FFXIVstuff, aka monster hunter XIV Options

[Alisha]

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/04/final-fa...new-job-system/

The latest edition of Famitsu Wave recently hit newsstands in Japan, bringing with it a DVD which contains an 8-minute exposé on Square Enix's second stab at the MMO genre, Final Fantasy XIV. The whole video is posted after the break. Fret not -- it sports convenient English subtitles.

Here's some of the more titillating excerpts: The game features a reinvented character progression system which does not include experience points or leveling up. The job system from XI will make an appearance, but in a heavily altered form -- an interview with the game's director, Nobuaki Komoto, revealed that the game will place a focus on the weapons players use, explaining that your armaments will determine "the way you play" and "the way you grow." Sounds reminiscent of Final Fantasy IX. (That's a very good thing.)

In addition, FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka explained that the game takes place in a new region with a more "modern" feel to it -- the mysterious Eorzea which was mentioned in the trailer. The new world features familiar races (albeit with new names), and plays host to a "deep story," which is told through cut-scenes and quests. For more FFXIV info than you can possibly handle, check the video after the jump.


sounds similar to monster hunter no?

Race Scans

Someone translated the text on BG Forums regarding the characters:

"When you make your character, aside from choosing the race, you will also be able to customize their appearance. Head, skin color, hair type etc, there will be multiple factors. Just how exact we will be able to customize their appearance is still unknown, but we mean it in a good way when we say that it seems like it will become a worry to many players."

[Scan_Man]

There is over 2.5 million, there will be more when Cataclysm comes out, active US WoW subscribers. My point is WoW dominates the MMO market for subscription based MMOs. In comparison, FFXI never hit over 500k worldwide. I agree FFXIV will pull long time FFXI players; which is very small right now they had to merge servers. As for those that once played FFXI (a number of these play WoW now) or FF fans, I agree there as well. However, those players are less likely to stick around with FF fans being the most likely not to stick.

Don't underestimate how the WoW population get sucked into the latest fad, or hot thing to come out, and spend money on it. And I'm sure FFXIV will qualify as that because it is a new FF MMO. A week ago Blizzard released a mount, that is basically a reskin of an existing mount in the game, and charged $25 dollars for it. Guess what? Everyone and their mom bought this stupid thing. On its release Blizzard made 2 million dollars within 4 hours.

And everywhere you read about how FFXIV going to be more casual friendly, or solo friendly. These are words WoW players buy into.


My concern is more so how WoW and WoW players have influence on the over all MMO community. While there are some people that never really touched WoW, a good number of people playing free MMOs or other payed MMOs have. And a lot of MMO's try to do what WoW does, so thus attract the same type of players. There is a lot of hostility and immaturity in these communities, and it comes from the state of the WoW community. People stop playing WoW because they get tired of dealing with those types of people, but they are those type of people, and bring it to other games. I saw this happen in both Aion and Star Trek Online.

Ultimately, I'm going to have to decide if I want to give this game a try. I do play WoW, but only to participate in raids with my guild; they are a good group of people but it took me years to find this. One of the reasons I don't play other parts of WoW is because the community is awful. After seeing parts of the WoW community jump over to Aion and Star Trek Online, I have a hard time thinking any future MMO's are going to be any different. WoW population is too large, and too willing to spend money to try out new MMO's to not have a sizable chunk wanting to play FFXIV.

Now for WoW the developers are changing a lot of mechanics in order to reduce some of the issues in the community. I applaud Blizzard for recognizing that some of their gameplay is partly at fault.

For example, Blizzard added a cross-server, play with people on other servers, grouping system that allows you to queue up with your class/roll. It will automatically place you into a party with the correct class makeup and then port you to the instance. It has a vote-kick system to deal with bad players. If you vote someone out, it automatically replaces the player and ports them where your party is. So you hardly ever have to deal with idiots that are rude, or screw up your party. It also gets rid of the problem in these types of games when you get a group and it falls apart before it starts, or half way through. Lastly, it helps players easily find groups for low level content that has been deserted. Best feature in a MMO ever!

On the other hand, I read about some FFXIV mechanics that I think need to be fleshed out a little more, so they don't create the mistakes that WoW had. They need to catch up with the times. My opinion, but will determine if I like the game or not. Allowing US players in the Alpha test so early on is a good sign that they want American feedback. Which is a good thing because Japan is not exactly known for MMOs. I hope Alpha and Beta test are successful and Square listens to good feedback.


I understand if you play a couple smaller population MMO's, played FFXI in the past, or have not experienced the current state of the WoW population; what I am saying has no barring on your decision to play FFXIV then. However, I am all too familiar with the WoW population and I know they will most likely be trying out FFXIV in the first few months of release; which is a crucial time in deciding if one will be sticking with the game. I know how these players behave. The thought of having to play a new MMO with these types of players again does impact my decision to play FFXIV or not. I'm throwing this possibility out there to warn those, that may be like me, who care about having a decent community to play with when deciding to stick with a new MMO. If you don't care about the community in the MMO you are playing, then who plays the game will make no difference to you. Or you already have a good group of people to consistently play with; consider yourself lucky.

This post has been edited by Scan_Man: Apr 24 2010, 05:55 PM