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Massively Exclusive: A dinner with Final Fantasy XIV's Naoki Yoshida
Having a conversation with Naoki Yoshida can be a very intimidating exercise. It's not because of his demeanor; he's friendly, genial, and has an obvious sense of humor. No, it's because there's an unmistakable level of energy to him, a huge amount of passion and ambition that drives everything he talks about. He's exactly the sort of person who would try something completely insane like remaking a game from the ground up after burning the first version to the ground, for example. I had the opportunity to sit down for a one-on-one dinner with Yoshida at the Final Fantasy XIV preview event, during which we talked a great deal both about the upcoming relaunch of the game as well as his own experiences in remaking everything. For those of us who play Final Fantasy XIV, it's obviously an exciting time, but for Yoshida, what's happening now is the culmination of work that started only a month after he took over control of a game that he had to revitalize after a horrible flop on launch.
The Mog Log: The story so far (and yet to come) in Final Fantasy XIV
I have several friends who don't play Final Fantasy XIV but still saw the trailer ending the first version. After all, it's been hard to miss. Almost every single person has said the same thing: "It was awesome. I have absolutely no idea what was going on with any of it, but it looked really cool." This isn't just because Final Fantasy XIV isn't in their rotations. Final Fantasy games are usually dense pieces of work, filled with references back and forth that make sense only if you know all of the players involved and have a solid understanding of the game's magical whoosits. If you've missed some steps along the way to the ending trailer, it's easy to watch and not understand what actually went down, and even if you did, there were some parts that could be really easily missed. So let's take a step back and look at the story so far. It's not the same as playing through the story for the past two years, but it should at least clarify what in the world happened.
Final Fantasy XIV shut down, reborn in this 'end of an era' trailer
The era ending in this lengthy cinematic trailer is that of Final Fantasy XIV, as Square Enix pulled the plug today on the game's servers in preparation for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The MMO relaunch was said to be "rebuilt from the ground-up" when the not-exactly-new game was announced in July.The Eorzean Alliance battled the Garlean Empire before further chaos engulfed the "end of an era" trailer, seen above. Like it or not, Final Fantasy XIV certainly went out in style. Both the PS3 and PC versions of A Realm Reborn are expected to launch in 2013.
Flameseeker Chronicles: The end of an era for Guild Wars
The countdown on Guild Wars 2's official site has ticked away to almost nothing. The Guild Wars 2 community is getting increasingly anxious, and at the same time, the Guild Wars community is getting increasingly sappy. Tapping into both of those sentiments, ArenaNet set up a celebration that started this last weekend and will run until August 30th. The celebration, called Wayfarer's Reverie, gives players a chance to celebrate their time spent in Guild Wars and rewards them, at the end, with a Tormented weapon, which, depending on their Hall of Monuments progress, could give them up to two points.
