Why are you looking forward to FF14?

[Lucavi]

So I guess noone here plays Chess because you dont get a reward for it? Just sayin'.

P.S. In no way am I defending the fact that pankration and brenner were not generally fun, at least to me. I would hope people don't do that b/c its not fun, not b/c you dont get a gold star for being good at it.

You don't pay $15 bucks a month to a company in hopes of supporting the content they've released and to play chess.

Its a completely different medium. If SE was offering rewards for beating connect 4, scrabble, checkers, and battleship with your friends over a 3 year span, then introduced chess (ballista) with no reward attached to it at all other than the thrill of victory, it's going to last for awhile, but not forever.

Now, if SE then releases a backgammon (pankration) that you cannot play, only watch your AI vs. another AI and releases no rewards, yeah.. no one would play as soon as they found out that fact.

It wasn't all about rewards, either. SE hosted a ballista tournament. That tournament was very popular, and saw action from just about every server. They killed it after one "season". They stopped supporting the system they released. Its no suprise its dead.

They set up a ladder-style tournament system for Brenner, but did nothing with it, hoping that people would just set up 32-team tournaments just because, and suprise! It didn't stick at all.

If the company who makes the content isn't providing a reward (an incentive to play), and isn't supporting the content in some other way like an official tournament for bragging rights and nothing else (an incentive to play), then you cannot blame the consumer for failing to continue to find incentives to play.

The blame falls on the developer for failing to support their product through incentives.

[Thiefami]

11 was a train wreck?

I was under the impression it has been wildly successful.

[Eaglestrike]

11 was a train wreck?

I was under the impression it has been wildly successful.

Relative to most other MMO's, it's been a success, but hardly "wildly successful".

[Thiefami]

Relative to most other MMO's, it's been a success, but hardly "wildly successful".

oh okay.

[McGoonagle]

Relative to most other MMO's, it's been a success, but hardly "wildly successful".

Wasn't a train wreck either, like Aion might be turning into...

[Xavier]

More than anything else, the allure of starting over.

I am looking forward to reconciling with old friends, making amends for past mistakes, and being part of a group that made the first few years of FFXI such an amazing experience for me. As for the game itself, I am hoping for an endgame that incorporates some form of actual progression and a better balance of time vs. reward.

[Eaglestrike]

Wasn't a train wreck either, like Aion might be turning into...

Eh...I think the major reason the NA population was kept on for FFXI was the delay on release. I mean RotZ came with the NA release, we had an entire expansion extra of content to get into. Combine the grind with having 2ish years of stuff to catch up and there was a lot more for NA's to do.

There was also a hefty loss of people during CoP NA-side, which I think some might call a "train wreck". ToAU began to patch things up though. But I'd say that ToAU for FFXI is like the patches people are claiming for AoC and stuff that fix everything up.

But then MMO's crash and burn a lot harder post-WoW, FFXI had the benefit of being compared to nothing or EQ, so people dealt with a lot more. Now when Aion comes out it has to compete with FFXI, AoC, LotRO, WoW, etc. and if the game can't capture what those games have people will just return to their previous MMO. If FFXI had come after WoW and been the same game (though it would not have been) it would've crashed hard at least by the time CoP came out.

From a gameplay standpoint, FFXI is just as bad and imo worse than any of these MMO's that have come out and been a "train wreck", it just had much better timing for the NA audience.

Also population-wise, FFXI has held steady at 500kish, right? But that's like 280k JP? The non-JP FFXI population is pretty tiny, probably not higher than a lot of the other MMO's with a niche market.

[Neoscrilla]

ToAU was a weak attempt to make the game more "accessible" for the retard demographic that comes with the XBox 360. As a result, traditional forms of leveling were tossed aside for dumbed down mechanics. TP Burns became the norm, SC-->MB was made obsolete and certain jobs that were deemed "overpowered" (BLM) were fucked in the ass with no lube. (Unless you think puddings is how parites should be for BLMs). For people that played during the RoTZ and COP "era," most will agree that ToAU was a slap in the face to people who did it the "hard way" (CoP mission nerf anyone?) SE deserves props for bringing a successful MMO to the console market, but after CoP, each subsequent expansion did more to alienate the original foundation of players that the game was supposed to be built on. All of this may or may not have been averted or remedied by actually communicating with the player base, but hey, the 40+ year olds in Japan that made the game and have never made a MMO before know what we want....right? right? This is not to say that since CoP there wasnt any good things, because there were. It just seems to me that if I were asked when the major downfall of this game begin, I would say it was the ToAU era.

EDIT: Got sidetracked and didnt even say why I am excited for 14........I am looking forward to starting fresh, and seeing if SE addresses many of the problems that hurt FFXI.

[Kawfee]

From a gameplay standpoint, FFXI is just as bad and imo worse than any of these MMO's that have come out and been a "train wreck", it just had much better timing for the NA audience.

Also population-wise, FFXI has held steady at 500kish, right? But that's like 280k JP? The non-JP FFXI population is pretty tiny, probably not higher than a lot of the other MMO's with a niche market.

These points are all true. However, I think FFXIV is also coming at an opportune time (some of this has already been pointed out by other members but I don't know what thread or when/etc):

When FFXI came out, you basically had two ways to play: PC, or PS2 (xbox came much later). For PS2 users, you also had the buy the hard to find and expensive add-on hard-drive, you may have needed a network adapter, and all in all was just generally a high level of difficulty/cost to get "into" the game. I don't know the exact statistics but I would bet the majority (maybe ~65%) of NA users were on PCs. However, FF was primarily a console franchise, so it was inaccessible to a lot of the FF fan base.

Now, with FFXIV coming on at least PS3 and PC, with zero extra hardware required, I think it's going to get a lot of attention from console users. There really aren't any other big name MMORPGs on consoles in NA-land, and this has all the right elements to appeal to the market (big name franchise, gorgeous screenshots, favorable view so far from game review sites/magazines).

Given that huge untapped console market, plus the FFXI existing player base, I think FFXIV should do fairly well, definitely better than XI and likely better than AION.

[Eaglestrike]

ToAU was a weak attempt to make the game more "accessible" for the retard demographic that comes with the XBox 360. As a result, traditional forms of leveling were tossed aside for dumbed down mechanics. TP Burns became the norm, SC-->MB was made obsolete and certain jobs that were deemed "overpowered" (BLM) were fucked in the ass with no lube. (Unless you think puddings is how parites should be for BLMs). For people that played during the RoTZ and COP "era," most will agree that ToAU was a slap in the face to people who did it the "hard way" (CoP mission nerf anyone?) SE deserves props for bringing a successful MMO to the console market, but after CoP, each subsequent expansion did more to alienate the original foundation of players that the game was supposed to be built on. All of this may or may not have been averted or remedied by actually communicating with the player base, but hey, the 40+ year olds in Japan that made the game and have never made a MMO before know what we want....right? right? This is not to say that since CoP there wasnt any good things, because there were. It just seems to me that if I were asked when the major downfall of this game begin, I would say it was the ToAU era.

EDIT: Got sidetracked and didnt even say why I am excited for 14........I am looking forward to starting fresh, and seeing if SE addresses many of the problems that hurt FFXI.

You must be similar to those people thinking vanilla was the pinnacle of WoW gaming. CoP mission-wise was amazing. Everything else was fairly lackluster.

Because IMO ToAU saved FFXI for me, at least for a while. I most likely would've quit far earlier. If you think TP burns and the loss of SC-> MB happened from ToAU you weren't too far up there in CoP. The original TP burns came in sky on Deco weapons. There were "pierce burns" (forget if they had a better name) on the birds in Lufaise. I even did TP burns in sea on Aerns, fuckin' right I did.

The reason TP burns existed and SC-> MB stopped is because of the poor actual mechanics of them. You couldn't make a good SC out of strong TP moves. You often had to use poor weapon skills to get a SC effect. Then half the time the SC bonus damage gets resisted. Or maybe in your group it's not even possible to make one of the few good SC's. The idea for SC's is great and I'd like to see the idea to fit and work within FFXIV, but it wasn't tweaked as it should have been for FFXI.

Also another reason SC-> MB's fell out is actually BECAUSE of BLM's. They would go and do manaburns in sky on statues, leaving all the melee to do groups without them. In response merit parties were formed with all melee and then people figured out that these new TP burns did just as well as manaburns. And then ToAU came, brought mobs that were not nice to BLM's and just said "fuck off" to the prissy BLM's that refused to join the SC->MB parties.

[Neoscrilla]

I most likely would've quit far earlier. If you think TP burns and the loss of SC-> MB happened from ToAU you weren't too far up there in CoP. The original TP burns came in sky on Deco weapons. There were "pierce burns" (forget if they had a better name) on the birds in Lufaise. I even did TP burns in sea on Aerns, fuckin' right I did.

Good point, I didnt take this into account. I was one of the ones who was far up there in CoP but I never seen much widespread usage of TP Burns till after ToAU came out. Sorry that I didnt clarify that point, but I do agree with what you mean. I would love to see the SC formula expanded in 14.

[Lucavi]

ToAU was a weak attempt to make the game more "accessible" for the retard demographic that comes with the XBox 360. As a result, traditional forms of leveling were tossed aside for dumbed down mechanics. TP Burns became the norm, SC-->MB was made obsolete and certain jobs that were deemed "overpowered" (BLM) were fucked in the ass with no lube. (Unless you think puddings is how parites should be for BLMs). For people that played during the RoTZ and COP "era," most will agree that ToAU was a slap in the face to people who did it the "hard way" (CoP mission nerf anyone?) SE deserves props for bringing a successful MMO to the console market, but after CoP, each subsequent expansion did more to alienate the original foundation of players that the game was supposed to be built on. All of this may or may not have been averted or remedied by actually communicating with the player base, but hey, the 40+ year olds in Japan that made the game and have never made a MMO before know what we want....right? right? This is not to say that since CoP there wasnt any good things, because there were. It just seems to me that if I were asked when the major downfall of this game begin, I would say it was the ToAU era.

EDIT: Got sidetracked and didnt even say why I am excited for 14........I am looking forward to starting fresh, and seeing if SE addresses many of the problems that hurt FFXI.

You sound exactly like a WoW "purist" that started from vanilla and lamented the slow "decline" and catering to the "casuals". They look back with nostalgia the 40-man raids, the grinding for months for elemental resist gear-sets for a singular bosses, the disparity between classes and balance, and the exclusion from the rest of the playerbase in the form of end-game events that only 5-10% of the entire population managed to ever see.

People claim that they're so different, but humans can all be clumped up into the same exact molds. I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with any of your points, but this kind of response is an exact parallel to just about any MMO that has endured for years.

They apparently all start out "pure" and seemingly infallible in their base and crude construction, then slowly degrade and decline as they try to streamline and otherwise simplify or improve on existing elements.

Tell me, would you have preferred dual-wielding and magic bursting to be the only two forms of dealing damage? Would you have preferred that arrowburns and axeburns be the only ways to merit party? Would you have preferred the extreme disparity between job classes, excluding many from any realistic endgame content?

Its always interesting that the old-heads in MMOs always view the most critically-aclaimed and financially successful expansion packs as the "worst", typically because of accessibility, which is viewed as "catering to carebears".

Cars shouldn't have navigation systems, air bags, anti-lock brakes, or shatterproof glass. They shouldn't have mandatory seat belts, mandatory side mirrors, or traction-control systems, and Tractor Trailers shouldn't have mandatory rear guard plates to prevent cars from rolling right under them and being crushed.

These "new features" are catering to carebears, and are dumbing down the system for us "originals" who loved the old style of things. Driving was far better when it was riskier, more dangerous, and as a result, excluded those scared little carebears from being anywhere near the road. It was much better when brakes regularly failed, people were decapitated left and right during routine car crashes and fender benders.

Edit: Wow ES, we're on the same page. Blms love to talk about the "good old days" of magic bursting, but love to forget that their enhanced damage came at the expense of everyone else. I remember fondly the days of having to spam Thunder and Raiden thrust to make a fusion over the much stronger double, and of the days of having to use Vorpal thrust over the FAR superior Skewer and Penta.

Then you had the shitty blm with shitty gear that had his MBs resisted for half damage, and still insisted that everyone else conform to MBing to bloat his ego, even though we'd have killed much faster with the melee spamming their strongest WSes.

Good old days indeed. The only good thing about it was the increased strategy involved and the use of teamwork, but smart players used teamwork in TP burns anyway, holding some WSes to 125% or higher just to hit a large skillchain on the back of another DD's WS. I remember hitting massive reverberations and fragmentations on the backs of DK, war and Sam WSes, just by saving a penta to 125% over 102%.

Just because people didn't choose to use teamwork in TP burns didn't mean there wasn't a place for it. The key word, as always, is choice.

[Neoscrilla]

You sound exactly like a WoW "purist" that started from vanilla and lamented the slow "decline" and catering to the "casuals". They look back with nostalgia the 40-man raids, the grinding for months for elemental resist gear-sets for a singular bosses, the disparity between classes and balance, and the exclusion from the rest of the playerbase in the form of end-game events that only 5-10% of the entire population managed to ever see.

People claim that they're so different, but humans can all be clumped up into the same exact molds. I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with any of your points, but this kind of response is an exact parallel to just about any MMO that has endured for years.

They apparently all start out "pure" and seemingly infallible in their base and crude construction, then slowly degrade and decline as they try to streamline and otherwise simplify or improve on existing elements.

Tell me, would you have preferred dual-wielding and magic bursting to be the only two forms of dealing damage? Would you have preferred that arrowburns and axeburns be the only ways to merit party? Would you have preferred the extreme disparity between job classes, excluding many from any realistic endgame content?

Its always interesting that the old-heads in MMOs always view the most critically-aclaimed and financially successful expansion packs as the "worst", typically because of accessibility, which is viewed as "catering to carebears".

Cars shouldn't have navigation systems, air bags, anti-lock brakes, or shatterproof glass. They shouldn't have mandatory seat belts, mandatory side mirrors, or traction-control systems, and Tractor Trailers shouldn't have mandatory rear guard plates to prevent cars from rolling right under them and being crushed.

These "new features" are catering to carebears, and are dumbing down the system for us "originals" who loved the old style of things. Driving was far better when it was riskier, more dangerous, and as a result, excluded those scared little carebears from being anywhere near the road. It was much better when brakes regularly failed, people were decapitated left and right during routine car crashes and fender benders.

FFXI: So easy, a caveman can do it! :D

[Lucavi]

Umad, bro. Get over yourself and your lust for the old days. Change happens - you as a blm had your day in the sun, and abused it pretty hard as a collective class. Arrogance ran high in blms - as high as it did and still does in sams today.

[Neoscrilla]

lol, sounds like you are mad. I merely made a fucking joke. Kill yourself.

[Eaglestrike]

Good old days indeed. The only good thing about it was the increased strategy involved and the use of teamwork, but smart players used teamwork in TP burns anyway, holding some WSes to 125% or higher just to hit a large skillchain on the back of another DD's WS. I remember hitting massive reverberations and fragmentations on the backs of DK, war and Sam WSes, just by saving a penta to 125% over 102%.

Just because people didn't choose to use teamwork in TP burns didn't mean there wasn't a place for it. The key word, as always, is choice.

If I was in a group with a sam, I would type out "kasha" if I could see his tp (gogo tparty!) getting close and mine was about ready. I would then switch to shark bite. Or I'd call for Gekko and Mercy Stroke. Or I'd call for Asuran -> Gekko and then Mercy Stroke and that colibri would die instantly. Good players still made plenty of use in skillchains. But it did also require tparty to keep this efficient. Losing 10-20tp for a sc on a high-hp mob was still a great netgain in damage, but losing 30-50tp if there was only a rdm to MB wasn't worth it at all.

Skillchains and magic bursts were a great idea. Hell, FFXI is full of EXCELLENT ideas for an MMO, that is in no way it's weakness. It's just that almost every idea is implemented poorly and either was not tweaked to function well or could not be tweaked to function correctly without major major changes. Part of the reason I'm up for giving FFXIV a solid chance is because SE as a company is known for having some excellent ideas and making things work that I personally could not come up with, if MMO experience now allows SE to come up with ideas and follow through with tweaking and updating to get them to work in an MMO I could really enjoy playing the game.

[Sup3rB4d]

What the fuck does vehicle safety have to do with video games?

[Lucavi]

Do I really need to explain? Christ.

TLDR: Older isn't always better. Streamlining doesn't always equal catering to carebears, it equals streamlining.

[Sup3rB4d]

Saying you liked FF more when fighting was focused around SC > MB is not even remotely close to saying "It was much better when brakes regularly failed, people were decapitated left and right during routine car crashes and fender benders."

[Lucavi]

Read the rest of his post. Saying that subsequent expansions worsened the game with each installment due to making the game easier and more streamlined, in order to draw in a larger audience is exactly the same as saying that each addition to a vehicle that makes for a more streamlined and simplified experience takes away from made the vehicle so "fun" in the first place.

Companies make improvements to their MMOs and introduce more convenient and accessible areas, concepts, and designs for a reason: to garner new players, while keeping existing players. MMO "purists" would rather a game remain stagnant and resemble their "golden age" for a long as possible. It's no big secret, and it exists throughout every MMO.