Rapture in this years E3?

[Correction]

SE has made leaps and bounds lately, so I don't see where this is coming from. Their only (IMO) major mistake with XI was not separating the communitys. If this is taken care of (and hopefully they learned from XI...) I'm sure the NA community will be much more involved in the direction of the game from the get go. While we were largely ignored at first, they actually were very involved with the japanese players; whom are modest and not very outspoken people so it explains a lot about their PR skills.

Are you actually reading the interviews or is your trust in their community management based on some conjured fiction? That the ratio of straightforward answer/"we'll take that question back to japan" has gone from 0/20 to maybe 2/20 is not indicative of improvement by 'leaps and bounds.' SE's overarching message about their direction with FFXI is 'look forward to more exciting developments soon!' and shrouds enough obscurity over the details that no matter what comes out they can claim it was part of their plans all along. They release content for their MMO fairly regularly like any developer should but when the community identifies a problem (hey look AV can't be killed), they say nothing. Community works around the problem (lolzerg it), they ninja fix it and continue to say nothing.

This is the disjoint between the quality of the content they release, which is often pretty good, and their 'black box' approach to every community relations problem that comes their way. They're the Dick Cheney of MMO community relations.

Community: "There's a clear problem with your game. This has got to be a bug."
SE: "We don't want to spoil the surprise for our players who wish to solve the problem on their own."
Community: "Hey we noticed you took action vis-a-vis [insert problem here] but it creates huge problems for [insert class here]. Do you have any plans to deal with it?"
SE: "We are actively monitoring the situation."
Community: "Really? It's been well over a year, can you give more details?"
SE: "No."
Community: "I want a cheese sandwich."
SE: "Here you go."

It's that pattern that has not improved since the first time someone trained spiders through Fafnir. Until I see "SE hires full-time North American community relations staff, with offices in America and a Batphone to Japan for Rapture's simultaneous world wide launch" in a headline somewhere, I'm going to be pessimistic about the odds that Rapture will represent a step in a positive direction for the company.

[zoobernut]

Any fellow BG'ers going to this years E3 and planning on posting live updates ?_?

I am heading to E3 this year. I will be there all three days. I do not have the means to do live updates and posts but I will try to take lots of pictures and stuff.

[Kisamoo]

Wall of Text

You make some good points but honestly I doubt these would be as much of a concern if you all didn't have BG to form your collective opinion and plant this deep rooted hatred for SE after years of bitter king camping/neglect. All I'm saying is XI was a great game if you stepped back from BG and didn't listen to all the bitching sometimes. I've been here since pretty much the beginning of these forums and BG was formed pretty much with no rules, no mods, and a lot of bitching. That has changed a lot since the BGWoW thing but the people didn't. I'm not saying SE was perfect but the amount of SE Hate vs the amount of time most of the people here have put into the game does not compute.

Things that were great about XI:
-Slower pace of battles allowed for more strategy. I found this to be the most interesting aspect of XI- whereas WoW players refined their strategys over a month or so; we did it over the course of years, and the game changed through many player innovations.
-XI didn't obsolete content. I found it silly that a lot of the instances in WoW went largely ignored for new content, becoming wastes of space once the lvl cap was raised.
-Sideways progression. This isn't something you find in any MMO besides XI lately. Some games may have a bit of sideways progression, but XI was built on it.
-Story.
-Job system. I have never replayed and releveled a character as much as I have XI and it was always fun.
-Character developement. XI was a hardcore game and the amount of character developement reflects that. Most games, you get lvl cap, grind pvp/raid gear, lvl an alt. Done.

Things that sucked about XI (according to the amount of bitching):
-Not being able to kill AV
-Ninja fixes
-Kings
-PR skills
-Puppetmaster
-Global servers

But I guess no matter what I say I'm going to be lampooned for not being as jaded and bitter as you. That's alright, I know deep down you all love SE and want to forgive her.

[zoobernut]

There should be less bitching about SE as a company and FFXI in this thread and more talk about E3 and what sorts of things people look forward to seeing there.

Even with all of SE's flaws it will be interesting to see Rapture.

[Correction]

I've been here since pretty much the beginning of these forums and BG was formed pretty much with no rules, no mods, and a lot of bitching.

Did you seriously just say "I've been around BG a long time" to me? :D

Don't turn this into a WoW vs. FFXI discussion unless you're secretly trying to get the thread locked. I've repeatedly said that FFXI's weaknesses have little/nothing to do with jobs, merit parties, etc, and look to the identifiably real problems with playing an SE MMO. The community has largely moved on from 'old school' complaints like MPK, kings and Dynamis drop rates. What does remain is a sense that getting any answers from SE's design and development team requires jumping through hoops (see why BG isn't a premiere site) for no serious benefit (see any interview conducted by a premiere site). They are simply going through the motions of giving interviews to this side of the ocean but you're always left with this bitter taste that they simply do not respect us. They may be listening, they may make changes based on our input, but they're horribly dismissive of the interface we conform to, hat in hand, for their answers.

Since you like to brag about how long you've been here, do you remember this interview? There's a solid reason Sundi became a running gag and it has everything to do with the NA/SE Japan interaction. They assign a tosser who is either not authorized to give us the answers we seek or straight up doesn't know them to liase with us and hope that we'll be satisfied with that. When we are not, they give us an array of lazily addressed interviews, which is as far as they've come in 5 years of dealing with the NA player base. Again, not 'leaps and bounds.'

Maybe Rapture will be so smooth technically and have such an intuitive experience in store for us that we're not in a position where we have to BEG SE for answers for unexplained game behavior, but that's layering hope upon hope, and I stopped believing in Santa Claus ages ago.

[BRP]

Kojima doesn't respect us MGS fans, why is he always trolling me on everything?

Why dont you realize I love you Kojima? ;_;

[Correction]

Kojima : NEXT :: Will Wright : Spore

[Hyan]

I could care less about player/dev interaction if the game sucks. Same goes for the opposite. If they can make a good game without our help, I don't mind.

[Kisamoo]

Wall o Text 2

You seem to be intent on making this personal for some reason but I expected no less. The only point I tied into my join date was the remarks about how BG forums started. I didn't say anything negative about WoW, I said 'silly' (key word, I knew it would be taken out of context). I don't really feel like playing forum PVP but I'll bite in the LEAST AGGRESSIVE WAY POSSIBLE.

I don't care if SE doesn't listen to me, if I were SE, I wouldn't listen to BG either. There's a reason they listen to sites like Alla and that's because they're civil. You all knew that though, but flinging shit is funner; as that seems to the only manner you're capable of posting in.

[Ziero]

What does remain is a sense that getting any answers from SE's design and development team requires jumping through hoops (see why BG isn't a premiere site)

I thought BG wasn't a premiere site because this place has topics full of porn, constant mocking of other players, open discussion of 3rd pt apps and a general "full of asshats" air about it.

It has nothing to do with respecting the NA community (little hint, they treat the JPs the same way) and everything to do with the fact that BG is full of content SE can't officially link on it's FFXI website.

On topic, I would love to hear more info about Rapture, but I doubt we'll get anything concrete.

[Correction]

You seem to be intent on making this personal for some reason but I expected no less.

You seem to be intent on mistaking a disagreement over expecations of Rapture as personal attacks on you, but I expected no less.

There's a reason they listen to sites like Alla and that's because they're civil. You all knew that though, but flinging shit is funner; as that seems to the only manner you're capable of posting in.

You would have a hard time finding one personal attack in any of my posts in this thread. We disagree; you're convinced I have no valid reasons for my point of view because you paint me as a poo-flinging caricature with no regard for the validity of my posts. I'd write more but then you'd likely ignore it again, dismissing it as another 'wall o text.'

[Kisamoo]

You seem to be intent on mistaking a disagreement over expecations of Rapture as personal attacks on you, but I expected no less.

You would have a hard time finding one personal attack in any of my posts in this thread. We disagree; you're convinced I have no valid reasons for my point of view because you paint me as a poo-flinging caricature with no regard for the validity of my posts. I'd write more but then you'd likely ignore it again, dismissing it as another 'wall o text.'

Got me there. I had you pegged the second you came into this thread to bitch about a game that wasn't XI, that we know nothing about besides being made by SE. I didn't mean any offense by 'wall of texting', I just didn't think anyone needed me to quote the whole thing to realise I was replying to you.

I'll quote myself.

You make some good points but honestly I doubt these would be as much of a concern if you all didn't have BG to form your collective opinion and plant this deep rooted hatred for SE after years of bitter king camping/neglect.

I still stand by this point cause despite all the whining, people still play, and XI is still one of the most active MMOs out there. We go lolPS2 limitations but whether we liked it or not, it was a legit reason. We go 'wut' but we all know Sundi was just a front man that knew nothing. Just like we all knew our voices wouldn't be heard posting on BG. So you're right, I do believe you have no valid reasons or points because, well the major reason being is that this game isn't even out yet. You just want to perpetuate SE's incompetence based on their first MMO; which I will say again, I do not think is valid.

[Correction]

I do believe you have no valid reasons or points because, well the major reason being is that this game isn't even out yet. You just want to perpetuate SE's incompetence based on their first MMO; which I will say again, I do not think is valid.

In other words, your optimistic speculation is better than my pessimistic speculation. Awesome.

[Ziero]

Except SE does read and react to things from BG. SE most certainly does not ignore this site, it just doesn't deal and promote it directly because of reasons listed earlier.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I am kinda looking forward to hearing some more about this myself. And I will most likely give it a shot too, assuming the combat system isn't dumb-fuck-lame-ass boring like in FFXI.

[Stiker]

I'm definitely going to give it a shot and I'm looking forward to seeing a preview.

For all of FFXI's faults, I have enjoyed playing it for years. SE has shown some signs of listening to the player base (FoV comes to mind). Also, I don't think enough people stop to think that in order to solve some of the major issues with the game, you basically have to rebuild the damn thing.

That's more what I'm looking at Rapture as. Did SE learn from their mistakes with FFXI or are they going to repeat them again? If this looks like FFXI v2, I do not think I will be giving this much of my time at all.

[Veyron]

Semi-looking forward to hearing about Rapture, my boss is going and has an all access pass for E3, so he'll be able to give me some feedback which I'll pass on.. if I actually get anything worth posting D:

[Kisamoo]

In other words, your optimistic speculation is better than my pessimistic speculation. Awesome.

Well, yeah. It's certainly more productive in building excitement for a game that this thread is relevant to instead of whining about the things of the past. Forum mentality I guess.

I posted that I felt SE had made leaps and bounds lately, so it gives me more hope that they're willing to work with the players this time. If SE's recent changes to XI don't reflect that, then I guess we're playing a different game, because as far I read, a lot of people have been happy with how XI has been lately; sans salvage bannings.

[Antithesis]

SE should focus on fixing their current cashcow first before fucking releasing another. I'm not going to hit up Rapture. Wasted too much time on this game already.

[Raikku]

Only a few more days until we find out what SE has been planning MMO-wise for the past couple years. SE is either gonna delivery or fail simple as that.

Also wasn't Rapture originally planned to be released on the Xbox 360 as well as PS3 and PC?