FF14 “Failed Because Our Flowerpots Were Too Beautiful”
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Mar 21, 2014 19:46 JST
- Tags: Final Fantasy, Internet, MMORPG, Production Controversy, Square Enix
Square Enix has explained why they think Final Fantasy XIV proved such a disaster and how they rescued it with A Realm Reborn – including the fascinating revelation that the game’s flowerpots had as many polygons as its player characters…
Famitsu were on hand to record their “Behind the Realm Reborn” presentation, made by producer Naoki Yoshida at the latest GDC, helpfully with English slides:
Whether the lessons have been taken to heart at Square Enix – a company now seemingly devoted to rehashing old Final Fantasy games and churning out the world’s finest social games – remains to be seen, but A realm Reborn certainly seems to have been a surprising success.
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SO they're saying that, in hindsight, FF14's original launch went poorly due to mismanagement, improper focus, and too much groupthink during development.
That makes sense. Hope that the relaunch goes well for them.
it's gone well so far, we'll see if it stays strong. I personally think they made it way to easy to level.
Thought so at first too but...if you consider a single char can level upall classes (combat and crafting), I figure they were aiming at avoiding it being a korean grindfest.
I still find it quite enjoyable to run dungeons and ests to level up my classes
I also remember when they first announced the thing... supposedly, the preview was enough to hype people, only to immediately disappoint them when it was revealed to be another online title. Honestly, did they really need to make TWO titles in the numbered Final Fantasy series an MMO? Well, I never play them, but do they still charge up the ass for FFXI subscriptions?
yes they still do and a lot of people(mainly jap)still play it.
That last slide just shows that atleast someone at square-enix still has a brain, they need to put that guy in charge
The current square-enix doesn't follow 1) Never Forget The Fans or 4) Don't Forget Your Roots, they could do with someone printing that slide out and plastering the walls of ever office with it IMO
Nah, they remember their roots... the problem is, they like to rehash them to death.
They've actually made countless changes based on player feedback, so they're obviously listening to them. As for forgetting their roots, FFXIV: ARR has dozens of winks and nods to older game mechanics, spells and skills.
There are even in-jokes for people who have played earlier games in the Final Fantasy series.
It's not a perfect MMO, but they're obviously taking criticisms seriously and refining the game with each update. There's not a single game on the market which appeals to everyone but they seem to be doing the brand justice at last.
FF XIV got dull after a month for me. It's same old, same old, grind, fetch pointless quests, "Hello hero, can you please go dust my beautiful paintings?" At least i spent only 15$ thanks to Russian key website.
The funny thing is there is an actual quest in FFXIV where you go and dust paintings.
And rub a man.
Actually, scratch that. Rubbing two men. Fun times.
Contrary to all other MMOs where you fetch pointless quests?
All MMOs are the same old grind. You just either like the coating on it or move to one you do.
in the early days WoW quests added a lot of lore and i and my friends always made sure to read it all.
You sure it isn't failed becuse... it's no fun?
Last slide.
Obviously you weren't a player, but yes. As God is my witness, 1.0 when it first came out was seriously no fun in many aspects. Many players like me are just puzzled on a lof of the design decisions,,,
Like not being able to even jump? I found that pretty sad.
Just one word can describe why it sucks.
Online.
Seriously, why go create an online mmorpgy? GTA Online and FFXIV, only fun the first 50 hours, the rest meh. Companies should just stick with their forte.
You do realize that FFXI, an MMORPG, was one of SE's biggest money makers, right? It had 6 digit subscribers for years who enjoyed playing it. But hey, you're the dictator of fun so fuck them, right?
It's always amazing to see how people can be so ignorant in an age of unlimited and free information available to them.
If they managed to make a game fun for 50 hours, well, that's more fun than I can get out of most games now.
Exasperated gasp! Actual truth and insight from someone at SquareEnix?! Maybe he could go and tell that to the XII/XV dev teams? Or any other person at the company?
In the end, this presentation sounds like a walkthrough of SimMMOPRG.
Crysis called, it said you're drinking the koolaid kid.
Wow, Squeenix are already ridiculing themselves.
"Hey, look. This is why our products fail."
Well, the problem with the mobile game focus was already issued by Squeenix, yet they started to focus even more on social games lol
Just a quick thought: how about a certain LN author writes a novel series "My little flowerpot can't be this beautiful"?
The story is about a game programmer in high school, who gets help in programming from a girl that was formerly just a virtual flowerpot. She turned magically into a real girl and poses as his imouto now... or, for certain reasons, she is just a transfer student living with his family. They hold sessions to improve his skills, but run into trouble all the time. Each new volume adds at least 1 girl to his harem... several are also virtual-object-turned-3D-girls... others include the non-blood related imouto, a bigtits blond ojou transfer student, the student coucil president, the tsundere childhood friend, etc.
Hey, Squeenix just got an awesome story for a LN... they could adapt it into a social game!
Yes, I'm sure the generic map designs & two legged horses had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Now if only they can apply this to the single player Final Fantasy games and truly take to heart their core roots such as bring back the games that made Squaresoft great. Such as a sequel to Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, Romancing Saga, Mana series, etc.
The good points contained in these slideshows kinda make the whole thing ironic and being nothing more than a paper parade, because they aren't written by someone who is sitting in SE's boardroom having the most shares in the company.
Those top execs don't give a single FUCK about players. In a world where execs who know jackshit about creative design get to make a creative decision on development, more money is being spent on clever marketing than actual development.
Square, your arrogance is showing. Did Toriyama's "FFXIII sold so well because of my waifu, Lightning!" ego rub off of you guys?
Uh, wait... How can recognizing their own failures and mistakes be "arrogant"..? Should it not be the other way around..? You did not seem to think your choice of words carefully.
You got upvotes just because you gratuitely, randomly bashed FFXIII in this site's most bandwagon way (hardly related to the article, by the way), sir.
The arrogance is in the fact they acknowledged it without providing evidence of their acknowledgement. Anyone can say, "I'm sorry" - we do it every day, but to prove one is sorry - Square Enix ain't got anything substantial to apologize with, and an unproven apology always is arrogant.
ff14 still sucks now though.
FF sux since FF X anyways.
MMOs these days just suck in general. Still waiting for a new MMO that come even close to being as fun as vanilla/TBC WoW was, but don't think I'll ever get to see that happen.
Its surprising to see a company acknowledging "Yeah, we fucked up hard and here is a detailed analysis of why our game sucks"
We always do. Devs behind the curtain of the marketing team are always thinking this way, our babies (games) are the biggest target of criticism in an ironic parental opposite day. Marketing is meant to take the positives and present them in appealing ways, which is sometimes easier with certain games compared to others. Many times marketing should stay out of it and let the passionate gamers who are making it do the marketing, which we did as well when we saw the marketing push and said 'you people are idiots' and the devs did their own video and pics of the games.
At the end of life of the MMO I worked on the main question of all meetings was 'how can we make this fun?' which is how we knew it had failed, so the company fell soon after. Well... mainly due to investment issues back during the crash, but it would have failed pretty hardcore if released.
As a consumer, I feel that honest to heart communication between Game Developers and Consumers is the best thing for a game to succeed.
Also the publishing of games should not be in the hands of corporate suits who have little love for videogames and only see them as a source of revenue.
Videogames should only be published when and if they are ready, without tight release deadlines.
We made a desperate attempt to save the company with a small arena shooter, that to this day is more fun and challenging in a fun way than most others I have ever seen. We literally played our own game on our breaks because we built it with that very concept in mind because we knew it was the last thing we could do to save ourselves. It was released but because we were dead we had no marketing ability except for one day on steams front of site store and a free to play weekend. We couldn't let people know we existed so I was fired when I completed all animations and everyone else was shortly after that. You will not find a player who played for more than 30 minutes and got used to the controls who disliked the game. The problem is you will probably not find a player very easily, there were only a few thousand.
they didnt actually said "we fucked up" they were more like "we kind of got distracted, all that shit that happened on the side ended up affecting us, while we were high and we didnt notice, sorry!"
the only things they accepted were that they ignored fans and users screaming their lungs off and that they got afflicted by tunnel vision
And they didn't even do that well, either. Nothing in ARR is substantial proof of them doing anything but appealing to the lowest-common denominator.
EAshould do the same
EA is too busy playing knights & dragons inside forts made of hundred dollar bills.
ALmost looks like a complete bashing of "the old team" that made 14 to me.
Sure they're admitting fault finally that their graphics no matter how pretty aren't gonna sell a game if it plays feels and IS 120% grade-a refried donkey shit.
But the name on the outside of the building still says "SquareEnix" to me... so until they give us 15 and a fucking conclusion to KH and no more of this unnecessary spin off/side story, interquel, not-quite-a-sequel bullshit then maybe they'll have my respect once again, and more importantly (to them) my wallet.
i wonder how much $$ it took to make that presentation. and how much $$ + time they lose before they realized how badly they fucked up.
i see that they lack creativity, are slow learners, and lack the humbleness to admit they fucked up the moment they actually do.
the company needs help. they need to take their head out of their asses.
Anyone can acknowledge their failures... but to prove it - SE has not done shit worthy of anything beyond proving their acknowledgement was just another lie.
Square Enix is turning out to be a douchebag in a mentally-handicap kid's body.
It failed because there wasn't enough Lightning, amirite guiz?
Because we all KNOW that a game is made 50,000,000 times better when Lightning is involved. HOW CAN YOU DENY THE SUCCESS OF FF13-9001? The market SCREAMS for MORE LIGHTNING.
But no really, Square, get your shit together you dipfucks.
any FF13 = "plot"
any Lightning = "plot^2"
Whatever, I still enjoy FFXIV.
quit the game. getting bored of repeating binding coil every week
All your classes are 50 now? If not try that. I was a tank and got really bored at end game so I switch to lvl whm. Turn out that I enjoy that too and it's really different.
So you quit four days before one of the biggest content patches for an MMO in years because you got bored of no new content....seems legit
LOL never forget the fans? fans doesnt like any more ff13 sequels all we wanted are ff6 ff7 ff8 remake or some shit
just wait for the next ff13. Since this one was a fashion show the next one should be an hentai or at least an ecchi.....
Nope. Lightning Returns was the final instalment in the 13 saga.
No more now.
So stop your bitching and get on with your life.
hahaha do you really believe they won't make any more Lighting? they even put her in ff14 and according to some rumors in ff 15!!Let's hope they dont ruin ff 15 with her.
Hey now, I want to bitch more about 13! They need to make another and push 15 back farther.
...well, at least people won't be bitching about how terrible 15 is for a bit longer then.
aka more rehash shit lol