Dark Age of Eorzea
Ah so peaceful, this is what Eorzea will look like this time next year.
"You have broken me, all the way down..." (Glen Hansard, All the Way Down)
That's where we are now.
Gamasutra listed the launch of Final Fantasy XIV as the #4 biggest disappointment of 2010. With less than three weeks to go in the year. I'd say, personally, it was probably #3 (more about 2010 disappoints in a later post). I've been REALLY looking forward to the next Final Fantasy MMO. In my opinion, FFXI did nothing short of amazing in its initial approach to the MMO genre. Yeah it was lackluster in many facets but to be honest there's still nothing like it in the PvE MMO scene. It's right up there as my #2 best MMO ever (with #1 going to Dark Age of Camelot for a solid PvE experience as the foreshadowing of a great PvP environment for its time).
FFXIV: The Fear and the Reality
No one is wearing gear this good yet, much less doing anything this epic.
I purchased FFXIV knowing I was going in to a game with a host of issues. The problem is with a game this big and you really can't half-ass it. I'd hate to be Blizzard trying to make a World of Warcraft 2. Sony Online Entertainment crashed and burned trying to follow up Everquest with a solid offering. It's a really hard thing to do. That said, Square Enix has not only had plenty of time but an abundance of feedback. They also pulled a huge budget for the title.
Part of me thinks all the money and energy went in to making the most visually impressive game possible. There's no MMO that can compete visually with FFXIV and few gaming titles can period. Sadly, I don't subscribe for pretty pictures so lets get to the problems:
FFXI Lesson #3: The Game Is Dead
The Hyur watches as his Hume brothers will die a painful death in the next few months
To quote a true veteran player on the FFXIAH.com forums, the new expansion/DLC is "the same old shit with this update, just more waste of time." So why are you still playing? I know why I am back to playing. I've bought the game twice and originally played at release and I don't have one level 75 character to show for it. Should I just quit while I'm behind and wait to crush it when FFXIV comes out? The money doesn't concern me. Assuming I end up going to Korea, I really do have it to burn.
There's no bonus for importing FFXI characters so why are you still trying? Maybe because your discount laptop can't begin to dream of running the FFXIV benchmark? I know my computer scored "Low." Which is exactly what I scored when the original FFXI benchmark came out. This time around, I don't feel bad because I know the Japanese still can't make optimized code to save their lives in the gaming industry.
I don't even know why I want a 75 anymore. It'll take me at least a month to hit 75. Probably another two weeks to hit the new cap of 80. I'll be taking a month break to get adjusted to life in Korea. That leaves me with about two weeks to enjoy my capped RDM. Two weeks to try my hand at a Dynamis, or Sky, or Sea (whatever those are) and you know go after all my merit points. You would be mistaken to think for a second that I'll be playing FFXI once FFXIV comes out. I'm not 14 anymore, I don't have that kind of time to waste. So should I quit already? I feel like I'm at that point. Maybe my friend Scot is just rubbing off on me.