Nostalgia overload (FFXI event)Follow

See, I see the glamour community as something entirely different. We're not just "standing around" - we're actively challenging each other to come up with the best cosplays, the coolest screenshots, and nifty photoshop edits. I took over 300 screenshots yesterday between the photoshoot I did for a prize winner on my blog, and my own entries for Eorzea's Next Top Model. Minions are just a small part of it, and the favored ones are rare in game drops, not off the cash shop. (Fat Cat reigns supreme, but the blue bird, the red panda, and succubus all remain popular and they're prizes or dungeon drops.)

Since most of the best looking gear still comes from inside the game, I'm not showing off something I just bought off the cash shop. I paid a million of my own hard earned gil for the High House Bustle. People wearing High Allegan gear can still be proud of the fact that they earned it. The Kirin mount is much more of an achievement than Sleipnir, plus it looks way more awesome.

But why is our community "lesser" than yours, just because we don't enjoy banging our collective heads against a wall trying to twitch faster than the game servers?

I'm not saying that SE shouldn't try to appeal to all the audiences, it's just only the raiders who seem to get upset when the glamour crowd gets new toys.

In the case of LoV, it was content that we thought was going to appeal to us, and then it turned out to be something totally different.

I wanted minion pokemon. I got chess.

No, I was excusing players who have left the game from blame. Basically I'm saying I don't fault people for not prioritizing XI ahead of more important things in their real lives, but ultimately those players leaving along with the game not attracting new players is what leads to shutdown.



Nevermind MMOs for a moment, just look around the industry at what is popular or trending. Call of Duty 3, Just Cause 3, Dark Souls 3, Fallout 4, Halo 5, Metal Gear 5... It seems like all we have to look forward to these days is a sequel or a spin off. Where is the originality? Not to brush your question aside, but I feel like this is the core of the issue. FFXI had an EQ feel to it, but a lot of what makes that game what it is are things that are original or at the very least, creative uses of ideas already found elsewhere.

I don't see that much anymore. There are bits and pieces here and there, but mostly slightly altered flavors of the same thing. When did developers move away from the "I'm going to produce a WoW killer" to "I'm perfectly happy making a mediocre WoW clone"? Hell I don't even care if anyone can dethrone WoW, I just challenge someone to do something different at this point.

What's funny is that though I'm often pinned for being anti SE, I was probably the most optimistic about the game prior to ARR. I guess it was too much to hope for that the failure would trigger them to actually realize why their games are called Final Fantasy in the first place...

I actually re-subbed to XI and just let my XIV sub expire for now (damn SE manages to get MORE money out of me). If you're in an active shell, the game is quite lively and people do a number of things. On Fenrir, it seems only the JP shout to get things done, while NA go through LS'. I've managed to gear up my BST decently since I've been back and moving on to higher level things already, it's really not bad. It just takes a bit of patience and reading.

I think the game is more lively then you think Nash, it's just not the shout happy fest it was. The community is smaller and people have banded together in large LS' to get things done.

As for XIV, the whole glamour thing is essentially why the game is on hold for me now. Heck, 3/4's of the threads on the official forums are clothing related. It seems most of their efforts have gone to making new gear designs, woopie ding. For me personally, the game needs to dramatically change and I don't think it's going to happen considering how well they're doing with it. In the grand scheme of things, Heavensward ended up being a re-skin of 2.0 with flying and a NQ Alex dungeon that for the most part, killed some of the hardcore community. Until they start adding additional stats that mean something and diversifying the gear, it's going to be this endless cycle of 2 dungeons, 2 primals, 1 hardcore raid, 1 casual raid. This game's not going to change for me, and I know that, but when your entire friends list disappears for weeks at a time until a new patch comes? Something is not being done properly.

Maybe they're on to something with the whole glamour stylin, maybe there is enough people out there interested in it.

He clipped the entire quote, but that was kinda my point. Not necessarily that anyone needed to dethrone WoW, but not everything WoW does is better, more entertaining, better looking ect.

It's as if everyone else is resigned to just let WoW innovate the MMO genre and just hitch on the coat tails. All it's led to is a bunch of mediocre games. I'm not suggesting that SE(or any other company for that matter) strive to do everything better than WoW, but everyone should strive to standout for something at least. Is XIV going in the books as 'that glamour game'? Given the heavy cosplay aspect of XIII it wouldn't really surprise me, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence either.

Here we are 5 years later still uncertain about what the identity of XIV is...

The problem is when you look at success purely in terms of subscriptions. Remember that WoW's enormous subscription numbers were boosted by a Chinese market where people were paying the equivalent of $3/month. The actual western subscriptions for WoW, while good, were nowhere near as good as people led themselves to believe. At its height I think SWTOR had about 2 mil subs? Rift had about 1.5 mil? If at the same time WoW had 4 mil western subs, then were Rift and SWTOR failures?

WoW hasn't done all the innovating in the MMO space. Actually WoW routinely assimilates concepts and systems from other MMOs. In Legion for instance, they have a new target ring that will probably look familiar to FFXIV players.

I did clip Flith's quote. I did that because that's a common question that comes up all the time. Why are devs not trying to make WoW killers anymore? Because it doesn't work. How many studios tried to put out Halo killers? Did it ever work? You can't "kill" the competition, not because it's impossible to ever do better than someone else, but because "kill" has a very specific meaning that's impossible to achieve in any game design space. The better approach is to innovate within that space. Branch out where you've got a better idea and iterate on that. Appeal to your audience and be free to iterate in the direction they take you. Focusing on "we're going to kill WoW" is just going to lead to crushed expectations when that inevitably doesn't happen, not because your ideas sucked, but because it's impossible. There will always be people playing WoW until Blizzard shuts down their servers, just like there are people playing FFXI today even though there are no more updates to that game. There will be people playing it until SE shuts down their servers, and WoW will have had nothing to do with that.

That is not the only thing. Games sometimes change and ffxi was changing, it actually was starting to feel like FFXIV to me. The whole Adoulin expansion felt like it, Hell you even have I level equipment now..

Also games get old and start to feel old like they ran their coarse. I mean everything in FFXI was barren, everywhere we loved was empty. I was playing a game and was missing FFXI even though I was playing it. I also started to see the end of the game. I mean we all could be playing muds still.. FFXI was not perfect either.

Tesee and I left FFXI because it was feeling old and we wanted something new. I will admit too we were having allot of fun still. We also wanted something that required a little less time than FFXI Required. Problem is FFXIV felt great for the first 6 months and then already got in a rut it still can not get out of. Running the same dungeons over and over and then making new ones where you have to do the same thing and they feel no different than the last ones. The game is in a rut and I see no way out. They are even talking about getting rid of some of the dungeons already. There is something wrong there. I also see the potential the game has but can I last that long? People said it would be different with Heavensward and it is not. It really was not even that much more content VS some of the patches. FFXIV does not suffer from lack of content it suffers from lack of new content. Personally I would rather have less content but have better content.. Content that takes longer to do. More is not alway better , sometimes it is just more.





That is the reason I started playing FFXI.. I was tired of ghost recon 1,2,3,4 and COD 1,2,3,4 and the new games where nothing but map packs really. Part of it is game companies like MS who make the decisions which games get made. No one is taking risks. Funny thing is all those games have got away from what made them popular to begin with.

It is the same with movies but these movies keep making millions. It is up to the people too demand better content and if they are willing to pay for garbage they are going to get it.. Seems to be the new generation with no imagination.

I also realize FFXI has been around along time so it should have allot more content but using the excuse FFXIV is new does not fly anymore.


For me I am lost right now. Going back to ffxi really don't seem right.. Most of my friends are on Xbox and will be leaving, the ones that are left anyway.. To hard to get caught up or even get help anymore, I am not even sure where I left off. Plus we bought 2 PS4 to play FFXIV and what do we do now? I have no way for Tesee to play FFXI. I think of going back all the time.

I am really bored of FFXIV right now and it is work just to get on. I play Video games as a escape especially from work but the game feels like work to me.

I really play for Tesee because she loves MMO's and it is something we can do together. I am a gamer and can play anything, but Tesee does not care for many other games and it is cool having a girlfriend that plays video games. Tesee is not as down on the game as me because she likes the housing and some glamour but she feels the same as me with the rest of the game. She is so tired of gearing up and doing the same things over and over just to gear up. I also play because I have hope for the game and have allot of time in it. This week I played FFXI more than FFXIV but Tesee is out of town for several weeks.

I think the main worry now for us too leave is desubbing and loosing the house.. If in 3 months FFXI is dead when the xbox and ps2 players get kicked and we want to come back too FFXIV or FFXIV does get better what then?.. We dont want to pay SE any more money then we have too and two subscription does not help anything out. We sell both ps4's? to play FFXI and then what if we want to come back?

We both like crafting but the rng kills it sometimes.. Make a 3 million dollar item and get it to 98 percent and it fails to HQ is garbage.. If you are good enough to get to a certain point it should HQ all the time... It just makes you have to walk away from the game.



I really do not like WOW.. Why does anyone have to beat it! Why cant they be happy making money like in FFXI? It made money and never had a huge population but it had enough and dedicated player base too...

I think Really me and you are on the same page. I just see some potential in FFXIV, I just worry it wont happen.. It really seems like they are afraid to spend money on the game unless it brings in instant money. It dont feel like they even care if this game last long term.. It is just a quick money maker and lets see how much we can milk these poor saps for.





Edited, Dec 5th 2015 2:19pm by Nashred

Edited, Dec 5th 2015 2:20pm by Nashred

Edited, Dec 5th 2015 2:21pm by Nashred

They need good endgame content though that is engaging but doesn't require countless hours of memorizing team jump rope routines.

I have gotten more fun out of Alex nm than any Ex primal.

I really, really hate how routine reliant fights are in XIV. There's little room for individual skill and improvisation. It's just do this, at this time, or we wipe. Running roulettes I sometimes end up in something I haven't done in a while and it's like "Dammit... this is gonna be annoying."

Instead of like riding a bike it becomes like retaking a high school math test

"Dude, I don't remember this ****"

This would be worth consideration if XI had shifted to continued progression. Since they are no longer developing for the game and none of the content will be obsoleted as it is in XIV, point is moot.

I still play games that are as old or older than people who frequent these forums. The idea that a game decays with age doesn't register to me. I can understand it feeling different without as many players or even some of the people you knew still playing with you. It's still a social game and you can find many active players and linkshells who perpetuate the 'old' feeling. I'm willing to bet that people are even more open to things that the game offered prior to levels uncapping because they don't have that 'plate too full already' mentality that you sometimes found back then.


There are a lot of people out there who are really interested in the lore of Warcraft, even further than just that of the MMO. Arguably the most popular RTS game in history(possibly second to that other Blizzard game), volumes of books, comic books and a movie on the way. If you stood up at a gaming convention and said that WoW nerds only care about mashing buttons and aren't interested in lore, some guy in a red shirt would probably stand up and correct you


Amen to that!

Edited, Dec 5th 2015 7:36pm by FilthMcNasty

I never really liked VII before and that basically confirms what I knew they'd do with the gameplay. As long as Yoshi stays away from the materia system hopefully it'll add a bit of depth to it. They did mention they're building off of XV essentially, and those that they outsourced the development to are making good progress it seems. (Think it's the same team who did X/X-2 HD remasters fairly quickly.)

Best thing they can do for that remake is actually make sure everything works

Yeah I'm not surprised since with development outsourced they don't have to deal with SE's crappy management beyond the directors overseeing it lol, so it seems to be coming along nicely and they could release it in 2016 if they truly wanted.

I just tell people who are complaining about this that they obviously never played Crisis Core. I like traditional turn based more, even modified versions like Neptunia/Tales of games for example, but this style just seems a bit off since some battles can only be designed certain ways due to the battle system nature. Similar to how it's more "strategic" in slower MMO battles because the flow of battle is different versus the seizure battle system ARR has.

That's why I kind of don't expect the Emerald/Ruby weapon to make a return - and if they do it won't be the same we all love/loathe.