During the Tokyo launch event for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, game producer Naoki Yoshida fought (and lost) a constant battle against tears as he thanked fans for their patience, apologised for server issues and looked back on three years of re-developing a failed game.
At least that’s what the folks at Dualshockers are saying he’s talking about. I don’t speak Japanese, but whatever the man is saying it’s got him all choked up. It’s been a long, strange trip for Mr. Yoshida, tasked not only with renovating a shoddy product, but restoring the honour lost by the franchise with the original release of Final Fantasy XIV.
Server congestion aside, how do you folks think Yoshida and his team have done so far?
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Launch Event Highlights [Dualshockers via the FFXIV Forums — Thanks, Tianyu!]
Comments
15 responses to “Producer Moved To Tears Over Launch Of Reborn Final Fantasy XIV”
I think most players are in tears cause they cant get in
Play on Japanese servers.
Already have a level 13 character on us server
US server latency is horrid =/ and the time is hard to match to play with other players
what lvl 13?
SOFT lvl 27 JP server :p
It seems so surreal to me that I see people talking about this, I play every night after work and haven’t had any issues, is it only happening during the day? I am playing on an NA server.
I’ve had issues, but clocked some good game time nonetheless. The real test will be once it goes live properly and all the non-pre orders start up
The trick is to never get off the server once you ARE in 😉
hmmmm I was considering investing in a Final Fantasy MMO, perhaps I should wait untill the server congestion issue is resolved.
I think that, once you are in, the game is really quite good. It doesn’t mess with the MMO formula too much, it looks very pretty, the class system is great and the setting is chock full of nostalgia with a host of familiar mobs from the series as a whole. Also, apart from a few minor qualms (handing over items for a quest anyone?) the game is fun to play.
I have played most major MMO’s that have come out, and as with most a little research before hand goes a long way, I have read about the server congestion that has affected people and that’s part and parcel of a major MMO release these days, not really sure what people were expecting, i generally wait a few days before playing a new release MMO.
Secondly, search around for what server Australians are going to use, this generally gets roughly sorted out before release in gaming forums/blogs etc, a quick google search this morning resulted in forums posts and lead to a blog that has a list of servers Aussies are primarily using ranging from US new – Jap Legacy (also gave ideas of latency and population), for a game like an MMO where you ideally want to have people around to play with, this isn’t a lot of work to do before hand, i personally end up spending hours agonising over what type of character i want to play and researching that anyway, so the extra fifteen minutes to check on servers isn’t a big time investment.
I think the problem is that fifteen minutes research tells you that the primary nominated ‘Unofficial Australian’ server filled up and locked down in a few hours on the first day, as did the ‘backup’ unofficial Aussie server, then the backup-backup.
Things sort of went to a hell of uncertainty versus desire to ‘just get in the damn game and play already’ from there.
At this stage, you can either play on a different server to your gaming group/friends, or not play for a few weeks. Hardly ideal, but not exactly a surprise to MMO veterans who’ve experienced any other launch ever.
Yeah the JP servers are filling fast, but as you said, not a surprise to anyone who has had a passing fling at MMO’s at launch before.
Interesting that some of the reading i was doing was showing latency from Aus to the Canadian servers was showing better latency that the Japanese servers, will probably be down to the loading coming in on the Japanese servers, but interesting none the less
Fortunately, you seem to be able to create characters on at least a couple servers, so I’ve just settled with a solo/stealth alt I can access right now, and if friends are still playing when the servers go out of lock-down, I’ll create a ‘main’ to go play with them.
Unlikely as that sounds. Pfft. Who needs friends, anyway?
; _ ;
I downloaded last night and was able to create a character on one of the US servers straight away, haven’t had time to play yet, so will have to see how that goes tonight.
It’s a really fun MMO so far and an amazing improvement from the original release.
That said I’ve had absolutely no issues logging in or anything. I imagine the experience is different if you can’t play with friends.
“. . . how do you folks think Yoshida and his team have done so far?”
Looks like everyone avoided this question. I’m going to sound like a massive fanboy, but I personally think they’ve done a more than superb job. And aside from a small launch hiccup (seriously this isn’t that bad compared to other videogame launches: Sim City anyone?) XIV: ARR has been an addictive, epic adventure 32 levels in so far.
Everything about this game is elegant and beautiful — the music, the environment (graphics, terrain, weather, ambiance — every bit of detail), the combat, the story all flows so nicely. As soon as you log in, you can easily see that so much effort was put into this game and it’s no wonder Yoshi-P broke down in that speech.
3 years to remake a failed mmo and that’s no easy job. MMORPG’s are costly, and a full remake within this genre sounds like an extreme feat of strength. I give my congratulations to Yoshi and his team for turning XIV back into a great game it was meant to be.
For all of you having issues registering your account, logging into the game, etc, please don’t let this sour your opinion of the game. This game deserves to be praised. Please be patient.