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.

Since it'll be the sequel of FFXI it wont be PS3 Exclusive.PS3 and PC 100% but for xbox i dont knowKuraudoKiller

I for one will be playing it hands down..... Im a fan of MMOs and im a fan of final fantasy, since day one. and something seriously needs to be said..... a couple things really.

To every single idevidual here who is adamantly opposed to the thought of paying 50cents a day.. u obviously have no idea what is involved..

Games that operate online and host on a dedicated server must be upkept.. there has to be maintenece, and constant monitoring. Also.. these servers are stationed in dedicated enviorments and have to be taken care of as well. Ill go on.

Creating an mmo and releasing it is NOT the end of its development... dev teams are on a constant shift... working on new contet.. special events.. balancing, and handling player concers and complaints.. then u have the billing department for all this.. in the real world .. people are usually paid for doing there jobs.. your 2 quarters a day are what assist in funing this.. otherwise u would have micro transactions and in game advertisment like Guild wars - the only succecsfull mmo- and all immersion would be thrown out the window..

U guys need to understand that you are p[aying for a service... u cant justify opposing a subscription fee because u have spent 50 or 60 bucks on the game... with out these subscription fees.. these types of huge fast open world mmos are impossible to maintain for a long period of time. That is the cold hard truth. Those that are complaining are most likeley not mmo fans and are under the age if 18 maybee or just around that age.. and possibly cant afford it. Ask a freind at school for a quarter, then ask another freind for a quarter...give it to your mother, have her put it on her card and badaboom. If u can afford it and have your own card.. and refuse to pay it, you only selling yourself short of a most likely amazing expereince with hundreds of final fantasy fans of like mind..... 50 cents a day people... not that serious.

Its how mmos work.

Regarding the PSP GO and everything it stands for..

[QUOTE="ThreeVo"]

Anyone who follows these forums should know, that ive said this TOO many times.

IT IS A FACT, if hironobu did not resign, these incredibly moving titles such as final fantasy 1-10 whould have been left alone just as they were made, and u can bet on anything that ff7 whould not have been tampered with, but with his passing, and the merge with SE, Sqaure is milking everything they can, with cheap spin offs on handheld systems.

Its notl ike it used to be, and ill say it again to remind everyone, back int eh day u got one GREAT ff title per year with other great games comming out as the medium, games like secret of mana or chrono trigger comming out with time during ff4 and 6, or with the ps1 era, u had the great ff games come out once per year, but within that duration we were fortunately graced with titles such as vagrant story, parasite eve, chrono cross ect.

This is not tha case however, Square has yet to release a truly HIGH Quality game like they used to in the past, that DOES NOT bare the Final fantasy name on any main console, it just wont happen, maybe its because they dont want to gamble the chance on a game that doesnt say final fantasy somwere in its title simply becaue they know bareing the final fantasy name almost garantees a profit. Instead we are forced to enjoy non realated ff games on handhelds (thats not saying that they dont spew out cheap ff games on handhelds as well). Why must we get these cheap games in 5s rather then one great final fantasy per year with no strings attached.

Lets see if last remnant can break there newly found "habit"

7CloudStrife7

That's not really true about Sakaguchi, he was the executive producer for X-2. And idk if games like FF Tactics Advance is something your are complaining about that was made and released before he left.

Anyway, another thing I find EXTREMELY ironic is people who complain about Square slapping FF on many things that don't really need it just for sales, then saying it is a result of Sakaguchi leaving. I guess the people who say this don't take into account "FINAL FANTASY" The Spirits Within, the movie directed by Hironobu himself that has almost absolutely no relation to the Final Fantasy series whatsoever. There are very subtle things in the movie that somewhat can be related to the series, but in all honesty there was no reason for that movie to carry the Final Fantasy title.

Furthermore, if the games you complain about are really so bad and they only sell because they have Final Fantasy in the title, why then was Final Fantasy The Spirits Within such a ridiculous failure, about $130 million in losses. As far as I am concerned the movie did bad because it is not very good, it didn't matter that Final Fantasy was in the title. I believe the same would result if the games they were making with the FF title in it were actually bad, but for the most part they are pretty good games that many people enjoy, the only game that I can think of as truly being bad is DoC, the rest, while maybe not as epic as a main entry in the series are good games themselves. I believe this is reflected by the fact people buy them and enjoy them, we have already seen the results of what happen when you put "Final Fantasy" on something that doesn't deserve it and is mediocre at best with the spirits within, people respond by not buying it and showing they dislike it and thus it sales are horrible. This however doesn't not happen with the spin off games you said because they are actually good games. I mean look at DoC its sales are horrible in comparison to other FF games because it is not that good.

In the end the final product speaks for itself, it doesn't matter the title if the quality isn't there.

2 points.

1. SE has yet to put there efforts into a main PROJECT that does not have a familar franchise tied to it (wwith the exception of the upcoming last remnant wich looks promising) and when i say main prject im refering to a title for a next gen console with full support and a strong development team.

2. Final fantasy is not the same as it once was

They have been taking cheap tickets out by releasing more Kindgome hearts titles, NUMEROUS final fantasy ports and remakes for HANDHELDS. None here is saying that whatever hironobu touches is golden. What IM saying is that if sakaguchi were still calling at least some shots, with the fianl fantasy series, you wuold not see soo many spin offs and in a key point, ff7 whold not have been dragged out as much as it has been as of late. The quality of what most people ahve grown to like most about ff games is gone. Serioously, how many ff13s do we need? did 12 REALLY need a damn sequel? The fact remains, "Final Fantasy" is SEs' STRONGEST frnachise, and the they are obviously aware of this and from a business stand point, its the smartes and safest thing to do to make games based on this vary franchise, wether there are top notch or not, THEY WILL SELL. again.... im not talking about games being good or bad or about sales..or the end reslut of the game... DoC for all that matters could have turned out to be an incredible game.. but that doesnt change the fact that its a damn sequel to FF7:AC, and as far as im concered, this argument puts that game and much better titles like ff7:CC (wich wasent "that" good) on the exact same page. Its in my strongest opinion that if Sakaguchi were still with them, these titles wouldnt have ever came out at all. Thus, my point more pertains to the quality of "life" within the final fantasy games, compared to your point, wich pertains to the quality of the product in general.

just to throw this in there you said this "In the end the final product speaks for itself, it doesn't matter the title if the quality isn't there."

if this is true than why is final fantasy 7 quite possibly the most overated rpg to this date? take a trip to ebay, brand knew copy of final fantasy 8,9 or 10, non greates hits facotry sealed, 20 dollars. FF7 with the same attributes? 100$ and up.

my point: Familiarity is what sells b4 anything else.......

After all this wait, I really hope FF13 would be one of the best this franchise has to offer and would be the new revolution of RPG games. frostbourne

Anyone who follows these forums should know, that ive said this TOO many times.

IT IS A FACT, if hironobu did not resign, these incredibly moving titles such as final fantasy 1-10 whould have been left alone just as they were made, and u can bet on anything that ff7 whould not have been tampered with, but with his passing, and the merge with SE, Sqaure is milking everything they can, with cheap spin offs on handheld systems.

Its notl ike it used to be, and ill say it again to remind everyone, back int eh day u got one GREAT ff title per year with other great games comming out as the medium, games like secret of mana or chrono trigger comming out with time during ff4 and 6, or with the ps1 era, u had the great ff games come out once per year, but within that duration we were fortunately graced with titles such as vagrant story, parasite eve, chrono cross ect.

This is not tha case however, Square has yet to release a truly HIGH Quality game like they used to in the past, that DOES NOT bare the Final fantasy name on any main console, it just wont happen, maybe its because they dont want to gamble the chance on a game that doesnt say final fantasy somwere in its title simply becaue they know bareing the final fantasy name almost garantees a profit. Instead we are forced to enjoy non realated ff games on handhelds (thats not saying that they dont spew out cheap ff games on handhelds as well). Why must we get these cheap games in 5s rather then one great final fantasy per year with no strings attached.

Lets see if last remnant can break there newly found "habit"

Those that say ff7 is there most amazing favorite game ever to grace this earth and forever shal be until a remake of it comes out if ever does, more power to them, if u love it than gratz, no one can tell you what you liek and dont like.however....

People who say in GENERAL, that ff7 is teh greates single piece of creation to ever grace teh final fantasy franchise or rpgs overall, really need to settle down and braoden there views and expereince of final fantasy and educate themsleves on the history of teh series more, but nine times out of ten all those people who claim that final fantasy 7 is the greatest masterpiece of all time, were people that never touched a final fantasy or never even heard of the series before ff7, and in my strong personal opinion, those poeple need to GTFO plz lol.

Final fantasy hasent peaked yet entirely, however i dont care what anyone says the quality of its life has been removed with the passing of Sakaguchi. There was a time when a great ff game came out once every year and was always rich with elements, but now.. SE is milking what sakaguchi left them, and spitting out final fantasies and everything related to it in 5s.... including the numerous spin offs and watered down handeld rehashes, i swear to you if sakaguchi was still calling the shots with the dev. of the final fantasy series, FF7 whould be well resting in its place among all the others,untampered, as im sure he knows, u DO NOT fix whats not broken.

I give mystwalker a good year or two to get situated b4 we see some original quality that sakaguchi is known for

These are un opinionated FACTS about Lod that help me explain why Lod is a averagley poor rpg at best.

Awful menu system that swpas the music out every time u enter the camp screen, and the battle menus were litterally designed in no more than one day.

Absolutley NO post game chalanges or replay values invloving minigames or anything of the sort to keep u entertained when the main story was complete (for the exception of a horrific pig racing game that yeilds no valuble items)

Poorly presented Over world map that blends ugly graphics with terrain that is completley out of place. ex) you go to a forest that is a small little bundle of trees on the world map that is surrounded by plain brown terrain linked together with blue dots to neighboring towns. If they were aiming for this type of world travel why not do it on a similar scale like tactics did or Breath of fire 4 rather than a sloppy 3d rendered dot to dot map that throws forests, mountian hikes, and deep dougens in the middle of nowhere, all linked together by a rail track world exploration system.

For the breif time you are able to travel back to previous cities, you are forced to RE insert the respective game disc that is used when u first arrived at the in game town... ex) if you want to go back to the first town in the game you had to put in disc 1. This is assuming that anyone one whould even want to back track, given that there is absolutley no reason to do so for the execpiton of purchasing weak items from vendors you missed the first time around, wich also makes u wonder why did the developers even bother giveing you a breif sting ray like flyer to travel in the first place.

Any one ever watch power rangers when you were young? those of u that did might rember that for some odd reason when all the rangers were chilling at some random lunch room in school, they coincidentally all whore outfits that matched there respective ranger color, the red ranger guy always whore a red tanktop or t shirt, as did the blue and so forth. This was imedietly brought to my attention in Lod right off the bat, the main character is in red armor.. ok.. thats cool, and he was miraculouy the chossen red dragoon, and lavitz.. ALL of his castelmen where in blue gear yet for some reason... he was in green and what do u have it? yep u guessed it, he became the green dragoon and albert.. just the same? god forbid a little originality, no?

The battle system was based around mindless timing from start to finish..

The graphics were undoughtably underpar for its time, if people want to use that as one of its strong points, wich i think a few have...

The game was never ment to compete in direct to final fantasy, it was a stand alone single title project that was advertised mainly to the us... do anyof you remeber the Lod Comercials seen on many channels including MTV? i do, if you dont then here take a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEs2OlW25Ao . A joke in all aspects. The ojnly respectable element the game had was rather nicely done CG scenes, wich were all shown brefily in teh comercial