[Zyuu]

Recently the website Nowgamer published an interview they had with Hiromichi Tanaka which they conducted during E3. You can view it below.

Also after the interview below there's two new videos which has surfaced from E3 by the gaming site Gophn.


Another Hiromichi Tanaka Interview

What is the idea behind Final Fantasy XIV? What are you looking to achieve and what will the player experience be like?

There are two unique points to Final Fantasy XIV. The first is ‘guildleve’, a system that allows people to get rewards or learn certain skills in a short time, like 30 minutes. So even if you are a solid player or part of a smaller group you can still manage your time very efficiently and level up your character any way you like. We also have the armoury system, which allows players to change class by holding different equipment, so this allows more flexibility to players. They can learn abilities during this process and by combining different abilities you can customise and create your character. Also, because it’s Final Fantasy, you can expect a huge storyline.


From the mission I played it was difficult to get a handle on the size of the world as we were fighting in a cave setting. How expansive is the in-game world?

So what we have in the beta version is 20 per cent of the actual game content, so it’s like 5 kilometres across.


It was an unexpected pleasure to play the game in 3D and I understand that’s just an experiment. What do you find exciting about 3D from a game designer’s perspective and why was it important to try that here?

Because it’s an MMO we feel it’s very important to be ‘in the game’ and 3D really adds that aspect to your gaming experience. We believe it’s very suitable for MMOs. It feels like this year is a 3D year for every company in the industry so we thought we’d try it out and experiment to see how it goes.


Can you tell us more about the different character classes and how they relate to Final Fantasy games that we already know?

This time there are four different categories; Disciples of War, Disciples of Magic, Disciples of Land and Disciples of Hand. Within each are many different classes. By changing your equipment you can customise your character, so there are several characters in the game. By learning different abilities you can make your own class and actually this time, we purposely decided not to use job names we used in previous Final Fantasy titles, so you really have to make sure you combine the exact skills you need to become say, a white mage in the future. So it really is up to you how you develop your character.


You mentioned before an epic storyline running throughout the entire game. That’s quite difficult to do in an MMO because you’re either going on a secondary mission or, - the way Warcraft does it – is to have the story going on around the player, rather than through the player. I wanted to see how you’ve made the player feel very much a part of that storyline and to still give them a sense of freedom?

The main idea is the same as the package titles of the Final Fantasy series. NPCs will be the key trigger of the game, so by talking to NPCs they will give you the storyline and you will experience it in this way. The key points of the Final Fantasy XIV storyline are that you will be experiencing what happened in the past. By doing that you will discover the secrets of the world. If it’s a package title, sometimes by following the story you can’t do anything else, you just have to keep following the story. But because it’s an MMO, you can stop the story at certain points when you like and try out a different quest. So you have much more freedom and also by trying the quests that might help you experience the storyline, the character will feel a part of the main story. We managed to do that as we have a lot of experience from Final Fantasy XI so we have the know-how to do that.


This is the second time the Final Fantasy series has gone into the online MMO space. How do you feel about the MMO genre as a whole and because, to an extent, it’s younger than RPGs, do you feel that it’s still coming of age? Do you feel there are a lot of places for it still to go, or has it reached a point where it’s maturing?

Final Fantasy XI has been out for eight years now, when you think about how long the new game has been in development, it’s been about ten years now. My experience in the games industry has been about 27 years, so about a third of my life in the games industry has been spent on online titles. So I believe that MMOs are much more established now, however, it will evolve in the future, it will keep on changing as Final Fantasy XI did. Thanks to version updates, the game can change drastically, so there are a lot of possibilities for change.


What’s the business model? Is it going to be subscription based?

It’s going to be a 30 days subscription model and for the price we are currently unable to confirm, but we should be announcing details shortly.


When I pick up a new MMO and I really like it, I pretty much play it to the exclusivity of every other game in my collection and that ends up being the only game I play. I was wondering if there has been any resistance at all from platform holders like Sony, because obviously if you bring out something like Final Fantasy XIV, let’s say a million people play it and they don’t want to play anything else, how does this affect the relationship with the platform holder?

That’s a very good point and also a concern. With the PS3, you will have to log in to PSN to enjoy the game so that’s an aspect we ask for.


In terms of where the MMO space can go. Do you feel we could ever see a Final Fantasy MMO on handhelds? Could that work?

Yes I believe so. It’s definitely possible. Both DS and PSP both have networks so it’s definitely possible, but The CPU of these mobile consoles are much lower spec when compared to home consoles or PC so that could be the aspect that causes difficulty when you want to transfer a console MMO to handheld. If you want to make one custom built for the technology, this is more possible.


Two new videos with FFXIV gameplay from E3

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[Daniel]

Just getting more and more excited..

[Vasbinder_382373]

He made such a good statement regarding World of Warcraft compared to Final Fantasy XIV.

Quote

-the way Warcraft does it – is to have the story going on around the player, rather than through the player.

I'm excited for the story of this game more than anything, really!

[Inuisonu]

Can Xbox 360 controllers be used on a PC?

Because, in response to the second video, at 2:36, that is clearly an Xbox 360 controller O_O

Perhaps, one of the Core's attendees can clarify what that was about, or have a I missed the announcement of a 360 version??...

Attached thumbnail(s)

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This post has been edited by Inuisonu: 22 June 2010 - 08:53 PM

[Fen_Star]

The person giving instructions drained all of the excitement out of this. "um yea, and magic is like, um, more of a mage, yea."

Inuisonu, on 22 June 2010 - 08:51 PM, said:

Can Xbox 360 controllers be used on a PC?

Because, in response to the second video, at 2:36, that is clearly an Xbox 360 controller O_O

Yes, and some "Games for Windows" make it hard to use anything other than a 360 controller.

[Inuisonu]

Fen_Star, on 22 June 2010 - 08:53 PM, said:

Yes, and some "Games for Windows" make it hard to use anything other than a 360 controller.

I see, thanks. I have used a Mac and a PS3 for the last two years, so I'm pretty out of touch with PCs =)

This post has been edited by Inuisonu: 22 June 2010 - 08:57 PM

[Firis0lotus0]

Yay a non idiot player testing it @ E3. nice to hear of basic control scheme on controler. also like "beta still in developement." so I expect we will see more style then we seen. I love how easy the controls are... lol not stuff like the game is easy. Just easy to get into. <3 <3 <3 <3

This post has been edited by Firis0lotus0: 22 June 2010 - 09:03 PM

[Nanaliki]

Is it just me or when the player changed the face the hyur model's chest got bigger or not.

[Firis0lotus0]

Nanaliki, on 22 June 2010 - 09:02 PM, said:

Is it just me or when the player changed the face the hyur model's chest got bigger or not.

Yup the older looking faces breat size is bigger, i watched that part twice just to confirm. The youthful ones have smaller size. so looks like you have "teen" faces and "adult" faces.

[chase2007]

NOM NOM NOM..... information acquired

[_pops]

Has anyone noticed that when she was skimming through the faces, the breast size changed?

lol


*EDIT* Mentioned twice already...

This post has been edited by -shuu-: 22 June 2010 - 09:13 PM

[Nanaliki]

Firis0lotus0, on 22 June 2010 - 09:05 PM, said:

Yup the older looking faces breat size is bigger, i watched that part twice just to confirm. The youthful ones have smaller size. so looks like you have "teen" faces and "adult" faces.

Okay. Just making sure I wasn't seeing things. It looked like you can have a maximum of 8 or ten characters. That's cool, hopefully we get those characters for free instead of paying for them individually.

[Kazimir]

Was nice to see more of the customization.

I hope sometime in the near future they will show us a battle or 2 with a character that isn't buffed. I'd like to see exactly how long we can expect it to take to kill each mob, or how much HP we can expect to lose from some battles.

[makinamimari]

No long hair on female hyur? This is highly distressing （ つ Д ｀）

[GadoTheLegend]

well this was very nice to see. more of the custimization an to see a decent lvl character in action instead of the rokky ones they've been showing for the longest. no doubt the retail version will have tons more custimization becuase the fact is this is k=just beta an its not even 50% of the real game.

[Chase Payne]

This is a sad day, no long hair on the female humans =(

[Nanaliki]

We'll just have to hope that they'll add more hair styles later.

[thuytranffx]

Wow, that's me! In defense of the representative, this was during Day 3 of E3, and pretty late in the day... He must've been very tired lol. I was disappointed that there were no long-hair choices for female Hyur... I was going to try and capture the rest of the races, but the rep seemed like he was in a rush :(.

And yes, I did use an xbox 360 controller. Maybe xbox 360 port in the future?

[Orophin]

I like the new videos. Not that they present much more than we already know, but at least there was someone that actually had knowledge of the game explaining things. I guess it's just good it gives actual confirmation about information.

Edit: As far as the Xbox port, it might happen in the future, but probably not at initial launch. SE and Microsoft haven't been able to come to terms to bring FFXIV to Xbox Live yet. I think once Microsoft figures out there will be a bunch of money to be made off this game they'll be more willing to bring this game under their wing. I use an Xbox 360 controller for some of the games I play on PC just because I don't have a Logitech or other controller, so I wouldn't read into that too much.

This post has been edited by Orophin: 22 June 2010 - 11:11 PM

[Vydos]

Omg breast size actually changes with the type of eye. I also noticed hume got 9 hairstyles instead of 8. Now I'm certain we'll be getting a lot more at release.