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FFXI's my favorite Final Fantasy game. Definitely the one I spent the most time on, by a lot. Like it was said earlier, the game had some incredibly broken gameplay, but nobody played it for that. If they told you it was better than WoW because of the gameplay and playing it was akin to being in an abusive relationship, they were either lying or talking out of their rear end. However, what it did have was possibly the coolest, most interesting world I've ever seen in a video game. Mass Effect is the only game I've played, before or since, that even comes close to having a world as cool as Vana'diel. The game had its warts. Plenty of them. It was about as far from perfect as you could get. But there were enough cool things in the game to make me still love it. Maybe WoW is a better game on a technical level, yeah. But it's not close to my heart like FFXI was. I think it's also ironic that the drat MMO one has possibly the best story out of all of them, but then again, Final Fantasy isn't exactly known for excellent storytelling. Having a silent protagonist instead of a whiny angsty teenager probably helped. (I guess it's only natural that my favorite JRPGs are Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG.) It was also wicked cool how they would delve into all the various nations' history and politics, and just about every nation had some pretty nasty skeletons in their closets. Italax posted:If you were one of a few of the melee classes you were pretty screwed getting parties. Same with Black Mages later on. RDM was my main, and I can attest to this. Refresh, refresh, refresh.
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Jun 10, 2012 17:36
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Cardboard Fox posted:So, E3 is over. Did they release any info on X HD? Maybe a release date and if they're going to use the regular version that came out in the states or the international version. Are they going to do a 360 release of FFX HD? It would be nice for those of us without PS3s and don't want to buy a new PS2 because its old and won't read disks anymore. (Plus, achievements!) I'd really like a 360 release of FFXII International.
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Jun 10, 2012 18:01
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I got really burned by FFXIV at launch, as I was a big fan of FFXI, and FFXIV was just so insanely bad. After I ragequit FFXI for 3 years around ToAU, I came back before Abyssea came out and had an absolute blast playing it for a year or two. The grind wasn't so insane, soloing was easier, there seemed to be less insanely demanding endgame, etc. Plus, I decided to play it casually with a much more chill group. FFXI was so much better, and it seemed like SE had learned from all their mistakes. I was super pumped for XIV, because I fully expected it to be all the things that were great about XI, minus all the lovely things about it. Hoo boy, was I in for a surprise. It turns out, there is a reason for all of this. The reason why FFXI got so awesome all of a sudden was because its director, Hiromino Tanaka left it to work on FFXIV. And that is why FFXIV was such a huge, unmitigated disaster. He was such a dumbass, they fired him, send him back to XI, and grabbed the new FFXI team and made them work on XIV. Now, from what I hear, he is doing his damnedest to make FFXI suck rear end, whereas I'm having fun playing FFXIV now. FFXIV is still definitely a below average MMO and there are plenty of better games out there, but at least they're trying. The crappy thing is though, now instead of having one good Final Fanasy MMO and one godawful one, we now have two pretty drat mediocre ones now. A friend of mine said that "Square-Enix is bad at MMOs" and that's not true at all - they have plenty of talented people who are great at MMOs. It's just Tanaka that is bad at MMOs. Unfortunately, he's the Senior VP of Square, and they've let him do huge amounts of damage to both games when he is a big fat clueless idiot. Basically, Hiromino Tanaka is like videogame cancer.
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Jun 10, 2012 19:48
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iastudent posted:That sounds about right. I got pulled into FFXIV by a friend due to it going for cheap on Amazon and he's already shared with us plenty of horror stories about the game's original form before they started the pre-2.0 revisions. Oh yeah. The game was laggy and the servers overpopulated, it was impossible to level because all the mobs were taken, the UI was even more awkward than FFXI's (and required you to open it to do things like opening doors and the like, sort of like Dragon Quest on the NES, something Final Fantasy loving ONE was known for streamlining) and it took like 10 seconds to open it, no autoattack, instead you had to repeatedly mash buttons, no content, just grinding and crafting, a limited amount of quests per day, and worst of all, no auction house, only 3 boring zones that were full of copy-pasted terrain, but a horrible disorganized bazaar system that required you to spend hours looking through a million peoples' shops. The game was so bad, it was just mind boggling. I was seriously flabbergasted how anybody thought how any of these things were good ideas. Especially when they had already made a successful MMO a decade earlier. It was like it was made by aliens who had never seen a video game before. I may be having fun with it now, but FFXIV's launch was one of the biggest disasters in videogames I had ever seen. Like, it was almost Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 level bad. It's playable now, and can definitely be enjoyable, but it's still pretty below average and lacks a lot of important features that its predecessor had 10 years earlier so I'm still not sure if I would recommend it to anybody, unless they have a lot of nostalgia for FFXI but either don't have the time to play the original, don't care to come back as their friends are gone, or pretty much finished everything in it. Also, mind you, I have a very strong tolerance to bad, mindless games as I actually enjoyed Sonic Unleashed and got like 20 hours into Dynasty Warriors Gundam. (Oh yeah, I also played FFXI religiously for years.)
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Jun 10, 2012 20:38
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Barudak posted:Sooner or later we all go back to our abuser. Honestly, I would love to. Thing is, I have no good reason to. A vast majority of my friends got bored and quit, SE decided to go really cheap and lazy and totally half rear end all new content (New areas? How about some palette swaps of old zones?) and they're really not doing anything cool with it anymore, and I've seen a vast majority of the game so far. Plus I work a lot of overtime (45+ hours a week sometimes) and I'm studying for an A+ Certification so I have no time to play it. Sure, I would love to someday go back and finish ToAU and WoTG, but it's not something I ever loose sleep over. I got rank 10, beat Zilart, CoP and Apocalypse Nigh, so I basically finished the main storyline and thus, I've pretty much "beaten" FFXI. Everything else is just sidequest. If SE actually did a few mini-expansions with new zones, that are actually new and not just palette swapped old zones that are "in the past" or "an alternate universe", I'd very seriously consider coming back. They've only been talking about the Far East, Mithran Homeland and the Far North for 10 years or so. Oh, and Everquest 1 is older than FFXI, less popular, and that game still gets expansions. If all they're going to do with FFXI from now on is UI adjustments and voidwatch, I'm afraid I'm not too interested. I want Square to give me a reason to play that game. They're just not giving me a reason to. (Or anyone else for that matter, from what I've heard, it's hemorrhaging subscriptions lately.) GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jun 10, 2012 |
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Jun 10, 2012 20:55
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Pesky Splinter posted:Corrected Yeah, originally Ashe and Basche were going to be the main characters. And the game would have been better for it. I also wish FFXII was multiplayer. I'm sure I would have liked it a lot more, then. Didn't even have to be online, you could have done local co-op with a buddy on the couch Secret of Mana-style and I would have loved the game. I was just so used to playing FFXI, playing FFXII felt like playing XI, but much, much lonelier. It's my theory that co-op makes everything better. Many games that would be otherwise totally unplayable are made fun by co-op. Plus, most people don't realize it, but it's not like multiplayer Final Fantasy is a totally alien thing. FFXI actually wasn't the first multiplayer FF. FFV, VI and IX were all multiplayer, too. Most people don't realize that these games even had a 2-player feature, but they did.
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Jun 11, 2012 02:40
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Mazed posted:Is there somewhere we can go to read about all that this guy specifically did to ruin the FF MMOs as thoroughly as possible? There's a certain appreciation one can find in video game trainwrecks. I don't have a list, but I recall reading a document detailing all of the problems FFXI had at launch. FFXI was also completely terrible at launch, but most people don't realize this as the game came out in the west two years later after it had its first expansion. There were still plenty of things that were hosed for a long time, though: *Really slow grind with overcrowded areas, and you lost exp and could level down when you died (they made it way more reasonable later) *Notorious monsters with super low (like 1-2%) drop rates that spawned once every week or so at random intervals and people would fierce fight over their spawns for hours (they eventually stopped doing poo poo like this, then Tanaka came back and starting doing this poo poo again) *Absolute Virtue was an NM that nobody ever figured out how to beat *Pandemonium Warden was an NM that people fought for 18 hours straight before people started passing out and they said gently caress it. Said incident got the game in the news and got SE to change the insane direction they were taking the game in (they patched this) *Some missions were insanely hard, namely CoP. There were level caps, say a mission was capped at lvl 40, and nobody wanted to help out because they didn't have lvl 40 gear and you had to spend hours shouting for a party only to loose to a really hard boss and have to do it all over again. (Again, they patched this and made it reasonable) *2-3+ hour raids (Dynamis, etc.) with insanely low drop rates for items, and required like 60 people to do, so you would wind up on waiting lists for items in linkshells that were really political and brought out the worst in people (again, they patched this poo poo to make it more reasonable, then Tanaka started putting more dumb poo poo like it in again once he came back) Also, Tanaka would never communicate with the playerbase at all, and they didn't even have official forums until he left for FFXIV. He give a gently caress about what people thought, and did whatever he wanted. Usually what he wanted was really, really abusive to the playerbase. His hatred of the playerbase eventually bit him in the rear end when FFXIV bombed harder than Hiroshima. He may have gotten fired from FFXIV, but it's drat unfortunate that they put him back on FFXI, especially when that game was getting so drat good. I don't think he should be allowed near any game, ever.
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Jun 11, 2012 17:36
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Miracon posted:I will never understand the corporate politics that allow consistent fuckups to keep their high-level positions like that. Basically it's how Japanese culture works. Promote people due to seniority rather than merit, and follow the leader and stay on the same path, even if that path is right off the side of a cliff. It's not just this guy, it happens a lot. Yoshinori Ono with SFxT, basically anything Tomonobu Itagaki does, etc. Basically, mass ineptitude at the top is basically why the Japanese game industry isn't doing so well these days. THE AWESOME GHOST posted:God FF11 sucked. I'm gonna have to disagree with you. Despite its warts, I loved the game. It's definitely not for everybody, but there were just some things in it that were so cool, I couldn't help but love it. The gameplay was lovely, and anybody who says otherwise is either lying or doesn't know what they're talking about. But nobody played that game for its gameplay. The gameplay was lovely, but just about everything else was stellar, namely the world, its lore, and the storyline. I've never played a game before or since that had a fiction setting as cool as Vana'diel. Only Mass Effect comes close. Also had great music, and amazing graphics for the time. WoW is a better game on a technical level, but I just don't have any feelings at all towards that game. To me, it's just another game. FFXI was a very, very flawed game, but there was just something that was special about it. That is kind of a trend in basically every Final Fantasy game after 7: they always manage to gently caress up something really bad, but have enough cool poo poo in it that it balances out. I think FF9 is pretty much the only post-7 game that doesn't have major problems. FFVIII: Stupid, stupid story, some questionable gameplay elements (draw magic), good graphics, great music, still pretty fun FFIX: Lots of old school FF callbacks, great soundtrack and visual style, worst things I can really say about it was that it was a little bland at times and the last boss just sorta came out of nowhere (also gently caress Quina, but Vivi and Steiner ruled) FFX: Terrible, terrible story, awful characters, fantastic visuals, music, best gameplay in the series in my opinion FFXI: Terrible gameplay, great story, visuals, music FFXII: Story is a little bland and boring but not painfully stupid, great visuals, gameplay is pretty good, although the gambit system kinda sucks FFXIII: Absolutely amazing visuals, dumb story, very shallow gameplay... perhaps it's modern Final Fantasy distilled - the ultimate triumph of style over substance FFXIV: Okay, there's basically nothing I could say that was good about this one (at least at launch.) My enjoyment of this game is basically riding on FFXI nostalgia. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jun 11, 2012 |
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Jun 11, 2012 18:16
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:The fact that the world, the music and the lore of FF11 were great makes me dislike the gameplay even more for locking out so much of it. I'll be honest: it eventually got to a point where I just ragequit, said gently caress this game forever, and didn't play it for 3 years. Then when Tanaka went to work on 14, they fixed much of the game's major problems (pretty much all the ones I listed.) I came back for a couple years, played the game with a more chill, casual group of friends, and had an absolute blast doing it. They really unfucked the game and made it into something great for a while. Gameplay-wise it's worlds better, but sadly, they should have done it much earlier, so the game never became the mega-hit it could have been. There's a big catch, though: it's an old rear end game. Square Enix decided to get really lazy with the content over the past few years. Rather than add fully realized areas and storylines, they half rear end it these days with pallate swapped zones that are in "an alternate dark universe" or "30 years in the past" and the like. The fixed the gameplay, but they're not doing anything cool content-wise anymore. Most of my friends finished everything cool and just got bored and quit, and without them around, I didn't really have a reason to play. I'd say the game is worth a 2nd try - it's way easier to level up and finish all that awesome old content now. Or at least it was a year or two ago. I'm not sure if anybody is playing it anymore. That game was always extremely newbie-unfriendly, and I can only imagine what it must be like to start it now. I'm sure any newbie could probably get a bored oldbie to mentor them, though. Especially if they're a Mithra.
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Jun 11, 2012 19:15
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Mazed posted:This would be neat as hell, but it's doubtful that anyone has the patience, as most of the story-based stuff requires a group--and often a really good one, to my recollection, particularly for the level-capped Chains of Promathia stuff. (Omega. I don't think anyone ever has, but a story based FFXI Let's Play would actually be feasible these days as they removed the dumbass level caps for bosses \ dungeons and increased the maximum level to 99. Chains of Promathia used to be insanely hard (namely the airship fight with Omega and Ultima Weapon.) Now you can do it solo or in small groups. Just grind till you're a high enough level and murder the poo poo out of everything. The Let's Play would have to be limited to main story quests, though. All the other quests would be absolutely nuts. You would obviously edit out all the boring stuff like grinding and the like. The idea actually crossed my mind, but such a thing still wouldn't be feasible for me as I don't have nearly as much free time as I used to back in college. Plus, I beat all the Windy, Zilart and CoP missions already. Although me or anybody else with a level 90+ character would be able to help with such an undertaking. Although I'm on the obscure Slyph server, and I won't have any time to play the game at all for at least a few months. I have a crappy work schedule and I work over 40 hours a week, plus I'm working on getting my A+ certification, so I don't have any time to play it at all right now, let alone do an LP of it. Although if somebody ever wants to do that, that would be really awesome. I might take my character out of retirement to show up in it. However, there is a crazy bastard from New Zealand crazy enough to do a Let's Play of Final Fantasy XIV: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL63493F34E0F2140B&feature=plcp This guy actually doesn't edit out boring stuff it seems, and he has videos explaining how fishing works and poo poo. It's kind of mind boggling. But his voice is kind of hypnotic. He's also doing LPs of WoW, SWTOR, and Diablo 3. Must have a lot of free time downunda. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jun 11, 2012 |
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Jun 11, 2012 20:02
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fount of knowledge posted:I feel it's worth pointing out that at least part of the appeal of the story of FFXI is that it consists of events that surround your avatar player, the one you spend hours controlling, exploring with, and leveling up. If you don't have that pre-existing connection to the world, it loses some of its impact, I think. That's probably true. It may seem weird that I mention Mass Effect a lot when talking about FFXI, given that they're both entirely different genres of games and all, but there's a certain something that they both share that I almost never see in any other games. It's especially odd given that ME's gimmick is that your choices matter, whereas in FFXI, you are kind of a passive participant to a linear story like any other JRPG. I think what they both have in common is an incredible amount of immersion, the likes of which are very rarely ever seen. I think that's why both games had very passionate fanbases. When talking to FFXI, the common link seems to be that it feels like Vana'diel feels like a real, living breathing world, and playing the game is almost like experiencing a whole alternate lifetime as someone else on an alien world. So if you ever wonder how some people could get so addicted to such a brutal game with a very boring grind, that's probably how. Players would always complain about the dev's idiotic design decisions, but nobody can deny how well done Vana'diel itself was. Perhaps it was done a little too well... the dangerous thing about FFXI is that I think a lot of players subconsciously forgot they were playing a game. If you ever got really into it, I guess you know what it's like to be in the Matrix. I don't regret playing it, though. In the early days when I was getting frustrated and the game was giving me a lot of misery, and things started getting unhealthy, I probably should have ragequit earlier than I did, but when I came back after the game had been improved, I legitimately enjoyed myself and played it in a more casual, less demanding manner. At least now I can look back on the game fondly instead of loathing it. I dunno if I'll ever have the time or motivation to visit Vana'diel again, but it was definitely a unique experience. That's a lotta words about some fantasy video game, but I did spend a lot of time on it. (Plus I'm kinda bored at work.)
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Jun 11, 2012 22:26
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Spuzzz posted:I really wish they had released a single player version of FF11. They could just use FF12's gambit system to manage your group if they didn't want to bother with AI. I don't. Half of the fun is playing with other people. For me, FFXI was less of a game and more of a glorified chat room. Without the social aspect, I'm bored to tears. I quit FFXI and WoW both for the same reason - my linkshell \ guild pretty much dried up and died in both games and they pretty much turned into single player games. I couldn't ever beat FF12 because it was like playing FFXI, but with nobody to talk to. Hell, FFXIV is honestly not a very good game and there are better MMOs out there, but I'm having more fun with the goon shell than I did playing WoW, even though WoW is an immensely better designed game. In WoW, I really only had one friend who I knew irl. The rest of the time I was playing by myself or with random people I would see once and then never again. These games are only as good as the people you play them with. For me, the whole social aspect is a huge part of it. If anything, SE should have seen WoW's success and modernized the game way earlier rather than sticking to the old school insane Everquest \ Korean insane grind model. They really should have reacted way earlier than they did, and the only reason they did is because Tanaka went off to work on FFXIV so actual competent people took over FFXI. The only reason I think they should make a single player FFXI is so that all the people that went 'EWWW an MMO, no way I'm playing a game with a monthly fee, hurf durf!' or didn't make it past the first 30 levels before quitting in frustration could see the storyline. PhilippAchtel posted:I don't doubt your conviction, but in my mind "boring grind" and "immersion" do not tend to go together. I couldn't help but be very aware that I was playing a game the entire time I played FFXI, and this very fact cut deep into any notion of immersion for me. I'm genuinely surprised people describe the game as immersive. You're mileage may vary. You said earlier that you never felt like you were exploring a world, and I feel the exact opposite way - I felt like exploring Vana'diel was a huge part of the appeal, and I would often wonder what lies beyond the areas too deep and filled with mobs that would murder me in an instant. It's kinda funny you say that, because to me, WoW felt like less of a living breathing world, and more of a place where I just went from place to place killing things, and going into random Dungeon Finder parties. Which is strange, because WoW has large continuous zones, whereas FFXI has a jarring load screen in-between them. Vana'diel's zones are extremely varied and they have so many little subtle details and easter eggs and stuff in them, i.e. the cliff from the intro movie in Tavnazia, dolphins that swim around the boat, a hidden waterfall in the jungle, etc. One of the most disappointing things about FFXIV (and there were many) was how lovely the world of Eorza is, especially compared to Vana'diel. There's only about 3 zones, and much of them are made up of copy-pasted hallways.
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Jun 12, 2012 00:52
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jivjov posted:I see this as part of the problem. A game shouldn't take hours of playing to get good. This is the same thing that keeps dragging down FFXIII for me; if the game isn't good from sometime in the first hour or so (barring any necessary tutorial time) then its going to lose a huge segment of audience early in. I shouldn't have to hit level 30 before things start being good and interesting. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Like, there is barely any content early on that's cool. Yeah, that was another pretty big problem. It was definitely worth it to force myself through those early levels, though. But did it loose a whole lot of players because of it? Most definitely. I think the reason I was able to get through it was because it was my first MMO, and I was just so impressed by the fact that it was one big world with a bunch of real people running around in it. I was wicked excited to play it, and I went and looked over the strategy guide before I even played it. At Christmas, I got to get one present early, and it was that one. My other ones pretty much sat ignored for weeks. I had never played a game like it before, and I was just amazed by the whole thing. The only online game I had played before was PSO on the Gamecube, and quite frankly it blew it out of the water and made it look extremely primitive. FFXI may be hilariously dated now, and was aged even faster when WoW came out, but in 2002 it was like some new kind of magical technology to me.
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Jun 12, 2012 04:28
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The White Dragon posted:I don't know why people have this attitude towards folks who don't like MMOs. I couldn't care less about a monthly fee; if that's the price to entry, then it's just a non-negotiable thing. What I do hate about MMOs is their userbase. 99% of the people on those drat things are of a very, very particular and very, very despicable ilk, and a player will have to work with and get to know them by necessity. This might be completely anecdotal, but I know a couple people who stated they don't want to play MMOs because they have a monthly fee. Not saying that's everyone, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons to not like MMOs, but the monthly fee is something I see tossed around and you either need a monthly fee or real money transactions to cover operating costs. That said, FFXI in its current state has a monthly fee that I think it was too expensive for what you get these days if you've already finished much of the old content like me. I think it's logical that since SE is obviously spending way less money developing and maintaining the game today, I shouldn't have to pay the same amount of money to play it as I did in 2003. I think a lot of people would see that comment and use the whole awful "gamer entitlement" phrase that's popular these days, but I'm just a consumer who wants to get his money's worth. Are you also implying that by playing an MMO, I am of a particular, despicable ilk? That's kind of how I interpret that when you say 99% of people who play MMOs are the worst human filth imaginable. I think it's pretty silly and hypocritical to judge someone by something as trivial as what video games they like. I don't really think "terrible community" is something that applies to only MMOs, but gamers in general. I have played many different types of games, met many people who identify as gamers, looked at a lot of videogame discussions online for years, and people are pretty goddamn horrendous across the board. There is an almost overwhelming amount of absolutely horrendous people who are into videogames, so should I basically write off all gamers and not associate with anyone who likes video games? Actually, that's probably not a bad idea and there are plenty of people who do that, but I'm a big peace loving "let's be friends" hippie and not judgmental enough. Well, I do judge people who watch My Little Pony and Fox News, but those are special cases. Point is, there many be lots of terrible people who play online games, but there are legitimately cool ones, too. And those people are the ones who make these games fun. If you want to totally avoid terrible people, then why the hell are you posting in a forum for video games? And of all the threads you could have posted in, you picked the Final Fantasy thread. I mean, you don't see any irony at all, here? tl;dr Don't be a douche and generalize people. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jun 12, 2012 |
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Jun 12, 2012 16:57
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The White Dragon posted:I dunno man you sure takin' this personally I suppose I did, and that's a little embarrassing on my part. You're free to bash a game all you like (and boy are there plenty of legitimate reasons to not like FFXI or XIV) but I did kind of take your post as a personal attack whether you meant it or not. Feel free to poo poo on games all you want, but can we please talk about games without having to bash each other? The White Dragon posted:Well, I'll put it this way: I know folks in real life who happen to also play MMOs on the side, and they're a mixed bag, some of them are great, most of them are awful. On the other hand, I've never met anyone in an MMO that I didn't know in real life who wasn't an obsessed rear end in a top hat who refused to let anyone else enjoy themselves. Oh, I don't want to powerlevel? I don't read guides and poo poo and min-max everything? I don't want to play this for more than an hour or two before going doing something else? Well then you're not loving dedicated enough and no you can't just look around the game world or hang out or whatever you filthy plebeian, and they don't even WANT my kind in any party. It's like, dude, relax. I ain't hardcore about this poo poo but I've never met an MMO player in-game who didn't expect me to dedicate my life to it, and iced me out completely once they found out I had no interest in that playstyle or lifestyle. Yes, those people are horrible assholes. And in fact, the same kind of people made me swear off MMOs for a while, too. Thing is, not everybody is like that. When I came back to FFXI for a while after ragequitting it for 3 years, I sort of stumbled upon the secret way to enjoy that game - to not give a poo poo. I had realized that the kind of people who treat the game like a second job (and will so far as kick you from their linkshell if you don't attend things - I've been booted out of two endgame shells because I didn't feel like playing sometimes) are utterly toxic individuals and having to be in a group of people like that will do nothing but make your life miserable. If a group will do that, that's not a group you should be in. And some of the stuff in that game (i.e. HNMS) were beyond ridiculous, and I refused to do them. Luckily, the RL friend of mine who encouraged me to come back had a group of ingame friends who thought the exact same way, and the year or two we played together was an absolute blast. It's not some binary thing where either you are super hardcore or not play the game at all - there's something in-between that if you look hard enough. Elitist assholes flock to competitive games. I used to play in local fighting game tournaments when I had more time, and the fighting game community is similar, if not even worse in this respect. (And in fact, I found a lot of people in it who played FFXI, too!) But playing fighting games doesn't automatically make you an rear end in a top hat, nor does playing MMOs, although judging people by what games they like is ridiculous as hell. Your taste in video games of all things does not define you as a person, or, at least it shouldn't - if it does, that's pretty bad. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jun 12, 2012 |
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Jun 12, 2012 22:44
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iastudent posted:That about describes how me and my friends are handling our time with FFXIV. We're all been at it for about 3 weeks now and just got ourselves into a Grand Company. Most of the time is just us fooling around with exploring and sharing notes as we find out about new stuff. Are you on Sargantas or Aegis? I'm in the goon shell on Sargantas are I've been having a ton of fun playing with those guys. This is sort of the amazing thing about it - FFXIV is not a very good game. It's way better now, but in many ways its still extremely mediocre when compared to modern MMOs and even FFXI which came out a decade earlier. From a game design standpoint, World of Warcraft is so much better than FFXIV. It is superior in almost every way sans the graphics, and really, it should curb stomp it into the ground. And most people would agree, and the number of subscriptions prove it. But here's the weird part: I am having way more fun playing FFXIV than I ever did playing WoW. How can that possibly be? That makes no logical sense! Am I just insane? Well, I think a good friend of mine in FFXI probably put it the best: "You know, I don't think this game is all that great. But it's not really the game that's all that important, it's the people you play it with."
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Jun 13, 2012 01:42
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Mega64 posted:I see this reasoning brought up all the time in the Board Game thread, where people justify playing lackluster games because they're having fun with friends. Of course, the counterargument that inevitably comes up is "You can fun with friends doing anything anyway, so why not do it playing a good game?" I guess, but my counter-counter argument is "either way, you're still having fun, so who cares?" Don't need to justify it to anybody. A friend of mine thinks that Sonic Unleashed is a really fun game. I wouldn't call it a great game, or even a particularly good one, but if he enjoys it, more power to him. Another friend of mine has a bizarre, intense love for Dynasty Warriors games that I will never understand. I'm not going to stop them and tell them they're not allowed to like said things just because it's flawed. I wouldn't exactly recommend FF14 to anybody in its current state, unless I knew their particular tastes really well and I was drat sure they would like it. What can I say? I have very peculiar, particular tastes in games that sometimes deviate pretty far from the norm, but I just like what I like and there's no explaining it.
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Jun 13, 2012 03:24
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You know, FF5 is one of the few I've never beaten. (I haven't been 3j, 5, 12 and 13 are the only number games I haven't beaten.) I dunno if I should do the 4 job fiesta because I've never beaten it for reals before. People tell me that the GBA port of it has a really funny translation, though. I should probably play it on the GBA anyway - I don't like the PS1 ports of FF4/5/6/Chrono Trigger so much because they have insane load times. Especially 4. Really, really loved the GBA version of that game, though. I really love 4 and 6 period. GBA FF1 was also really fun. gently caress FF2, though. Only reason why I beat FF2 was because I was bored on a train and had nothing better to do.Safari Disco Lion posted:Oh christ, Dajh. I honestly think the character artists were stoned when they designed him. He's supposed to be six years old but looks like a terrifying robot infant creature thing. How did they think that was not creepy as poo poo? Yeah, I'm hoping FF15 is going to be another throwback game like FF9 or 11. FF9 is probably one of the most underrated games in the series. Honestly, they should make more games like that one. I think the designs were great in that game, because they were so cartoony and "Nintendo-y". FF9 really feels like the kinda game that should have been on a Nintendo system and not the PS1. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 15:41
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I honestly think every FF game since X would be ten times better if the character designers would get over that ridiculous overoveroverdesigned pseudo-futuristic emo teenager steampunk bullshit and go back to medieval fantasy.
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Pesky Splinter posted:Get the GBA version - it gets rid of the long load times and does have the best translation. Think of it as being a tongue-in-cheek retrospective of the previous four FF titles, but with a fun battle system. Oh, I have it, I've just never been able to get through it. For whatever reason, I just kinda loose interest and stop playing every time I try to play through it. (I know, I must have terrible taste in games.) Same thing with FF3 DS, FF12 and 13. You can't really blame me with FF13, though. I got to the Cid boss fight and said gently caress it. Also, would you count X-2 and After Years as numbered games? Because I couldn't get through those, either. I got bored playing those really quick. It's surprising that I didn't like After Years given how much I love FF4, but I dunno... is it just me or does it feel a little slapped together a little haphazardly? Like, the sprites and menus are different resolutions and it looks bad. Final Fantasy Dimensions looks kinda cool, though.
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Jun 13, 2012 15:52
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Barudak posted:Assuming its cannon it also makes it so that everyone in FFVI died to the final boss of After Years and the final boss is terrible. Wait, wait, wait. What? What?! Also, since when are any numbered Final Fantasy games in the same universe?
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Jun 13, 2012 16:46
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A friend of mine had a crazy idea that it was one world. His reasoning was that the combined world map from FF5 was similar to the World of Balance in FF6. The World of Ruin's geographic looked kinda like the map in 7, and 7 and 8 also had a similar map. The reason why FF9 was a retro throwback was because they compressed time in FF8. By FF10 and 11 though he was like "nah, nevermind, dumb idea."
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Jun 13, 2012 17:21
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Mega64 posted:I can't blame you for FF3DS, either. It takes a great game that has a few major flaws and then increases those flaws and adds a few more on. What are those flaws? The thing that really kind of sticks out to me in FF3 DS is it's kinda... weird, progression-wise. Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but I think it's kind of a confusing game. Often times I'll ask myself "Am I in the right place? Am I supposed to be here right now? Do I have the right jobs? At the right levels?" Basically, the big question that keeps coming up is "Am I playing this game the right way? What the hell am I supposed to do?" I also think the battle system's kinda clunky, if you know what I mean. I guess I just like old-school FF where you see a bunch of dudes from the side.
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Jun 13, 2012 18:08
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p.crestmont posted:Oh yeah, you can "play" XIII by simply hitting X for hours (you are forced to for the first couple hours), but you can also "play" an actual Movie that doesn't suck by hitting X like, once or twice. The battle system in FFX was really good, you could pace it yourself, and you get access to the entire story (for better or worse) without having to delve into dozens of pages of Codex type stuff. In my opinion, FFX had the best gameplay in the entire series. The storyline was beyond retarded and all the characters sucked except for Auron, but the game was really pretty, had great music, and great gameplay. Summons were also really cool. It's very far from perfect, but I had a whole lot of fun playing it. I really wish the HD port wasn't PS3 only. I would love a 360 or PC port of that game, but it'll never happen. p.crestmont posted:And XIII was a beautiful screensaver, and does get even too much credit for it (getting rated 8/10-10/10 by game reviewers when it is a solid 4 or 5 game with 10 graphics) Official game reviews are garbage. Just take a look at the gaming journalism thread to see why you should never listen to them. I just go by word of mouth, because I know my friends are paid to give good reviews.
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Jun 13, 2012 18:52
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Personally, I think FF2 for the NES is pretty bad. Nobody knows that though because nobody in the west ever played it. The best thing about FF2 is that is generally comes packaged with FF1. Not sure if I can say its worse than 8 or 13, though. GET IN THE ROBOT fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 19:05
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I just got bored playing FFXII and didn't care to finish it. I think I would probably think it's awesome if they released the Zodiac version for 360 and put in some kind of local co-op or something. FFXII isn't a bad game... it's just very.... meh. It's story isn't offensively retarded, and that is a enormous plus for a modern Final Fantasy, but it is kinda... bland. Game has pretty good art design. Gameplay is decent. Pretty much the first ever FF game with sucky music, though, unless you count Tactics Advance. I'm pretty sure the music's done by the same guy. When talking about crappy FF games, can we mention spinoffs? I wasn't a big fan of Crystal Chronicles. Gorgeous graphics and art design, but the gameplay was just kinda crappy and the game was boring. I'm sure it would probably be more fun multiplayer... but you had to have 4 GBAs and link cables to do it. And whenever I would suggest getting together and playing Crystal Chronicles with my friends, I got a resounding "gently caress no."
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Jun 13, 2012 22:18
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Artix74 posted:That's fine too, but a lot of time I see people going "WHAT THE gently caress IS WRONG WITH YOU, FF13 IS SPAWNED FROM SATAN HIMSELF AND LIKING IT MEANS YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON WHO HATES ALL GOOD VIDEOGAMES AND HERE'S WHY:" There's no problem with saying why you do/don't like a game, but at least be civil about it. Regardless of your personal opinion, FF13 is not the worst game ever made, it did not ruin Final Fantasy forever, or any other bullshit hyperbole you want to throw around. This. This so much. I don't like FF13, but you are allowed to like it. People who are like "YOU LIKE FINAL FANTASY (insert number here)?! YOU ARE THE WORST PERSON! gently caress YOU, RETARD!" are really the worst people. Why is it so hard to understand that different people have different tastes? Things these are utterly subjective. What is it about videogames, especially Final Fantasy that brings out the worst in people? I think only the Sonic fanbase is worse.
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Jun 14, 2012 17:04
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Nah, FFVI really is the best one. Chrono Trigger kicks FF6's rear end, but FF6 is the best Final Fantasy game. Chrono Trigger, FF6 and Mario RPG make up the holy trinity of JRPGs.
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Jun 14, 2012 20:21
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Pyroxene Stigma posted:Muuuuch better. Fixed a typo, and you were missing a comma. FF7 is a great game dude, but it's also the most over-rated game in history. My favorites are 1, 4, 6 and 11, with 7, 9 and 10 as runner-ups. Also, people say "your first Final Fantasy game is your favorite", and that's bullshit because my first one was FF8.
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Jun 14, 2012 21:22
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Miracon posted:The first one I played was 1, and the first one I beat was Mystic Quest. I played 4 and 6 a lot as a kid, but I still say 12 was my favorite Yeah, one of these days I keep meaning to beat FF12. Maybe once I get bored of 14. Gotta beat 3 and 5, too. And while I'm at it, I guess I'll do 13 so I can say I've beaten them all.
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Jun 15, 2012 04:55
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Fungah! posted:I'd really suggest not bothering with 3. The NES version just isn't fun and somehow the DS version made that worse. Apart from anything else the endgame is a five or six hour slog, the last boss is easily the hardest in the series (and not in a good way, either you outheal the damage she does or she slowly beats you to death), and there aren't any save points in those last few hours. I know, but shouldn't I beat it the proper way first? Plus, FF14 addiction.
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Jun 15, 2012 05:06
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Sometimes I consider picking up some FF games on iOS. But Goddamn, are they overpriced. $8.99 for FFI and II each, $15.99 for III and Tactics. I never did beat III or Tactics, and maybe I could always play them during downtime at work, but I have a hard time justifying $16 for an iPhone game.
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Jun 15, 2012 17:19
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Winks posted:Tanaka leaves Square-Enix. The final fantasy MMO players are probably happy about that. This is the best drat news ever. Footage from the Tarutaru celebration in Windurst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np6vAuS0KNs
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Jun 24, 2012 22:04
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Pesky Splinter posted:Wasn't that the guy who was responsible for the mess of XIV? And for creating FFII's battle system? Pretty much, although I believe he was behind FFIII and not II. Basically, all the horrible bullshit stuff in FFXI was his doing. A couple years back, all of a sudden, FFXI becomes much better and they fix a lot of the game's longstanding problems. Reason being, is that Tanaka left XI to work on XIV. XIV got released, and at launch, it was one of the worst big name titles I've ever seen, coming close to Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 bad. It bombed spectacularly, SE lost a ton of money, and one huge stockholder dumped a lot of his stock. Tanaka was promptly kicked off of XIV, and Naoki Yoshida, the guy who fixed FFXI became the lead dev on XIV and had to clean up Tanaka's mess a second time. Meanwhile, SE sticks Tanaka back on FFXI, and he starts loving that game up again. For a while, the official boards were flooded with "fire Tanaka." I think the guy realized he had damaged the brand enough and stepped down in shame. I don't hate the fellow per se, but he is really, really terrible at games. On the plus side, Naoki Yoshida actually knows MMOs pretty well, was a big fan of WoW and knows what he's doing, but it's a lot of work to clean up Tanaka's mess, and even if he does make FFXIV into a good game, can it really ever escape the reputation it has?
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Jun 24, 2012 23:00
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Barudak posted:Imagine you built an MMO that had to undergo massive changes in order to be fixed to be fun over the course of period of 4 or 5 years. Then you release a new one that has all the exact same mistakes as its predecessor but even less content and a massive hike in graphical requirements. Oh, let's not also forget to mention that the game lacked a lot of basic features that its predecessor had almost 10 years before, like an auction house, player search, shortcut keys, dumb linkshell limits... the list goes on. At launch, FFXIV felt more primitive than FFXI, and FFXI felt old fashioned by 2005. And the UI was even worse than XI's. And for all of FFXI's flaws, frustrations and boring parts, there was at least plenty of cool stuff to keep you interested. All launch FFXIV had was a grind and no reward for it. FFXI was notorious for being a grind-fest, but at least it gave you incentives to do it so you could do cool things later. Even the most tolerant xp zombie isn't going to do it for no reason. SpazmasterX posted:Yes. This is the best news for the new expansion. Hey Spaz, what server did you play on, Quertz? I might transfer to the goon server if I resub to the game when the new expansion comes out.
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Jun 25, 2012 00:19
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SpazmasterX posted:Carbuncle, but I don't really play anymore. I'll probably start again shortly before the expansion comes out. I was from Sylph. Part of me really wants to play this game, but the logical part of my brain tells me "no, don't you dare! If you ever want to leave call center hell, you better study and get your CCNA and not waste time in Vana'diel again." Gotta be strong. Must resist... fuckkkkkk. I think Polybius was really the beta version of FFXI. Miracon posted:How much would it cost to get all of the FFXI expansions up to date, and when is the new one coming out? I could get the PS2 version if it didn't too much, hmm. As said before, the whole thing is cheap on steam, and finding a 360 copy isn't too hard. However, the PS2 version is somewhat rare, and requires an expensive hard drive addon. It'll probably set you back a lot. Plus, the PS2 version is graphically inferior to the PC and 360 versions, and most old model PS2s comparable with the HDD are dead or dying. Plus, you don't get the advantage of plugins, windowed mode and being able to watch TV while you mindlessly grind. If you really gotta play it on a console, 360 is the way to go. However, the game is loving ten years old, so even if you have the shittiest PC in the universe, it's gonna work on it.
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Jun 25, 2012 01:19
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I'm not doing the FJF because I want to beat FF5 the "right" way first, but all this FF5 talk has made me start up the game again so I can finally finish it. Currently at the Castle of Walse.
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Jun 26, 2012 04:29
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I spent the vast majority of my time playing FFXI as Red Mage, so the addition of Mystic Knight and Geomancer really kind of irks me. I guess it's karma, really. RDM's were king back in the day. As a RDM, I had Refresh, Haste, Convert, decent heals and the best debuffs in the game which made me very popular. People would practically beg me to party with them, while other jobs like Dragoon and Puppetmaster were practically like lepers. When the cap was 75, RDM and Bard were the two most in-demand jobs there were. Plus, RDM was one of the best solo classes in the game, especially with a NIN sub. RDM\NIN with full buffs was practically invincible. RDM always had utterly pathetic dps, but they could pretty much survive indefinitely and outlast most monsters. Also, RDM/DRK with Chainspell stun was one of the most broken things ever. Abyssea kinda killed that. Everybody had amazing buffs. No more did people require Refresh or Haste, they had the automatically. In Abyssea, monsters die so fast that you barely even have time to cast debuffs on them - it was like grinding in a classic Final Fantasy where you get into a random encounter, click the fight command a bunch, hit all monsters for 9999 damage and win in one turn, rinse repeat. Final Fantasy games are known for having really terrible balance and broken mechanics, and this one was no exception. I think the game honestly has too many jobs - many of which that have the same general role. Also I did the math, and if you subscribed to FFXI for every month since launch over the last 10 years, it would be roughly about $1,440 at $12 a month. Many characters
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Jun 27, 2012 20:24
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Man, I just really want them to just release FFXII International on PC or Xbox. I know you can emulate it and use a patch, but bit torrents make my network explode and I put the actual disc FFXII in a PS2 emulator and it doesn't run at full speed on my pc. Until then, I guess I just have to settle for the original.
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Jun 28, 2012 15:04
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All this FF12IZJS talk makes me bummed that downloads that big don't work on my network and my PC runs PS2 emulators slow.  FF5 is the kind of game that just makes you want to compulsively grind. I think I spent a couple hours in Galuf's basement murdering dudes with Level 5 Death so I could get lets of AP for my jobs. I'm barely into the 2nd world and I almost have a couple jobs maxed.
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Jul 4, 2012 02:44
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Minrad posted:The Prologue theme? That was an FF4 song before it got redone for 12's main menu for some reason. (Edit: Ah, that was Nobuo's contribution to the soundtrack. It was the only song he did for 12) The Prologue Theme is also known as the main Final Fantasy theme and it appears in almost every game, but usually at the end, although sometimes it's near the beginning - it was at the beginning of I, III, and IV, and then they decided to start using it as ending music until they put it in the beginning of XII and XIV. I think II and X are the only numbered games lacking it. Not sure about XIII. It's not as well known as the prelude, Chocobo or victory fanfare music though as it generally shows up in the end credits.
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Jul 5, 2012 16:08
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