Speaking of carot on a stick, I wonder how many people even bother getting one these days. Back in the days od vanilla WoW, almost everyone who was anyone had one, nowdays, not so much.
I would like to throw in my 5 cents here, as I'm sure no-one really wants Final Fantasy 14 to be like WoW. As one poster wrote, if that was the case then everyone might as well just play WoW. But, for me, it goes deeper than this. I certainly hope that Final Fantasy 14 does NOT include these things that has plagued WoW into what it is today:
There is something about WoW which is infectious and weens one down and casual friendly content. While this needs to strike a balance, Blizzard has overdone it. Most WoWers agree on this, especially on the levelling through Northrend front. This has resulted in too much independence, again too much solo you and transforms you into a gamer I try hard to NOT become. Unfortunately, it has become the norm and not the exception. It seems like that is how the changes and vision of a more "casual based, play for a short time yet still get rewarded" have effected the community and how players of WoW adapt and carry their characters and gaming mentality. It is a very very sour result that has erupted throughout the community and it had me into a tight lock as well.
I became NOT an adventurer wanting other people to share journeys with but more a mindless, seeking gratification gamer that held onto my guild like they were gold but screw the rest. I used to be nice; I would buff/help new players/praise them on significant accomplishments/give gold but nowadays the norm seems to be a mentality of "What's in it for me?." I do want the challenge, I do want to have some decent goal in mind but above all, I want a sense of community. Some may say I'm dreaming, or that times have changed. I don't think so. Making content easily accessible, with emphasis on LFD tools with fast access to quick epics through repetitive dungeon grinds is what has changed how players play and how it reflects in the community. If Final Fantasy 14 goes down this route, I will spit on their vision.
It boggles me how people can want to think that this was a challenge. Think about how bad Super Mario, Half-Life 2 or whatever would suck if you stretched that experience to 2000 hours. your doing the same thing when grinding.
This is a very small portion of your large post, but it sort of stuck in my brain nagging at me and I made up my mind to figure out exactly why.
Half-Life 2 (just as an example of a single-player game) takes about 20-odd hours to complete. During that time, you explore a HUGE variety of different places, none of them similar to the others. You fight several completely different kinds of enemies in different combinations, obtain many different weapons, and have to work your way through several tight spots that are difficult to navigate and require critical thinking and good FPS skills. If the game had been twice as long, would it have been more fun? Judging by the millions of people who bought the Orange Box to play Eps 1 and 2, I'm prepared to say HELL YES! Of course continuing to play the same game for longer would have made it better! Well... that's not completely fair, is it? I mean, there's a difference between adding on a dozen hours of extra content and just stretching out the same content by a dozen hours. Let's work backwards, then... which would be a better game: original HL2, or all 3 HL2 games reduced in length to fit into the same 20-odd hour timeframe? Despite the fact that I just established that more content makes the game better than less content, I'd have to cast my vote for original HL2. Playing through a game with the content chopped down like that would feel very rushed; you'd feel like each area of the game ended too soon. There is a sense that the games are just as long as they need to be for the amount of content that is in them; I find myself feeling the same way about most well-done single player games that I've enjoyed.
Now, would I stretch any of those games out to 2000 hours? Yeech, I doubt it. And yet... there are plenty of people who log 2000 hours of CoD, TF2, Warcraft III, or League of Legends. Of course, there's a big difference there. Those are multiplayer games that don't end, not single player games. Why is it that people would be willing to subject themselves to such repetition? No doubt, part of it is because interaction with other people provides more variation than AI could give you, but even then I don't think that's enough to account for it.
I think a more reasonable answer is because those games have no end. There is no point where the game stops, credits roll, and you say "Okay, now there's no more Team Fortress 2." Knowing that, knowing there's no end point that you are "working" towards, you're more free to enjoy the game. By contrast, playing through a 2000-hour HL2, you'd be plagued by the idea that there's somewhat different content later on and even an ending in the distant future, and you'd be miffed that you're not there yet.
An MMO—yeah, wow, I finally made it back to them—falls in a weird space in-between those two worlds. If you think about it, there is an "end" to an MMO. Even though the credits don't roll, there is a point where you will have obtained everything that you could possibly get to improve your character, and you'll say "Okay, now there's no more World of Warcraft." But unlike HL2, there's only a very small percentage of the playerbase that expect to ever reach that point at all, and an even smaller percentage that actually does reach it (if any!). But even though you're not plagued by the inevitable END and how far away it is, you're still aware of your incremental progression through the game. You are acutely aware of your forward movement and that drives you to continue moving forward, but you're not trying to reach the end and stop. This is what makes MMOs weirdly addictive, and it's why nobody complains about them being more than 2000 hours long.
A great game is just as long as it needs to be. For HL2 that's a few dozen hours, and for an MMO it's infinity hours. This isn't just a matter of game companies wanting to take your money forever, it's a natural aspect of the MMO genre. Just like TF2 or Starcraft, you're supposed to play the game because you like it. If it were possible to go from level-one-guy-with-no-armor-and-a-sharp-stick to max-level-guy-with-every-achievement-and-item in 20 hours—or hell, even in 100 hours—most people wouldn't classify it as a proper MMO. It would be a huge disappointment, and certainly not something you'd have an interest in staying subscribed to.
So, it seems to me that arguing whether you should have to "grind" (this seems like a silly word now...) for X hours or X/4 hours to get from level A to level B is a bit absurd. If the point is to continue improving forever and to enjoy yourself as you do it, isn't the rate of your advancement kind of beside the point? The only thing that would make such a statement sensible is if the later parts of the game are much more entertaining than the early parts. (Call this the "gravity gun" defense.) While you wouldn't be preoccupied by how distant the "end" is, you'd be pissed that you're stuck in the less fun part while the good part is so far away. If that's the case, then the developers ought not to concentrate on "how can we make the grind to the gravity gun shorter?" but rather "how can we make everything up to the gravity gun just as much fun?"
More thoughts on this but I'm way past rambling so I'll stop here.
Since some people in here refer to something close to being the perfect MMO, what is that then? I mean, what is the perfect MMO? I bet 100$ that it's different depending on who you ask, and which is why nothing can ever be classified as that, ever. We all have different tastes and much other things that don't match up. Just because you love a game, which I do with FFVIII for example and yet so many hate it. It's just all about taste.
Professional lurker - Been a member of MMORPG.com since 2003.
It wasn't fast, it just gave the illusion of being fast because you had to scroll in the menu faster because now there are more actions. Still a pointless task when you could just had hotkeys.
I still think that controllers are responsabile for that. Imagine you're in a party with a bit faster combat. The ones who would be not efficient are those with the controllers. They have to open menus and find the actions which will slow them down. From that point on you will avoid partying with the console players. What SE did is making the keyboard & mouse as slow as the controller to eleminate the time gap betwen these players. So this game is created with the controller in mind and then punishing the pc till the point when the two would not make a difference betwen each others. That's why I hated FFXI even though I am a great SE fan.
Now I only ever reached the mid-50's, but I could still handle abilities via their macro system, which were very much like the ability bar in WoW. Now I played from PC, but a couple of friends of mine used the PS2 and they reported that the macro system was easy to access with a controller. Writing the macros was a pain, unless you attached a keyboard, but they were simple to quickly access.
Now, like I said, I only ever reached the mid-50's myself. But I only ever used the menus if I didn't have the spell macro'd.
As I have gotten older, it seems the time to play MMOS is less and less so I do understand Pingo's posts. I also have been a big FF fan for a long time and understand some of the thoughts from their single player games, "the more grind you do before the bosses, the easier the fights will be." Creating XI, I thought they did a great job of capturing the essence of the FF series creating that journey and it was my crack for 3-4 years, maybe 5. Hell, it was my first MMO.
I ultimately quit the game because i disliked playing for 8-12 hours in a day wanting to accomplish a few things and if I was lucky, I would accomplish 1 thing.
If FFXIV could change one major thing to make it better, it would be queues and I would say this a million times. There could be queues to do any sort of quest, exploration, mission, AF, dynamis, etc. This would eliminate a lot of the shouting from WG and Jeuno looking for people to join you. This would truly help 14 out and the person looking to maximize their time. Say if you got off of work at 6pm, and it's a game night for you(because you are married-have kids etc) Maybe you get home at 6:30-6:45pm. Hopefully your wife made dinner for you so you don't have to cook that night( I do cook plenty of nights). Maybe by 8:30pm you are able to log on but for sure will be asleep before midnight. Wouldn't it be great to be able to do 2 assaults, and maybe a dynamis/mission/limbus/etc in those 3 hours? I know that's what a guild is for but you are the casual player, not like the other guys who play 40-50 hours a week like a 2nd full time job. You may play 8-10 max.
Either way, FFXIV will be pre-ordered for both PC and PS3. I will have 2 accounts, (hopefully the wife can pick up on it)probably convince a few more friends to try as well and do things together
What im wondering is in FFXIV are they gonna make targetting monsters a lot easier then FFXI? Becuase in FFXI you would have to Cancell your attack......Wait for you to put back your weapon...."Sorry you must wait longer to attack this monster" (while the monster is freely attacking you)....Then finnaly draw your sword and attack. I think in FFXIV there should be a smooth transition in attacking other monsters, unlike in FFXI.
What im wondering is in FFXIV are they gonna make targetting monsters a lot easier then FFXI? Becuase in FFXI you would have to Cancell your attack......Wait for you to put back your weapon...."Sorry you must wait longer to attack this monster" (while the monster is freely attacking you)....Then finnaly draw your sword and attack. I think in FFXIV there should be a smooth transition in attacking other monsters, unlike in FFXI.
Considering the combat in XIV is significantly different from XI, this is a non-issue.
Although what you say isn't even right. You don't have to unsheathe your weapon to switch targets...
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
As for your number 5. I would have to disagree about caring for any of the NPCs on FFXI, they were all pretty lame and boring, minus a few, and even those once the CS was over, that was that, didn't care what happened next. Only time I did enjoy the so called Story in FFXI was CoP. But this isn't the point I am making, FFXIV at the E3 launch of last year where they were first talking about the game(that or an interview shortly after), Project Rapture was not originally going to be a FF title, but they said the story was so good that they decided it deserved a FF number.
Also, you can pick a voice for your character when you are creating it, and your character will have their own voice now in Cutscenes. That is a massive improvement, In FFXI , my character reminded me of a Mime when it come to being apart of the story, you never seen your toon say anything, he just stood there and looked stupid.
Comments
Speaking of carot on a stick, I wonder how many people even bother getting one these days. Back in the days od vanilla WoW, almost everyone who was anyone had one, nowdays, not so much.
There should be a Godwin's Law for WoW. It amazes me how topics can skew so far off track once it's mentioned.
I would like to throw in my 5 cents here, as I'm sure no-one really wants Final Fantasy 14 to be like WoW. As one poster wrote, if that was the case then everyone might as well just play WoW. But, for me, it goes deeper than this. I certainly hope that Final Fantasy 14 does NOT include these things that has plagued WoW into what it is today:
There is something about WoW which is infectious and weens one down and casual friendly content. While this needs to strike a balance, Blizzard has overdone it. Most WoWers agree on this, especially on the levelling through Northrend front. This has resulted in too much independence, again too much solo you and transforms you into a gamer I try hard to NOT become. Unfortunately, it has become the norm and not the exception. It seems like that is how the changes and vision of a more "casual based, play for a short time yet still get rewarded" have effected the community and how players of WoW adapt and carry their characters and gaming mentality. It is a very very sour result that has erupted throughout the community and it had me into a tight lock as well.
I became NOT an adventurer wanting other people to share journeys with but more a mindless, seeking gratification gamer that held onto my guild like they were gold but screw the rest. I used to be nice; I would buff/help new players/praise them on significant accomplishments/give gold but nowadays the norm seems to be a mentality of "What's in it for me?." I do want the challenge, I do want to have some decent goal in mind but above all, I want a sense of community. Some may say I'm dreaming, or that times have changed. I don't think so. Making content easily accessible, with emphasis on LFD tools with fast access to quick epics through repetitive dungeon grinds is what has changed how players play and how it reflects in the community. If Final Fantasy 14 goes down this route, I will spit on their vision.
This is a very small portion of your large post, but it sort of stuck in my brain nagging at me and I made up my mind to figure out exactly why.
Half-Life 2 (just as an example of a single-player game) takes about 20-odd hours to complete. During that time, you explore a HUGE variety of different places, none of them similar to the others. You fight several completely different kinds of enemies in different combinations, obtain many different weapons, and have to work your way through several tight spots that are difficult to navigate and require critical thinking and good FPS skills. If the game had been twice as long, would it have been more fun? Judging by the millions of people who bought the Orange Box to play Eps 1 and 2, I'm prepared to say HELL YES! Of course continuing to play the same game for longer would have made it better! Well... that's not completely fair, is it? I mean, there's a difference between adding on a dozen hours of extra content and just stretching out the same content by a dozen hours. Let's work backwards, then... which would be a better game: original HL2, or all 3 HL2 games reduced in length to fit into the same 20-odd hour timeframe? Despite the fact that I just established that more content makes the game better than less content, I'd have to cast my vote for original HL2. Playing through a game with the content chopped down like that would feel very rushed; you'd feel like each area of the game ended too soon. There is a sense that the games are just as long as they need to be for the amount of content that is in them; I find myself feeling the same way about most well-done single player games that I've enjoyed.
Now, would I stretch any of those games out to 2000 hours? Yeech, I doubt it. And yet... there are plenty of people who log 2000 hours of CoD, TF2, Warcraft III, or League of Legends. Of course, there's a big difference there. Those are multiplayer games that don't end, not single player games. Why is it that people would be willing to subject themselves to such repetition? No doubt, part of it is because interaction with other people provides more variation than AI could give you, but even then I don't think that's enough to account for it.
I think a more reasonable answer is because those games have no end. There is no point where the game stops, credits roll, and you say "Okay, now there's no more Team Fortress 2." Knowing that, knowing there's no end point that you are "working" towards, you're more free to enjoy the game. By contrast, playing through a 2000-hour HL2, you'd be plagued by the idea that there's somewhat different content later on and even an ending in the distant future, and you'd be miffed that you're not there yet.
An MMO—yeah, wow, I finally made it back to them—falls in a weird space in-between those two worlds. If you think about it, there is an "end" to an MMO. Even though the credits don't roll, there is a point where you will have obtained everything that you could possibly get to improve your character, and you'll say "Okay, now there's no more World of Warcraft." But unlike HL2, there's only a very small percentage of the playerbase that expect to ever reach that point at all, and an even smaller percentage that actually does reach it (if any!). But even though you're not plagued by the inevitable END and how far away it is, you're still aware of your incremental progression through the game. You are acutely aware of your forward movement and that drives you to continue moving forward, but you're not trying to reach the end and stop. This is what makes MMOs weirdly addictive, and it's why nobody complains about them being more than 2000 hours long.
A great game is just as long as it needs to be. For HL2 that's a few dozen hours, and for an MMO it's infinity hours. This isn't just a matter of game companies wanting to take your money forever, it's a natural aspect of the MMO genre. Just like TF2 or Starcraft, you're supposed to play the game because you like it. If it were possible to go from level-one-guy-with-no-armor-and-a-sharp-stick to max-level-guy-with-every-achievement-and-item in 20 hours—or hell, even in 100 hours—most people wouldn't classify it as a proper MMO. It would be a huge disappointment, and certainly not something you'd have an interest in staying subscribed to.
So, it seems to me that arguing whether you should have to "grind" (this seems like a silly word now...) for X hours or X/4 hours to get from level A to level B is a bit absurd. If the point is to continue improving forever and to enjoy yourself as you do it, isn't the rate of your advancement kind of beside the point? The only thing that would make such a statement sensible is if the later parts of the game are much more entertaining than the early parts. (Call this the "gravity gun" defense.) While you wouldn't be preoccupied by how distant the "end" is, you'd be pissed that you're stuck in the less fun part while the good part is so far away. If that's the case, then the developers ought not to concentrate on "how can we make the grind to the gravity gun shorter?" but rather "how can we make everything up to the gravity gun just as much fun?"
More thoughts on this but I'm way past rambling so I'll stop here.
Since some people in here refer to something close to being the perfect MMO, what is that then? I mean, what is the perfect MMO? I bet 100$ that it's different depending on who you ask, and which is why nothing can ever be classified as that, ever. We all have different tastes and much other things that don't match up. Just because you love a game, which I do with FFVIII for example and yet so many hate it. It's just all about taste.
Now I only ever reached the mid-50's, but I could still handle abilities via their macro system, which were very much like the ability bar in WoW. Now I played from PC, but a couple of friends of mine used the PS2 and they reported that the macro system was easy to access with a controller. Writing the macros was a pain, unless you attached a keyboard, but they were simple to quickly access.
Now, like I said, I only ever reached the mid-50's myself. But I only ever used the menus if I didn't have the spell macro'd.
As I have gotten older, it seems the time to play MMOS is less and less so I do understand Pingo's posts. I also have been a big FF fan for a long time and understand some of the thoughts from their single player games, "the more grind you do before the bosses, the easier the fights will be." Creating XI, I thought they did a great job of capturing the essence of the FF series creating that journey and it was my crack for 3-4 years, maybe 5. Hell, it was my first MMO.
I ultimately quit the game because i disliked playing for 8-12 hours in a day wanting to accomplish a few things and if I was lucky, I would accomplish 1 thing.
If FFXIV could change one major thing to make it better, it would be queues and I would say this a million times. There could be queues to do any sort of quest, exploration, mission, AF, dynamis, etc. This would eliminate a lot of the shouting from WG and Jeuno looking for people to join you. This would truly help 14 out and the person looking to maximize their time. Say if you got off of work at 6pm, and it's a game night for you(because you are married-have kids etc) Maybe you get home at 6:30-6:45pm. Hopefully your wife made dinner for you so you don't have to cook that night( I do cook plenty of nights). Maybe by 8:30pm you are able to log on but for sure will be asleep before midnight. Wouldn't it be great to be able to do 2 assaults, and maybe a dynamis/mission/limbus/etc in those 3 hours? I know that's what a guild is for but you are the casual player, not like the other guys who play 40-50 hours a week like a 2nd full time job. You may play 8-10 max.
Either way, FFXIV will be pre-ordered for both PC and PS3. I will have 2 accounts, (hopefully the wife can pick up on it)probably convince a few more friends to try as well and do things together
What im wondering is in FFXIV are they gonna make targetting monsters a lot easier then FFXI? Becuase in FFXI you would have to Cancell your attack......Wait for you to put back your weapon...."Sorry you must wait longer to attack this monster" (while the monster is freely attacking you)....Then finnaly draw your sword and attack. I think in FFXIV there should be a smooth transition in attacking other monsters, unlike in FFXI.
Cast In The Name Of God, Ye Not Guilty
Considering the combat in XIV is significantly different from XI, this is a non-issue.
Although what you say isn't even right. You don't have to unsheathe your weapon to switch targets...
As for your number 5. I would have to disagree about caring for any of the NPCs on FFXI, they were all pretty lame and boring, minus a few, and even those once the CS was over, that was that, didn't care what happened next. Only time I did enjoy the so called Story in FFXI was CoP. But this isn't the point I am making, FFXIV at the E3 launch of last year where they were first talking about the game(that or an interview shortly after), Project Rapture was not originally going to be a FF title, but they said the story was so good that they decided it deserved a FF number.
Also, you can pick a voice for your character when you are creating it, and your character will have their own voice now in Cutscenes. That is a massive improvement, In FFXI , my character reminded me of a Mime when it come to being apart of the story, you never seen your toon say anything, he just stood there and looked stupid.