So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would know that Square-Enix is currently Alpha-testing its newest MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV. I’ve been an FFXI player since 2003, and I’m psyched. I just hope that SE has learned from its mistakes from FFXI, such as its favoritism towards Japanese players or the treatment of RMT.
Supposedly, they did learn their lesson on one front: solo play and community play will be balanced. You’ll no longer need an alliance of 18 people just to get one item. I think that’s what excites me the most.
it’s 100% confirmed for PS3 and PC, but X360 is likely. According to this article at Kotaku the problem for the x360 is the closed servers. It’d prevent the cross-platform gaming that will exist between PC and PS3 (as both are open and not controlled by MS).
However, according to this article at Destructoid a “cheeky” employee at Squeenix let slip on his LinkedIn account that the game will be releasing on the 360 as well, so obviously Squeenix was able to strike a deal with MS to make things work.
That said, the game won’t allow voice chat, text chat only
I dunno between ps3/PC, though I don’t see it as being much of a problem, especially considering you can just plug in a usb keyboard to your ps3 for chatting purposes. it’s an MMO so there’s not much twitch skill involved.
I know there’s been cross platform between x360 and PC. I played ShadowRun with people on PC (I was on 360). It was fine, while PC people had the inherent control advantage it was somewhat made up for by auto-aim on the 360, just made headshots pretty difficult. It would have been better if the game had been better. THey had such a golden opportunity, and it had so much potential and so many good ideas, just didn’t come together well.
FFXI was both X360 and PC, with no problems in this regard–S-E is pretty vicious about enforcement of “no third party tools”, down to people getting grilled by GMs for something as small as “application that inserts timestamps into the chat log”.
Yep, FFXI was cross-platform on the PC, 360, and PS2. No platform-specific or region-specific servers - just everyone from everywhere playing on everything all together, making rude jokes through the auto-translate.
Anyway, I talked to some old buddies from FFXI and asked why I seem to be the only excited about FFXIV. They said that based on everyone’s experience with Square-Enix, they’re expecting SE to screw up FFXIV. Is everyone that pessimistic?
Given certain examples (the handling of Pandemonium Warden/Absolute Virtue, the way FFXI took YEARS to respond to North American complaints while pandering to the Japanese market, many examples of broken/un-fun game mechanics, and the way OTHER S-E projects have been going recently (FFXIII)), I think the best reaction one could have is “cautious neutrality”.
I mean, I liked FFXI under a very specific set of circumstances–when I had five close buddies to form static XP parties with, and a linkshell that could support a halfway decent alliance or two. Essentially, I don’t think Square’s ever shown any indications of reacting to the problems that led Blizzard to tone down the whole 40-man (and even, to some extent, 25-man) raid thing–it’s hard for the average person to find a group of 36-40 non-yutzes, so even comparatively easy fights (like Odin, say) in FFXI were a chore for those of us with unpopular or overpopulated jobs. If I said “Speaking as a Galka Dragoon”, I’m sure my attitude is instantly more understandable, between the six subjobs I was expected to have at all times and the persistent feeling from the playerbase that my class sucked even when demonstrated otherwise within my own damn linkshell, even.
The latest additions to FFXI that are also claimed to “not need an alliance just to get one drop” are sufficiently obtuse and anemic that I’m not exactly optimistic on the front. And even then, the gear from the massive raids is STILL much better in most cases. And the NM/HNM system STILL sucks. etc. etc.
FFXI had the potential to be as big as WoW, but Square fucked up big time. I’m still looking forward to FF14. I like the way the jobs seem to revolve around what weapon you’re currently using. No need to go back to the Mog House.
{Incredibly tough}{pole}{inside}{Mog House}{Can I have it?} Hehe.
I used a Windower and Japanese IME and never got grilled for it, for the record. I even spoke with several GMs about some major server events, such as Tiamat being ganked and a Speed Belt being stolen. GMs were pleasant and knowledgeable 9 times out of 10, at least to me.
