FF XI Goes Live in Japan

Castolari writes "Gameforms reports about the Japanese launch of FF XI, Square's online venture with the series. Apparently, there's some serious technical problems with the server load as well." They also have some Screenshots. I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.

More info

[jwinter1]

Check out drac.org for more info (here's their FAQ) [drac.org]

Some of the highlights:
FFXI requires the USB modem and the PS2 harddrive
and CANNOT be played offline.

Your life or my life ?

[MosesJones]

I don't know about you but for some strange reason playing football (soccer), basketball etc with my mates is for some reason alot more fun than looking at a computer game.

Life isn't watching a TV set, and as good as graphics get, no game will ever equal that feeling as you blast in a shot from 20 yards, or nail a 3 pointer over your work mates.

Games are fun, but if you can't tell the difference between a game and your life... then you need help.

And no game ever will beat the smile you get from your kid first thing in the morning.

Cool game, I might get it, but please... like real life ?

Re:Shaky start on a risky road...

[newbiescum]

A few other sites such as Magic Box [vgdirectory.com] are reporting pretty good sales. While expectations are probably different with console gamers versus PC gamers, I haven't seen a PC MMORPG do any better yet. Also, building an initial fanbase is always rocky but if Square is able to stick it out for the long term and the game is good enough that word spreads, they may have the first Everquest on consoles.

The online console wars

[Dark Paladin]

So, Round 1 of the console wars is over, with Sony far in 1st place, and Nintendo and the Xbox somewhere in second. (Most of my figures say Nintendo is in the 2nd place slot, but its so close nobody can tell.)

Round 2 has now begun - and it's over before it's even started. Look at the competition:

Sony - spend $150 on a 40 Gigabyte hard drive with ethernet and modem ports. Use with any ISP you with. Developers provide the servers.

The games: Final Fantasy XI, Everquest, and Star Wars: Galaxies

Nintendo - spend $35 on either an ethernet adapter, or a modem. Use with any ISP you want. Developers provide the servers.

The Games: Phantasy Star Online 1 and 2.

Xbox - spend $0 dollars - but you have to sign up for a fee (price unknown, assumed to be $5-$10 a month). Servers maintained by Microsoft (a point that kept that kept EA out of the Xbox online system [slashdot.org].

The Games: Um....

This is why I sold my Xbox yesterday. (And have exactly enough in store credit that I could get a new one in case the Xbox comes out with something pretty damn cool.)

But so far, Sony is far and away doing the best job with online gaming, and with their partnership with AOL, and the Linux system on the PS2, I think the fears Microsoft had (as detailed in the first part of the book Opening the Xbox [gamerspress.com], where the Xbox was mainly a reaction to the fear that the PS2 would become a hoome computer), are all coming true.

Re:Your life or my life ?

[chrysrobyn]

Life isn't watching a TV set, and as good as graphics get, no game will ever equal that feeling as you blast in a shot from 20 yards, or nail a 3 pointer over your work mates.

I respect your opinion, MosesJones, but I disagree with the spirit of your statement. I'm a 26 year old engineer-- I'm not in the best of shape, but I work out three times a week. There's no way I can keep up with a true athlete, a few of which are my [co-workers|work mates]. "Blasting shots", "nailing 3 pointers", wouldn't mean much to me anyway. But when I can challenge my boss's boss to a game of Rush 2049 in Dave and Busters [daveandbusters.com], and actually compete, that means a great deal to me. Electronics in this case even the field. He may be 39, but he runs for an hour every day and helps his 16 year old son practice football (American). With my current goals, I couldn't hope to compete athletically. But, I can keep up in a game, and we can have experiences that he'll talk about for months. What does it mean when your boss's boss happily talks about how you almost ran him off the road in a game 4 months after the fact? To me, that means we used the false reality to actually share a personal experience that ends up benefitting our professional relationship in the end.

And no game ever will beat the smile you get from your kid first thing in the morning.

I can't disagree with you there. Some day, God willing, I hope to be able to agree with you.

Re:Why Final Fantasy XI will survive

[Anonymous Coward]

Square rarely ever does anything different, and their non-FF games were developed by third party companies and published by Square.

FF Tactics- Quest Software
Ehrgeiz- Namco and Lightweight
Bouncer- Dream Factory
Tobal- Dream Factory
Vagrant Story- Mostly done by contracted Quest employees
Bushido Blade- Lightweight

Even the immortal Chrono Trigger was partially done by Enix Employees.

And how many of these games are actually good? Only a handful. But wow, you can have great grphics with the new Final Fantasy games. I just don't get some people.

Re:The online console wars

[pjkacmar]

"But so far, Sony is far and away doing the best job with online gaming, and with their partnership with AOL, and the Linux system on the PS2"

Excuse me, but what do AOL and the Linux system have to do with online gaming? Nothing! the PS2 Linux is just for people wanting to play around with Linux. Also, I believe it's been noted that if you have Linux loaded on the hard drive, then you can't use the hard drive for normal game usage. Hardly great for online gaming.

Also, you forgot to mention that there is a monthly fee to play Final Fantasy XI. If every game is going to have a fee to be played online, I'd rather just pay one flat fee and be able to play all my games online.

I think the company that by far and away is doing the best online gaming is Sega. They have their experience from the Dreamcast to bring with them. They've already had their Sega Sports titles and Phantasy Star Online going online. They should be able to fairly quickly deliver a decent number of online games.

E3 should give us some indications of what companies want to do online, but we really won't have a good feel of what's going to happen until late summer or fall.