Tag: Square Enix

Final Fantasy XI No Longer Murdering Newbies


Xp Gains and More!

Alright, so murder isn’t quite the right word. More like Square Enix is no longer greeting new players by smashing their teeth in with a baseball bat, and force feeding them the aforementioned teeth. Final Fantasy XI launched in 2002, and after almost nine years of development and several expansion packs to boast, one of the biggest issues that the game faces is how absolutely overwhelmed new players are when they enter the world of  Vana’diel.

In the latest Final Fantasy XI news announcement, Square is implementing changes to the game’s battle system. In an effort to alleviate the long strain of grinding and lessen the load for players who prefer to go solo. In an upcoming patch, monsters will give experience that are of “decent challenge” rank will now give experience, and enemies of “even match” or higher will find their experience almost doubled. Upon defeat, players will also find that they rank up faster than before.

This won’t break up or remove incentive from groups, however. Rather, players will be enticed to group up to gain even better skill speed. The new system, however, allows more viability for those who either cannot find a group, or do not wish to group.

Depending on who you ask, Final Fantasy XI has enjoyed a bit of a jump in population since Final Fantasy XIV’s launch. You can find Final Fantasy XI for a decent price these days, about $10 for the ultimate collection on Steam or Direct2Drive.

Fantasy Earth Zero Shutting Down In West


Final Fantasy?

Fantasy Earth Zero is what you might call Square Enix’s first failed MMO, seeing as they shut the game down in Japan only months after launch, before the game even had a chance to launch worldwide. The game was boring, confusing, and didn’t have much to go on in terms of content or long term viability. After the game shut down, in a measure we all know well, another company picked up the title to relaunch.

Gamepot launched Fantasy Earth Zero back in 2006 in Japan, whereas the North American version did not hit until just last year, May 2010. While the game has enjoyed some form of success over in the east, the same could not be said for its much delayed North American counterpart. In an announcement today, Gamepot announced that Fantasy Earth Zero will be shutting down in North America on March 21st, less than a year after launch.

http://fez.gamepotusa.com/announcements/index.aspx?id=224

Square Enix: Revenue Falls, Profits Plummet


In before irony.

Final Fantasy XIV may not have struck the chord that Square Enix was looking for, and a quick discussion with beta players is a good indicator that the game’s lackluster launch and subsequently indefinitely delayed PS3 release and subscription halt are on no one’s heads but Square. Following the restructuring of the Final Fantasy XIV team, Square has been on the case since launch bringing in much needed content, fixing up players issues including the UI, battle system, and other functions.

Square Enix is soon to release their 2010 fiscal year financial report, and the company is expecting profits to be down up to 89%, with a revenue 28% lower than the previous year. Square believes that a new staff and strong console lineup will bring the company back from its current state in the 2011 fiscal year.

Hopefully the lessons have been learned and Square can quickly pick their teeth up off the floor before the blood stains can no longer be removed. Final Fantasy XIV is coming along quite well, and Square has an opportunity to bolster their sales through their console and handheld titles. Final Fantasy XI is still trucking along healthily with upcoming updates to make leveling easier for newer players who may have been overwhelmed by all that the game has to offer.

As the banner says, cautious optimism. As my mama always said, if you go in too headstrong, you’ll get knocked on your ass so fast your head will be spinning. Hopefully Square can get off their feet and put what they’ve learned to good use.

To Fix Your Patcher: Use A Torrent Program (Final Fantasy XIV)


Big thanks to 'Torotoro Ton,' 'Mikuli Candelilla,' and 'Wyvern Myaji' of the Karnak server for inadvertently creating this beautiful scene.

Quick question: What do you hate most about Final Fantasy XIV? Odds are, the slow patcher is one of your top answers, and one you haven’t been able to find a fix to. If you are like me, you’ve been finding your patches through external hosts, through Mediafire or FFXIVCore until Square Enix started telling their fansites not to host patches. Despite Square’s patcher, peer to peer networking is truly a more efficient way to distribute patches, assuming the company steps in to host peers when not enough players have the patch (such as right after launch).

So I did find a quick fix. As it turns out, the problem lies with Square Enix’s patcher (go figure) not allocating a proper amount of seeders and leechers. Start the patch download in the client, and then cancel it. Go to C:/users/[user]/My Documents/My Games/Final Fantasy XIV/Downloads/FFXIV and the torrent will be sitting in one of the two folders “2d2a390f” or “48eca647.” Open the torrent file with a separate torrent client, and you should have no problem connecting and downloading. Whereas on the Square patcher, I had one running connection at 0.0b/s, using this on uTorrent was able to completely download the latest patch in about five minutes.

Move the patch from wherever it was downloaded to, to its correct folder (hunt around in the two folders until you find the file that the Square patcher created, and replace it with the one you downloaded). This was done on Windows 7, so your file location may have a slight difference. You can find the folder it is in by doing a windows search and typing in the name of the patch, in the case of the latest being “d2010.12.13.0000.”

More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears. I would offer to host the patches myself, but Square Enix would shoot me.

Final Fantasy XI Team Faces Major Restructuring Too


Is that a Moogle?

When the news broke earlier today that the Final Fantasy XIV team is undergoing some noticeable restructuring, it would’ve been nice of Square Enix to also mention that Final Fantasy XI was undergoing a similar change. In a lodestone post on the Final Fantasy XI website, Square has announced that Mr. Mizuki Ito, whom many of you will recognize as the mind behind the Abyssea add-ons, is taking over as director for Final Fantasy XI. Assisting him is Mr. Yoji Fujito, whom you may remember from the Chocobo raising system.

What I said about Final Fantasy XIV still stands, granted, and is quite unchanged in reflection of this information that the restructuring is taking place on a wider scale in the company. More on both titles as they appear.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Nice Publicity Stunt, Regardless…


Not so adorable.

If Oprah was running Final Fantasy XIV, I imagine the situation would have started with her gathering the development team into one room and shouting “Look under your chairs! You’re getting fired, and you’re getting fired! You’re all getting fired!” Okay, so Tanaka was the only person to actually get fired in the development restructuring, and it is possible that many of them don’t know who Oprah is, but you get the point. In the latest lodestone, Square Enix has announced a major restructuring to the FFXIV development team, bringing in the best and brightest Square has to offer to help bring this game to greatness.

But what does this mean for you, the consumer? Foremost, the free trial currently on its third month will be extended indefinitely until Square is satisfied with the experience they are giving. Square has made it quite clear that as long as they are not satisfied with the game, they will not take the risk losing what players have stuck through, by charging them a monthly fee to play an unfinished title.

On a lesser side, those of you who are waiting for Final Fantasy on the PS3 are going to have to change your plans, dramatically. The PS3 version of FFXIV has also been suspended indefinitely until the development team is satisfied with the direction of the game. At this point, I don’t think I need to tell you what happens when MMOs are delayed indefinitely on the console, but I’ve included a couple of links just in case.

So are we at Final Fantasy’s Final Fantasy? If Square can’t keep their subscribers during this transitionary period, even with the allure of no monthly fees, you bet your sweet Miqo’te ass it is. Of course, such a failure would not knock Square Enix out for the count, rather FFXIV would simply go the way of Asheron’s Call 2, the sequel making way for the original.

Final Fantasy XIV’s release is somewhat awkward for those of us who are MMO journalists, because we have to go to our editors (which in this case is me talking to myself) and say “I’ve seen bad launches, but this is exceptionally poor, but I don’t want to make it worse,” to which the editor (still me, stay focused) comes back and says “well then say it has potential.” Unfortunately the communities have evolved to the point where they pick up on these verbal gaffs, and “potential” has become synonymous with “this game is terrible and the writer just doesn’t want to admit it.”

Truth be told, every game has potential. Team Fortress 2 is a great game, and after three years of release still has the potential to become more. Final Fantasy XIV has potential, but will they pull it off like Square did with Final Fantasy XI (which was in a horrible state at launch in Japan), or will they go the way of FURY and shutter at around ten months? That is up to the new FFXIV team to decide.

Eve Online/Final Fantasy XI On Sale On Steam


Play forever...

With November coming to a close, the holiday deals are already beginning. For Steam, Eve Online and Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection are now on sale, for the next 24 hours. As usual, all values are in USD. This sale lasts until Noon EST on November 26th.

The sale has ended.

Eve Online

  • Was $19.99, now $5.00 (75% off)
  • Will not work with existing Eve Online accounts.
  • All current, past, and future expansions are free.
  • Do well enough to play for free by paying for your subscription with in-game cash.

Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection

  • Was $9.99, now $4.99 (50% off)
  • Includes 4 expansions and 3 add-on scenarios.
  • Requires verified VISA/Mastercard in order to subscribe.
  • North American codes do not work on Japanese PlayOnline accounts, and vice versa.

Target/Walmart Pulled Final Fantasy XIV From Shelves


Dot com.

As per my own rules, I try to keep the product sales relegated to digital distribution, mainly because considering retail giants would require me to either include stores from a number of countries, increasing the sources I have to regularly check, or just not include any at all. So, in the effort of fairness, I only include worldwide digital distributors (Direct2Drive, Steam, Impulse, etc). For those of you living in the US, which I know for sure includes some of you, you could find Final Fantasy XIV at Target on a price cut for $39.99. I almost purchased it at the store I work at, but the item has been out of stock for weeks.

While browsing Target.com, I went to see if the website had the same price cut, and found the above image. Although Final Fantasy XIV is available on the Target website, the chain is no longer stocking the item in stores. Now, I’m sure half of you will tell me it was due to poor sales, but (at least at my store) when they reduced the price by $10 the store ran out of stock in the matter of a couple of days.

After checking Target’s website, I went on to check Walmart.com, which also listed both Final Fantasy and its collector’s edition as “not sold in stores.” Other websites I checked including Gamestop and Best Buy all seemed to have the title in stores, so as far as large chains go this appears to be isolated to Target and WalMart, but no doubt two of the largest retail giants in America.

Either way, advertising and promotion is key in MMOs, the lack of which almost killed titles like Dungeons and Dragons Online (and sent Turbine launching a lawsuit against their publisher), and Square Enix just lost a big line of publicity with Final Fantasy XIV no longer on the shelves of two retail giants in a time where what they could really use is some players picking up the game.

More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.

Well FFXIV Is Free To Play For Now At Least


That extension is adorable!

I know at least one person will eventually reply with “Um, Omali, it’s technically buy to play not free to play, as you’d still need to buy the client.” Final Fantasy XIV players are coming upon November 22nd, when early adopters will start hitting the end of their second free month of game time. Just this week, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIV would receive yet another extension on their free time, giving a total of three free months (two if you don’t count the free month included with purchase).

As Casey Schreiner pointed out on the G4TV MMO Report this past week, as Square Enix has a patch coming that will hopefully fix a lot of the issues, but that patch isn’t set to come until early 2011, players are likely to see a few more free months added to their game time. Until then, Final Fantasy XIV is technically a free to play title. Remember, if you buy Final Fantasy XIV and register your character before…no, that was the 19th. Never mind.

More on Final Fantasy XIV as it shuffles lazily into our path.

Final Fantasy XIV: Holy Free Third Month, Batman!


That extension is adorable!

Back in October, Square Enix announced that early adopters of Final Fantasy XIV would receive an additional month of time to try out the game, play through it, and hopefully weather out the storm of issues with the game. This month, Square Enix announced a tentative update coming on the 25th of November, just a few days after most of the free extensions will expire. In response, Square has issued a news article detailing yet another extension to the free time:

Today, we have decided to extend the free trial period an additional 30 days. Please refer to the following for more details.

Players who purchase FFXIV before November 19th can also partake in this free month (giving them 60 days of free game time), while those who adopted early are enjoying their third free month. In addition, Square put out a comprehensive list of updates they have planned for the coming months, which you can find here: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=cb4dc09784bc24b4fde2e45de9f018ec5fb504d2

And since the discussion on other forums is already erupting on this subject, yes this is to appease early adopters and get them to stick around until Square can do some much needed maintenance on the game. In case you hadn’t noticed with All Points Bulletin, when a company doesn’t fix glaring issues fast enough, the game dies: fast. Hopefully Square can get the necessary issues fixed before the early adopters disappear.

Any account created before the 19th will be able to take part in the free 30 days. More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.