[vellauno]

How do you think that Square Enix should go about getting all the players that they angered with their terrible 1.0 game to come back to ARR?

If you want to read a wall of text about why I think this will be a HUGE challenge for Square Enix, read the spoiler section.

Spoiler

Let me get one thing straight before I go on; The original incarnation of FFXIV was one of the worst, if not worst, subscription based games ever made by a well respected game company. It was so bad that many players would not even play it while it had unrestricted free play. Want to dispute this fact? I direct your attention to the fact that Square Enix fired all the major staff responsible for that atrocious game. The game was so unrecoverable that even a new competent team could not fix it. They had to rebuild it from scratch, hence the existence of A Realm Reborn.

Now that I have that out the way, it brings about a serious issue. Many people originally came to FFXIV 1.0 because of their faith in the ability for Square Enix to make wonderful games. Anyone following the beta knew the game was seriously flawed but still tried FFXIV with the expectation that many of the critical issues would be fixed come launch. Others did not follow any game news nor care what others had to say about the game, it was Final Fantasy, and that name alone was enough to draw in countless players.

Come launch, many many players were very seriously disappointed. Reviews of the game were dismally terrible, especially for a major franchise such as Final Fantasy. Those who where drawn by the Final Fantasy title and nostalgia of great Square Enix games were burned, badly. The recent dry spell of great new original titles by Square Enix caused many to start losing faith in the company and the failure known as FFXIV 1.0 was the final nail in the coffin for many (more like final industrially welded shut and thrown into the sun coffin).

Undeniably, the new team working on FFXIV is doing a great job. They are really trying hard to recover the name of the franchise and faith in the game. FFXIV; ARR is for all intensive purposes, a brand new game, but this time around the Final Fantasy name alone will not draw in nearly as many players. I told many of my friends about the great changes coming to ARR and in general, they just did not care. 1.0 was so bad that they will not even give ARR the time of day. Where once the name Final Fantasy alone was enough to bring in droves of players, now it is just a name associated with countless remakes of old success and one of the most disappointing MMOs of all time.

To those of you who stuck with FFXIV until now because you like the game, I assure you, you are the minority (If you were not the minority, there would be no reason to remake the game). Also lets not forget that many players left before they saw any major improvements to the game. Those players only have images of the state of the game in its first few months ingrained in their memories.

The point of this wall of text is this; no matter how great ARR will be or how many improvements made, it will be very difficult to get many players to give FFXIV a second chance. I think the best thing FFXIV; ARR has going for it is that it never made it to the PS3 in 1.0. Those who only have consoles did not get to experience first hand how bad 1.0 was. For especially those who do not follow gaming news, ARR is the new and only Final Fantasy XIV. Even those who did not play it the first time around may strongly remember the original reviews of the game, and/or lost interest in the franchise in general back in 2010 (Just look at how inactive these forums are compared to before the original launch of the game).

Square Enix is going to have to work DARN hard to get players to come back (not only players who bought the game, but players who were thinking about buying the game too), so how do you think they can achieve this? Fixing the game alone will not likely be enough, so how should Square Enix go about regaining player faith in Final Fantasy and convince disgruntled customers to give the game a second chance? What steps have they already made to these ends? In what way(s), if any, are they dooming themselves to further failure?

This post has been edited by vellauno: 13 November 2012 - 01:32 AM

[Ebyl]

To put it bluntly, gamers (and most people in generally, especially on the internet) usually talk a lot, then fail to back it up when it comes down to it. So many of those claiming FFXIV is forever ruined to them and they'll never try it again no matter what are, frankly, full of ****. Most likely a great majority of them will not return immediately to give it a shot, but wait to see reviews and hear word of mouth about whether it's really delivering or not. Assuming the word is positive, they'll end up giving it a try at some point, especially if they have a free month waiting for them.

So yeah, sorry, not buying the doom and gloom based on what butthurt friends and internet gamers say. I deal with that kind of bluster day in and day out, and once the grass actually starts looking green enough to enjoy, the mouth breathers almost always come to graze no matter what they said before.

This post has been edited by Ebyl: 13 November 2012 - 02:01 AM

[JCrusnik]

That is what they are doing right now working DAMN hard lol, fixing it alone was not enough yes that is why it was remade, old players get to try it once more since there is nothing to buy, as far as convincing disgruntled players we'll if the game is good enough they'll come around =D, if they don't oh well there is really nothing anyone can do when one is hating on the game for being burned, maybe time will heal the wounds ^^. Some will never touch it ever again, but i'm sure there are plenty that is wanting to give it another shot. I don't think there is anything to fail at this time around, specially when part of this game are players ideas also. As for steps they are making looking at what has been done, they pretty much remade the whole game for the players.

All and all they aim to get the old players back, and gain some new ones pretty basic. The only difference is this time around they are more open with players opinions on what they like, dislike, or acceptable. Also i don't think they are taking things lightly, we the players are not the only ones that got burned, they got burned aswell =D.

[vellauno]

Ebyl, on 13 November 2012 - 01:58 AM, said:

So yeah, sorry, not buying the doom and gloom based on what butthurt friends and internet gamers say. I deal with that kind of bluster day in and day out, and once the grass actually starts looking green enough to enjoy, the mouth breathers almost always come to graze no matter what they said before.

Let me quickly make clear that this is not intended to be a doom a gloom thread. FFXIV was terrible when it first came out, got a bit better, and is looking much better come ARR. Despite these improvements, it will be harder to get players to come back than it was to get them to initially try the game when it first came out. Given this fact, this thread is intended to discuss how do you think Square Enix should/can/will get players back beyond simply fixing the game.

[Ebyl]

Nothing more really needs to be done. Returning players get a free month, not to mention there will most likely be an open beta. If it's a good game, people will come and try it. As I said, the "I'm never gonna try that game again," rhetoric is just that, empty rhetoric.

[Naqaj]

Yep, they are doing the one thing that can potentially sway opinions back, allow everyone to get first-hand experience. Either the game speaks for itself and delivers, or it doesn't, but noone can make the argument he didn't have a chance to try.
People who flat-out refuse to build an informed opinion aren't worth to be heard.

[Jackel]

Naqaj, on 13 November 2012 - 03:40 AM, said:

Yep, they are doing the one thing that can potentially sway opinions back, allow everyone to get first-hand experience. Either the game speaks for itself and delivers, or it doesn't, but noone can make the argument he didn't have a chance to try.
People who flat-out refuse to build an informed opinion aren't worth to be heard.

This 100x over.


Virtually every last "This game sucks!" post was based entirely on the initial 30 days of play. I'm a firm believer that opinions are never wrong, but as others will surely echo, I'd rather not play with others who refuse to step back and accept the changes put in place over the last 24 months and make a legit attempt at playing the game that has now been presented to us.

I'd also like to say that Tabla Rasa was probably a much worse game than XIV. Even though NCSoft only published it, Lord British was behind it. :) I say this looking back because even in the MMO market a name can only take you so far, but it's the standard you'll be held to.

[crimsonff7]

Of course Square's going to have a hard time convincing people to pay attention: they dropped the ball on their initial release. However, what more can they do?

They've given away a full year of free gametime. They're relaunching the game with new terrain, new game systems, new storylines, and new audio-- they're redoing the game. They've come out publically, multiple times, acknowledging the fact that their initial game was not received by gamers with praise, and Wada himself has come out to say he and the rest of Square are on top of this. Wada further backed this up by (gently) sacking those responsible for the catastrophe, replacing the team with those he (and the board) considered capable, and then publically made appearances showing his support for the team.

Let that sink in. The head of a multinational company focused on entertainment shows up multiple times in live events to show his support for the work being done by a team.

There is, quite literally, nothing more Square Enix can do. They are putting everything they can into this.

And yet, the very fact that I'm posting this here (freaking ancient) shows what they've done is having some effect. We'll see if they can get the ball rolling closer to launch, but I suspect there'll be a lot of people willing to give SE a second chance. If for no other reason than they'd like to encourage companies that admit--and try to make up for-- their mistakes.

This post has been edited by crimsonff7: 13 November 2012 - 07:05 AM

[Geozen Lightsworn]

Luckily I came back about 6 months ago and retried the game out. I had been in beta and played for about a month after release. The game was really hard for me to keep logging into. When I came back they had introduced the Job system and also had a repair NPC in the towns. Things with combat were streamlined and I enjoyed myself for the time I spent in game. I have since moved on, but am very excited about the changes they've made. I think once people start to hear (hopefully) great reviews of the new version some old heads will come back and new people will come for the first time. I have absolute faith in Yoshi and his vision for this game. He has done great things and I think ARR will be a great leap forward and the game has only improved over time.

[xjustamem0ryx]

what convinced me to come back:

-nearly fulfilled roadmap
-gamescom footage
-limit break trailer
-alpha screenshots
-MAIL MOOGLE!

would rather enjoy a reworked game than wallow in hate. after all, the whole reason to have been disappointed by 1.0 is validated by the expectation of that which they are now placing in 2.0.

This post has been edited by xjustamem0ryx: 13 November 2012 - 09:23 AM

[ArkhamNative]

I think it's quite simple:

1. Make a PS3 version. Lots of people are console-only (especially multi-gamer households). These people felt burned, like second-class citizens or worse, when SE delayed then canceled the PS3 version. Some I know are now talking about taking off work for launch day, if not launch week, to play ARR.

2. Don't alienate FFXI players and FF fans. I don't know what brain-deadness caused the completely alien design of FFXIV v1.0, but it was so bad the game even called those loveable yellow mounts "Horse-Birds" (in Kanji, in alpha). There needs to be familiar things in-game that FF and FFXI players can relate to, and aspire to achieve, like chocobos, airships and AF. Give us the start of a story early that makes us feel part of the world and identifies the threats we're protecting it against.

3. Don't ship a broken game. Version 1.0 had so many internal design flaws that made it frustrating to play. Low on-screen character & creature max, sluggish client-server communications, highly repetitive features in zones, unbalanceable combat attributes system, etc. These have all been acknowledged by Yoshi-P as problems with 1.0, and should be resolved in v2.0.

4. Don't expect blockbuster. The industry has built a marketing machine that hypes short-playtime games every few weeks. With them it's all about launch-day sales numbers and moving on to the next thing. There's also a highly vocal group of MMO gamers who are all rush-to-endgame and PvP griefing. I think SWTOR's failure was in large part trying to feed itself to these two beasts.

I don't expect anyone to believe us when we tell them how great 2.0 will be, because we were doing the same thing over 2 years ago. Many will only be persuaded by a building word-of-mouth and long-term positive press.

[Orophin]

ArkhamNative, on 13 November 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

2. Don't alienate FFXI players and FF fans. I don't know what brain-deadness caused the completely alien design of FFXIV v1.0, but it was so bad the game even called those loveable yellow mounts "Horse-Birds" (in Kanji, in alpha). There needs to be familiar things in-game that FF and FFXI players can relate to, and aspire to achieve, like chocobos, airships and AF. Give us the start of a story early that makes us feel part of the world and identifies the threats we're protecting it against.

I just wanted to touch on this point a bit as I'm sure I know your intention of it, but other people may take it a different way. You're saying that FFXIV needs to have things in FFXI in it that worked, and I agree with this. This is a pretty big reason why it fell flat on its face at launch.

However, there are many people that played FFXI before the level caps were raised that want FFXIV to be a direct sequel of it, and that I can't agree with. Many systems of the game, like the HNM Kings with multi-hour pop windows I don't ever want to see return to this game. Even apart from that, FFXIV needs to stand apart on its own merits for its own story and game systems, while incorporating basic things from FFXI that worked.

This post has been edited by Orophin: 13 November 2012 - 11:51 AM

[Jackel]

Orophin, on 13 November 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

Many systems of the game, like the HNM Kings with multi-hour pop windows I don't ever want to see return to this game.

Like this? :D

[ArkhamNative]

Orophin, yes, that's correct: small, familiar details to make them feel welcome and more comfortable while learning to play a completely new MMO. It's my opinion that an MMO is its own sequels through its expansions. They/we already got "FFXI-2" in Zilart, "FFXI-3" in Aht Urghan, etc.

This post has been edited by ArkhamNative: 13 November 2012 - 02:20 PM

[Avarwen]

I think it's going to have to be something like free play to level 10 or 20 with restrictions. With all the bad press 1.0 got I can't see people buying this game for full price unless it's really cheap.

[Ebyl]

Avarwen, on 13 November 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

I think it's going to have to be something like free play to level 10 or 20 with restrictions. With all the bad press 1.0 got I can't see people buying this game for full price unless it's really cheap.

There's no need for ANYONE to buy the game right away. All players who previously had registered accounts will be able to get the new version of the game for free. Included with that will be 30 days of free playing time. SE doesn't need a single person to speculate and buy the game on PC or PS3 right away to have plenty of players.

As I've said before, people will come to play if the game is good. This concept of, "The game got trashed before so nobody will return unless it's totally free," is completely false. You will see a good number of people waiting and watching, which is understandable. But if SE delivers the goods, people will come back.

And once the game has been shown to be good and people are willing to play, those with an interest will buy the game if they don't already have an account. And we all know at least some people will buy the PS3 version right off the bat anyway.

We've seen there's still interest in the game. There were a decent number of people playing even while you still had to pay. And the final event? So much interest it caused congestion on the servers. So you can toss the "no interest" theory right out the window - there's your proof. And while people didn't have to pay to get into that, they did need to have an already registered account. So that was the old playerbase.

People will pay for and play a game that's worth it. It's just that simple. SE has done everything it needed to up to this point. Now all it has to do is deliver a worthy game.

[Avarwen]

Ebyl, on 13 November 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

There's no need for ANYONE to buy the game right away. All players who previously had registered accounts will be able to get the new version of the game for free. Included with that will be 30 days of free playing time. SE doesn't need a single person to speculate and buy the game on PC or PS3 right away to have plenty of players.

As I've said before, people will come to play if the game is good. This concept of, "The game got trashed before so nobody will return unless it's totally free," is completely false. You will see a good number of people waiting and watching, which is understandable. But if SE delivers the goods, people will come back.

And once the game has been shown to be good and people are willing to play, those with an interest will buy the game if they don't already have an account. And we all know at least some people will buy the PS3 version right off the bat anyway.

We've seen there's still interest in the game. There were a decent number of people playing even while you still had to pay. And the final event? So much interest it caused congestion on the servers. So you can toss the "no interest" theory right out the window - there's your proof. And while people didn't have to pay to get into that, they did need to have an already registered account. So that was the old playerbase.

People will pay for and play a game that's worth it. It's just that simple. SE has done everything it needed to up to this point. Now all it has to do is deliver a worthy game.

I don't think being fully P2P will work out all that well this time. You and I may be willing to pay along with other fans but after the 1.0 meltdown XIV is gonna have to attract more outside players. Remember SWTOR was supposed to do well with P2P but now it's going F2P this was a game that had graphics and cut scenes on par if not better than XIV yet look at where it is now. XIV would do better using a B2P/freemium style payment system if they don't want to do traditional F2P with restrictions . You buy the game and you could play it for free after that but with major restrictions you'd still get to play but wouldn't get the full experience think of it as XIV ultra lite.

This post has been edited by Avarwen: 13 November 2012 - 06:57 PM

[Ebyl]

...lolwut? That post just blew my mind.

Graphics and cut scenes on par with XIV? I'm not sure how to respond to that without breaking forum rules, but I'll give it a try.

SW:TOR has disappointing graphics, to put it mildly. The textures look amateurish, even when the game is completely maxed out. The aesthetics are acceptable, but nothing special. TOR's problem is that Bioware has no ******* idea how to design or run an MMO. I could probably type for hours regarding examples of this, but I'll give one very telling instance - during beta, the devs seemed shocked when players continually requested they put in item linking in chat. Apparently that concept, which has become an industry standard/necessity, was completely new to them. In fact, I will go so far as to say TOR's team has as little of an idea regarding how to build and administer an MMO as the original FFXIV team did. THAT is why TOR is struggling - it has a bunch of morons at the helm. It had nothing to do with a subscription plan, except the game is absolute **** and is run by idiots, so people don't want to pay.

The final event in FFXIV is proof there is still a good amount of interest in this game. TOR actually still has a fair number of players that subscribe - I know, I've seen them. LoTRO does as well. Again, I've seen them. Rift does well with subscriptions. Yep, seen them, too. Need I go on?

There is still interest in this game. There is still a lot of interest in Final Fantasy as a whole. Despite the myth, PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR A GAME THAT IS GOOD. The proof is everywhere.

Shall we return to this 6 months after relaunch and see which of us is eating crow (assuming the game is actually good)? I'm happy to bookmark the thread. Are you?

This post has been edited by Ebyl: 13 November 2012 - 07:28 PM

[Avarwen]

Ebyl, on 13 November 2012 - 07:25 PM, said:

...lolwut? That post just blew my mind.

Graphics and cut scenes on par with XIV? I'm not sure how to respond to that without breaking forum rules, but I'll give it a try.

SW:TOR has disappointing graphics, to put it mildly. The textures look amateurish, even when the game is completely maxed out. The aesthetics are acceptable, but nothing special. TOR's problem is that Bioware has no ******* idea how to design or run an MMO. I could probably type for hours regarding examples of this, but I'll give one very telling instance - during beta, the devs seemed shocked when players continually requested they put in item linking in chat. Apparently that concept, which has become an industry standard/necessity, was completely new to them. In fact, I will go so far as to say TOR's team has as little of an idea regarding how to build and administer an MMO as the original FFXIV team did. THAT is why TOR is struggling - it has a bunch of morons at the helm. It had nothing to do with a subscription plan, except the game is absolute **** and is run by idiots, so people don't want to pay.

The final event in FFXIV is proof there is still a good amount of interest in this game. TOR actually still has a fair number of players that subscribe - I know, I've seen them. LoTRO does as well. Again, I've seen them. Rift does well with subscriptions. Yep, seen them, too. Need I go on?

There is still interest in this game. There is still a lot of interest in Final Fantasy as a whole. Despite the myth, PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR A GAME THAT IS
GOOD. The proof is everywhere.

Shall we return to this 6 months after relaunch and see which of us is eating crow (assuming the game is actually good)? I'm happy to bookmark the thread. Are you?

When I went to try the beta of SWTOR it had high graphics during cut scenes my computer didn't like. Yet I can play XIV on mid settings. If 1.0 had done well I'd agree with you but it didn't. When people are burned they tend not to want to try your product again even WOW the king of MMO's allows you free play till level 20 in order to attract more players. I'm not suggesting XIV go 100% F2P right now but in the west most new MMO's end up going F2P or Freemium to make more money sooner or later and not all of those games are bad. I like XIV but I'm also a realist and doubt that most new MMO's can survive long on P2P right now without taking a major hit later. Also with LOTRO and Rift ( level's 1-20)you can play for free if you choose.

This post has been edited by Avarwen: 13 November 2012 - 08:04 PM

[Ebyl]

So you are comparing game graphics based on how your computer handles it. Which completely ignores engine problems, driver compatibility, optimizations, whether the games are more CPU or GPU dependent, etc... Wow, you have no idea what you're talking about, at all. That's almost beyond belief. End of discussion and ignored.