The Mog Log: A year of two games
It's really hard to believe that I've been writing this column for an entire year, especially when the start of it seems so fresh in my mind. Back in January of 2010, the first installment went live on a Sunday, sort of a television-style early premier event before moving to a regular timeslot on Saturday. Though it was mostly a collection of links to useful sites for fans of Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, it was still the start of something that's clearly stood the test of time, at least a year's worth.
To be totally accurate, I should say that the first anniversary of the column fell on Monday. But I decided to go a little bit later than an exact year, so this week is when we're looking back over the past year of columns. And it's been an interesting time to be doing such a column, since we've had a rollercoaster ride with Final Fantasy XIV's launch and subsequent issues, not to mention the groundswell of content for Final Fantasy XI. So I'm going to take a look back to see what worked, what didn't, and what would best be never spoken of again.
The Eleven Equation
It wasn't intentional to have the Mog Log start so close to VanaFest last year, but it produced an interesting opportunity to get right into the swing of current events. My disappointment at what was announced has since cooled substantially, but I'm still irritated at how low accessibility has generally ranked on the priority list for FFXI's development team. Perhaps the latest changes in staffing will make that a thing of the past, but I'm not holding my breath.
That didn't mean I disliked FFXI, of course, and it still doesn't. I'm pleased with the results from taking the time to just sing the game's praises, and the three-part series on the mostcontroversialexpansion. Because of the game's longevity, there's a bit more time for perspective and looking back, a chance to let things that seemed deathly important at the time fall by the wayside as they become less relevant. My feelings about Chains of Promathia changed significantly between the start of those columns and the conclusion, and I'm proud of the end result.
It also means more opportunity to analyze some of the game's less popular design decisions, such as the neverending boss fight and the gil-farming madness plaguing the design. I still find it odd that so many people who know nothing else about FFXI still harp on the whole boss fight thing as if it were the default mode of the game rather than an aberration, but these sorts of things stick in people's memories, I guess.
That doesn't mean that I'm happy with everything I've written about FFXI over the past year. While I've got more data from the soloing experiment from way back, each time I've looked at the writeup it seems to end off mostly at "I killed things and gained levels and didn't die," which is factually true but not terribly relevant. I also devoted a column to looking at the future of the game, which... well, I felt as if it meandered a bit and became more of a summation than a real set of predictions.
But it's been a good year on the FFXI front. Sure, there are some little things here and there, but by and large I'm happy with how I handled things last year.
Fourteen's Follies
So, who wants to remember this column again? I really don't. I'm still not happy with how it came out, and I'm still disappointed at the way that it's more negative than I really wanted to sound. The fact that some of those predictions might have turned out to be right doesn't mitigate any of that. Still, it was one of the earlier columns speculating on what life would be like in a post-FFXIV world, preceded only by a less-inspired take on non-returning features from FFXI.
Once the game was launched, of course, I immediately ran into a problem. With a few reservations (most of which have since been fixed in large part), I enjoy FFXIV. That puts me in the decided minority, and even though most of the flashpoints pre-launch turned out to be non-issues, there are many players out there who still think that the game is vile enough to be dropped on enemy soldiers in times of war. Which is kind of normal -- we gamers do have a tendency to act like jilted lovers when games disappoint us. (I'd talk about my schadenfreude following Tabula Rasa's launch, but these days that just feels mean.)
Still, for those of us who do like the game, there's a lot to unpack and figure out, hence my discussions about crafting, combat systems, character building, and at least one massive game update. And there's a lot left to be fixed, hence the 11th-hour management shakeup which... well, honestly, I'm not totally happy with the column. But it was off the cuff amidst a big change, so I'm willing to give it something of a pass. I've asked the team not to make big changes like that on Thursdays and Fridays any longer, but I'm not expecting miracles.
It's been an interesting ride for FFXIV, and while I might not agree with the game's detractors, I can understand where they're coming from. What comes next is going to determine a lot for the game, and I'll admit to a certain fear that it might morph into a game that I no longer care for while others do. But I'm hoping that it's just going to be a case of giving everyone more fun stuff to do, something I'm wholly behind.
Looking back
Any time you have a column serving two games, you have the challenge of trying to give both games roughly equal coverage. If that sounds like it would be an easy task, I can empathize -- it sounded easy enough when I started. It's also a special brand of interesting when a game has a large number of very vocal fans and very vocal detractors, and given the rather bottled nature of the community, we all get really passionate about this stuff.
But I've enjoyed writing the column for the past year, and I'm looking forward to the future. There are a lot of really interesting times ahead for both games, and I'm really curious to see what might be on deck as we move into the middle and end of 2011. We've got a very different developer culture moving into place, and that alone is going to lead to some real shakeups.
So we're going to keep going forward. I've got a lot more to talk about, and I'm hopeful you'll all stick along for the ride. (Even if you don't agree with me -- there's a reason I go with pretty much unmoderated comment threads.) And thanks for reading up until now while I've waxed (occasionally) poetic about two of my favorite games out there, through the good and the bad.
As always, you can leave feedback in the comments or send it along to eliot@massively.com. Next week, it's time to talk about the wear and tear you're leaving on your equipment, how to fix it, and whether or not you should even bother.
From Eorzea to Vana'diel, there is a constant: the moogles. And for analysis and opinions about the online portions of the Final Fantasy series, there is also a constant: The Mog Log. Longtime series fan Eliot Lefebvre serves up a new installment of the log every Saturday, covering almost anything related to Square-Enix's vibrant online worlds.
