crabs and then lv 75

You could do 1-75 in "a month" if you already had five other 75s and were in an endgame linkshell to pull a semi-static party from.

If you were doing pickups on a non-princess job (i.e. not BRD/RDM/COR) and were already well-funded, 4 months sounds more reasonable to me.

[Waraji]

Have you played Final Fantasy 1 recently?

What'ru doing bro? What is this even? Are we allowed to start throwing in other references to older games to compare to new games. I'ma start comparing how shitty of a game Contra was to Halo 3.

In hindsight it doesn't matter, because no one expects anyone to start playing a 10 year old MMO, 10 years after it was released.

[Spider-Dan]

In hindsight it doesn't matter, because no one expects anyone to start playing a 10 year old MMO, 10 years after it was released.

And yet "XI is a horrible game" still keeps appearing in this thread for some reason.

It's possible to look at an older game and say "Here are some things that game did well" without necessarily jumping to the conclusion that SE should just rerelease RoZ XI in HD.

[Gulkeeva]

I was more referring to first job. Certainly no one was 75 after a month on my server. But there was a lot of cock blocks like sub job quest, LBs, AF etc. that slowed people down. But for extra jobs you may be right.

Where are you getting all these pics? Or is it just what has been posted in this thread?

2chan seems to be passing around pics, some from what we've seen some may not have been posted.

You could do 1-75 in "a month" if you already had five other 75s and were in an endgame linkshell to pull a semi-static party from.

If you were doing pickups on a non-princess job (i.e. not BRD/RDM/COR) and were already well-funded, 4 months sounds more reasonable to me.

Got to admit I did get a little help early on from JP LS at the start (dunno about you but JP really did help out many NA people on my server when it first opened up for NA release), and from limit breaks. As for the rest, since I was out of highschool and not in college yet, my average playtime is about 14-20 hours per day. I did near 20 hours a day average when I later joined a JP HNMLS/Dynamis LS especially.

Ah, it'll be nice to relive those countless gaming hours in FFIX 2.0... I can still dedicate 12-14 hours a day even while in a university, and doing all the imageboard updates I do... although as of recently FFXIV fanart has exploded.

Ah dam now I'm getting nostalgia flashbacks of all the people running everywhere for the lich paper limit break aggroing everything freaking out at all the mobs coming up from the bottom floor...

[Lucavi]

1-75 back in the day didn't take that long unless you played drg >.>

Fuck you, Gulk. Your ninja loved leveling with me on those dhamels. I forget what class I was at that point, though... was it bard? Shit.