Final Fantasy XIV

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I picked this up off steam last week because I needed an mmo to fill the WoW void, since I quit it recently due to a number of reasons, and Guild Wars 2 was not scratching the itch at all. As a major fan of the Final Fantasy series, especially the games with the job system, I have found FF14 to be very enjoyable. The story is cool, in my opinion better than GW2's.

I play on mateus, anyone else play?

i tried it. even though the graphics were stunning for an MMO, i felt it was a waste to pay for a monthly subscription when the gameplay was rather boring.

I have actually been playing Archeage atm though. It's still a generic Tab Target MMO but characters can be incredibly unique including the fact you can pick from 10 different classes and combine up to 3 classes to create a unique class for your character (simple maths says that there is a little over 1000 different class combos... that's a lot...).

I didn't like what SE did with FF14. They turned FF into a WoW clone in many ways...particularly the 'fight hordes of creatures that are barely a threat to you nonstop' metaplay and the bosses being ridiculously simplistic and easy... heck, an equal level mob in FF11 was far more of a challenge than the FF14 bosses are.

The job system is basically a copy of other MMOs (and it has no FF 'flavor' to boot) and it allows too much independence to the individual...meaning there is very little NEED for specific classes.... a damage dealer is a damage dealer regardless if its an archer or a pugilist.

End Game the classes over-specialize and seem a bit more 'FF'ish but its still rather lame and WoW-like for my tastes.

FF11 beats FF14 in pure gameplay still. That alone is sad to see.

I"ve seen it, didnt look very good to me.

I dont know if it has the dirt-slow EVERYTHING that FF 11 did (which was bad enough) but what I DID see of it looked like an extremely generic MMO. As I couldnt care less about Final Fantasy as a series and tend to loathe Square in general, the name branded on it means little to me. And the gameplay doesnt look like it'd hold up much.

If I want a traditional MMO, there's already way too many better choices out there (that arent WoW, dont like that one). If I get into a new MMO soon, which I might, it'll likely be WildStar.

totally agree about the whole "Generic MMO" part.

side note, WildStar has actually gotten a lot of critique about being too much of a WoW clone. Agreed that it's a clone of early days WoW, it still has aspects that make it 100% WoW. I did like hearing the level up tone though xD sounds like the game is rather humorous (seriously, it plays tones like "Holy SH*T! You Leveled Up!").

I honestly think WoW Clones are rather bad atm so honestly, if you want to play that sort of gameplay that WoW promises, just pickup one of the hundred free to play MMOs out there. most of them are actually pretty good, if not, Great. not to mention, you save a lot of money (unless you use their real world money (i.e. Gamers First's G1Credit, etc) in which case, you'll probably spend more money in 1 wekk than you would in 1 year...)

....feh, that one ended up being another damn clone as well?

Ugh. I dont know why I even bother.

I miss the days when freaking WoW just didnt exist. Damn thing is a blight on that part of the industry. Used to REALLY be into this genre. And then WoW happened. I've hated that damn game ever since. All of the creativity just seemed to MELT out of the entire genre after that one stupid game appeared.

Bah, I give up. I should just look towards other genres for multiplayer.... too bad most of them suck....

There have been two major reasons why the gaming market when it comes to MMO's (but mostly RPG MMO's) entered the 'dark age' we are in now.

First was World of Warcraft. Second was the introduction of the asian p2w/f2p model.

Before WoW, each MMO was actually VERY different. They were unique and companies competed with each other to create truly original games.

Everquest was VERY different from Dark Age of Camelot. Both of those were VERY different from Final Fantasy 11. Ultima Online was VERY different from all MMO's that came after it (UO being perhaps the 'first' rpg MMO). These games were all different in game mechanics, in combat systems, in the interaction between the players and the NPCs and between players themselves.

Then... came WoW.

I remember the first time I tried World of Warcraft... my first impression was how BLAND and unoriginal it was. There simply wasn't ANYTHING that game had that was new. It was a total rehash of the EQ class system adapted into the Warcraft single player universe. Combat in WoW was almost a copy of SHADOWBANE (a failed MMO) where you did not fight opponents that were challenging as a team effort (after all, its an MMO no?) but rather you fought an endless horde of enemies that one on one had no hope of ever hurting you (let alone your team) unless they overwhelmed you with numbers. This was the norm in WoW combat until you reached a boss...where defeating it was like fighting a medium-hard monster on the MMO's that came before WoW.

...but WoW had massive advertising and it became a fad that later became addictive simply because most of your friends played it.

WoW introduced the toxin on 'you don't need to play with others in an MMO' as a design pillar. The major publishers only see money and not quality hence all MMO's that came after WoW were literally a copy of WoW's gameplay design.

A decade later, these same publishers noticed a small free to play (but pay once for the game discs) game called Guild Wars that used microtransactions and was making very good money at very low operating costs. Guild Wars was itself a clone of WoW that used the asian market mini-game microtransaction system.

...and that fired up the F2P/p2w models that are now almost standard in MMO's... where game originality, quality and long term lifespan of the game itself mean nothing. The only thing that these MMO's nowadays are being made for is maximum short term cash milking.

Ahh! I'm not the only one that saw the absolute ripoff *cough*, I mean, "similarities", between WoW and Everquest's class system and the classes themselves. Hell, I remember when WoW originally came oiut all those years ago, and I gave it a whirl, and one of the very first things I thought was: Hey.... this Warrior class, and it's skills, is almost EXACTLY the same as the Warrior class in Everquest.... as a big fan of Everquest, this rather bothered me a bit. Still does. Actually ALOT of things seemed outright copied, at least in WoW's earlier days. And the SECOND Everquest really doesnt play much like it, so THATS good at least.

And I expect that Everquest Next, AKA one of my most anticipated games in the history of ever, will not play much of ANYTHING like WoW, fortunately. Not with the feature list I'm aware of. Which is great, and what I'd expect from that branding.

But yeah, you're right.... way back when, all those games were super different from each other. I had Everquest, I had Shadowbane for awhile, I had the awesomeness and complexity that was Anarchy Online, which I always remember as "that MMO which had the one class that could transform into other classes", which is still one of the most unique things I've seen in this genre. And of course I had the recently-stopped-existing-dammitall-argh City of Heroes, which remains second only to EQ as far as I'm concerned. And lastly there was also Earth & Beyond, which sadly was devoured & destroyed by EA (when they took over Westwood), creating my initial and ever-expanding hatred for them. That game had been so damn good..... argh. I'll never forgive them for that.


As for that bit about "You dont need to play with others" I think it depends ALOT on the context.

I'm not at all fond of MMOs that force you to group. Not one bit. If I either A: dont feel like grouping.... and being on THIS forum, I think alot of people here could understand why I might just not be feeling social on a particular night.... or if I B: am having too much trouble FINDING a group.... I should still have plenty of content to do.

Yet at the same time, I want there to be REASONS to group. I've played a few of these games where the balance was a bit too skewed overall and the difficulty was too low.... so there was hardly any reason to group in the first place, and as such it was very difficult to find one. I didnt like this EITHER.

City of Heroes I think was the one that did it the best at least by my style of doing things. There was ALWAYS content to do. I wanted to solo? I could find some missions immediately, and they would be significant and worth it. I could get lots of cool stuff doing those., But the grouping was so well done and just so damn FUN due to the game's combat system that whenever the chance presented itself, even ol' anti-social Misery here would jump into it each time. There just wasnt anything else like the massive 6 VS 60 battles that game would throw at you in group missions, or other cool stuff. Still isnt much else like that, really.... sigh. That game, I miss. But that's another story.


But grouping isnt the only form of "playing with others" though. You might be playing with friends, and have numerous goals, and end up splitting up to accomplish things, or perhaps even doing that when you're all not online at the same time. I've had that one with friends in the past, where it's like "Okay, we wanna do this particular mission/boss/thing when we're all able to play together this weekend, so you should go do/get these things here to prepare for it". So then we'd be off doing our own things at our own times for that week, swapping tips/info as needed, to then bring with to the actual event. This, too, is playing with others. MMOs arent always so good at this specific thing, it REALLY depends on the game. The ones I play usually are. And of course there are non-MMO examples of games that are really good at it, such as Monster Hunter (and that series pretty much MASTERED this aspect). Or even just doing stuff like trading/sharing, or whatever... these are all forms of interacting with other players that isnt just simple grouping. Guilds are the same way; even when soloing, you're still in the guild, and can easily talk to them or ask questions or request assistance or whatever.


As for the F2P model.... that's actually NOT why that took off.

The reason is simple: Necessity. Alot of developers/publishers were starting to have major troubles keeping money coming in, and some of them were just outright falling apart. Why? Because of the subscription model. Particularly after bloody WoW hit the market, and partly BECAUSE games were cloning it, it was harder and harder to get new players to accept the idea that they needed to pay CONSTANTLY for a game. Why couldnt they just pay ONCE like every other game and keep it forever? You can buy so many games like THAT at stores, so why buy THESE that eat money each month? Ah, the sheer amount of times I've tried to explain the "why" of it to people that asked this one.... ugh, I've lost count. And WoW wasnt helping. The fact that so many games were clones meant that since many players STARTED with WoW as their intro to the genre, they didnt want to then TRY other games.... those games would require constant money, yet were too similar to WoW to be worth it, and probably werent also as good as WoW either... and they're only willing to pay for one of these at a time ANYWAY. Those reasons and others came up so many times....

And so, enter the F2P model, which was mostly brought over by alot of the major Korean MMOs such as Ragnarok. That payment model had been around LONG before it came over here, and long before it became the norm in the genre. And I mean it had been around a REALLY long time. I've always been familiar with Korean MMOs after playing Ragnarok so very many years ago, and when done right, the F2P model worked out well for everyone involved. There were exceptions of course....

....but that's the same as today. Just because something is F2P, doesnt mean it's done badly, particularly when F2P is pretty much necessary these days. Very few games can get away with using a subscription model. It's just not viable now. But there's tons of good games out there that are using F2P, and yet have the content and such that you would hope for. Unfortunately, there's always those bad eggs out there though that go and ruin the image for everyone else. Which is the REAL problem.

in all fairness, there are the fun F2P games that don't follow suit of the whole P2W model. Tera Online, though somewhat confusing at parts (such as how you're supposed to feel about the characters) is a great F2P game that only gives you access to vanity items really, and even then, the clothing you earn in game looks better most of the time with the exception of glasses (i ended up buying the glasses... i like the magane...) also, when archeage is released, so far from my knowledge, there is no advantage to buying items except to look cooler. lastly, Warframe. It's a P2W but not as you'd expect. You can earn literally anything by just playing the game and there is no advantage other than getting items quicker. not to mention, currently, the best weapon in the game is known as the "Boltor Prime" that is only accessible through playing the game.

Yep.

As long as they're not truly "pay 2 win", then generally there's nothing at all wrong with the payment model.

Though the other bad one is "pay gates", where they let you SOMEWHAT into the game, but then there's some section you cannot enter without either paying them money, or spending 10 zillionty years grinding for in-game currency or something to get the amount needed. I haaaaaate when that one is done. You could call this one "pay 2 advance", where you technically CAN advance without actual money, but it'll take absolutely freaking forever and dammit curse this site and it's glitchy-as-hell ads, so tired of being interrupted while trying to type...

You mean like the "Runescape" model of "Free 2 Play!!1! kind of..."

Got this game in the steam summer sale enjoyed it for about a week but quickly got bored of it. Didn't play for a second month. I found that if you picked a job you where very much bound to roles I wanted to become a summoner but everyone i spoke to was pretty much go Scholar for healer or black mage for dps no need for summoner.

I still play it actively. Got several characters across several realms.
Since I was a long time player of FF XI as well, this game has been nothing but awesomeness from day one. Boss fights have been especially pleasing.