FFXIV Review – poor, so so many problems

The reviews of FFXIX (Final Fantasy 14 online) are coming in, Take a look at the Video review of Final Fantasy XIV from Gamespot, not so good

Gametrailers gives it a 4.2 (see bottom video)

IGN: 5.5, subpar

Gamespy says;

Worst user interface in a PC game since 1998; every aspect of game unnecessarily convoluted; feels like a free-to-play MMO in the very worst way.

Gamer Revolution says;

At the time of this review, FFXIV feels like it’s still in beta. Hell, maybe even alpha. It’s a travesty to release an already mediocre game before ironing out all the kinks in its broken interface and having enough content to keep it interesting.

It honestly feels like the PC version is just the beta test for next year’s PS3 version. Of course, this is an MMO and we fully expect more to be added as time goes on. But right now FFXIV has no right to be available for retail and you would do well to hold onto your money, if not altogether, at least until some extra meat has been added to these bare (broken) bones.

Some player feedback sums it up

There isn’t anything to do between leves (which don’t give much skill to some classes – how else are you supposed to rank up a job?), the UI is horrific, the map is useless, the market / trading system is one of the most stupid concepts I have ever seen, and so on.

I’m hoping that SE are able to fix / change many of these things, because unfortunately, they are game-breaking for a lot of people. Readers may not like Gamespot, but if you look even at the user reviews, 95% of the readers support the reviews which point out all these flaws. The people rating the game 10 and saying it is perfect, I’m sorry to say it, but they really are SE apologists because there are some massive flaws that make the game incredibly frustrating at times and it is far from perfect.

My RL friend who I started playing the game with, who has played a number of MMO’s over the years, didn’t even last long enough to register a character on the Lindblum server. Yes, I wish he had tried a bit harder to get into it, but it is putting a lot of people off very quickly and he just couldn’t get past the lack of direction, the lag, the UI, the controls, etc.

I can’t even try and shop in the market ward without getting a headache after 5 minutes, and I don’t even see what I’m supposed to be shopping for – the gear given out as leve rewards is better than the things people can craft, comes in nicer colours, and doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount which people are trying to charge (its free) – why would I buy anything (other than tools, but I won’t even get started on that) from a PC vendor? Also, the fact that HQ versions are basically useless doesn’t help.

I really hope SE are able to address these issues quickly – because otherwise, it could be a long and frustrating wait for them to fix it, and I’m not sure my patience will stretch that far either, even though I love the *idea* of the game, and of playing another FF MMO.

Summary

History has shown that the MMORPG audience does not often forgive poor launches. FFXIV may have had a very good technical (server login, uptime) launch, but the user experience, pseudo content, and UI is affecting even the most dedicated. Sadly.

From JP Amazon.com, translated from Japanese:

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1,012 人中、985人 (97.3%) の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。

1★

うまくいけば金の卵を産む鶏になれた逸材。不況の今、
まさしく、スクウェアエニックスにとって希望となりえた商品だったはず。
どうしてこうなった。プレイするたびにこの言葉が思い出されます。
リーヴくらいしか楽しむものの無い薄っぺらな内容。グラフィック以外褒められない内容。

でも、発売前、発売後数日までは私も期待していました。FF14には
すべてのスクエニファンも同じ気持ちだったと思います。
ただ、最近のソフト群を見てもSFC時代の傑作の足元にも及ばない作品ばかり。
んー、もう私たちファンが知っている、スクエニは存在しないのでしょうか。
ぶれずに株主優先、ユーザー軽視の立場を崩さない社長の和田さん。
ラーメンなう、なんていってないでFF14に関して話して欲しいものです。
１度ユーザーの言葉を受け止めて、真摯に対応して欲しいです。

ポケモンやマリオが任天堂の顔であるように
いわばメーカーの顔であるFF。その正式ナンバリングタイトルでこの出来。
すべてのスクエニファンは怒るべきだと思います。ファンだからこそ強く言うべき。
１度痛い目を見ないと関係者達は理解しないのかもしれません。

中国に擦り寄ったと思われるシステム、アイテム名など
国産ゲームにあるまじき仕様が多数。メンテで日本語パッチがあたっても相変わらず変な日本語だし。
産業としてのゲーム業界が厳しい淵にある中で日本企業が日本人ユーザーを軽視していいのでしょうか。

最後になりますが、10/1時点で運営側がオンラインゲームとしてやってはいけない対応連発してます。
終末の雰囲気が出ているこのゲームをプレイするなら、いい意味で終末世界なFallout3の方がお勧め。
幻だったかのようです、FC、SFC、PS時代のスクエニ作品は。あの頃の作品は夢を与えてくれてました。
想えば、今20、30代の人たちはスクウェアとエニックスに思い入れがあったはず。
14でFFブランドが最後になるとは当時誰が予想したでしょうか。本当に悲しいです。

駄文長文失礼しました。ファンだからこそ強く言ってる事関係者の皆様には分かって欲しいです。

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985 out of 1,012 (97.3%) users referenced this review as helpful:

1★

Had this gone well, it could have remained the goose that laid the
golden egg. In this recession, SquareEnix certainly must have
hoped as much.

Every time I play, I ask myself “How did this happen?”

Cheap and shallow game content, with nothing fun to do except
leves. A game with nothing worthy of praise but the graphics.

Even still, before launch and for days afterward, I kept my hopes
up. I’m sure every SquareEnix fan did the same for FF14. But
recently they’ve put out nothing but trash that doesn’t come close
to their earlier masterpieces. We fans know: SquareEnix no
longer exists. Instead we have a company President in Wada who
openly despises his users, and puts the shareholders first. Just
once, I wish they would sincerely listen to their users instead.

Final Fantasy is the public face of SquareEnix, just like Pokemon
and Mario are for Nintendo. That’s how you treat official
numbered titles. Every SquareEnix fan should be outraged. Fans
should say it most strongly especially because they’re
fans. If we don’t make them see, they will never understand.

This game is rife with systems, item names, etc that point squarely
to them cozying up to China in a way that no domestic game should
do. Even when maintenance patch notes are in Japanese to begin
with, they are poorly translated and hard to understand. Is it a
good idea for a Japanese company to be ignoring its Japanese users
at a point in time where games are struggling as an industry in
general?

Finally, it’s clear the 10/1 release date was purely because
management said they needed to launch an online title by then. If
you want to play a game that feels so much like the bleak end of
an era, I recommend you go play Fallout 3. I look back on the
SquareEnix of the NES, SNES, and Playstation eras like the ghost
of a bygone age. I’m sure every fan in their 20′s and 30′s has to
feel the same. Who would have thought 14 could turn out to be the
end of the brand entirely? It’s pretty depressing.

From another Japanese gaming magazene

“What we’re seeing from some XIV players is the equivalent of battered spouse syndrome. They’ve been abused by SE for the better part of a decade, complaining loudly about it every step of the way, but when SE does it again and someone else points it out, they rush to the abusive spouse’s defense.”

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FF14のサービス開始の発表を受け、LS(パーティとは別で、ゲーム内での集まりのようなもの)でも、それぞれが「14も一緒にやろう」というように話し合っていましたが、
私がOβに当選したのをきっかけに、FF14の内容が顕になってくるにつれ、他メンバーの「やらないかも…」という発言が出始めました。

まずFF11で出来ていたことが出来ていない。退化しています。
よく「FF11もβの時には…」なんて発言がありますが、もうそういうレベルではありません。
現在のFF11で出来ている仕様上のことやUI面などができていません。顕著なところで、チャットのし辛さ、見難さ。アイテムのソートがないなど。

次に運営側の殿様営業。ユーザーから「こういうことがあったので、調整して欲しい」という意見があっても全く聞く耳を持たず、
後々になって結局「やったらBAN対象」というのは、FF11時代からもありましたが、FF14でも健在です。
また今回のCE(コレクターズエディション)や通常版購入者、FF11継続プレイヤーへ渡されるアイテムなども、実際入手したら広告のものと全く仕様が異なっていました。
例に、FF11継続プレイヤーへ渡されるアイテム、「エルメスの靴」などは、いままで宣伝されてきたものは「移動速度上昇」のみ表記されていましたが、実際には一日15分程度しか効果が発揮されず、
ゲーム内でも、アイテム欄や装備する際などにもその詳細は記載されておらず、ただ装備した時に突然「移動速度上昇」の効果が付加され、突然切れます。

他にも、FF11プレイヤーなら分かることだと思いますが、いままで通りの運営側からの頭ごなしの調整、仕様変更がなされ、今回は心底呆れてしまいました。
最近での出来事としまして、日本語版の全てのテキストが漢字表記にされたことなどが、それに当たります。
開発曰く「プレイヤーからのフィードバックを受け止め、反映させた結果」と言うことですが、実際にはそのようなフィードバックは一切なく、それについて言及すると
「開発側の趣味」という返答が返ってきたのは、ご存じの方も多いことと思います。
よもや「チョコボ」を「馬鳥」という名前で見る日がくるとは、誰が思いましょうか。

FF11では、サービス開始から8年目を迎え、やっとプレイヤーが遊びやすいよう様々な調整がされてきましたが、FF14でも再び同じようなことを繰り返すのかと思うと、続けていく気がおきません。

また開発当初の「多人数対多人数(通常のmobとの戦闘)」という発言も全くの嘘で、
結局1人or複数人で、1匹の敵もしくは3匹程度の敵と戦うしかできません。
サーバーの収容人数の「十数万人は耐えられる」という発言も全くの嘘で、数万人程度でダウンしました。
βの時は「これからきっとよくなる」という淡い期待もありましたが、このような形で製品版として出てしまうとは、本当に残念です

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When we first heard about the FF14 release, my linkshell (like a big in-game party, but different) decided to all play together, but after experiencing the incredibly scant content available in open beta, a number of people started to say they might not play.

First of all, the most basic FF11 functionality isn’t there. This is a step backwards. A lot of people are saying “Well, FF11 had problems in beta as well,” but this is on a completely different level. Simple things that worked in FF11 like functional UI are missing. The most striking examples are that chat doesn’t even work correctly, not to mention something like item sorting.

Secondly, it’s the company management. Just like with the FFXI release, When (Japanese) users have publicly reported bugs, saying “We don’t think this is working right, could you please investigate?”, the company doesn’t listen and instead, some time later, the user ends up banned. Once again buyers of the collector’s edition and those who linked characters from FF11 were promised special items that appear to not be working correctly. For example, the item that was given to FF11 players, Hermes Boots, were said to increase movement speed on users, but it seems they only work for 15 minutes, which isn’t explained anywhere in the in-game item stats or description, and instead simply cuts out the effect without notice once you’ve equipped them.

Players of FF11 are probably familiar with this, but the tendency for the company to completely ignore the feedback of its users is absolutely shocking. As proof, look at the text included in the Japanese version of the game, and the usage of Chinese characters. During development they said “We’re listening to customer feedback and adjusting the game accordingly,” but not a single piece of that feedback has made it into the release, and I’m sure many feel they were wasting their time. Who would have thought we’d see the day when “Chocobos” actually became “Horse Birds?”

After nearly eight years, FF11 has finally been tweaked and fixed to the point that people can have fun, but after seeing all of the exact same mistakes repeated in FF14, I have no interest in going through it again.

Promises like “legions of players versus legions of mobs” have turned out to be a complete lie, and instead all we can do is one or several players fighting one or several mobs. The promise that one server can support several hundred thousand users has also turned out to be a lie, with servers crashing before they even reach ten thousand. The hope since beta was that it would all be fixed soon, but the fact we’ve gone straight to production with the game still in this shape is incredibly disappointing.

Check out our first impressions, http://www.gamertechtv.com/2010/ffxiv-first-impressions-post-launch/

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