Let me apologize in advance for teh large wall of text.. but please feel free to read the whole article b4 commenting, i know its alot :(
FFXIV has been in development for a long time now.. and is slated for a 2010 release.. Id like to express my thoughts on its success and its comparison to FFXI and its competition..
First and foremost, you would be doing yourself a diservice if your to compare 14 wtih 11 and consider them the same... It really needs to be said that FFXIV IS NOT XI, while it maintains alot of cosmetic similarities and will most likely feature some of the more positive features found in XI (fine tuned of course) it will not be the same game.... The dev team has stated b4 that, while its an ambitious desire, they would like players of xi to still play it and experince xiv simultaniously, wich tells u somthing about the differences the games will most definetley have..
FFXI was made nearly a decade ago.. a time when mmos were still in there primitive state.. and games like Everquest were the pinnnicle of online mass multiplayer entertainment as far as RPGs went.. EQ had the standards set... and FFXI fallowed suit, for the most part. That in combonation with XI being SEs first departure in MMO field... resulted in a game with high production values and a high level of experimental uncertainty. The game was a success for the most part, but nontheless had its flaws, nasty grind, mandatory partying for progress, exp loss on death and lack of convient fast travel... vana diel was big...... really big. FFXI still maintains its dedicated player base, and still despite its shortcommings, has a suprising high degree of "quality of life" i guess is one way to put it... most players are welcoming and helpful and whatnot.
Not to disregard the other mmos that came out inbetween but... come 2004 World of warcraft arrived.. (mind u i still play it do this day, end game content and all). Love it or hate it.... WoW raised the bar for mmos and what they could do, being approachable, being able to play for short periods of time and gain progress.. easy to grasp interface... the list goes on.. again... hate it all you want (im not defending it and this is not a wow post) but yeilding 11 million subscribers means somthing.Countless mmos have come out since then and while keeping a stable player base, they have hardly left a scratch in wows foundation.. but to be fair.. most of these companies.. Mythic, NC soft, Funcom ect.. while ambitious, these crafters are still semi second tier when it comes to production values... and thus their mmos are where they are. so...
What does this mean? .... Look at the bigger picture. There has yet to be a developer to craft an mmo since Blizzard, that has the production power and design skills to really make a dent..
If i can find the link i will post it.... but at the latest Press coverage, i beleive it was at E3, the team behind xiv was expaining there direction with the game... and they openly stated that it would be foolish to disregard blizzards creation and ignore what it has done with the genre.. the standards it set... what makes a good, rather succesfull mmo work.. especially in the western market. So what happens when u get a development power and original game designing skill that Square Enix has.. armed with the knowledge of proper mmo fundementals, while reserving the best elements of XI and an OST created by Uematsu-san? An experience that im sure will leave an impression on many people.. just a small note, This game bares both "final fantasy" and "online" in its title and the harsh reality of it that this alone will most likely alienate the average joe.. wich is understandable..
real quick... no im not disregarding Biowares SW:TOR, it too has a pretty decent chance, just by baring the star wars name alone... but the screen shots ive seen so far, resemble wow far too much for me to make any comments yet.
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