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Role Playing (Games) Games

Final Fantasy XIV Subscriptions Returning, PS3 Version In 2012 96

Just over a year ago, Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV. It was not well received, and to atone for their mistake, the company removed the game's subscription fee, replaced a bunch of the developers, and delayed the PS3 version. Now, they are confident enough in the updates they've brought to the game that they are re-instituting the subscription plan and working again on the PS3 version, though it's still about a year away. They've also explained their roadmap for version 2.0 of the game, which will include a new UI, a new graphics engine, and a redesign of all current maps.
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Final Fantasy XIV Subscriptions Returning, PS3 Version In 2012

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  • Let it die... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by djsmiley ( 752149 ) <djsmiley2k@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @06:52AM (#37748186) Homepage Journal

    Why not let it die,

    They are replacing everything about the game - hell the feel is likely to change too, especially with new devs....

    So let it die, leave it free

    Let players import into this "new" game, released as a new game.

    Happyness!

    of course, lots of people will flame this idea for being "cheap".

    • Well, from their perspective they threw a huge amount of man-hours into creating the game, and to start over would mean those man-hours were wasted. Let them at least try to rescue it.

      Course, I won't be trying it because I don't have the time or money for an MMO, but that's just me.

      • Re:Let it die... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) * on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @07:43AM (#37748390) Journal

        Honestly, I suspect it's about more than just the money. FF14 has failed, in a way that no previous main-series FF game has ever failed. That's going to be a huge blow to company pride and morale.

        Square-Enix (and Squaresoft before it) have had mixed fortunes over the years. Indeed, the original Final Fantasy was given its title because of an internal piece of dark humour - the company expected it to be the last game they released before they went bust. They've had other misfortunes since then; Spirits Within essentially wiped out Squaresoft and necessitated the merger, the commercial success record of the handheld games is patchy at best, they've failed to keep up with Western developers during the last 5 years or so and there's a widespread feeling that the Final Fantasy brand has been severely over-stretched by too many spin-offs.

        But until FF14, every main series Final Fantasy game had been a commercial success. Degrees varied; FF9 ended up less prominent than it could have been because it released so late in the PS1 cycle. FF13 attracted a lot of criticism from players and reviewers. But they always made money - even the previous MMO, FF11 (biggest international-MMO around before the launch of WoW). The company could always claim success. Even if other ventures failed, the goose would continue to lay the golden eggs and the core of the company would remain viable.

        Then FF14 failed. It didn't just fail a little. It didn't just underwhelm. It was a huge, monumental failure. Critics hated it, many gamers mocked it, the vast majority just ignored it. The Final Fantasy brand took a massive blow; profits and share-price both fell through the floor.

        Square-Enix remain one of the biggest players in the gaming industry. They've published some well-received and highly successful titles lately; the new Deus Ex chief among them. But it must be unsettling, given the general economic climate, that the company now finds itself with its biggest safety blanket severely damaged. They might come out of it a stronger company; forced to innovate and move away from old certainties. Or they may crash... again.

        This does seem to be a bit of a pattern for Japanese gaming giants in recent years. Sega obviously suffered the slow, painful and entirely self-inflicted death of the Sonic brand's credibility. They've recovered in a degree; developed some other strong IPs (even if they horribly mismanage some of them, like Valkyria Chronicles). But they're not the company they were 10 years ago. Nintendo are heading for a similar come-uppance; their games are tied heavily to their consoles, and with the 3DS looking like no more than a minor player in the market and the Wii-U a pretty uncertain proposition, there's a good chance they'll put out a Mario or Zelda game in the next 18-24 months that will vanish without a trace.

        But yes, to return to my original point, for Square-Enix to concede defeat on a main-series Final Fantasy game will be an enormous psychological step for the company. Given that, it's only natural that they'd fight against all the odds (and with no real prospect of getting anywhere) to make the thing a success for far longer than another MMO developer would. It probably doesn't hurt that they have the deep pockets that allow them to do this; although such pockets are by no means bottomless.

        • by Lifyre ( 960576 )

          Very insightful post. I was having this conversation a few months back about why US game companies had surged past Japanese companies. It boiled down to Japanese companies are releasing the same game with little or no meaningful innovation or progress because if it made money once it will make it again right? Meanwhile US companies were constantly striving for better game play and new mechanics to improve the play experience (or addiction as the case may be).

          • Re:Let it die... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @09:07AM (#37748866) Journal

            Meanwhile US companies were constantly striving for better game play and new mechanics to improve the play experience (or addiction as the case may be).

            Lolwut?

            Don't get me wrong. I'm an old-time FF fan who thought the series jumped the chocobo with FFX and the removal of the world map.

            But claiming western developers don't, in general, ride the formulaic money train? What came out this year that wasn't either YAFPS, or an iterative (at best) sequel? All I can think of is Catherine, and Atlus is Japanese.

            • by cfalcon ( 779563 )

              WoW?

            • Re:Let it die... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) * on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @11:44AM (#37750612) Journal

              Western game development tends to be evolutionary. Yes, once in a while there is a game that shakes everything up, revitalises a genre or even creates a brand new one. But for the most part, Western developers take what has come before, look at what has worked and build on that, then look at what hasn't worked and repair or discard it.

              Japanese games development doesn't seem to do evolution. If a game succeeds, the developer will go back and say "right, let's make the same game again, but give the main character different hair". If it hasn't worked - or if they've gotten bored - they'll throw everything out the window and start again from a fresh template.

              It hasn't always been this way - Squaresoft used to be masters of the evolutionary approach. You can see concepts and ideas get developed, tested, adopted and discarded right through the Final Fantasy series, in installments 1 through 12. But they were always in a minority of Japanese developers, and they've gone much more for stagnation since the start of the current console cycle.

              Which model works better? Results from the last 5-10 years show that the Western model is proving far more successful. In pretty much every genre, Western games have surpassed their Japanese counterparts. Bioware and Bethesda have taken those aspects of the Japanese RPG that made the genre so popular during the 1990s and have successfully melded them with a more Western aesthetic. Turn 10 have put out 4 installments of the Forza Motorsport series in roughly the same time that it took Polyphony Digital to make a single game. The original Forza was nothing like as good as Gran Turismo 4. Gran Turismo 5 was, even judged kindly, only roughly competitive with Forza 3 and gets left in the dirt by Forza 4. Insomniac have developed the action-platformer through many installments of the Ratchet & Clank series (from really quite underwhelming beginnings), lifting good ideas liberally from the Mario games along the way - and the latest R&C game is pretty much unparalleled within its genre.

              The Japanese gaming industry can still put out the occasional piece of oddball brilliance; Valkyria Chronicles and Catherine are good examples. But the West can do this as well - Portal is a good example. In fact, there's an instructive comparison here; Valkyria Chronicles is mismanaged and ends up sidelined as a minority-interest PSP franchise, while Portal 2 is developed into a well-received and highly successful sequel.

              Most gamers don't actually care about whether a game is completely unexpected, fresh and innovative. They just want a fun game that gives them good value for money, which doesn't feel *exactly* the same as the last game they played. The Western system of evolutionary development is much better suited to providing this on a regular basis.

              • While I don't disagree with most of your post, exactly what part of Bethesda and BioWare's recent works have ANYTHING to do with the Japanese RPGs of the '90s?

                The only thing they have in common is nothing at all.

                • They stole the "active party" system, where you walk around with 3 or 4 party members and the rest wait for you in a convenient location. 90s Western RPGs, such as the Ultima games and even Baldur's Gate had a different model. If you chucked a player out of your party, there was a good chance they'd vanish, never to be seen again. If you want to see the big way in which Dragon Age resembles Final Fantasy VII more than Baldur's Gate, that's it.

                  They also stole a lot of the gameplay-flow and narrative structur

                  • Ultima had the Hostel (FSVO "convenient" location) l since at least in the NES version of Ultima IV (1990), where your party members waited. The first JRPGs that I played with something similar was Dragon Quest/Warrior III, which was out in 1991.

                    • The NES versions of the early Ultima games were handled by FCI and Ponycanyon. Japanese companies. They massively changed the gameplay mechanics from the PC and other home computer versions, producing end-results that were much more along the lines of the JRPGs of the time, rather than the Western equivalents.
            • What came out this year that wasn't either YAFPS, or an iterative (at best) sequel? All I can think of is Catherine, and Atlus is Japanese.

              LA Noire.

        • by neyla ( 2455118 )

          Yeah - what *did* they do with Valkyria Chronicles ? It's splendid, but was marketed like crap. And there's been essentially nothing happening with it since it was released in april 2008.

          • by Fancia ( 710007 )
            There were a couple of PSP-only sequels, and we only got one of them. I suppose that made sense for Japan, but it didn't do anything to help the series over here...
          • Valkyria Chronicles was a great game but it didn't do so hot in the US as compared to the Japan market. That's why there hasn't been much of it translated over.

            • Fantastic game, loved every minute of playing Valkyria Chronicles, and it required some actual thought to get through (unlike many FF games). I love my turn-based strategy games and strategy RPGs, and am glad the Japanese bother making them.

              • by Jibekn ( 1975348 )
                VK was hands down the best game i played in the last decade. I still go back and S-Star levels for fun.
          • You're absolutely right about the marketing of the first game. This was a superb title - in some way, my favorite game of the last five years. It was genuinely fresh and genuinely different. It was far enough removed from the usual anime-inspired cliches of much of Japanese gaming that it had, I think, genuine breakout potential. Hell, it was perfectly possible to build a squad who would have looked as "at home" in Gears of War as in Final Fantasy, if you so desired (and Japan seems, for some reason, convin

            • by neyla ( 2455118 )

              From time to time maybe - but a lot of it simply haven't kept up. Most of the recent RPGs from Japan feel as if they're a decade old - they're childish, noisy, shallow and repetitive.

              It's 2011, can we -not- have random wandering on a map until a encounter happens out of the blue ?

              Can we have heroes who are firmly out of their diapers ? Even ones that have kissed a girl before and thus aren't more mortified by this prospect than by the idea of facing Lucifer himself ?

              Can we -not- smash random boxes in random

        • by Anonymous Coward

          One aspect people aren't really talking about was that the entire game was developed in China. Square farmed out one of the biggest series to a lackluster 3rd-party developer.

          They tried to keep this under wraps, but people quickly noticed the Japanese text was poorly translated from Chinese, as well as online play policies that were 100% compatible with existing Chinese regulations. Eventually Square had to admit it.

          Later Square shipped a team of Japanese developers there just to start to fix the mess. I su

          • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

            Eventually Square had to admit it.

            They did? I can't remember Square ever admitting that they offshored the dev team. As far as I know, they claimed that the only change in the dev team that has been made was firing Tanaka and replacing him with Yoshida.

            Although honestly, it would be best for Square Enix to blame offshoring rather than claiming that the best they can do is a graphics engine that can't do shadows right (you can cast shadows on light sources!) and can't handle being Alt-Tabbed out of.

            Have they fixed the alt-tab thing? I know t

        • by ildon ( 413912 )

          Keep in mind that until it launches on PS3, it effectively has not launched in Japan. They're basically using the NA/EU PC market as an extended beta for the "real" version, which will be the Japanese PS3 release. If they can get that core Japanese console market to play the game for another ~7 years like they did with FFXI, then they can likely make back their losses and their pride.

    • They don't want that mark on the brand. They've always charged a premium for Final Fantasy games (usually $5 or $10 more than other games on the same platform) and they want you to keep paying that amount and they want to keep moving millions of copies. They want the brand to be so strong that gamers keep buying the remakes and the other peripheral FF games in droves as well (Dissidia, Crystal Chronicles, Mystery Dungeon, etc).

      Personally I think they should have left the online games out of the main-line
    • The graphics are still insanely pretty, especially with the large amount of gear that allows you to dress you avatar as you want to. Including special clothes for cat girls. CAT GIRLS!

      The backgroud story is also interesting. The problem was that the game was unplayable and not much fun. Whether the fun part will be saved if the the game actually becomes playable that is the big question.

      I got my doubts but for SE it is a choice between abandoning a huge money sink or sink a little bit more money into and ho

      • Indeed, very pretty. I logged back on there for the first time in months at the weekend. I was slightly confused that my graphics settings were so low, and turned them up. Then I remembered that FF14 is one of 2-3 games that I haven't been able to run on max settings on my computer. They claim to be redoing the graphics engine to make it easier on lower end machines, and more specifically the PS3.

        I'd be fairly surprised if they could make it a success at this point, with the huge amount of bad press it's re

        • Agreed. I'll wait until 2.0 and give it chance. I really enjoyed the depth and community of FFXI and hope they can pull it off again, and so does my Tarutaru
  • by Tridus ( 79566 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @06:59AM (#37748220) Homepage

    I'm not sure anybody has ever successfully resurrected a MMO after a launch as bad as this one. I'll be interested to see if they can actually keep many players or recruit new ones once the subscription fee returns, particularly with competition like The Old Republic showing up. Word of mouth as bad as this game got (deservedly so) is really hard to overcome even when you do make improvements.

    I am glad to see they're going to do something about the UI, though. Man that was terrible. It was unacceptably bad for a modern MMO.

    Luckily for them the PS3 MMO competition is far weaker then the PC competition, so it'll probably do better there.

    • Luckily for them the PS3 MMO competition is far weaker then the PC competition, so it'll probably do better there.

      Unluckily their MMORPG competition on the PS3 includes their own FFXI, and at leat one MMORPG with a a very loyal small but hardcore fanbase, EQOA. Not to mention the Freemium FreeRealms which is a hell of a lot more fun and less annoying, than FFXI ever was.

      • Unluckily their MMORPG competition on the PS3 includes their own FFXI, and at leat one MMORPG with a a very loyal small but hardcore fanbase, EQOA.

        Only if your PS3 does PS2 emulation, and they don't make those any more.

        • by ildon ( 413912 )

          They've actually been improving the PS2 software emulation over time. A lot of games run perfectly even on non-PS2-hardware PS3's. Don't know if the list includes those games yet, but either way, it's silly to lump in PS2 games with PS3 games, even if they do run on the same machine.

          • They've actually been improving the PS2 software emulation over time. A lot of games run perfectly even on non-PS2-hardware PS3's.

            Um, no. On modern PS3s, you can't run PS2 games. Period. End of sentence. PS3s went from having almost all the PS2 hardware, to having some of the PS2 hardware with rest covered by software emulation, to having no PS2 hardware and completely unable to run PS2 games.

  • by xmorg ( 718633 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @07:08AM (#37748246) Homepage

    The final fantasy series has all this content that people know and love but they always try something different.
    If they, for example recreated the world of final fantasy 6, people would eat it up. 6, 7, 8, 11, classics. But since final fantasy's are always a "new game", in the world of mmo's its just another mmo, and you need more than cute graphics to keep people playing.

    For example... world of warcraft! you have a world that was created across 3 games, and people were chomping at the bit to get into it.
    However with ffmmo's all you have is the label... final fantasy.

  • by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @07:08AM (#37748252) Homepage Journal

    I'm sure I'm not the only person irritated by Squenix' decision to seemingly at random make numbered Final Fantasy games MMORPGs. What sort of branding moron over there decided that consumers wouldn't find it confusing that FFI through FFX are linear stories while FFXI is an MMORPG, but oh wait FFXII and FFXIII are back to linear, but oh wait FFXIV is back to MMORPG... Seriously WTF? I'm a fan and I have a hard time keeping this crap straight sometimes.

    • You think this is hard to keep track of? Have you even heard of Kingdom Hearts?
    • It's pretty simple. Since the original Nintendo each game console generation had three Final Fantasy games.

      Nintendo 1-3
      Super Nintendo 4-6
      PS1 7-9
      PS2 10-12
      PS3 13-15

      Starting with FFX on the PS2 they started new tradition that the middle game on each console is a MMORPG.

      • Entertaining if you don't bother with improperly numbered sequels like X2 (which isn't the same as 12).

        • Final Fantasy X2 is one of the many spin-off games with "Final Fantasy" in the title that aren't part of the main sequence.

          • by Toonol ( 1057698 )
            Final Fantasy X2 is one of the many spin-off games with "Final Fantasy" in the title that aren't part of the main sequence.

            Hmm... I'm not so sure of that. Things like Revenant Wings, FF13Versus, those are spin offs. FFX-2 was a direct sequel (and really underappreciated). In my heart of hearts, I'd consider it a real FF more than FFXI or XIV.
          • FFX2 is a direct sequel in plot to FFX. That makes it a main sequence game, even if its a sequel. It was also a great game.

      • by Xacid ( 560407 )

        That's considered simple?

        • Well, it's simpler than calculating inverses of matrices, while cutting your foot of, while making love to a woman, while singing at Woodstock, while defusing an H-bomb, while reading tensor calculus, while defecting north korea.

          But I think Sqeenix's problem could be solved if they named their MMORPGs "Final Grind" {int}.. After all that's what they really boil down to right?

          • by Xacid ( 560407 )

            Re: Final Grind - damned truth there.

          • Well, it's simpler than calculating inverses of matrices, while cutting your foot of, while making love to a woman, while singing at Woodstock, while defusing an H-bomb, while reading tensor calculus, while defecting north korea.

            Hey, you had the same weekend I did!

    • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      I agree completely. But the original plan was fairly simple: all numbered Final Fantasy games after X are MMOs.

      Then they realized that was a fucking stupid plan, and released FFXII. (And later FFXIII.)

      Then they decided that since the PS2 was nearing the end of its life, they should release another MMO for the new generation of consoles, so they decided to create FFXIV.

      Why not just call FFXIV "Final Fantasy Online" and be done with it? Well, if there's anything FFXIII and FFXIV both prove, it's that no one w

    • by Jibekn ( 1975348 )
      Ive always hated that its not a continuous story.
      Ive enjoyed the following FF Games, and literally despised all others I've tried to date;

      FFI (Dragon Warrior with 4 characters, yaye!)
      FFII (Super Nintendo American version)
      FFIII (Super Nintendo American version)
      FFVII (PS1 NA Version)

      FFI i don't even remember the story, It was literally just dragon warrior with more characters to me(I was like 10)
      FFII the storyline grabbed me and even now I go back and play it, same with FFIII and VII
      The other the st
  • The game itself is supposed to be bad.

    "...new UI, a new graphics engine, and a redesign of all current maps."

    However, none of these things make a difference on the game design itself. Who's smoking what now?

    I hate stupid developers.

    • Wait, you've never seen a game with good mechanics ruined by bad UI or crappy and/or copy-pasted level design?

      At least Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 comes to mind.

      • What mostly got me about RCT3 was the fact it seemed to be able to slow systems (that were far in excess of it's specified requirements) to a crawl in larger parks. The UI glitches didn't help either of course.

        Despite theese issues though it's probablly one of the games i've spent the most time on over the years.

      • by Jibekn ( 1975348 )
        Im actually playing through RCT3 currently, and have never had many complaints about the UI(actually only one, but thats a lack of a rotate hotkey, arguably a UI feature). The slow downs yeah, but on a modern rig I play is smooth a silk with everything maxed of course.
        • I'm also playing through it, and maybe if you haven't played the previous ones, I can get what you're saying. If you haven't, here's what you're missing out on:

          - No silly "Are you sure dialogs", even for things that don't make you wait at all. "Are you sure you want to return to the main menu?" Seriously?
          - Keyboard shortcuts for _a lot_ of stuff. The ones that get me most of the time are the ones for visualization, but mostly the one that toggles invisible supports. As for rotating... I don't miss that one.

  • With the imminent success that will be Star Wars: The Old Republic launch (jury still out on whether this sucesss will last very long), every company in the MMORPG business is scrambling to stay relevant or minimize losses. SWG will fold December 10 (source: Google), Rift dropped the initial price of the game to a ridiculous $4.99 and is offering some free weekends, FF is getting revamped.

    I say from a business perspective, Square Enix is right. FF is still hot property. Milk it while they can!

    • I have recently quit rift, but the 4.99 price was always on some holiday special and the free weekend (believe there has only been one) was due to a major patch (which they have had 5 already in 6 months)... so rift is pretty strong if you ask me. Rift has the majority of the concepts of MMO figured out. Doesn't really matter if the game is only 5 bucks... they make more money on subscriptions anyways. They have "contracts" essentially for your monthly subsciption so I imagine they make a shit ton from peop
    • With the imminent success that will be Star Wars: The Old Republic launch (jury still out on whether this sucesss will last very long), every company in the MMORPG business is scrambling to stay relevant or minimize losses. SWG will fold December 10 (source: Google), Rift dropped the initial price of the game to a ridiculous $4.99 and is offering some free weekends, FF is getting revamped.

      I say from a business perspective, Square Enix is right. FF is still hot property. Milk it while they can!

      Bioware is taking an unusual step to ensure a smoother launch, they are intentionally limiting the release quantities of the game to reduce server load at launch.

      That said I was one of the idiots that bought the collectors edition for FFXIV also, and played for about 4 months mainly crafting and hoping that they would fix the broken game soon. Then came the server outages from the quake/tsunami/reactor breach event and I think this might have been the nail in the coffin of a game that was launched sorely in

    • by julesh ( 229690 )

      every company in the MMORPG business is scrambling to stay relevant or minimize losses. SWG will fold December 10

      I thought it was Dec 15. But never mind, the reason isn't that they're scrambling to stay relevant (there's no way they can) or minimize losses (SWG is, from all accounts, still very profitable). The problem is that Lucas has pulled the IP licence rug out from under them, so they *aren't allowed to continue running it*.

      Rift dropped the initial price of the game to a ridiculous $4.99

      Probably less to do with competition from SWTOR than it is to try to remain relevant in a market that's steadily losing out to free-to-play colossi (LOTRO, DDO, Champions Online, soon Star

    • More telling for Sony MMOs is that EQ2, which has been on the model of one expansion per year since launch, is instead releasing some shady no-content expansion in a month and they've released next to no information about it, including pre-orders or anything.

      It's not necessarily TOR as that there are so many options available now and it's at the point in most of their lifecycles that customers are really getting bored with them. It's time for real third generation MMOs to come out. Guild Wars 2 looks to be
  • Meaning a complete re-write of what still is a failure. A re-write that was obviously necessary from the start. Why they're keeping version 1 going is anyone's guess.

    • Initially they were keeping V1 going because of all the customers who bought the game. I'm more curious how many people will pay to stay until V2 comes out.
  • new UI, a new graphics engine, and a redesign of all current maps.

    reminds me of Anchor Man that is "based on a true story" and "only the names, places and events have been changed."

  • Did they actually come up with an in house billing system? I've never seen a game that was such a disaster when it came to taking your money. It's like they tried to introduce every hurdle possible to prevent people from actually subscribing. During release me and a few friends decided to all get in FFXIV to check it out. After the payment ordeal, each person of our group that arrived felt like they had made it up the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

    Just as well that we were all phoning each other trying t

    • No, and now they've inflicted a similar system on FFXI users whom were none too pleased. Before we could pay automatically on a monthly basis, now we're forced to manually add Crysta in amounts that don't sync very well with the actual bill and some of the 3rd party billing options have rather shady backgrounds.
  • The game did many things worse than even the far older WoW or Final Fantasy 11 did. The company seems way too sheltered.
  • The biggest problem FF14 had was a most serious case of consulitus. Considering the game is still not ready for the PS3 after a year, that was a really dumb mistake but one Japanese are prone to make. For some reason, games from the east just don't have the polish, technical polish, that we have come to take for granted in the west.

    Part of the reason might be that the japanese just don't do PC's. Most western game companies started on the PC or similar user controlled machines like the amiga or mac. We have

    • by sirroc ( 1157745 )

      The biggest problem FF14 had was a most serious case of consulitus. Considering the game is still not ready for the PS3 after a year, that was a really dumb mistake but one Japanese are prone to make. For some reason, games from the east just don't have the polish, technical polish, that we have come to take for granted in the west.

      Part of the reason might be that the japanese just don't do PC's. Most western game companies started on the PC or similar user controlled machines like the amiga or mac. We have come to take for granted that a PC game might have to run without sound because there is no sound card and so most games come with a mixer panel to mix not just music, but speech, special effect, environment and music. Many DS games I played don't even allow you to turn the music off and sound is a hardware slider affecting all sound the same.

      It is more then just simple missing configurations. I was quite shocked when recently caved and bought a PS3 by the BLACK saving screens... wtf? When was the last time a PC game even had to pause while saving? Oh wait, Rage, another game with a serious case of consilitus (try changin ammo on your equipped but not in the quick set, weapon. It will switch to weapon in your quickset instead of changing ammo).

      How does this relate to FF14? Simple:

      Config: Changing resolution or ANY other setting requires you to quit the game and launch a seperate config utility. This utility is NOT launched during first or indeed any startup. You have to dig for it.

      Character loading screen, not just akward it takes AGES. Just to render three chars. I can run any game with full details but FF14 bring my PC to its knees.

      Monthly fee? If you want more then one character, you pay more. You quickly pay a monthly fee far higher then any other mainstream game. If this game was the best in its class, that might be okay... but it is not.

      Classes, you create a character, either a fighter or a crafter. Maybe... as everywhere else in the game, explanation is zero. That is what fans call hardcore. I call it needlessly complex. Every MMO explains with simple text what your choices are during config. FF14 makes it guessing game.

      The chat system. Apparently there is one. Good luck on figuring it out. 99% of MMO's use an IRC like system. Two did not. Age of Conan and FF14. Gosh, what else do they have in common?

      The menu... I know consoles don't have keyboards... oh wait, the PS3 can use keyboards just fine and you can get a working one for 5 bucks... so WHY the menu on a PC? The menu hursts us.

      The game feels full of potential but they need to hire some white nerds to make it into a product that is not a pain to use. I know the Japanese committed horrible war crimes but come on, it has been over half a century, STOP punishing yourselves! Enjoy the comforts of the modern age, buy a chair and use common sense design in your computer games.

      Having played the game in the Alpha, It was obvious from the first test that the game WAS ready for PS3. However, due to the immediate changes to the battle system that was implemented in alpha 2 it completely broke the ps3 version. Running XIV in its alpha form (no config save for shadows enabled in a random .ini file) it fit nicely in a 256MB VRAM environment at 720p. With a few HQ cutscenes going over that. So yeah FFXIV was heavily reliant on the PS3.

      Let us also not forget the man in charge of FFXIV Hir

  • They even demo'd Final Fantasy 7 [youtube.com] for the PS3, and promptly dropped it after getting the fans excited. Redoing FF7 would be a damned easy way to make a ton of money AND make people happy at the same time.
    • It was always a tech demo. They never "dropped it" because it never was a project to begin with. When new consoles are being released, companies demo updated versions of already existing games to show off the hardware, like how the N64 got a tech demo of Final Fantasy 6 in 3D and how the PS2 got a tech demo of the ballroom scene from Final Fantasy 8 rendered in real-time.

      That said, it would still sell like hotcakes. I hope it's made for the 3DS, honestly, because I can see it performing well there. *Maybe*

The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

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