Final Fantasy XIV launched last month, and depending on who you ask the game has either been well received, moderately received, or has crashed so hard that only the hand of God himself can stop Square Enix from going bankrupt next month. If you ask me, however, Square Enix is just another company that generates serious cash by making early adopters out of people who have neither the patience, nor the foresight, to be making reasonable purchasing decisions.
If you purchase and register Final Fantasy XIV by October 25th, you’ll receive an extra 30 days, completely free! That’s two months of free game time, for the price of none…well, aside from the game.
For what it’s worth, Square Enix appears to be committed to fixing Final Fantasy XIV, and there is a hint of shame in how the game launched, in Square’s postings. This is less of an appeal to the whiners, and more of a “Hey, so the game didn’t launch that great. Have another month on us and we’ll see how it goes.” This isn’t the first time a developer has done this after launch, and one of those companies rhymes with Gizzard Blendtertainment.
Or maybe the trolls are right and this is Square Enix going into panic mode. Or, it might be picnic mode, the spelling was rather questionable.
MMO players are subjectively patient. As any player can tell you, delays happen for many reasons. An update that wasn’t tested properly, a wayward system that was unable to handle the server load, maintenance that had to be extended longer than expected. As players, however, we have our temporary ways around this system. Our server going offline may lead us to an alt we have on a more reliable server, or if the game is down universally we may go play another game. Often times, however, these events build up until our temporary fix becomes permanent. The guild might be relocating to this new server, or a player might quit the game out of frustration and go join another.
I’ve been entertaining the idea that Turbine must be loving the fact that Codemasters has fully bugged up the Lord of the Rings Online relaunch in Europe, because my research into both the European and American LOTRO forums turns up a lot of disgruntled European players packing bags and downloading the American client, foregoing their current characters and achievements in return for a system that should have been in place a month ago. Of course, one might expect that players coming over to the American servers will be less inclined to stay when Codemasters makes their move, over server location and lag issues.
But, what if Turbine made an offer that would entice European players to keep their American accounts, and even fork over some cash? As I write this, the Turbine sale is going to end in one minute. Today, Turbine placed three major quest packs on sale for 75% off each, offering 300 quests combined, a few new factions, and new instances.
Granted, this wouldn’t be the first time a developer sucker-punched one of its publishers right in the teeth, but for some reason I never saw such an event coming from Turbine. Yes, Turbine has a masters degree in “hey let’s give this a shot,” but (assuming my theory is correct) I don’t think we could have seen such an event coming where Turbine would be actively drawing subscribers from Codemasters.
Hopefully this works out for Turbine, and LOTRO worldwide. More on Lord of the Rings Online as it appears.
The recent release of Darkfall’s “Darkfall 2010” expansion brought along an overhaul to the world of Agon, from the terrain to the dungeons, the villages, ships, and monsters (some of them level up now), and everything in between. A big change, yes, but warranting an article? Probably not. Today, the focus is on changes to the Newbie Protection Program. New players will now be protected for only one hour after creating their characters, as Aventurine found that newbies were becoming too complacent in their previous protection.
Aventurine is still set on making newbies feel as welcome as possible, however, and the expansion brought in a couple new features new players will like. Racial capitals now feature dungeons to get players acquainted, and the default view is now third person by default, toggled by F12. Third person is not available when wielding a bow, grenade, or staff.
Back in April, Aventurine launched the Newbie Protection Program, offering 24 hours of…protection. New players are incapable of attacking other players, or using certain features of the game (teleports, Runestones, portals, clans, mounts). Aventurine has been working diligently this year on reducing certain symptoms of player grief. Declaring war takes time and costs more to deter griefing, balancing health differences, and more.
When it comes to cash shops in MMOs, player opinion is split. There are players who don’t mind cash shops as long as the items are obtainable in-game (or at least the equivalent), while others will only tolerate vanity items being sold. There are players who are opposed to a cash shop in any form, players who will only tolerate a cash shop in games without a subscription, and of course those that are complacent with cash shops as a whole. The players who do not like cash shops in any form might not be sticking with Eve Online.
In an interview with Eurogamer, CCP’s Tori Frans Olafsson was asked if a cash shop was in the books. Tori responded that:
“Yeah, we are looking at introducing virtual goods within the game, but we feel those things should be vanity items rather than those that give you a clear benefit over other players in-game.”
Vanity items? I hope I can get chrome thrusters for my shipping freighter, although heading into 0.0 sector space is likely to get me shot on sight, regardless of what I’m carrying on me. Of course, this might lead to a surge of death squads, as some other MMOs have seen, where players actively hunt down and grief players who visibly purchased cash shop items.
On the topic of a sequel, Tori had the following to say:
I don’t see any purpose in rebooting EVE or doing EVE 2. We have a magnificent community, we have a devoted player-base, we have a vibrant economy, we have the ability to update graphics and game systems and software and hardware – and have been doing so progressively since launch.
The longer CCP supports Eve Online, the better. You can read the rest of the interview in the above link.
More on Eve Online as it appears. Eve Online currently plays host to over 330,000 subscribers, alongside a slew of trial accounts.
“The big change is the development philosophy. There are some more changes coming in terms of the games, but we’ll cover that in the months to come. The big change is that we’re not making MMOs, we’re making online multiplayer games.” -Jack Emmert, CEO, Cryptic Studios.
Things are really bustling over at Cryptic Studios. Bill Roper and Craig Zinkievich are gone, and the throne has been passed to Jack Emmert, who wow’ed us with the announcement that Star Trek Online would be putting less emphasis on cash shop items in the future. Both Champions Online and Star Trek Online boast healthy numbers, according to Emmert, which intrigues us (read: me) here at MMO Fallout all the more with Cryptic’s announcement that they are no longer developing MMOs.
I wanted to talk, today, about comments I’ve been seeing both in my own emails and on other forums, on Cryptic’s shift to these CORPG’s (Cooperative Online Role Playing Game), and why this is causing fear in a few players. Culminating in CEO Jack Emmert’s statement above that Cryptic is moving away from MMOs and onto online cooperative games with Neverwinter Wonders, the question inevitably comes up as to what this means for longevity in Star Trek Online and Champions Online. Cryptic’s two MMOs have come under fire in recent months with concerns that the games may not have much in terms of long term viability, and statements like the one I presented above just add fuel to the fire.
Jack Emmert refers to the status of Champions Online and Star Trek Online as “healthy” and “significant,” respectively, and really all we can do is take his word on it. Champions Online recently reached its first birthday, and is still receiving updates and booster packs (with Demonflame on its way). Star Trek Online has somewhat turned into Cryptic’s main product, and is still receiving regular content updates in the form of weekly episodes and occasional larger updates. Cryptic is set on getting in touch with their community with regular question and answer sessions, as well as monthly “state of the game” addresses.
So when I say that the concerns are understandable, and even justified, I want it to be clear that they are overreactions. Cryptic’s change in pace to non-MMO titles may actually be a good thing, as keeping Champions Online and Star Trek Online as their only two MMOs ensures that the titles won’t have to fight one another to the death in order to obtain attention from Emmert and crew. Remember, Sony and NCsoft may have major libraries of MMOs, but most of their games are being worked on by completely different developers. Cryptic has separate teams, but they are still one company. If Paragon Studios went under, for example, the Aion team would be unaffected.
I have my concerns about Champions Online passing the MMO Turing Test, but I have a lot more faith in Star Trek Online’s long term viability.
Remember, if I see any concern that something is going terribly wrong with any MMO, this website is the first place you will find it. I expressed my concerns greatly on All Points Bulletin, and on the flip side I said over a year ago that Star Wars Galaxies wasn’t going anywhere, and it is still trudging along with regular support. This wasn’t the greatest choice of words for Emmert, and he needs to address this quickly on the forums/website for both games.
There is still a group of players who cling to the old ideology that free equates to terrible community, imminent shut down, and dying developer. I don’t think I need to count out how many people were screaming on forums before the Lord of the Rings Online free to play shift about how this would ruin the game, and that current subscribers would drop the game like a sack of rotting flesh-bricks, and how the community would be inundated with children and social deviants who would do nothing but grief (read: making Chuck Norris jokes over region chat).
So when I forward Turbine’s announcement at GDC that their revenue has doubled, with over half of players using the Turbine store, I recognize that people will simply deny this information as Turbine misrepresenting facts to inflate their figures. There is no convincing someone who flat out denies Turbine’s figures of the free to play launch having a bigger reception than the game’s original launch, or that 20% of past subscribers have returned to the game, or that peak player counts are triple their previous level.
I personally have a premium account, seeing as I bought the Lord of the Rings special edition for $1 in a Christmas sale some years ago, but I have yet to put any money into the Turbine store. One can argue long term stability, but ultimately all we have to go on is speculation as to whether or not the game will sustain these figures. Over half of your game’s population using the cash shop is an incredibly high figure, however, presuming Turbine doesn’t include the VIP subscribers who receive an “allowance” of Turbine points each month.
Perhaps this is just a boom for Lord of the Rings Online, but Turbine can worry about how the population levels out as it happens, rather than listening to screams more frantic than the children playing in traffic outside my window.
It’s time for another weekly “When Is F2P Coming To Europe?” update. Unfortunately, not only is there still not estimated time, Codemasters announced last week that they would be unable to sustain the Welcome Back promotion that LotRO Europe had been enjoying up until this point, although the 5% bonus promotions will still pop up from time to time. The following was posted today on the European forums.
Dear players,
Whilst we don’t have any dates or concrete information to share with you as yet, the good news is that it looks like the major challenges we were facing are nearly resolved and we will be moving forward with the next step of Free to Play implementation for the European service shortly.
At this stage we are optimistically looking to have plans finalised sometime next week at which stage we will be able to give you more solid dates of when we hope to proceed with the launch.
As always we thank you for your patience and do apologise for the continued delay of this launch.
You can sticky up that link for direct updates, and hopefully Codemasters will remain on track for next week’s burst of information. MMO Fallout will continue your weekly updates on Codemaster’s transition to free to play. In the meantime, European players have been playing on the North American servers. There are, as of yet, no IP restrictions on creating an account and signing in, although you will need the North American client.
私の時は広場Enixについて話してください 私が 通常 言及して ファイナルファンタジーXIVが多分どのように日本で素晴らしいことをするかに. Sorry, I left my translator on. That being said, however, Japan has always been the primary consumer of Final Fantasy-based goods, and holds a considerable stake in the Final Fantasy XI community. So when I say Final Fantasy XIV will do great…in Japan, I don’t mean to imply that the title will do poorly here in the West, but that there will be a considerable divide in purchases.
You can imagine my surprise when I was tipped off that Amazon.co.jp already has Final Fantasy XIV listed at 28% off. Not only that, but the reviews put the title at a 1.5 star rating, with 78 out of 98 reviews being a one star. Eighty reviewers, a public opinion does not make, but from the information I could scrape off of Google’s poor translation, the sentiments were very similar in each.
So either Amazon.jp has been blitzed by a wave of disgruntled early adopters, or my sentiment that Japanese players would be more willing to put up with Square Enix’s square wheel methodology was incorrect. As a reminder, the Square Wheel methodology is how I imagine Square’s development techniques. They take a square wheel and innovate on it, making it one of the best looking wheels on the market, the craftsmanship is just stunning, and you would buy it in an instant, but it is a wheel…that is square. It could have the best traction in the world, and it is still a square wheel. Driving becomes so much of a pain in the rear that it ruins the rest of the experience. The wheel is square because square wheels are different, but not different in a good way, different in an “I’m going ten miles an hour, tops, and the bumping is causing the rest of my car to fall apart, but otherwise my car is a sex machine,” different.
I like Final Fantasy XIV, and I would love it if they would change some unfriendly mechanics. Square Enix is like the friend with a great personality that you don’t hang out with because he pierced his nose with a giant metal rod, just to be different, in complete opposition to the rest of his personality. He needs to be taught that there are more relevant ways for him to be different.
More Final Fantasy XIV analogies as they pop up. Big thanks to Wiezard over on the MMORPG.com forums for the tip.
As I’ve stated before, it has become standard in our culture of gaming for companies to hold swag over a company’s head, in return for more favorable reviews. Ask any developer with loads of cash, and they’ll tell you it’s not technically bribery for, say, Eidos to purchase a major full page advertising space on Gamespot for Kane and Lynch, and then have a reviewer fired for giving the game a poor rating. Or when a company puts an embargo on reviews for their game, where the publishers can probably expect not to get any preview copies if they break that embargo.
So Square Enix has put out a polite request to reviewers to hold back their reviews for three to four weeks after launch, much in the same way Clint Eastwood holds a gun to your head and asks if you feel lucky, punk. Sure, there’s a chance that all six rounds were expended, but do you really want to take the risk and miss out on the Final Fantasy XV preview copy? I didn’t think so.
The real question will remain in how Square Enix responds to those who do not listen to the embargo, especially those that publish poor reviews, like Gamespot (4.0). Will there be an embargo on Square Enix sending swag to said publisher? Will Square take the Realtime Worlds method and try to laugh off the bad reviews by saying they were expected? Personally, I’m against reviewing MMOs at all, in favor of getting players into free trials.
Square asking for a few weeks to fully review the game really isn’t a terrible idea, what will make the difference is how they respond to those who go against their request.
More on FFXIV as it appears, which could be a while due to the slow patcher.
Han Solo works Black Fridays in the electronics section of Best Buy.
Massively has an excellent interview with Lydia Pope, community manager at Sony Online Entertainment overlooking Star Wars Galaxies. Despite all of the rage one might find toward the aging Star Wars MMO, those who do play the game are just as involved as those who played in years past. So much so, in fact, that Lydia feels strongly enough to say that Star Wars Galaxies has one of the most active communities on Sony Online Entertainment’s list of MMOs. With the GM-run events, players are still coming out in droves to run their own events.
But why does Star Wars Galaxies have such an active community? Lydia believes it is partially due to the game’s built-in social aspects. Player owned houses, hubs, emotes, the Galactic Senate, etc, allow a level of interactivity between players and between GM’s that other games just don’t offer. In fact, Lydia explains that community leaders are not an appropriate answer to better feedback.
“[In] our other games, where we have community leaders, we don’t get that in-depth with the feedback.”
An active community is a happy community, and can really boost morale to a game. Back in the times of Ultima Online, players may remember Richard Garriot running around as Lord British (alongside Lord Blackthorn), and then years later as General British during Tabula Rasa’s short reign. Say what you want about the guy, but it is nice to be able to post on the Alganon forums and get a response from CEO Derek Smart and other devs. Some of you who played The Matrix Online will remember the events that took place in that game as well.
Of course, if you hadn’t noticed from my listing of Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online, an active community does not a healthy game make alone. It does, however, increase the odds of someone sticking around who may have become bored and quit early on.
MMO Fallout 