Naoki Yoshida, newly-appointed director and producer of troubled MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV Online has said that the key for the new team is "regaining customer trust" through UI fixes, better tutorials and clear in-game terminology.
Speaking with Japanese gaming site 4Gamer (translated by MMORPG.com), Yoshida explained how the newly restructured team is keen to win back the game's alienated user-base saying: "Square Enix, as a whole, will work vigorously, now more than ever, to deliver a satisfying experience for all our customers."
To help achieve this, Yoshida has employed the talents of Tactics Ogre director Hiroshi Minagawa as a UI and Web Content artist, a designer "second to none" in his view, while key team members from Final Fantasy XII have been enlisted to aid work on the user interface, one of the weakest aspects to the current game in his view.
In the interview Yoshida characterizes the game as being in disarray, a situation not helped by users' high expectations coming from rival MMOs such as World of Warcraft. "People want loads of content right off the bat, and third-party add-ons are a given now," he said. "It’s a tough situation for new games."
Yoshida lists end-game content, the UI, tutorials, in-game terminology and interface lag as issues the team is currently addressing, saying the the delay of the PlayStation 3 version of the game was in order to allow the team to focus on one format at a time.
Yoshida said that the lack of a PS3 release date for the game was in order to save him from making promises that the team cannot keep, before assuring readers that the one promise he can make is that "they will never give up on it."
MMO's are always hard to develop and for a developer like square enix who has had numerous blockbuster titles and is arguably one of the best RPG developers not only now but possibly of all time . The early reports of final fantasy XI leave me scratching my head though. I would like to know if these were errors that were simply overlooked or caused by lack of time or if these were simply problems the team didn't necessarily care to address or didn't fully realize could make for bad game .
I am not an MMO fan at all but I have to admit the original "unveiling "of this game at E3 2 years ago really spurred my interest and made me contemplate getting into MMO's so when I heard of lal the problems that users were running into I was really alarmed because the one MMO that did interest me seemingly was on its way to being close to unplayable .
it will be interesting to see what comes of FFXI in the future
this article is talking about FFXIV NOT FFXI these are two completely different MMOs and after the debacle that was the initial release of FFXIV they have their work cut out for them IF they ever hope to get FFXIV to be a viable MMO although I have my doubts.
The scope is bigger, currently when you head onto the market you are competing with "the old guys" who have been on the market for years, have lots of extra features added on by the way of addons/updates.
A current "new" MMO needs to contain (on launch): Auction (or some way of selling that doesn't require a player spamming a channel), Mail, PvE (or PvP depending on the type of game) content all the way to max level, 3rd party Addon-capability (or one heck of a customizable interface/a perfect interface from the get go)
Add to this you need a "unique" something to get attention, a balanced economy, balanced gameplay and and and
Big initial MMO's require a lot of artwork to go into that as well...
Starting a new MMO is a big gamble, several big names have stumbled recently. The payoff can be huge, but its a really hard market.
It's a whole different business being an entertainment service provider, than a game developer. I really don't think making a service offering is SE's strong point.
MMOs are some of the most insidious and difficult to manage software products that you can ever be associated with. I am with Kris, can you please explain how they are easy?
I am not an MMO fan at all but I have to admit the original "unveiling "of this game at E3 2 years ago really spurred my interest and made me contemplate getting into MMO's so when I heard of lal the problems that users were running into I was really alarmed because the one MMO that did interest me seemingly was on its way to being close to unplayable .
it will be interesting to see what comes of FFXI in the future
"MMO's are never hard to develop..."
Please explain...
The scope is bigger, currently when you head onto the market you are competing with "the old guys" who have been on the market for years, have lots of extra features added on by the way of addons/updates.
A current "new" MMO needs to contain (on launch): Auction (or some way of selling that doesn't require a player spamming a channel), Mail, PvE (or PvP depending on the type of game) content all the way to max level, 3rd party Addon-capability (or one heck of a customizable interface/a perfect interface from the get go)
Add to this you need a "unique" something to get attention, a balanced economy, balanced gameplay and and and
Big initial MMO's require a lot of artwork to go into that as well...
Starting a new MMO is a big gamble, several big names have stumbled recently. The payoff can be huge, but its a really hard market.
Then again most people here know all that ;)