They might be a little late to save this one, granted they are trying. It's just with the number of other MMO's coming out to attract attention this one is becoming outdated and the negativity towards it won't help gather new people.
Probably should cut their losses and scrap this one.
The thing is... MANY of us expected (and wanted) FFXIV to be an updated FFXI. We assumed the game would have great graphics (and it does), and some changes and refinements to the FFXI systems... changes that would make it a bit more solo-friendly (read: carebear), and less grindy.
What we got was something else. We got the hollow shell of a changable class system, slapped onto a totally new combat system, but with almost nothing in the way of quests, story, or flavor to support it. Depth of play got replaced by needless complexity and after playing for about 10 hours you realized that was it. You'd seen everything there was, and everything else will just be new names or animations atop the same mechanics.
I've been watching this one all along, and I keep hoping they'll pull more of FFXI into it, but until then, it's just not worth more than an occasional hour poking around to see how it's changed.
If you own it, play it once a month to see how it's doing. If not, might as well wait and see.
It's pretty obvious that sites like this one and Zam are filled with nothing but horrible writers and whiney players.
If you don't like it, don't play it. Keep waiting for GW2 or SWTOR or whatever other shite game you're going to play for less than a month before trolling their forums.
I took a 7 month break from the game, played Rift for a few months, gave Perpetuum a try, meh. It wasn't until I picked up a PS3 and gave FFXIII a try that I realized how nice the UI and controls were when you want to sit back and relax while playing instead of sitting hunched over a mouse and keyboard mashing keys.
The game is leap years better than it was 12 months ago.
I really wanted to give this game a go, even with all the bad reviews and feedback.
But, quite frankly, I gave up before I even started, after the simply nightmarish sign up procedure to the game and Square Enix.
I have played many MMO's, and had some real long winded and frustrating hoops to jump through to sign up to this and that, join this and that, before I could play. But with FF, I just gave up eventually. I simply couldn't face anymore, I think the next step was going to be to ask for a blood sample and promise my first born......
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the (timely!) review. As someone that's playing the game -- and enjoying it -- I disagree with some of your criticisms. But every review requires some measure of opinion, and you're certainly entitled to your own.
You may be happy to hear that SE seems to have taken many of your criticisms to heart. On Oct 14, they announced that they're releasing a FFXIV version 2.0. From the sound of it, it's going to basically be a completely different game. They're transferring to new servers -- which will help reduce server lag, they're rebuilding the UI, they're re-working the maps (and the game world will no longer be seamless, but it will feature more unique areas), leveling will be quest based (likely getting rid of leves completely), and they're moving towards a more traditional auction house, among many, many other changes.
Fair warning -- They don't expect version 2.0 to be out until Jan 2013. (Which, given the nature of game development, may be delayed.) And they're planning to start charging current players beginning in early December. But it does sound like many of the complaints voiced by the community have been heard by SE, and they're being heeded.
So, I suppose, keep the opinions coming. It seems like SE is paying attention. And considering the receiption of the game, that may be the best the community can hope for.
I think that FF14 is really one of the saddest games not for the reasons that you typically hear but because if they just had Yoshi and not Sage Sundi at the helm, FF14 would've started off on release date as something truly grand I believe. Many players who were FF11 vets had no love of Sundi and even despised the fact that he let on the air of "knowing what we knew" and made input into the game feel like a useless task.
Yoshi thought I think had the right approach and I hate to say it but he was given a broken train to fix and while he did great things to it, the initial experience put of so many players that I feel like its impossible to reach back and try to get those players back. But I hope that FF14 does launch and achieve something memorable. I'm not sure if I'll head back and play it but if they ever make another FF mmo, I seriously hope they remember this fiasco and consider who they put at the helm.
Given what I've seen and experience, I swear if Yoshi was put at the helm initially, this game wouldn't have had such a bad launch nor would it have been a huge flub but could've been a worthy successor to FF11.
Like I said I played both and remember reading how Yoshi (to paraphrase) said how some things can be changed faster, others take time but he's delivering at such a pace and actually listening that I think he's at least restoring some faith back into this title. He can't reclaim the "what could have been" butthere are games that have exceeded expectations and reversed the declining effect (like EVE) so I hope FF14 gets second life under this guy.
It's always tough to see a franchise go through such a rough patch but they'll keep improving it and it'll pay off. After people burn out on GW2 and TOR, games like this will see an increase in population, I'm guessing. I hate to see any MMORPG fail and I hope it really turns around for this crowd.
I really wanted to give this game a go, even with all the bad reviews and feedback.
But, quite frankly, I gave up before I even started, after the simply nightmarish sign up procedure to the game and Square Enix.
I have played many MMO's, and had some real long winded and frustrating hoops to jump through to sign up to this and that, join this and that, before I could play. But with FF, I just gave up eventually. I simply couldn't face anymore, I think the next step was going to be to ask for a blood sample and promise my first born......
I know exactly what you mean. Way too complex. I always thought that setup should be quick and easy so that the player could get to playing the game, apparently SE thinks I am wrong. It was a lot easer to cancel than it was to setup in the first place. Still not sure how to get rid of Click to Pay.
They should have made FFXI with modern day graphics with some tweaks. This i'm afraid will never reach the potential it once had. I tip my hat off to Square for trying to fix it but its never going to be a big win with the masses.
why doesn't people just wait til the 2.0 hits. the 2.0 change looks very promising and might make it into a real MMO experience that people were looking for.
why doesn't people just wait til the 2.0 hits. the 2.0 change looks very promising and might make it into a real MMO experience that people were looking for.
Why not wait for patch 3.0? 4.0? 5.0? Dealing with the present instead of what "could be" is a good way to get a good impression.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
You pretty much said in 1000 words "why can't this game be more like wow", cause u hate everything tons of people like about the game.
This is a downright horrible article, all the things you don't like about the game or you think make the game hard or clunky, other people find to be entertaining, fun and different. If all you want is this game to play more like every other game than this game will surly fail. All it has is its uniqueness. you would honestly say you would play this game if it looked the same but played like a wow clone?
Do you like lollipops? Suck it. Don't bite you greedy twit.
Well, firstly I'd like to thank everyone for their input. Honestly, I haven't played this game in quite a few months - was one of those highly dissatisfied with the state of things at launch. However, there were aspects of the game that I enjoyed very much; particularly that I didn't feel that sense of urgency I get with other games to reach my level cap immediately within 2 weeks of launch or be left behind and unable to ever catch up.
After I started reading the author's article, I found myself of 2 minds: Firstly, 'perhaps the game really hasn't improved in my absence and I should simply forget about it'. Secondly, 'judging by the author's obviously incompetent use of grammar, and butchery of the English language, coupled with the fact I'm not actually convinced the author has even played the game, I wonder if I should in fact pay no attention to his comments at all'. And so here I found myself reviewing everyone else's comments.
And I have come to the conclusion that I was right. The author had in fact surely not even bothered to play the game. Anybody can go to FFXIV's website, look up a list of updates, make some half-hearted attempt at reviewing them, go to another website and link screenshots, and then claim to be an ostensible source on the subject, and proving to be nothing but specious.
The author's comments aside, I actually found the comments posted by actual players of the game (which is re-installing as I type this) to be significantly more useful; and I'd like to commend those individuals on their commitment to ensuring the game was properly represented.
On a slightly separate note: I'm fairly convinced the author of this article is in fact a high-schooler!? They probably cheat/take shortcuts there too. May this be a lesson to them: be honest and thorough, because inevitably you will be found out; and half-assing your way through life will get you nowhere.
I'm most likely going to do FFXIV on the PS3 when it launches. Realizing I will be way behind the curve and most likely having to pay a subscription, I would be more comfortable knowing the game is warranting charging a sub. To really understand what what wrong with this game, and even the direction of the FF franchise in general, I had to go back in time.
Not the Marty McFly way, but by way of retro gaming. Playing the older games going back to FF1 off the NES, I am starting to remember exactly what made this franchise so popular.
Good article. In reality ffxiv is just a hard game to grasp. From level 1-20 the game sucks and there is a lot of grind but the second you get a companion and some party members it then feels like a very very genuine experience and i hope SE will work hard and make the starting experience better so more people can enjoy that experience
well an update on the billing process. click and buy is an absolutely horrid system for payment and se has done the biggest error they could have made. they started charging for a game that is not only not ready to be charged for, but did not even give its players a good way to pay to play the game.
many people now cannot even get into the game because their country is refused by click and buy and they have no other options to pay. there has also been many cases in which players had the wrong character get activated and se just responds with "well too bad you want to play then pay for both characters"
some servers are seeing around 120 players on during north american prime times and of those there's usually only 30-50 players that even speak english. granted, some servers are showing alot bigger population, but it is hard to play a mmo solo when it's a party based game.
as someone that is playing every day and has been since launch i will say that some things have drastically gotten better while others have gone the opposite direction.
Comments
They might be a little late to save this one, granted they are trying. It's just with the number of other MMO's coming out to attract attention this one is becoming outdated and the negativity towards it won't help gather new people.
Probably should cut their losses and scrap this one.
The thing is... MANY of us expected (and wanted) FFXIV to be an updated FFXI. We assumed the game would have great graphics (and it does), and some changes and refinements to the FFXI systems... changes that would make it a bit more solo-friendly (read: carebear), and less grindy.
What we got was something else. We got the hollow shell of a changable class system, slapped onto a totally new combat system, but with almost nothing in the way of quests, story, or flavor to support it. Depth of play got replaced by needless complexity and after playing for about 10 hours you realized that was it. You'd seen everything there was, and everything else will just be new names or animations atop the same mechanics.
I've been watching this one all along, and I keep hoping they'll pull more of FFXI into it, but until then, it's just not worth more than an occasional hour poking around to see how it's changed.
If you own it, play it once a month to see how it's doing. If not, might as well wait and see.
Il make my opinion as simple as posible.
The game is just boring. -> levequests are just daily quests
The weapon class system is bland -> FF13 job system is far superior.
----
IMO if they made a MMO based on Final Fantasy 7 with midgar.
Man think of how much cash they would rank in, but no, they had to continue use the FF13 based concept.
Nothing fresh or new. go figure, I see FF14 a lazyness
It's pretty obvious that sites like this one and Zam are filled with nothing but horrible writers and whiney players.
If you don't like it, don't play it. Keep waiting for GW2 or SWTOR or whatever other shite game you're going to play for less than a month before trolling their forums.
I took a 7 month break from the game, played Rift for a few months, gave Perpetuum a try, meh. It wasn't until I picked up a PS3 and gave FFXIII a try that I realized how nice the UI and controls were when you want to sit back and relax while playing instead of sitting hunched over a mouse and keyboard mashing keys.
The game is leap years better than it was 12 months ago.
Yoshi-p is my personal hero he can clean up a bad mmo faster then a president can clean up our bad country.
The Paladin
I really wanted to give this game a go, even with all the bad reviews and feedback.
But, quite frankly, I gave up before I even started, after the simply nightmarish sign up procedure to the game and Square Enix.
I have played many MMO's, and had some real long winded and frustrating hoops to jump through to sign up to this and that, join this and that, before I could play. But with FF, I just gave up eventually. I simply couldn't face anymore, I think the next step was going to be to ask for a blood sample and promise my first born......
Too many alts!!
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the (timely!) review. As someone that's playing the game -- and enjoying it -- I disagree with some of your criticisms. But every review requires some measure of opinion, and you're certainly entitled to your own.
You may be happy to hear that SE seems to have taken many of your criticisms to heart. On Oct 14, they announced that they're releasing a FFXIV version 2.0. From the sound of it, it's going to basically be a completely different game. They're transferring to new servers -- which will help reduce server lag, they're rebuilding the UI, they're re-working the maps (and the game world will no longer be seamless, but it will feature more unique areas), leveling will be quest based (likely getting rid of leves completely), and they're moving towards a more traditional auction house, among many, many other changes.
Fair warning -- They don't expect version 2.0 to be out until Jan 2013. (Which, given the nature of game development, may be delayed.) And they're planning to start charging current players beginning in early December. But it does sound like many of the complaints voiced by the community have been heard by SE, and they're being heeded.
So, I suppose, keep the opinions coming. It seems like SE is paying attention. And considering the receiption of the game, that may be the best the community can hope for.
I think that FF14 is really one of the saddest games not for the reasons that you typically hear but because if they just had Yoshi and not Sage Sundi at the helm, FF14 would've started off on release date as something truly grand I believe. Many players who were FF11 vets had no love of Sundi and even despised the fact that he let on the air of "knowing what we knew" and made input into the game feel like a useless task.
Yoshi thought I think had the right approach and I hate to say it but he was given a broken train to fix and while he did great things to it, the initial experience put of so many players that I feel like its impossible to reach back and try to get those players back. But I hope that FF14 does launch and achieve something memorable. I'm not sure if I'll head back and play it but if they ever make another FF mmo, I seriously hope they remember this fiasco and consider who they put at the helm.
Given what I've seen and experience, I swear if Yoshi was put at the helm initially, this game wouldn't have had such a bad launch nor would it have been a huge flub but could've been a worthy successor to FF11.
Like I said I played both and remember reading how Yoshi (to paraphrase) said how some things can be changed faster, others take time but he's delivering at such a pace and actually listening that I think he's at least restoring some faith back into this title. He can't reclaim the "what could have been" butthere are games that have exceeded expectations and reversed the declining effect (like EVE) so I hope FF14 gets second life under this guy.
It's always tough to see a franchise go through such a rough patch but they'll keep improving it and it'll pay off. After people burn out on GW2 and TOR, games like this will see an increase in population, I'm guessing. I hate to see any MMORPG fail and I hope it really turns around for this crowd.
I know exactly what you mean. Way too complex. I always thought that setup should be quick and easy so that the player could get to playing the game, apparently SE thinks I am wrong. It was a lot easer to cancel than it was to setup in the first place. Still not sure how to get rid of Click to Pay.
They should have made FFXI with modern day graphics with some tweaks. This i'm afraid will never reach the potential it once had. I tip my hat off to Square for trying to fix it but its never going to be a big win with the masses.
I agree with you... I enjoyed TR very much. I do wish SE would move faster on improving FFXIV, I enjoyed it to an extent but it was a chore to play.
why doesn't people just wait til the 2.0 hits. the 2.0 change looks very promising and might make it into a real MMO experience that people were looking for.
Why not wait for patch 3.0? 4.0? 5.0? Dealing with the present instead of what "could be" is a good way to get a good impression.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Thanks for all the opinions.
With all the strife this game has caused just in these forums... I'll wait and MAYBE buy later.
Thank you all for purchasing, saving just a few of us!
I seek to find the Perfect MMO, do you have what I seek?
You pretty much said in 1000 words "why can't this game be more like wow", cause u hate everything tons of people like about the game.
This is a downright horrible article, all the things you don't like about the game or you think make the game hard or clunky, other people find to be entertaining, fun and different. If all you want is this game to play more like every other game than this game will surly fail. All it has is its uniqueness. you would honestly say you would play this game if it looked the same but played like a wow clone?
Do you like lollipops? Suck it. Don't bite you greedy twit.
Well, firstly I'd like to thank everyone for their input. Honestly, I haven't played this game in quite a few months - was one of those highly dissatisfied with the state of things at launch. However, there were aspects of the game that I enjoyed very much; particularly that I didn't feel that sense of urgency I get with other games to reach my level cap immediately within 2 weeks of launch or be left behind and unable to ever catch up.
After I started reading the author's article, I found myself of 2 minds: Firstly, 'perhaps the game really hasn't improved in my absence and I should simply forget about it'. Secondly, 'judging by the author's obviously incompetent use of grammar, and butchery of the English language, coupled with the fact I'm not actually convinced the author has even played the game, I wonder if I should in fact pay no attention to his comments at all'. And so here I found myself reviewing everyone else's comments.
And I have come to the conclusion that I was right. The author had in fact surely not even bothered to play the game. Anybody can go to FFXIV's website, look up a list of updates, make some half-hearted attempt at reviewing them, go to another website and link screenshots, and then claim to be an ostensible source on the subject, and proving to be nothing but specious.
The author's comments aside, I actually found the comments posted by actual players of the game (which is re-installing as I type this) to be significantly more useful; and I'd like to commend those individuals on their commitment to ensuring the game was properly represented.
On a slightly separate note: I'm fairly convinced the author of this article is in fact a high-schooler!? They probably cheat/take shortcuts there too. May this be a lesson to them: be honest and thorough, because inevitably you will be found out; and half-assing your way through life will get you nowhere.
I'm most likely going to do FFXIV on the PS3 when it launches. Realizing I will be way behind the curve and most likely having to pay a subscription, I would be more comfortable knowing the game is warranting charging a sub. To really understand what what wrong with this game, and even the direction of the FF franchise in general, I had to go back in time.
Not the Marty McFly way, but by way of retro gaming. Playing the older games going back to FF1 off the NES, I am starting to remember exactly what made this franchise so popular.
Good article. In reality ffxiv is just a hard game to grasp. From level 1-20 the game sucks and there is a lot of grind but the second you get a companion and some party members it then feels like a very very genuine experience and i hope SE will work hard and make the starting experience better so more people can enjoy that experience
well an update on the billing process. click and buy is an absolutely horrid system for payment and se has done the biggest error they could have made. they started charging for a game that is not only not ready to be charged for, but did not even give its players a good way to pay to play the game.
many people now cannot even get into the game because their country is refused by click and buy and they have no other options to pay. there has also been many cases in which players had the wrong character get activated and se just responds with "well too bad you want to play then pay for both characters"
some servers are seeing around 120 players on during north american prime times and of those there's usually only 30-50 players that even speak english. granted, some servers are showing alot bigger population, but it is hard to play a mmo solo when it's a party based game.
as someone that is playing every day and has been since launch i will say that some things have drastically gotten better while others have gone the opposite direction.