Blizzard is smarter than Square

[levish]

FFXI for PC if i remember correctly uses mostly your cpu.

How is that any different than me saying the PC is slower because the cpu has to deal with other operations at the same time while the PS2 doesn't.

Let me try to explain this in a way that you would understand.

It has nothing to do with what the system is running and what the system can handle. The reason why It loads up faster on ps2 is because it was specifically coded for that platform and then ported over to the PC.

A good example of this is the port of Halo for the PC.

I think in order for you to understand more, you'll prob need to know how to program, or at best know how code is written.

Zigma's right

FFXI is just a port of a console game.

All FFXI needs is FXIII to come out specifically designed for pc capabilties.

i.e. SM2/3, SLI, Crossfire, Multi processors etc etc

It's been in circulation in the US since somewhere between Sept/Oct/Nov 2003. 2.5 years running in the US with 3.5 years running in Japan or more?

So what we really need is a new game with up to date technology and playstyle that reflects current trends.

[aurik]

Why doesn't SE just turn Playonline into a Xbox Live for their games, with one fee?

Playonline actually is a lobby system, one that completely failed when SE failed to provide any good reason to use the system beyond a mandatory frontend for FFXI.

I fail to see why it failed... its used to launch other games which are in beta and or not released in the US. It offers a way to send messages between friends between games. You just don't use it to its full extent. You fail to provide yourself with a reason to use it.

This isn't to say it isn't the most annoying fucking frontend ever developed.

I'm sorry, I bought FFXI to play a MMORPG, not to get a weak messenger that has none of the features I need and want from a messenger.

The reason why XBox live is successful as a frontend to your gaming needs is because it does a whole bunch of shit that people want, as well as allowing access to *all* the software that runs on the system.

Let me take a step back and explain the somewhat questionable history of Playonline. In the beginning, during the dot-com days, it was Square's plan to make Playonline basically the online portal for games in its genre. Just like ea.com, and yahoo!games, and a billion other services that had a varying degrees of success but all fell far short of their dreams.

Much like most dot-com ideas, they failed to connect all the dots: the only reason why people went to the site pre-FFXI was because the official strategy guides for FF9 referenced the site throughout the entire book. In fact, they did so in a very disruptive fashion: "there are 5 pickups to get in this map. Visit playonline and enter the passcode <hard to remember passcode> for a list!"

Needless to say, at the time very few people were playing FF9 next to a computer, so very few people even visited the site. There was practically no other reason to be driven to this portal.

The next step in SE's flawed plan for online dominance was to hook the portal up to the front end of FFXI. And, if FFXI was a PS2 only game, this probably would have been marginally successful, mainly because the features that POL provides don't have much competition on the PS2. If you don't have a computer, then the friends list is your only way of passing messages to your online friends.

What I suppose they didn't realize was that it's a pretty small demographic: who the hell has internet access, plays a MMORPG, and doesn't have a computer?

Furthermore, once they brought the system to PC, they further illustrated just how much of a failure the system is. It doesn't have good message logging. It's difficult to keep track of a conversation that moves slowly. It's bulky. Real-time chat is a pain. Navigation is awkward, slow, and hard to learn. It's completely inferior to using a combination of readily accessible already-commonplace technology like AIM and IRC.

Other than those features, the only reason to have POL on your computer is to launch applications which SE forces you to launch through POL. Which for 99.9% of the people on POL is only FFXI. Not only that, but a lot of the features that you use from POL are available in FFXI itself through the friends list, making POL almost entirely redundant. The major thing that most people will run into from time to time that you need to do through POL is delete someone off your friends list, wtf?

So in summary, I don't see how you can view the POL fiasco as anything but a complete failure. It failed SE: nobody uses it for anything but launching FFXI. It fails us: I much prefer a simpler and more powerful interface such as AIM. And finally, the real message that POL is a failure, all the "good" parts of it, namely the friends list, have been salvaged and ported into FFXI itself, making the application totally superfluous.

[SephYuyX]

Why doesn't SE just turn Playonline into a Xbox Live for their games, with one fee?

Playonline actually is a lobby system, one that completely failed when SE failed to provide any good reason to use the system beyond a mandatory frontend for FFXI.

Hahaha I remember when SE tried to push that shit like.. 7 years ago, I was like a frosh or soph in HS.

[Bikwin]

wow has problems ffxi has problems
ps2 has problems
360 and ps2 have great limitations in comparison to PC(if you dont consider 360 a pc...)

both games burnout eventually when you play them enough therefore i look into the available playable time of a game. In my opinion, WoW has more of a future due to whatever reasons you want to say(BECAUSE THEY HAVE ROOM FOR MORE POLYGONS LOLOOOOL). while on that topic, maybe it is just b/c i kinda lived in the crappy gfx games when i was younger so i pay attention more to content than pretty dresses, but i don't understand why wow looks so much worse in peoples opinions?

my shoulders own

[Eternus]

WoW looks bad because most of the character designs look like they have Down Syndrome. They are overly cartoonish in most cases and sometimes just plain ugly. Just really exaggerated features. I have fun while playing WoW though, just the community is not as good as FFXI IMO. Barrens chat made me want to kill someone.. STFU ABOUT CHUCK NORRIS

[divisortheory]

Yea that chuck norris shit is almost getting as stupid as ytmnd's. not quite there yet, but accelerating towards it pretty fast.

[BRP]

I'd say about 9/10 of the people who make jokes about Chuck Norris never have seen a Texas Walker Ranger episode and don't know about how awesome Vin Diesil is.

[Rocl]

I'd say about 9/10 of the people who make jokes about Chuck Norris never have seen a Texas Walker Ranger episode and don't know about how awesome Vin Diesil is.

Did you mean: Vin Diesel?

:D

[Septimus]

Much like most dot-com ideas, they failed to connect all the dots: the only reason why people went to the site pre-FFXI was because the official strategy guides for FF9 referenced the site throughout the entire book. In fact, they did so in a very disruptive fashion: "there are 5 pickups to get in this map. Visit playonline and enter the passcode <hard to remember passcode> for a list!"

Needless to say, at the time very few people were playing FF9 next to a computer, so very few people even visited the site. There was practically no other reason to be driven to this portal.

I remember that. I really wanted to strange the people who made that strategy guide, instead of herding people to the PlayOnline site, they could have printed all of that crap in the strategy guide and cut down on the number of pages printed because you didn't need those stupid "Visit PlayOnline" margins that took up 1/3rd of each page. >_<

[Ichthyos]

I agree. They only printed half the strategy guide; we bought an ad for the website, not a strategy guide.

[Erebus]

WoW looks bad because most of the character designs look like they have Down Syndrome. They are overly cartoonish in most cases and sometimes just plain ugly. Just really exaggerated features. I have fun while playing WoW though, just the community is not as good as FFXI IMO. Barrens chat made me want to kill someone.. STFU ABOUT CHUCK NORRIS

Everytime I hear people compare FFXI and wow character design, I think of this:

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060208

Change where they say EQ2 with FFXI and it's pretty much the same thing, even the attitudes, lol.

[Marcatil]

CAD is one of my favorite comics XD shit's funny

[Ploid]

Or rather, SE shouldn't have ported this to PC in the first place to screw the game up with poor code on the PC side (bots). Right? Or since PC is where the money is for mmorpgs they could have at least made it so the pc and ps2 servers were seperate.

[Remus]

So if I understand this correctly, Square-Enix was able to cross platform a MMORPG across 2 consoles, a PC, and on top of Xbox Live all running the same servers effectively, while Blizzard says its not possible?

How does that make Blizzard the smarter one? If you mean Blizzard was smarter on not porting WoW to PS2, well that is pretty obvious. You're basically telling Square "Yeah 5 years ago, that was a stupid mistake to make a MMORPG on PS2, should've waited 3 years and made it on a PC, a platform where Japanese gamers barely even play on."

[layoneil]

So if I understand this correctly

you're not

while Blizzard says its not possible?

they're not saying it's not possible.

they're saying developing an MMO cross-platform would mean you're limited to the capablities of the weakest platform (especially when that weakest platform can't be upgraded). and being platform limited is not something they want for their game.

[Correction]

I understand the Blizzard statement as:

The 360's Live service won't let us install Warden, our sneaky rootkit anti-cheating device on their hardware

I doubt this has as much to do with tying yourself to fixed hardware or a particular portal software package as much as it does with Blizzard's desire to install whatever the hell it wants on a client's machine.

Even if they had ported to the 360, I have to wonder how one could have installed any UI mods to WoW. No UI mods in WoW = no endgame for j00.

[Tymon]

PS2 is easier to play and manuver, PC has more options and better graphics, X360 I just don't know because I don't have one and won't for a while.

I play PC 90% of the time so I can watch TV at the same time, but if I'm doing somthing that requires alot of focus like kiting or BCNM I'll switch to PS2 until I'm finished.

[chilicheese]

blizzard is smarter than square because 2 years from now people in WoW won't be doing the same instances for 2 year old items that are still the best in the game.

[BRP]

Ohh, okay. FFXI's drops suck because they released on more than one console. Or are you just very off topic?

[Marcatil]

blizzard is smarter than square because 2 years from now people in WoW won't be doing the same instances for 2 year old items that are still the best in the game.

LOL XD

Edit: He's making a comparison, it's not that hard to tell. It has nothing to do with the console part, it's just a random tangent that happens to be sickly true.