Gaming Media reacts to and reviews FFXIV launch

[Cureslime]

stuff

Ahhhhh so THAT'S why the story in FFXII was so awful. It's sad because the battle system was so great.

Can't disagree with the points raised in either of the two new reviews. I'm starting to feel a little anxious that S-E is going to pull the plug on legitimately trying to fix the hundreds of problems the game has.

[Cutriss]

Ahhhhh so THAT'S why the story in FFXII was so awful. It's sad because the battle system was so great.

Or for the rest of us, "Ahhhhh so THAT'S why the awesome story fell on its face right at the end."

The Massively article is retarded. Just the usual Sundi fluff. Nobody wants to man up and take responsibility for anything anymore at that company.

[Lucavi]

So the big 3 reviews are in, and as I predicted, IGN gave them the highest score out of the three. Its not saying much, however, when its only a 5.5.

Again, this is one of the cleanest launches, if not the cleanest, I've ever seen. Most of those other games, though, had launches that while full of disconnects, at least had their player-bases rushing to get back in for the fun. I don't know how much fun there is right now with the lag and hitting the virtual wall at 25+.

[Xavier]

We clearly have very different definitions of a clean launch.

SE ensured that this game was dead on arrival, and it's utterly delusional for anyone to think that the PS3 launch will usher in a mythical reversal of fortunes. You can't piss on your player-base indefinitely without consequences. These reviews have been spot on -- whatever fun there is to be found is completely undermined by a series of highly questionable design decisions and a poorly optimized client.

[Lucavi]

My definition of clean is how often people are able to stay connected, how often the servers go down, ect. I'm not talking about how fun the game is.

WoW's launch wasn't "clean" by the traditional standards, but people were pretty happy to wait 3 hours to log back in because once they did, they were having a shitload of fun.

Edit: I'm surprised, Xavier. I really thought you'd like this game.

[Selamis]

http://www.massively.com/2010/10/11/...d-yasu-kurosa/


"When asked if he could shed any further light upon the company system, Sundi immediately replied, "Nope," and then laughed."

You can add this to any question about the entire game and this response would be accurate. Japan sucks.

Improvements for both the user interface and control schemes are incoming, as those are currently the most frequently discussed community topics.

Yeah, we've only been hearing this since Closed Beta Phase 1, after it got changed from Alpha to it's current state.

[Xavier]

My definition of clean is how often people are able to stay connected, how often the servers go down, ect. I'm not talking about how fun the game is.

WoW's launch wasn't "clean" by the traditional standards, but people were pretty happy to wait 3 hours to log back in because once they did, they were having a shitload of fun.

Edit: I'm surprised, Xavier. I really thought you'd like this game.

I don't see how "fun" can be excluded as a critical element to a clean launch, because presumably the purpose of a launch is to build and retain a player-base, and stable servers alone will NOT accomplish that goal.

It's a game built for masochists.

[Scary]

Stable servers, they got that right, at least.

[Viertel]

Truth bombs. I'm tired of hearing people say the game was rushed. They had 5 years, and this is all they could come up with? That's not being rushed, that's a 3DRealms impression.

Was browsing through the past 10+ pages and saw this.

My own opinion, but I believe the major reason FFXIV (currently, and quite possibly forever with Tanaka at the helm) and the same reason that FFXIII blew chunks are one in the same: Crystal Tools.

They spent way too much time -- years -- working on Crystal Tools for this generation of games. It's still not that great, is horribly inefficient, lacks some impressive graphical effects, but they wanted to use it so that they can do whatever the hell they want with it. They designed it for the PS2 platform and then scrapped it and started over once they realized that it wasn't worth time pursuing such a venture as the PS3 was around the corner. Even they themselves have admitted it was a huge mistake, but the damage was done and nothing else to do but grit their teeth and go forward with what they have.

When was the first concrete information about FFXIV? I remember it being a year, maybe a year and a half ago now. All that time spent on the game wasn't spent on it, but rather CT. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason for the same races is a cover for just not having time to actually develop a larger cast/better lore. At best I'd say FFXIV had maybe 2 years -- at most -- of development time. God knows what you have now reflects that.

Faulty priorities, basically.

That and they put a mentally defunct monkey in charge of it.

[Lucavi]

I don't see how "fun" can be excluded as a critical element to a clean launch, because presumably the purpose of a launch is to build and retain a player-base, and stable servers alone will NOT accomplish that goal.

It's a game built for masochists.

This is just crazy coming from you! What an interesting six months this has been.

[Ezek]

I remember how terrible stability wise WoW's launch was (server crashes, unbearable lag, the list goes on) but in their defense I don't think they were expecting such an overwhelming response, seeing as how MMORPGs were a very niche genre prior to WoW. IIRC, they kept opening new servers for 3+ years post launch at a steady pace because of how fast the game grew.

[Blasta]

I actually enjoyed the first week, but then i saw Gamespot's review and i realised how immune I've became of SE's piss. I'd rather have sucky servers with good / promising content, because then i would actually know that SE is capable of doing more than just mediocre MMOs. Now I'm just left thinking, yes this game will get alot better but how long Is it going to take?

I have a question about the lag in game though (especially menus/bazaars etc) because it annoys me the most. From technical perspective, is it possible to fix this and do you see it happening anytime soon?

[Reality]

Friend of mine at SE told me repeatedly that the game wouldn't be delayed and it would be out in September. I kept telling him there's no way, unless the retail build is vastly improved upon from the alpha & beta tests. Here's to show that they released an unfinished game, which is bullshit. But all I'm doing is leveling miner and goldsmith, until they fix more shit. So at least I'll have a nice gil cache stockpiled once the game actually starts for real......whenever that is.

[Lucavi]

I actually enjoyed the first week, but then i saw Gamespot's review and i realised how immune I've became of SE's piss. I'd rather have sucky servers with good / promising content, because then i would actually know that SE is capable of doing more than just mediocre MMOs. Now I'm just left thinking, yes this game will get alot better but how long Is it going to take?

I have a question about the lag in game though (especially menus/bazaars etc) because it annoys me the most. From technical perspective, is it possible to fix this and do you see it happening anytime soon?

Read Kuro's post.

Short answer: Not much they can do short of re-working the entire code, which will never happen. Crystal Tools, yo. As long as we have to continue to bounce our information back and forth with their servers for every button press on the menu, this won't speed up.

[Arximiro]

If I could queue multiple things up before I send the information to be bounced back, like check a ton of items to sell etc, I would be happy enough.

[person2007]

Friend of mine at SE told me repeatedly that the game wouldn't be delayed and it would be out in September. I kept telling him there's no way, unless the retail build is vastly improved upon from the alpha & beta tests.

I think a few people wanted XIV early(including me). After the Beta i was left with a sour taste of the game, but i honestly expected the retail to be different, even though the beta only stopped a few days before retail. Stupid dream

[Grey Jorildyn]

Le sigh. The lack of content and lack of promise of content does not make for a good outlook for the game in the months to come. So many players in my LS feel the same way. Many of those have turned to crafting as the only real means of progression in the game. Final Fantasy XIV: Crafter's Dream.

[anathema]

This statement isn't going to contribute much, and I'm sorry for that, but I honestly love reading these QQ threads. Not because I feel like the people complaining don't have a reason or I like watching other people suffer... I wish it was good for all the fans out there, I really do. I feel like FF fans really DESERVE a good title to come out, with all the bullshit they swallow. But when I read this from a purely selfish standpoint it makes me genuinely convinced that I made a really good decision to not ever trust SE again. I just want to thank you guys for reaffirming my thoughts on this, by judging the crap out of this game and ripping it apart. I'm totally serious, btw. It's amazing to read from an outsider's perspective this time around.

lol, me too. i loved ffxi, as hard on my life as it was to get into and stay into. i was half hoping ffxiv would be an awesome version of ffxi, so i tried the open beta. that abortion of a first impression made me not buy retail. now that i've read all the reviews and complaints, i have to thank SE for saving me from telling people "i have to camp something in final fantasy, sorry can't make it to your wedding".

[Kuroanagi]

"Sundi and Kurosawa both mentioned that while they want to improve the interface on the PC, they also need to make sure that the interface works for both PCs and the PS3, which means that there are limited options for how many changes they can make"

i knew from day one the PS3 would screw this game up.

[Katlan]

XIVs graphical engine was in dev for 5 years (and still is poorly optimized), combat was thrown together a few months before alpha (as is shown by them reworking it slightly during beta).

But why do ppl think sub based mmo's r dead? I think they r of a much higher quality then F2P mmo's