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The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's Armoury system, yesterday and tomorrow
Final Fantasy XIV has always sold its class system on the idea that you use it more as an a la carte buffet. Abilities you learn in one class are useful in another class, and as a result, your Gladiator is a mix of several different abilities in a single package. The idea at launch was that mixing abilities and inherent mechanics would produce very different characters based on the needs of circumstance and your personal playstyle. This is not what happened. Nor is it what happened following the large ability revamp, which actually wound up making cross-class skills less useful in many areas. When the game relaunches, odds are good that the current system will be largely intact, at least at a conceptual level. (You have your class abilities and then a selection of abilities from other classes that you've learned, in other words.) And it's my hope that on this third pass through the system, the development team gets things just right. But let's take a look at the first two versions first.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XI's future might just be bright
We might not have another roadmap for Final Fantasy XI just yet, but we have the next best thing: a letter from producer Akihiko Matsui talking about what's at least being gingerly planned for the next year. More accurately, it's about delays in the existing roadmap, the state of the game, and what Matsui plans to do about it in the near future. While the letter itself is a little old at the moment, I'm going to be honest and say that I keep re-reading it amidst a mixture of disbelief and hope. I've been getting up on the same soapbox for almost three years regarding Final Fantasy XI's biggest problems, and Matsui's dispatch by and large seems to indicate that the team in charge of the game right now is aware of exactly these issues and actively wants to correct them. This is kind of staggering. It's the good sort of staggering, but it's the sort of thing you don't expect to see, especially not from a game with a lot invested in gleefully ignoring the rest of the world. But this could mean that despite FFXI's age, next year could be the best one for the game in a long while.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's alpha footage so far
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Final Fantasy XIV is doing its best to make a really positive second impression on the gaming community as a whole, but it's still not going to get as much popularity as it might have had without the original launch. The game has an uphill battle to fight, and it needs to really wow people. This is something I've discussed before. If you haven't read it before, go ahead and do so; I think it's a pretty good piece. Right now, the game needs to show something off that is really unique, something to make people sit up and say, "Oh, now that is neat." Obviously the game isn't testable yet for many of us. But we have seen the first several alpha test videos. And my reaction thus far has been... well, I haven't actually been sitting in front of my screen with my head in my hands while cursing, but I've considered it as a possible course of action.
The Mog Log: Ideas worth taking for A Realm Reborn
So what does the completely redone Final Fantasy XIV engine look like? I have no idea. I'm not in the alpha test. Considering I got into the beta last time only at the absolute tail end of everything, I am not really surprised. That isn't the point; the point that I'm meandering toward is that the game could play like the previous version with quests and a lick of paint or it could play like a completely different animal altogether. I have to wait and see, as most of you do. I will say this, though: I'm hoping Yoshida's awareness of the larger world of MMOs is coming through strongly. Unlike his predecessor, Yoshi-P seems very aware of the fact that there are games out there aside from Final Fantasy XI, and that's not even counting the existing love letters to longtime series fans. That having been said, there are at least a few things I hope he's swiping from the industry for the relaunched version when it finally comes out. As I've said before, it's not enough for the game to just be capable; it has to really stand out, and I think there are a few ideas to draw on in that regard.
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.
The Mog Log: Stuff I'm going to miss from Final Fantasy XIV 1.0
The end of Final Fantasy XIV as we know it provoked a lot of emotions from me, as did the trailer released concurrently. I felt a great deal of sorrow, both for the end of the world and the end of my character's story at the time (which is tied into a lot of roleplaying you don't need to hear about). I felt a stirring of hope for the changes coming to the game and the world. I felt inspiration at the sweep and movement of the events surrounding the conclusion and a sense of awe at what had been done. I also felt a great deal of frustration at the game's servers and the rather lackluster event itself, but that's kind of an irrelevant discussion. It's a lesson to learn for a next time that won't happen. Amidst all of these other feelings, I also felt a sense of sadness about certain parts of the game that are going away when it relaunches. There are aspects I'm going to miss about Final Fantasy XIV's first version, even if I know why those aspects need to be removed from a design standpoint. Today, I'm going to look back at those elements, things that we're going to be rid of that I'm still going to sort of miss in the long run.
The Mog Log: It's the end of Eorzea as we know it
It's not really a Final Fantasy game without a good apocalypse, and Final Fantasy XIV is getting just that. We've been watching the slow roll of the end of the world for months now, and as the last few days tick down before the shutdown, it's becoming amply clear just how bad the world is going to get. Everything will burn, everything will fall, and it's down to the last few defenders to fight for the ashes of Eorzea. And, well, it'll all get put back a couple of days later. But that's not the point. While the game has been flirting with the apocalyptic prophecies circling around the Seventh Umbral Era since launch, the announcement of A Realm Reborn and subsequent changes set the stage, and since then the game has quite happily pushed the idea that the end is nigh. Speaking as someone who was quite disappointed when similar changes just skipped from "everything's fine" to "after the end" in other games, I was curious to see what Final Fantasy XIV's implementation would look like. And while it's not quite over, I've seen enough to call it -- not perfectly, but very close.
The Mog Log: Roleplaying (community) drama
Well, the show's over, everyone. Nothing you do in Final Fantasy XIV matters any longer, in both the cosmic sense and the more immediate one. I hope you got what you wanted to get finished all done! This does not mean that what we do as a community doesn't matter; it always matters. It matters whether the servers are on or off. And that segues nicely into the latest community brouhaha that I've been witnessing, which is essentially a roleplaying schism handled in the way that only roleplaying schisms can happen. Roleplayers are one of the only groups that can still be just as active regarding a game we're not currently playing, odd though it might seem. I've touched on the Final Fantasy XIV roleplaying community more than once in the past. For some of you, I'm sure this is more or less irrelevant. But seeing as how the game's last save has taken place and there are no more relevant discussions to be had regarding drop rates, quest difficulty, or anything else, would it really be so bad to take a step over and look at how the character-building half lives?
The Mog Log: When the lights go off in Eorzea
The current version of Final Fantasy XIV is redefining the term "lame duck." This is a duck that is so lame it can no longer move under its own power, relying instead on a specially trained squad of ducklings to occasionally move its head toward food. How it trained the ducklings, I don't know; that's not really the point. It's not a perfect analogy. We're very close to a final character copy and a server shutdown, at which point... the servers get turned back on again, I guess. Naoki Yoshida quite openly stated that if there is a large enough chunk of players who wanted the servers back on, he will make that happen, even though nothing more would get saved. This raises a variety of questions -- chiefly, why anyone would want to keep playing the game with the explicit understanding that the whole game is getting rolled back before too much longer, but I'm not one of the ones who voted for the reactivation. But as we enter the final phase -- which is basically just through early next week, if you're not keeping track -- it seems as if it's worth discussing the servers going down and then coming back on. Really, what else do we have to occupy our minds regarding Final Fantasy XIV right now?
The Mog Log: Consoles and the online Final Fantasy
You could be forgiven for losing faith in the prospect of Final Fantasy XIV ever coming out for the PlayStation 3. Yes, it had been a promised platform, but it wouldn't be the first MMO to abandon console promises. Heck, the development team is still working on fulfilling some of the promises made by the original team; it could be forgiven for putting that one on the back burner. But it's a real thing. We've seen the screenshots, and we know that two years after the game's initial launch, we will finally get to play around in Eorzea on our televisions. (The "we" in this case refers to fellow PS3 owners.) This is sort of a mixed blessing. This isn't a column about console gaming compared to PC gaming; I really don't care which platform you prefer, and it's also not the point. This is a column about the fact that Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV are both going to be console games as well as computer games, and that introduces some interesting wrinkles.
The Mog Log: Where in the world is Seekers of Adoulin?
Square-Enix has long had a very different approach to MMOs compared to the rest of the world. In some ways, this is understandable; I know that every company operates in its own way. But where American and European companies are playing the electric guitar and Korean companies are playing keytar/acoustic duets, Square seems to be bringing out the xylophone to do a heartfelt rendition of Long Distance Runaround. (For those of you not willing to click the link, that song is not normally played with a xylophone.) As a result, on one level I'm not surprised that we know virtually nothing about Final Fantasy XI's next expansion beyond the upcoming jobs and the fact that it's not going to be released for the PlayStation 2 here in America. I am also completely baffled that in the time since the expansion's announcement we have heard nothing about it. We first found out that the expansion existed in any form back in June, and we've learned pretty much nothing new since... and that's not a good sign.
The Mog Log: Reacting to FFXIV's relaunch information
Not so long ago I was getting upset at a lack of hard information on Final Fantasy XIV's relaunch. (All right, I was getting upset at a lack of hard information on stuff to make people currently long gone care about the game, but that was tied into a lack of hard information.) Over the last two weeks, we've received a lot of hard information on the relaunch. Well played, Naoki Yoshida. Well played. Metacommentary aside, we've actually gotten some useful bits, chiefly in the form of a fully translated Letter from the Producer LIVE and an update on what's happening with items and money when the relaunch happens. There's a lot of information to hit there, so I'm just going to take it piece by piece and cover what I see as the highlights. I wouldn't say that this information really fixes some of the communication concerns I've had, but it certainly mollifies me for the moment.
The Mog Log: Two years of spinning wheels in Final Fantasy XIV
Has it really been two years since Final Fantasy XIV launched? My collector's edition box was purchase two years ago, and I wrote my last anniversary column a year ago, so I guess it must have been. And yet I still don't feel as if it's actually happened yet. You'll note that last year's column was mostly about what happened as a result of the game's launch. That wasn't by accident. Launch led to a massive restructuring of the game's design team, and not too long after the one-year mark, the team announced that it was basically remaking the game from the ground up. That fact has dominated the past year, and it's impossible to overstate the importance that announcement has had for the Final Fantasy XIV community. Everything circles around the promise of 2.0 these days. What has that meant for the actual years of the game's operation? Sadly, nothing good. The game has made huge strides, but we as players have been stuck in a nasty little loop.
The Mog Log: Generating a wow factor in FFXIV
The more I see about Final Fantasy XIV's relaunch, the more anxious I get. If there's any doubt remaining in the minds of others, let me be entirely transparent: I'm a big fan of Final Fantasy XIV. Wonders never cease, I know. To say that I'm looking forward to the new version is pretty much irrelevant. Of course I'm going to play it when everything changes over; I'm playing it now and would continue to do so even without the promise of rebirthing realms. But while I was discussing the game over dinner with Ms. Lady a few nights ago, she said something that struck me as very relevant: "It's going to need to really be awesome to pull me back." And she has a point. I'm getting a bit anxious because the new version thus far seems to set the bar at a very respectable level that's still nowhere near as high as it needs to be, and I wonder whether it's even possible to hit the mark it needs.
The Mog Log: It's the countdown
On November 1st, it's the end of the world as we know it. I'll let you know then how I'm feeling. All right, the game will still be online for another week or so, but November 1st is the last day that any progress is getting saved. You can go ahead and ignore Final Fantasy XIV after that last server photograph, unless you had an urge to spend all of your gil on airship rides but couldn't bear the thought of being broke. Not that you'll even need to worry about that after September 29th if you're not currently subscribed, as that's the last chance for people to come back even if it's just for a short period of time. It's hard to avoid looking forward to the end of the game as it stands, and the fact that we have a precise timeframe only exacerbates the problem. We've got 45 days until the ending hits, and while I've already talked about what to do with the time you have left, there are questions that need to be asked as we look at the numbers.
The Mog Log: Getting up to speed on Final Fantasy XIV as it is
If you're just joining us after a rousing session of Final Fantasy XIV, this column may not exactly be for you because this week isn't about speculation; it's about discussing the many things that people don't like about Final Fantasy XIV which either no longer exist or are known to be removed in version 2.0. This might seem like it's kind of silly, but honestly, I think there's a lot of stuff that people not actively following FFXIV don't know about. The game's biggest burst of visibility happened when it launched, just like every other game in the history of anything ever. While the game isn't for everyone now any more than it was a year ago, the development staff has taken pains to address gaps in the structure and improve the play experience for everyone. So here's an article about just that. And while you might already know the content of the article, the next time you know someone worried about something in the game that's long since been excised, you can point him back here.
The Mog Log: Lessons from Guild Wars 2 for Final Fantasy XIV
If you read all of the columns I write in a given week, then I believe that you're a wholly fictional creature. But beyond that, you'll remember that my Wednesday column was all about the systems that City of Heroes could comfortably borrow from Guild Wars 2. You may also be expecting the same sort of column here. That is definitely not the case. For starters, neither Final Fantasy XI nor Final Fantasy XIV is in a state where it can borrow anything. The former is set in its ways, and the latter has a major update around the corner that makes suggestions about mechanics pretty suspect. Furthermore, neither game is really into the whole "borrowing" routine, preferring instead to reverse-engineer a concept into some bizarre reinvention of the wheel that makes both games at once wonderful and incomprehensible. No, today I'm looking not at mechanics but at lessons for Final Fantasy XIV. The game is going to be relaunching soon, and that's when Naoki Yoshida's core principles will really be put to the test. And as the development team puts the final touches on the game, I think there are a few things to be garnered from the design of Guild Wars 2 that might nudge development around a touch.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy and free-to-play
Subscriptions are dying. There's no two ways about it. Star Wars: The Old Republic is switching over, and whether or not they liked the game, fans of Final Fantasy XIV have no room to throw stones about the game's success. That leaves a handful of holdouts in the normal subscription space, and that doesn't include the next major release on the horizon, as Guild Wars 2 is under the same buy-to-play model as its predecessor. Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI are two of the holdouts. And in a world increasingly dominated by games without subscription fees, that's pretty significant. So the question becomes whether or not the games will embrace the free-to-play option, whether or not they should, and how this sort of option could work in the game's favor rather than against it. After all, there are some roadblocks to making the system work quite right, but there's a lot of pressure on the market for a change.
The Mog Log: I won't miss you when you're gone
If you needed any more reminders that the end is coming to this version of Final Fantasy XIV, Naoki Yoshida kindly provided several during his time at Gamescom 2012 this week, and they weren't subtle ones, either. He didn't come out and say, "Enjoy the game now because it might not be here next month," but there were definitely some implications. The shutdown before the resurrection is coming soon. There's some worry inherent in that change. I've talked about that before. But there are also a lot of parts of the game that I am not going to miss in the slightest. There are changes coming that I welcome with open arms, elements of the game that will be gutted and removed that I will bid farewell without regret. Some of these elements are things I've never liked. Some of them are actually systems I've been fond of in the past but I won't miss once they're gone. But all of them appear to be going the way of the dodo -- or at least they should -- and I'm not going to weep any tears when they shuffle off.
The Mog Log: A bucket list before 2.0
Doom approaches Eorzea. It's nice to think that we as players won a temporary victory and a brief respite from that oncoming destruction, but let's face it: We all know from trailers and outside sources that it's just a momentary win. Cities will burn, lands will be razed, and the best we can hope for is that when we emerge once more, the world is a better place. Final Fantasy XIV is getting a lot of upgrades in version 2.0, but a whole lot of the game is going to be flushed away first. How long do we have? The rest of the month, certainly. Most of September, probably. More than that? Dubious. So it's time to start making a bucket list for Eorzea-that-is before it becomes Eorzea-that-was, since we all know that a lot of things are changing by then. I'm not talking about finishing out the storyline missions; if you haven't already done that, then odds are you're not too concerned about doing so. I'm talking about the things you need to do in order to prepare for the end, stuff that you should start knuckling down and doing. Maybe some of it won't be necessary after all, but it's better to assume that the clock is running for you to take a last look.
