"Another Mistake Like FF14 Would "Destroy" Square"

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/27/yoshida-another-mistake-like-ff14-would-destroy-square

http://kotaku.com/5963155/new-final-fantasy-xiv-director-talks-about-what-went-wrong-with-the-original

Naoki Yoshida has revealed that he feels another mistake like Final Fantasy XIV would end up "destroying" Square Enix.

Speaking with Kotaku, the game's producer and director explained that his team is fully aware of the pressure on them to salvage the brand's reputation following the poor reception the MMO received. He asserted that this was why they were determined not to launch the revamped Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn until they feel the game is ready.

"We won't make a mistake like FFXIV again," he said. "If we did, it would be like at the level of destroying the company."

Final Fantasy XIV launched back in 2010 to a negative reaction from fans and critics alike, resulting in Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada saying "the Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged."

Just why the game didn't fare particularly well has been the subject of much scrutiny over the last couple of years, but now Yoshida himself has waded in with his thoughts. Filling both the producer and director roles for the game since December 2010, when the previous producer of the game resigned and left the company, he's now revealed he had qualms about the state of the game even before he was involved with it.

"When I heard that it was going to go on sale as planned, I thought, that will probably be a big mistake," he admitted, before saying he believes the fundamental error made was that lessons weren't learned from other MMOs. The original team supposedly were just trying to make an MMO that felt different from Final Fantasy XI, which Yoshida believes was a mistake.

"I think it would've been good if they tried seeing what happened if they turned World of Warcraft into Final Fantasy. So, because they tried only to make something that was 'different from FFXI,' they ended up with not much of anything.

"They should have said, 'Hey you, go play WoW for a year [for inspiration].'

"Unless you are a genius, you cannot make something completely new from nothing."

There's still no set launch date for the revamped Final Fantasy XIV, though it's expected to appear around the middle of 2013. The PlayStation 3 version is also still in development, with more details expected on that soon.

Yep.

One of the letters from the producer said they were aiming for an early spring release for the PC version, with the PS3 version following about a month later.

Im sure they are going to be taking their time.

Sounds like a really smart guy. You have to learn from the competition, especially when they've been successful enough to thoroughly trounce everyone. I know people here like to bash on WoW, and I know Blizzard certainly hasn't done everything right, but they've captured the attention of millions of people somehow. It's not just them either. There are a lot of good ideas out there to draw from and innovate on.

I don't think the old dev team had the humility and forethought to see what they were doing wrong and what others were doing right. They wanted to keep the ship on their intended course no matter how many passengers were screaming at them to change course and avoid the reefs and icebergs. It seems like Yoshi-P does. Good for him.

I said it from day one: if they just had consolidated the budget into FFXI, they'd have a fully functioning MMO with tons of content, and they wouldn't have suffered nearly as much damage or shame. Maintain one MMO until its death, while carrying on with their single player titles. They were too ambitious with XIV.

That was the worst part about 14... They made it completely without any input from the community and launched without taking any notice of what people said from the alpha and beta. I feel there's more to it than simply ignoring everyone; but it certainly didn't help the original game. Since taking over, Yoshi-P has done this and generally it's been for the best.

I just hope the game doesn't turn into an XI clone because the majority of things people keep suggesting are XI traits or tricks. It's great they're listening but I hope they know where to draw the line with some of the ideas being suggested.

PS2 Limitations.

Should have just made FFXI-2 from the get go.

Then drop it, lol.

Gravity isn't kind to gaming consoles!

Psh, you havent dropped a Nintendo Console then.

I was a deprived child; I only lived in a bungalow so had no second floor rooms to drop it from.

There is a roof.

Could just throw it in the air and forget to catch it.

Given the staggering amount of money that's been invested into XIV over the past few years, he's probably right. Brand perception is already horribly damaged, and it's going to take them years to recover even if everything goes absolutely perfectly from here. A second failure, especially with what I expect to be a decent amount of publicity as the release date approaches, would be the nail in the coffin. I don't envy Yoshi-P at all right now with that kind of pressure riding on him and his team.

As for XI-2, I don't think that would be a particularly good idea as such. Even with what passes for recent overhauls, XI is clearly a legacy of a different era in MMOs. Evoking that too strongly could turn away potential subscribers before they ever try it. They need to balance traditional FF elements, modern MMO principles, and unique features that will help draw interest. Granted even with that I'm not sure how much potential the game really has for subscribership at this point. Sinking the budget into XI wouldn't work either; it's not going to net a huge increase in subscribers (especially if you cut the PS2 users loose) and would require reworking the vast majority of the game's visual and mechanical content. Might as well just make a new game, don't have to deal with spaghetti code *** and pissed off console players that way.

I feel like maybe you didn't understand what I meant by XI-2.

Think Everquest and Everquest 2.

While we can argue about XI v2--I know you don't want an XI clone Kimble, but I kinda do--you can't argue that they'd've been smarter to strive to be more like XI because it succeeded than to strive to be different, merely to be different.

XI's major annoyances
- No jumping. The worst part is the random twig and rough stone causes your character to drag. XIV didn't add that (though it's going to).
- Mounts. Questing your mount is fine, (raising a chocobo) but you should be able to call it anywhere, anytime, without charge. They got this right.
- Zoning. The technology was different back then, sure, but there's no excuse for zoning today. Their excuse that it causes them to recycle too many resources is invalid. Many many mmo's have minimal zoning (teleporting or traveling from one continent to another). Zoning wasn't as bad in XIV, but it was way too common.
- The region infrastructure is stupid. You can't invite friends unless you're in the same region.. and that's stupid and seemingly..unnecessary. XIV actually did far worse at this, nothing being able to tell what someone was until they were very close to you.
- Bazaars. Neat, relatively uncommon and useful compansion to the auction house. XIV tried to replace the AH with bazaars, "Just go from shop to shop to find your item". The search feature they duct taped on was just terrible. The only thing they got right was that bazaars could be held by npcs rather than the player. The difference between XIV and XI is you know in XIV when 49 people are playing. In XI, you can't distinguish them from the 1401 bazaars.
- Unfriendly UI. Seriously one thing that separates good healers from bad ones is memerizing what moves do what debuffs. When the tank gets para'd, it takes precious seconds to type para. Also knowing what debuffs of yours are still on the monster is quite important, and your buffs on other players.

The only XI feature I wish they'd copied exactly (besides the caps), is enmity. I know how hate/threat/enmity works in every game I play but I love XI because you can WATCH the enmity work. It's a very complex system and so tragic that it's been tossed to the wayside--but that's another thread.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

FFXI is dead no one going to play it even if they make a FFXI 2 it would only draw in the people who play FFXI. If they don't make a new game with new idea and storyline like FFXIV with new battle system and a new storyline they would not draw in new people.

FFXI is dead it's time to move on i enjoy that game for 6years now it noting but a shell of itself.

Hmmm maybe ill try out ff14 :o

Zoning wasn't as common in XIV. XIV's regions were basically all one zone and you had a huge level range of monsters but there was still plenty of zoning.

At least their used to be.

I also don't know if they were smart enough to have the server cache communication while you were zoning, but that was always a huge issue with XI. Friend logs on and says something in /l just as you zone and neither of you realize the greeting was never seen.

There was "zoning" but it wasn't noticeable, you didn't get a loading screen it just happened.

People have being saying this for the past 3 years (if not longer).

FFXI isn't dead, not yet anyway.

wow man! SE learnt something! Bring out the Champagne !!! lets celebrate that all together worldwilde!!

FFXI is only in the state its in because of all the effort and dollars wasted on XIV.

After XIV's failure, they could have just as reasonable said: "We've got two mmo's with hurting populations. One has been around for years, where fans are very invested. The other has been frowned upon by, at least, 90% of the people who played it. Let's fix XI.".

Instead, they chose to fix XIV. Most of what XI gets is just a carrot to keep us jackasses going while they do mouth to mouth to their, as far as they're concerned, potential golden goose.

I'm sure XI could have been largely revamped in a two year time frame, focusing on different areas of improvement. We don't need new zones but new graphics and some technical updates would sure be nice.

You can't compare the future of the two games as XI's management is making many ill-decisions while all the love and feeling and hope and thought goes into XIV.

How was there even "plenty" of zoning?
Thanalann <-> Black Shroud or either of those to Mor Dhona I guess.

Toto-rak, Darkhold, Aurum Vale, Cutter's Cry as well but those were all actual dungeons.
Then a short zone with airships or leaving an Inn room/Market ward.

That was all I can remember up until August of this year.
Communications did keep going even during zoning(And DC'ing from the game even) from what I remember.
That's not really Plenty at all, and what little zoning there were lasted 2-3 seconds at most.

Sometimes when I DC'd, I was able to keep chatting. Other times I wasn't.

I dc'd so often.

I played April and May of this year.

Know what game handled necessary zoning well? TERA.

Ever seen sliders? You kinda looked like you were going through a Sliders-wormhole, but you could still use your chat window. The duration of the wormhole was the loading screen. Some people got through quickly, others took 30 seconds.

Going two steps forward and getting a black screen is too much zoning. It's not necessary, especially for the high-end systems that game was aiming for at release. I could see if they were trying to make it playable on many systems but they absolutely were not.

Even from the alpha, zoning was very uncommon. It was one of the few things that critics did not completely slam. There was a zone between the three nations and Mor Dhona. There were no other zone lines, not counting the zones in-city between market wards and instanced cutscenes and the like. The zones were there, but hardly noticeable.

Communication also persisted upon zoning. There was no such thing as a 'zone', even when passing from one nation to another (the only true FFXI style 'zone' where the screen dims and an entire new region is buffered.)


Again with this. What game were you playing? There was hardly any black screen zoning in FFXIV. 7, counting the zones between market wards and their adjacent city areas.


I also disagree with this completely. FFXI is in the 'state' it's in because the game has lost a large bulk of its playerbase. This was happening before 14 was released, simply because the market has moved on. Blaming 11's current failings because on 14 is just not fair, and joining on the bandwagon.

Sure, 14 had a lot wrong with it on release. But what it had going for it was it wasn't 11.