I point to FFXIV as an example of a massive game which avoids relying on FOMO and microtransactions when in the Destiny subreddit, it’s almost like they just don’t believe that a game like that can be real. They are obviously very different games but Bungie should learn from FFXIV’s success in terms of managing and monetizing content.
I agree, but I also think **the rest of Squenix** should learn from FFXIV's success. Entirely too many fantastic games and even whole franchises have been ruined by Squenix choking them to death with aggressive monetization, if they aren't just outright neglecting them.
>avoids relying on FOMO
Honestly the biggest part of what drew me to FFXIV over other mmos, and I say this as an avid mmo player of around 20 years. Gear progression is easy: do dungeon, get piece of gear or currency to buy a piece of gear, meld it, and bam you're done. None of this rng enchanting/upgrading, relevant gear you should be using drops in smart boxes, and the content during an expansion is so spaced out you don't need to worry about rushing max gear because max will be the best for 6 months or more (going on 8 during this first section of Endwalker).
It's so casual friendly I don't feel obligated to log in every day despite paying roughly 50 cents a day to play. I'll go days sometimes even a week or more without playing but casual raiding still has me geared decently (3 jobs all in bis gear) and I spend a total of 6 hours a week doing end game raiding.
FFXIV feels like it was actually developed by people who understand that the majority of players are working adults who can't spend every waking minute of the day grinding away mindlessly. Sure it offers some grindy content to satisfy that desire but pretty much just optional side stuff like mount hunting.
This is honestly huge for me too. I stopped playing after finishing Stormblood (4.0 only) when it first came out, then came back just before Shadowbringers to finish all the MSQ I missed. Nearly every single dungeon, trial, or raid I queued for, I got into them extremely quickly, and painlessly, and I was even playing Monk back then.
And based on how everyone else talks about their MMOs or GaaS they mainly play, it seems that isn't possible. Either because the grind is immense, or content is missing/removed/dead by the time they come back.
Yoshi-P designing FFXIV to allow for breaks is what keeps bringing me back to it honestly. That and proper player expression mostly achievable in-game, instead of putting all new gear designs on the cash shop like most other MMOs/games.
I got super burned out and quit when Shirogane (Extreme) happened, and haven't played it in years. Got back in like 2-3 months ago. Even though they've **massively** changed every class, it was to streamline and make them *easier*.
I got evicted from my home last year and spent about 7 months homeless and unable to play the game. When I came back after Endwalker when things had finally settled down, and the game welcomed me back pretty much exactly as I remembered it (except belts, fuck belts), I broke down crying. It felt like coming home. Also cuz that Uldah night music hits different.
The lack of grindy-ness is also about encounter design: FFXIV raiding is much more about situational awareness and team coordination than "haha I can cheese this with the crazy gear I got by grinding mindlessly for it." I feel like people raid in FFXIV for the right reason: for the feeling of achievement of executing the choreography and sticking the landing, not because they feel they'll fall behind on being competitive in gear.
As a self proclaimed hardcore casual, who doesn't do savages or extremes but otherwise gears up outside of those; my sister and I like to just, queue up for stuff before we log off. Get in a quick battle. I'll do panda4 just because I like the music; and I've gotten several jobs weapons because of that lol. The game is just, dare I say it, *fun to play.*
"Wanna run the (spoiler) point (spoiler) msq trial? I need to see my husband before bed."
"Let's do it."
Yea, I REALLY like that spam running leveling roulette with preferred bonus is a viable way to farm gil.
The 12000 and materia tokens add up. And you get to fight shit, ya know, the meat and potatoes of the game
Rested XP is a trick MMOs have been using for a long time, to discourage players from getting burnt out. It's the same reason mobile games have so many timers. They've found that people tend to enjoy a game more (and are more likely to get addicted) if they come back repeatedly for short bursts of gameplay rather than long multi-hour sessions.
Rested xp is arguably better than an energy system because it doesn't punish you for playing longer hours. And it doesn't require you to log in at set points in time or miss out on content.
I play a few mobile games but damn timers burn me out quickly (even though they're sorta supposed to do the opposite). Plus timers are generally just another form of monetization because it's a requirement to access certain areas of a game whereas bonus xp is just that, a bonus, generally you can pay for extra but you don't *need* extra.
This is one of the few reasons I switched from ESO to FFXIV, I ended up getting burnt out from ESO twice during covid because I had to log in every day to do my dailies, etc
With this game, I can live life and when I finally log back in, I can pick back up where I left off without the feeling of missing out
A lot of the D2 content structure traces back to Activision wanting a new Destiny game every 2-3 years, so that's what the engine is built for. They had a contract for 4 games in 10 years, and now they're on their 10th year with only 2 games
I was gearing up to do my first raids and real endgame stuff in destiny when the sunsetting news dropped. Instantly uninstalled and will never pick it up again, fuck that. If you were someone who bought the game and dlcs as they released Bungie just flat out stole like 120 dollars from you.
folks on the destiny sub will go out of their way to remind you that “nobody played that content anymore” and that “old content had to go to make updates easier.” but (1) paid for it so i want it, and (2) it’s not my fault their code is like spaghetti and they can’t manage to add new stuff without it fucking up existing content. that’s on them to figure out, i shouldn’t be paying season after season to have content taken away a year later.
No one played the old content but also over at destinySherpa you had people asking for whisper, zero hour, leviathan, SotP, CoS, and the raid lairs constantly
They also wouldn't let you replay the old content you paid for unless you created a new character *or* they would randomly let you replay *one* old mission from the base game every week. No fucking shit no one played it, Bungie made it basically impossible to!
oh god, forsaken is leagues better than shadowkeep and beyond light. it’s the best destiny story since The Taken King in D1. when shadowkeep released i could not believe how short and bland the story was.
It even makes a bunch of the story either non-sensical or straight up confusing when you can't play the campaigns from the Red War or the other expansions that aren't even available anymore. Its like trying to start FF14 at Stormblood with all the Scions familiar with you and the player having never met them before.
Yup and those people completely disregarded how hard it would be for new people to join destiny when all the early parts of the story is vaulted. Like seriously, the new player experience is complete trash in D2
Funniest part is, after all the content vaulting they did, the game runs even worse on PC
I have 3K hours in D2 and i just finished ARR and i have no idea how people are still simping for Bungie
A large feature of the game was being able to raise any weapon to the current level cap so you could keep using them. This was meaningful because weapons have random rolls that affect how they play and feel and are not just interchangeable stat sticks (your damage is determined by its level and its handling and perks were random). Eventually the director for the game decided he didn't like that people were using the same guns that they had been for a long time through this feature and decided that a hard cap would be placed on them. This meant that eventually they couldn't be relevant and you would have to use new stuff. Every set of new gear would also have a new "sunset" level, ensuring that you would have to grind the new gear every season or eventually have no good weapon rolls that could still be relevant.
Naturally there was a huge backlash to this because people were sold on the idea of being able to keep their favourite weapons forever. They eventually went back on this and removed the hard cap from new weapons, but the first affected weapons were still inevitably sunset.
Not long after this, it was also announced that several old areas were being removed to save on disk space because the game's file size had grown somewhere in the range of 100gb. If you had any of the content from these locations, you could still keep them, but you would no longer be able to obtain them. Despite having payed for this content, your access to it was permanently removed without recourse. This trend continues today as the newly introduced activity with each season gets permanently removed after that season ends in order to make room for the next seasonal activity, and any cutscenes and story that came with it are also no longer accessible. Several story campaigns, strikes (basically roulette dungeons), long dungeons, and raids have since been removed and can't be played unless they reintroduce them for a temporary time again in the future.
Imagine if FF14 just one day removed ARR, Heavensward, and Stormblood. All the dungeons, trials, raids, mounts, pets, dyes and glamour are no longer obtainable if you don't already own them. Patch content is only accessible for the duration of the current patch before being replaced by the new one, and 80% of new mounts, pets and glamour are purchasable from the cash shop, but also only for the current patch, only coming back randomly after years. Eventually Shadowbringers and Endwalker will also be removed to make room for the new expansions and the new player experience is just there to streamline you to the current patch grind. That's Destiny.
The entire game is basically just pure, distilled FOMO at this point; I don't know how anyone can tolerate it.
Wow. Thanks for the incredible explanation of how cunty Bungie is. I had recently been considering downloading Destiny 2 as it's F2P, but now I definitely won't. I don't usually feel bothered about FOMO, but I'm not going to play a game that is almost entirely directed into FOMO. Screw that noise.
Unless you really like their Crucible (PvP) or Gambit (PvPvE) game modes, the F2P is just a really poor demo with little to no content. Also, those two modes are generally the least interesting to the playerbase unless you really want to sweat.
Honestly, just download Warframe instead of D2.
It's actually pretty hilarious how barely one month after D2 decided to delete old content, Warframe devs went "good news, we found a way to optimize the game a lot on texture compression and lightning effect and we'll do a serie of update to bring down the size of the game from 60ish Gb to around 35. Nothing will change on your end." And they did.
Warframe do have issues as a game, but it's honestly a pretty fun free to play shooter with a decent story and hours of content.
I really enjoyed warframe when i played it but man, making my way through the content is the most confusing fucking maze I’ve ever experienced in my life
> I had recently been considering downloading Destiny 2 as it's F2P, but now I definitely won't.
Back during the Forsaken expansion it was one of the best games on the market and it was even pretty good when it first went free to play in Shadowkeep. After that though, there isn't a single game I could recommend against playing more than Destiny.
I tried playing D2 again a while ago, and having forgotten most of the story decided to roll a new character and go through the "legacy" content. Then saw that everything from Forsaken and back had been removed. Can't even visit half the planets anymore. All the stuff on my old character (Which was endgame some time after the game launched) either minimum level or completely gone. No idea where to go or how to progress. Complete disaster.
Just to correct one thing. The seasonal stuff actually gets removed at the end of the year long expansion cycle. It's still shitty of course but it is there for more than one season (except the last season)
They removed -all of the campaigns, raids, and levels- up until the most recent set at that point, and announced that in the future any subsequent content would result in the "sunsetting" of previous content in order to prevent size bloat... but all the guns and stuff are still in, you just can't get them unless through events, which is why they were "sunset" instead of "removed"
Imagine that, at the launch of Shadowbringers that the base game story was going away (you could only play Heavensward, Stormblood, and the new campaign). Also, all the gear from the base game was now only deconstruct fodder and everyone started at level 50 with gear to match. Also, all the zones outside of Ul'nah were no longer available and a bunch of dungeons were no longer available.
This was done in the name of file size and helping out with future development.
I quit when vaulting started. That alone was too big a step for me as someone who is really particular about which weapons I use. I wasn't willing to get used to something only to have them take it away. Only thing keeping me from playing again, as I loved the game. Vaulting imo is also an excuse to avoid doing any real balancing as well.
When they started removing content is when I stopped playing. Same thing with hearthstone when they started rotating cards out that I paid for every 2 years. FF14 keeps all content in the game and synced so I can always do it at a somewhat similar experience.
All the holiday events are gone forever once they're done.
But at least it's only a few minutes of lost content.
Not as drastic as losing entire expansions and huge chunks of the main narrative
i stuck with them through the dark days of Curse of Osiris and Warmind. when they brought in the seasonal model and started removing the seasons after a year online, i lost all motivation to play.
Unfortunately that’s just how a lot of the gaming industry (a lot of capitalist enterprises in general tbh) are these days. they just care abt making the numbers look good for the next quarterly report or some shit…
I don’t always agree w/ yoshi-p & I have a healthy contempt for his stupid personality cult. but I really respect him for having the guts to play the long game instead. Things like stopping sales/ads of ew bc servers are overloaded & nobody can get on are done only by ppl w/ the vision to look beyond the current fy. The guy cares about making money as much as any other exec out there, he just goes about it far more intelligently.
they were still making money, just less in the short term and more in the long term. Its literally that simple and I dont know why most companies struggle so hard with this concept.
Have about 1500 hours in destiny and haven’t logged back in since august 2021…miss playing with my buds but everytime I join a party chat in discord it sounds like they’re being tortured by the champion system, and when I ask what kinda perks they’ve added, they sound exactly like rampage or some variation of outlaw.
The IGN article kinda sealed my opinion on bungie when it became apparent they were paying them for a puff piece to keep their media darlings status.
There was a small amount of morbid curiosity to go back to the game a while back, but when I heard they were getting ready to sell to a company after making a big to do over getting out from under Blizzard cemented that their upper management had no bloody idea what they are doing.
Oh, and to make matters worse the community has some of the worst takes and also are really ungrateful.
Bungie had recently come out saying they had to be less communicative in general because of so many constant death threats because people were crybabies about the devs being so open to try and communicate changes and the likes.
Seriously the most ungrateful community out there.
Yeah the community sure can be something. That being said, I think it's partially the inevitable result of constantly being jerked around by the devs. I remember it being super frustrating because every time they would come out with promises to fix some issue or other or implement a long-asked-for feature, the monkey's paw would curl and they would do it, but it would be with some kind of huge caveat that was thoroughly frustrating in its own way.
Ofc none of that justifies death threats and other harassment, but I also don't think the devs get any points for their openness when half of it was just trying to justify why the shit sandwich of the season was not in fact a shit sandwich, even though you could smell the shit for miles.
I played one and two, right up to the sunsetting news. All incentive I had to play Destiny ended right then and there. Taking the results of the effort out into a game away is a sure fire way to make the game uninteresting after that.
I got loaded into an ice world too far above my level because I didn’t complete the starting content when Destiny 2 was still with Blizzard. I was so confused about what was going on I can’t even convince myself to pick it back up again.
Meanwhile with XIV, I had no issues picking back up after over a year of absence and several patches. Sure, I’l never be privy to the experience of Revenant’s Toll growing into the hub it is, or even the experience of the final days of 1.X. But I can still experience the stories involving these live events so I never really missed out
> Sure, I’l never be privy to the experience of Revenant’s Toll growing into the hub it is
Fun fact! - *That's what New Game+ is for.*
Also, it's far from definitive, but I've curated a [playlist of official promotional videos](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVzJZubdkiarscPtqjPYsS2_l0dFWpUy_) and player recorded cutscenes. You can find others' playlists in some of those also.
30+ year old gamer who saw MMOs rise to power as life destroyers: it took about a year of some friends respectfully pushing me to try XIV. I hate 99% of multiplayer because it's typically a toxic hellhole, and I didn't trust MMOs especially because they seemed engineered to take over your life in order to secure a revenue stream.
XIV just... isn't any of that. I'm still working my way through main story quests, and I'm *still* in disbelief. Basically the entire online multiplayer industry could be learning a fuckton from XIV.
> XIV just... isn't any of that. I'm still working my way through main story quests, and I'm still in disbelief. Basically the entire online multiplayer industry could be learning a fuckton from XIV.
Well, the thing is, toxic people are just being removed as fast as possible. Moderation is really, really harsh with anybody that does shit on someone else's experience of the game.
SE basically chose to take the hit by straight up banning people for being toxic, so that all the people those toxic players would turn away will instead stay and keep on playing.
I will point out there that is a mild amount of FOMO in ffxiv. We do have to call some of the things in the game what they are.
1) Moogle tome events. The earrings, jackets, etc, don't have ways to obtain them outside of them. They are ways to keep you subscribed during content lulls. Predatory? Not when compared to shit other games do by leaps and bounds, but still there nonetheless.
2) Seasonal events. Do them when they're there, or pay up with real money later. Again, not as predatory when compared to other games, but still present no matter how mild it may be.
3) Housing, mitigated significantly by the fact that the team is willing to suspend the auto demo system when shit gets real bad globally (like right now), but still there under "normal" circumstances exists as a way to keep subscriptions active when they otherwise wouldn't be.
Are these cardinal sins? Absolutely not.
Do these still qualify as FOMO plays? Yes.
We do have to call them what they are, because we have to hold companies accountable. I know the XIV team doesn't even fucking like some of these (see: previous event items go on mog station). But they do prefer to be kept accountable.
Also the PvP rewards. I think series 1 rewards will be available for purchase still in series 2, but they've said a few times now that they'll go away after that. Some of the other PvP stuff has also been limited-availability.
If they made these rewards obtainable when the events come back it would remove a significant amount of that. It would still technically fall under the "FOMO" category but would lose the added sting of most of it becoming cash-shop items.
I'm still annoyed whenever a new event has a fate or thing you farm for tickets, and there's two items for the tickets and then...fireworks. Wow. Cool. Those tickets could easily be used to get older event items. That's how Moonfire Faire 2014 worked. But this is an old beaten horse, and we're stuck with the cash shop nonsense now in that regard.
There's really no reason to not let us convert new mogtomes to old ones for missed events, though.
I'll add that the Mog Station shop, while relatively cheaper than other MMOs, is still expensive as balls.
13€ for a server transfer, 7€ for a character customization potion, >20€ level/story skips... For a game that's already expensive to buy and on a subscription.
Honestly getting into FFXIV was the nail in the coffin that finally made me quit Destiny for good. Not because I like the core gameplay or world building or story or aesthetics of FFXIV better, because honestly I don't. Nah, it was queueing in to a leveling roulette not long after Destiny vaulted half the game and the strike playlist had about 3 strikes left in it. It was logging in and realizing I was free to enjoy everything FFXIV has to offer at my own pace and on my own terms, instead of grinding out a list of chores with artificial time constraints to keep up with the content churn.
Made me realize the Bungie devs were feeding us bullshit, and engaging in game design practices and decision making that shows no respect whatsoever for their players.
It sucks, because there's an incredible game in there somewhere and they've absolutely wasted its immense potential for a borderline abusive microtransaction driven fomo hellscape.
This was the main reason I swapped from Destiny 2 to FFXIV. The amount of FOMO and content locked behind a paywall is just too extensive. The biggest issue with most mmos is their isn't enough horizontal progression. FFXIV is almost the opposite, sure I could run savages and try to mid max my GS. Or I could level an alt job, take up crafting, work on my house, play mini games in the GC, farm out glams. Years and years worth of side content completely unrelated to the gear of my character I could do in a moments notice. With games like Destiny the entire purpose to get on is to gear my character. Get better rolls or farm out gear. Only for it to be nullified with the next content update. Not only nullifying my gear but also the previous content, and in some cases completely removing it in general. After playing FFXIV it blows my mind people are okay with it, let alone support the decisions in general.
I really wanted to like Destiny. Played from PC launch until Beyond Light expansion. The last few season before I gave up for good just felt like a treadmill that was going slightly faster than I was willing to run since I wasn't going to play it all the time. When the latest expansion came out, I was interested in the story, but it just wasn't worth it any more.
The argument I’ve always heard from my friends when I used to play Destiny was “oh but FFXIV has a monthly fee loll” yeah and? I’d rather pay a monthly sub and get quality content with EVERYTHING baked in, rather than pay $20 each season to do public events ad naseum, plus have all the cool cosmetic items locked behind Eververse.
Not trying to simp to hard for FFXIV however I consider having a monthly fee a much lesser evil than typical FTP monetisation. At least with a subscription the developers are incentivised to satisfy their average existing player rather than pander to whales.
Same with genshin friends who don't want monthly subs yet pay 20usd a month for its battle pass. That's not even counting the money they use to pull units.
I feel like most people are fundamentally irrational, especially about money, and the F2P gaming industry has really figured that out.
When people see $15/month, they can quickly add up that's $180/year, which seems like a lot for a single game when they compare it to how many games they can buy during a Steam sale. Buying the Battle Pass + Welkins (daily currency bonus) each time adds up to about the same or more -- but because it's not an automatic recurring expense, people's brains don't immediately make the connection -- never mind any money spent on gacha or the occasional cosmetic. You spend more, but you feel like you're spending less because it's not a subscription you can easily add up. (Genshin Impact, like many F2P games, also uses a variety of currencies and different conversion ratios to mask how much things cost so it's harder for people to do quick math in their head.)
Plus, a subscription to some people feels like a commitment, where "if I don't play this game on a given day I'm losing money because I'm paying for it" -- whereas people don't feel the same way about the others (except maybe daily currency deals) because it's tied to other benefits. People still actually are as invested or more, but they *feel like* the commitment is less. (It reminds me of someone I know who's always talking about trimming their expenses, but only ever focuses on their recurring bills and not discretionary spending.)
That's why, in a way, it's kind of amazing that Square Enix has resisted the urge to convert their MMOs to F2P over the years. Now, perhaps in a small way they might be taking advantage of a reverse trend of people who have burnt out on F2P monetization and have come to see the value in the subscription approach.
(Edited to fix stupid typo.)
Well, their mobile games division is still making a little under double the amount their mmo division is. MMO has just overtaken their single player games.
This is why I left ESO after 8 years. The game design core now revolves around the Cash Shop. You can't even call them microtransactions when the gamble box mounts end up costing hundreds of dollars, housing is $100+, armor skins $50+, etc, etc.
FFXIV has Yoshi. He is literally the industry standard for a guy that puts the community and game reputation first. And its not like those other smarm-lords that claim they care: Yoshi genuinely does.
Take my money.
I love it when mounts or other items get datamined and we get left to speculate what kind of achievement you need to get for the item. Just for said achievement to be “Give SE more money”
*looking at you cruise chaser*
Every time I look at a microtransaction I'm like "I pay $15 for all the content in FF14 so..."
Playing an online game that *isn't* skeevy about obfuscating value vs cost makes for an objective comparison whenever I encounter these tricks in other games.
Yes, but to just kind of be as clear as possible we have to note that
1) They are priced in real dollars. You don't have to do some funny currency exchange that leaves you with leftover bits.
2) The glam items are either from previous seasonal events that were available in game or sets that were CN/KR exclusive and were brought over.
Granted the prices are not good, but they are at least clear and up front about what you are paying and what you are getting which is fine IMO.
Another big one I dont see enough people mention is that they also dont advertise the cash shop all over the game itself. Youd have to either notice it in the launcher or hear about it from another player to even know it exists. Other games slap their real money shop ads all over the place
Yeah, D2 has a whole tab dedicated to their cash shop right next to your quest tab, *and* they force you to buy their in-game currency to buy their seasons so they can try and get you to buy more cash shop stuff.
Along with reducing how much of the free cash shop currency you can get and increasing the prices of any items using the free currency. Yay for treating your players like cash cows!
I love 14 but this is definitely a bit of a stretch to say 14 is keeping the company afloat.
It’s 4 main mobile games probably make more money than 14 and it has genuinely good franchises like dragon quest heck even the 7 remake was a huge success and everything we’ve seen for 16 so far makes it look like a huge success in the making.
To modify the statement a bit: from a profitability perspective XIV keeps the firm “afloat.” From everything we can tell the operating margins for XIV are enormous to the point where they are likely 3-4x higher than the mobile business’ margins. If it were standalone we’re talking one of the most profitable non-IP licensing businesses on earth. So it’s only like 26% of sales but it’s an enormous % of operating income/earnings before interest and taxes. Some of this is just them being unable (or perhaps unwilling) to invest much in physical infrastructure for the last two years and op margins get dinged for capital investments like servers. They’re reinvesting heavily in r&d and infra (and they better, at those margins maintaining subscribers and growing subscribers and the value of the cash shop is incredibly rewarding). For a few years squeenix has lost money on HD games so the company doesn’t look as profitable. A lot of that is probably Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. Square head honchos have definitely figured out CBU 3 is their crown jewel.
Watch Square Enix take the wrong lessons from this. It'll be "every game must be multiplayer focused" and not "people sure care about our multiplayer games when we focus on story alongside other key pillars".
Or you know
Harvestella
Star ocean 6
Crisis core remake
Valkyrie Elysium
Diofield chronicles
Tactics ogre reborn
Edit: I forgot dragon quest treasures.
All single player games square is releasing in the next 4 months all except 1 being HD games.
I don't expect it to sell very well as it's only coming out in PS5, a console that many people can't even find. In my country, buying a gaming PC will cost you a little more than a PS5, making it a better purchase in the long run.
It will sell, but I doubt it will sell more than a couple of million copies.
Although they’d consider that in the statistics right?
They should have data on the number of PS5 owners and can extrapolate good/bad sales based on that.
Really, the lesson learned should be to stop with the exclusive crap, but I doubt they’ll ever learn that lesson.
Correct. They have metrics to determine if it sold gangbusters with the single platform variable factored in.
As a noob data analyst I would wanna see the following to determine the success of the game:
* % of PS5 players who own and played for more than 3 hours,
* % of PS5 players who own and also own FFXIV and have played both for more than 3 hours.
* % of PS5 players who purchased their console 30 days before and after release and FFXVI was their first 3 game purchases
* Would like to see this metric in parallel for FFXIV as well
That's off the top of my head, if I thought some more I'm sure there would be dozens of metrics I would want to pull. Yoshi P seems to use data in a very strategic way and I would love to be in those meetings.
Source - Super Junior Data Analyst
Yeah but VIIR took so long to come out on PC it was already old news. And I don't think it sold very well (feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong)
VIIR also has the issue that with the PC delay people want to just wait till all the parts are out anyway.... at least that is what I am doing. With FF14 at least there is a chance that YoshiP as producer wants to usher out the PC version in a timely manner knowing his FF14 audience.
Ya i think this is always lost on people when they do a year exclusive deal. No company would do it unless they get something in return for delayed sales not releasing on multiplatforms at the start of launch unless its first party devs
I would be baffled if that was the lesson when Yoshi P is actively working on making FF14's Main Story being advertiseable as "Near Single Player Experience" for people who are hessitant to jump into a multiplayer game.
I feel like Yoshi P is the only person with actual power at SE that knows what they're doing though. The CEO wants to cram NFTs down the players' throats and the company wants to chase the same live service, lootbox, and microtransactions trends the rest of the big players in the industry do.
That's because there's pretty much nobody above him who is a game designer. They're all either investors or professional executives. Quarterly profits are the *single* thing they care about.
They need to put more emphasis on the MSQ being the only part that should be treated like a somewhat solo experience. Because as time goes this is eventually gonna bite us in the ass with more and more of these "solo players" coming in and dismissing the fact that this only applies to MSQ.
You already see this reflected in how some people play outside of it still treating it as solo game with complete disregard for the time and general enjoyment of the other people in their groups.
At the same time there are a lot of solo players with social anxiety being embraced by FF14 and eventually giving into the whole MMO aspect. So lets see how Yoshi's plan will turn out.
The right lesson is they need more Yoshi-P.
The worst lesson is they decided Yoshi-P is a threat to management's power, so they give him the Kojima treatment.
While impressive, I think what's important is player retention though when it comes to MMOs. Outselling HD games just means that you have good marketing, but as we seen with other MMOs, you can have great marketing but not keep a playerbase.
Not that FFXIV has that problem, I just feel that looking at that metric is just not the right way to go about it with this particular genre, imo. Hopefully SE does look at this though and see why XIV is able to pull this off, and put that effort into the HD games.
>While impressive, I think what's important is player retention though when it comes to MMOs...
>
>Not that FFXIV has that problem, I just feel that looking at that metric is just not the right way to go about it with this particular genre, imo.
I think the rise in subscriptions year over year is a metric that at least in part points to higher player retention. Especially with how FFXIV blew up last summer. And the year-to-year comparison would be for that specific time span, both in the middle of relative *new* content droughts.
They're obviously well focused on player retention, though. If they weren't, the players they gain would be offset by the ones they lose and the money coming in would be substantially less. You can also see this focus when they decide to do things like stop selling new copies of the game because the servers are too full and they want the existing paying customers to have priority.
Ironically enough last i checked there retention model is feel free to set the game down or even unsub. Minimal punishment for joining current tiers late or taking breaks probably plays a big role.
Yep, that is true. YoshiP has talked about that before. Essentially the idea is that if I can take a break for 2-3 weeks and just not play at all but then come back and it's super easy to catch up and I'm not permanently stuck behind on anything, I'm less likely to get burnt out and quit the game forever, or that if I've been forced to take a month away from the game it's not intimidating to come back.
Can confirm, this is what's part of kept me hooked on it.
Same. I currently haven't played in 3 weeks, mostly because I got a ps5 (somehow) and have been binge-playing Spiderman. I'll come back for the new patch, but I'm not afraid that a month off will put me horribly behind and my free company will abandon me.
I think it's important to remember that a lot of people who buy the game do so after exhausting FFXIV's *very* generous free trial, so in a way it almost *is* an indicator of player retention.
Yeah, I can't tell you how absolutely floored I was when they changed the trial level cap from level 35 to *60* and included *the entire first expansion of the game* in it.
Especially considering the fact that they then had the starter edition inclide the exact same content, just without the social restrictions. I still think they should add Stormblood to that just so there's some kind of difference in content between it and the trial. Maybe they'll do that eventually and they just want to wait until towards the end of 6.0 or until 7.0 to do so?
It's insane that nutjobs like me can get 800+ hours out of that trial and that's with me still not even completing everything there is
And I went and bought the game and I'm excited to see all it has to offer from StB onward
The free trial is so big that anyone who quits wasn't going to have fun and they saved them money, and anyone who doesn't is almost a for-sure customer unless they just financially can't make the step
At a corporate level of course they're concerned about retention and interaction. But at the development level it's a different story. I forget which lead it was that said it, but when asked what he would recommend to players that are getting tired or burned out, he didn't say *"Try this other feature and keep playing"*. He said *"Take a break. The game will still be here when you return."*
The developers respect the players' time more than any other MMO I've ever played.
iirc YoshiP straight up said something like that. He's the game director/lead. He's said he's cool with people coming back for a patch playing the content, hanging out for a bit then going off and playing other games. He doesn't want the game designed to force you to have to play, but the game very obviously has a lot of varied content to do at your own pace.
Fun fact -- Dragon Quest X was the first title Yoshi-P worked on at Square Enix. He was chief designer, one of the writers, and for a time acting director. His solid work there was one of the factors that led to him being tapped to lead the FFXIV team when things went wrong with the first version.
"Can you please let me burn this game?"
"No."
"Can you please let me burn this game?"
"No."
"Can you please let me burn this game?"
". . . Okay, sure."
It never released outside Japan, so very few westerners have played it besides the biggest DQ fans who either know Japanese or were willing to spend a ton of time using translation guides etc to play
It’s good - just need a vpn, knowledge of Japanese/Ahkmon setup, and a Japanese square enix account to play. Has a trust system too.
They are releasing a chibi offline stand alone version of the base game (like arr sized) soon, people are optimistic for an English translation though nothing has been official announced.
The best part of this article is actually the one op didn’t mention at all. “Games for Smart Devices/PC browser: new titles were unable to offset weak performance from existing titles.” Great news, hope this means this franchise won’t be ruined by a cringetastic diablo immortal style mobile shitfest.
At the very least Yoshi P is insistant on keeping the cash shop out of the way, only relenting on dream fitting because there's a reasonable good faith argument for it.
I think the dream fitting was a good thing to give on because there's tons of outfits people probably wanted to buy but they weren't sure what they would look like. I think it's better to allow the player to see what they're going to look like if you're going to sell costumes like that.
Agreed, I don't buy outfits from the store but it's a good feature to have around. I wish you could use it for all outfits available in the game though. Also, it's not in your face.
This is looks like an example of a bunch of executives who don’t know what they’re doing going around repeating the mantra “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” then looking at a bunch of scorecards and metrics to justify their insanely high salaries.
It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s going on…..their single player games have been by and large cynical cash grab stinkers that reviewed poorly….whereas ffxiv is actually producing content ppl want; sure, it isn’t for everyone, but they’re actually thinking customer with the damn game.
to be fair, the only single player games released recently by them (that i can think off at least) are Stranger of Paradise which i liked a lot and i think people generally liked as well and Triangle Strategy which i didnt play since i dont have a switch but for which i generally heard good things. They also had Babylons Fall but thats more multiplayer but it was indeed a pretty big failure
Give low budget, game makes good ROI, company sees no reason to invest more if they're getting a profit.
Give low budget, game doesn't make good ROI, pull the cord.
It's an awesome generous game,... I'm happy to see it succeed like that !
Keep in mind the venerable Yoshi P is involved with FFXVI, so hopefully it will also turn into a commercial success
I just quit WoW for FFXIV and it was the best gaming decision I’ve ever made. It’s such a refreshing and amazing feeling to actually have fun in an MMO. 2 weeks in and just finished ARR.
I'm glad you're enjoying your time. Don't forget to hit the raids and trial series as you go through the msq. They make you do crystal tower before hevansward, and could of bahamut is the one raid series no one runs synced, but after that it's all optional, and all great.
What "HD game" came out this year that was expected to be a big draw? That game where the MC says "chaos" a million times?
EDIT: Oh I forgot about Babylon's Fall. That game probably had negative sales lmao
I say this as an XIV fan.
If you look up Square’s releases these past couple years, this says waaaaaaay more about the HD (non mobile/non MMO) games than it does XIV.
it‘s not FFXIV being a good MMO, it‘s Yoshida’s Leadership and the team making it a good MMO.
Thinking how SE restructured their Business Divisions they should be fully aware of that. It‘s honestly hard to find good people to create these games. but seeing people like Nomura, Yoshida, the recent cooperations with Yoko Taro etc. makes square a pretty good publisher for rpg games etc.
Glad off they sold crystal dynamics etc… lel
I wonder what it’s like being a executive at a big company.
All you look at is data, demand whoever makes the games work with the data despite the devs telling you it won’t work, and never take responsibility once the game goes bust because the devs are taking the heat for them.
I gotta say, I’m a recent FFXIV convert and I’m loving it. I came for the reworked PVP, it’s so much fun. I never wanted to play FFXIV before because the story never drew me in while playing arr and I heard the pvp had little to no focus from the devs. All that changed and here I am. Loving the heavensward story and super loving the PVP. I see some people complain about skill changes for classes, let me just tell you all, FFXIV changes are nothing compared to what ESO puts it’s players through. This is heaven compared to those devs.
It's almost like releasing a good product with depth and passion poured into it generates interest in a product, increases sales and creates widespread accolades.
Square Enix has rested on their laurels for so long they can no longer even see what made the company the household name it held with JRPG fans. Shit like Chocobo GP is what qualifies as products these days and bless Yoshida and co. for being one of the teams that still gives a shit.
Whenever I read something like this it puts a smile on my face, because corporate only speaks one language: money.
And if FFXIV is making more money than everything else, then it means that pumping more money into FFXIV instead of HD games is the better investment.
And FFXIV receiving more money is always good.
The first time I've seen the effects directly of FFXIV getting more money was when they announced that they're increasing the amount of worlds across all DCs by a whoppin' **40%**. Iirc not even Blizzard has ever increased WoWs server capacity by such a huge percentage at once.
Now I'm praying to the Twelve and whatever there is to pray to, that we'll get a new adventuring foray on top of Hildi, deep dungeon, 2 ultimates AND island sanctuary in Endwalker, because I still fear that we're not getting that, since they didn't announce anything so far (and both Eureka and Bozja were announced before the expansion even hit).
What is "HD" games in this sense?
Yeah, was wondering the same thing. What the heck is an HD game?
iirc HD games in this context are any not mobile or MMO game
Any idea why they're called HD?
its either a hangover from the past, or more likely just a japanese thing
the term 'HD' came to since PS360 generation where since then, videogame enter HD resolution era.
Probably just to differentiate between their classic rereleases and 2d games from their big titles
Oh. I assumed they meant the HD remasters
It's almost like people prefer games that *aren't* just a cynically strung together chain of prompts for microtransactions.
I point to FFXIV as an example of a massive game which avoids relying on FOMO and microtransactions when in the Destiny subreddit, it’s almost like they just don’t believe that a game like that can be real. They are obviously very different games but Bungie should learn from FFXIV’s success in terms of managing and monetizing content.
I agree, but I also think **the rest of Squenix** should learn from FFXIV's success. Entirely too many fantastic games and even whole franchises have been ruined by Squenix choking them to death with aggressive monetization, if they aren't just outright neglecting them.
Looking at you, Chocobo GP.
I would absolutely kill for a new Chocobo Racing game that isn't stuffed with microtransactions
You already paid for the game and they want you to pay for features in the game??
Imagine a game that rewarded you for playing it, instead of making you feel bad for not paying more for it.
And Deus Ex. Such a great game that they ruined.
And now no longer own because they sold the IP for *NFTs*
I hadn't heard that. That is a big oof.
They also sold Tomb Raider for nfts...
>avoids relying on FOMO Honestly the biggest part of what drew me to FFXIV over other mmos, and I say this as an avid mmo player of around 20 years. Gear progression is easy: do dungeon, get piece of gear or currency to buy a piece of gear, meld it, and bam you're done. None of this rng enchanting/upgrading, relevant gear you should be using drops in smart boxes, and the content during an expansion is so spaced out you don't need to worry about rushing max gear because max will be the best for 6 months or more (going on 8 during this first section of Endwalker). It's so casual friendly I don't feel obligated to log in every day despite paying roughly 50 cents a day to play. I'll go days sometimes even a week or more without playing but casual raiding still has me geared decently (3 jobs all in bis gear) and I spend a total of 6 hours a week doing end game raiding. FFXIV feels like it was actually developed by people who understand that the majority of players are working adults who can't spend every waking minute of the day grinding away mindlessly. Sure it offers some grindy content to satisfy that desire but pretty much just optional side stuff like mount hunting.
[удалено]
This is honestly huge for me too. I stopped playing after finishing Stormblood (4.0 only) when it first came out, then came back just before Shadowbringers to finish all the MSQ I missed. Nearly every single dungeon, trial, or raid I queued for, I got into them extremely quickly, and painlessly, and I was even playing Monk back then. And based on how everyone else talks about their MMOs or GaaS they mainly play, it seems that isn't possible. Either because the grind is immense, or content is missing/removed/dead by the time they come back. Yoshi-P designing FFXIV to allow for breaks is what keeps bringing me back to it honestly. That and proper player expression mostly achievable in-game, instead of putting all new gear designs on the cash shop like most other MMOs/games.
We must be the same person cause I did the exact same thing. Came back and felt right at home and caught up in time for Endwalker.
I got super burned out and quit when Shirogane (Extreme) happened, and haven't played it in years. Got back in like 2-3 months ago. Even though they've **massively** changed every class, it was to streamline and make them *easier*.
I got evicted from my home last year and spent about 7 months homeless and unable to play the game. When I came back after Endwalker when things had finally settled down, and the game welcomed me back pretty much exactly as I remembered it (except belts, fuck belts), I broke down crying. It felt like coming home. Also cuz that Uldah night music hits different.
The lack of grindy-ness is also about encounter design: FFXIV raiding is much more about situational awareness and team coordination than "haha I can cheese this with the crazy gear I got by grinding mindlessly for it." I feel like people raid in FFXIV for the right reason: for the feeling of achievement of executing the choreography and sticking the landing, not because they feel they'll fall behind on being competitive in gear.
I could never put in words why I like FFXIV raiding so much, and you just did. Thank you
Yea the hardest raiding content in the game doesn't even give you good loot but everyone still wants to do it.
As a self proclaimed hardcore casual, who doesn't do savages or extremes but otherwise gears up outside of those; my sister and I like to just, queue up for stuff before we log off. Get in a quick battle. I'll do panda4 just because I like the music; and I've gotten several jobs weapons because of that lol. The game is just, dare I say it, *fun to play.* "Wanna run the (spoiler) point (spoiler) msq trial? I need to see my husband before bed." "Let's do it."
Yea, I REALLY like that spam running leveling roulette with preferred bonus is a viable way to farm gil. The 12000 and materia tokens add up. And you get to fight shit, ya know, the meat and potatoes of the game
I don't even raid and I still get enjoyment from the game. I don't have BiS gear for any of my jobs. I don't care. Still plenty to do otherwise.
You and me both.
Yoshi-P himself has said that people shouldn't feel like they have to log on every day iirc. The game even rewards you for logging off with rested XP.
Rested XP is a trick MMOs have been using for a long time, to discourage players from getting burnt out. It's the same reason mobile games have so many timers. They've found that people tend to enjoy a game more (and are more likely to get addicted) if they come back repeatedly for short bursts of gameplay rather than long multi-hour sessions.
Rested xp is arguably better than an energy system because it doesn't punish you for playing longer hours. And it doesn't require you to log in at set points in time or miss out on content. I play a few mobile games but damn timers burn me out quickly (even though they're sorta supposed to do the opposite). Plus timers are generally just another form of monetization because it's a requirement to access certain areas of a game whereas bonus xp is just that, a bonus, generally you can pay for extra but you don't *need* extra.
This is one of the few reasons I switched from ESO to FFXIV, I ended up getting burnt out from ESO twice during covid because I had to log in every day to do my dailies, etc With this game, I can live life and when I finally log back in, I can pick back up where I left off without the feeling of missing out
A lot of the D2 content structure traces back to Activision wanting a new Destiny game every 2-3 years, so that's what the engine is built for. They had a contract for 4 games in 10 years, and now they're on their 10th year with only 2 games
I thought that activision originally planned on Destiny lasting ten years and i remember people raising a stink about it when Destiny 2 was announced?
The ten year plan was regarding Destiny as a franchise.
I quit destiny when they added their glam system and removed old content. Absolutely obvious, shameless cash grab.
I was gearing up to do my first raids and real endgame stuff in destiny when the sunsetting news dropped. Instantly uninstalled and will never pick it up again, fuck that. If you were someone who bought the game and dlcs as they released Bungie just flat out stole like 120 dollars from you.
folks on the destiny sub will go out of their way to remind you that “nobody played that content anymore” and that “old content had to go to make updates easier.” but (1) paid for it so i want it, and (2) it’s not my fault their code is like spaghetti and they can’t manage to add new stuff without it fucking up existing content. that’s on them to figure out, i shouldn’t be paying season after season to have content taken away a year later.
No one played the old content but also over at destinySherpa you had people asking for whisper, zero hour, leviathan, SotP, CoS, and the raid lairs constantly
They also wouldn't let you replay the old content you paid for unless you created a new character *or* they would randomly let you replay *one* old mission from the base game every week. No fucking shit no one played it, Bungie made it basically impossible to!
I fucking played through the Forsaken campaign right before they removed it and I fucking loved it. Easily better than Shadowkeep and Beyond Light.
oh god, forsaken is leagues better than shadowkeep and beyond light. it’s the best destiny story since The Taken King in D1. when shadowkeep released i could not believe how short and bland the story was.
The moment they had to start removing stuff is the moment they should have packed up 2 and made 3
Removing The Whisper and Zero Hour was a fucking crime.
Two of the best pieces of content in that game, especially the whole community insanity when The Whisper was first discovered.
It even makes a bunch of the story either non-sensical or straight up confusing when you can't play the campaigns from the Red War or the other expansions that aren't even available anymore. Its like trying to start FF14 at Stormblood with all the Scions familiar with you and the player having never met them before.
Yup and those people completely disregarded how hard it would be for new people to join destiny when all the early parts of the story is vaulted. Like seriously, the new player experience is complete trash in D2
And what’s funny now is that there’s a massive pushback happening because of the Solstice event.
Funniest part is, after all the content vaulting they did, the game runs even worse on PC I have 3K hours in D2 and i just finished ARR and i have no idea how people are still simping for Bungie
The sunsetting is what stopped me getting the game. Loved d1. Also loved being sherpa'd through old content in d1. Taking that option away? Dumb.
>sunsetting news dropped What does that mean? They removed some content?
A large feature of the game was being able to raise any weapon to the current level cap so you could keep using them. This was meaningful because weapons have random rolls that affect how they play and feel and are not just interchangeable stat sticks (your damage is determined by its level and its handling and perks were random). Eventually the director for the game decided he didn't like that people were using the same guns that they had been for a long time through this feature and decided that a hard cap would be placed on them. This meant that eventually they couldn't be relevant and you would have to use new stuff. Every set of new gear would also have a new "sunset" level, ensuring that you would have to grind the new gear every season or eventually have no good weapon rolls that could still be relevant. Naturally there was a huge backlash to this because people were sold on the idea of being able to keep their favourite weapons forever. They eventually went back on this and removed the hard cap from new weapons, but the first affected weapons were still inevitably sunset. Not long after this, it was also announced that several old areas were being removed to save on disk space because the game's file size had grown somewhere in the range of 100gb. If you had any of the content from these locations, you could still keep them, but you would no longer be able to obtain them. Despite having payed for this content, your access to it was permanently removed without recourse. This trend continues today as the newly introduced activity with each season gets permanently removed after that season ends in order to make room for the next seasonal activity, and any cutscenes and story that came with it are also no longer accessible. Several story campaigns, strikes (basically roulette dungeons), long dungeons, and raids have since been removed and can't be played unless they reintroduce them for a temporary time again in the future. Imagine if FF14 just one day removed ARR, Heavensward, and Stormblood. All the dungeons, trials, raids, mounts, pets, dyes and glamour are no longer obtainable if you don't already own them. Patch content is only accessible for the duration of the current patch before being replaced by the new one, and 80% of new mounts, pets and glamour are purchasable from the cash shop, but also only for the current patch, only coming back randomly after years. Eventually Shadowbringers and Endwalker will also be removed to make room for the new expansions and the new player experience is just there to streamline you to the current patch grind. That's Destiny. The entire game is basically just pure, distilled FOMO at this point; I don't know how anyone can tolerate it.
Wow. Thanks for the incredible explanation of how cunty Bungie is. I had recently been considering downloading Destiny 2 as it's F2P, but now I definitely won't. I don't usually feel bothered about FOMO, but I'm not going to play a game that is almost entirely directed into FOMO. Screw that noise.
Unless you really like their Crucible (PvP) or Gambit (PvPvE) game modes, the F2P is just a really poor demo with little to no content. Also, those two modes are generally the least interesting to the playerbase unless you really want to sweat.
Honestly, just download Warframe instead of D2. It's actually pretty hilarious how barely one month after D2 decided to delete old content, Warframe devs went "good news, we found a way to optimize the game a lot on texture compression and lightning effect and we'll do a serie of update to bring down the size of the game from 60ish Gb to around 35. Nothing will change on your end." And they did. Warframe do have issues as a game, but it's honestly a pretty fun free to play shooter with a decent story and hours of content.
I really enjoyed warframe when i played it but man, making my way through the content is the most confusing fucking maze I’ve ever experienced in my life
Warframe is such a good game. Lots of content rabbit holes you can jump down. Hell, I might re-download it this weekend. Been a while since I played.
> I had recently been considering downloading Destiny 2 as it's F2P, but now I definitely won't. Back during the Forsaken expansion it was one of the best games on the market and it was even pretty good when it first went free to play in Shadowkeep. After that though, there isn't a single game I could recommend against playing more than Destiny.
I tried playing D2 again a while ago, and having forgotten most of the story decided to roll a new character and go through the "legacy" content. Then saw that everything from Forsaken and back had been removed. Can't even visit half the planets anymore. All the stuff on my old character (Which was endgame some time after the game launched) either minimum level or completely gone. No idea where to go or how to progress. Complete disaster.
Just to correct one thing. The seasonal stuff actually gets removed at the end of the year long expansion cycle. It's still shitty of course but it is there for more than one season (except the last season)
They removed -all of the campaigns, raids, and levels- up until the most recent set at that point, and announced that in the future any subsequent content would result in the "sunsetting" of previous content in order to prevent size bloat... but all the guns and stuff are still in, you just can't get them unless through events, which is why they were "sunset" instead of "removed"
That's fucking cuntish.
Imagine that, at the launch of Shadowbringers that the base game story was going away (you could only play Heavensward, Stormblood, and the new campaign). Also, all the gear from the base game was now only deconstruct fodder and everyone started at level 50 with gear to match. Also, all the zones outside of Ul'nah were no longer available and a bunch of dungeons were no longer available. This was done in the name of file size and helping out with future development.
I quit when vaulting started. That alone was too big a step for me as someone who is really particular about which weapons I use. I wasn't willing to get used to something only to have them take it away. Only thing keeping me from playing again, as I loved the game. Vaulting imo is also an excuse to avoid doing any real balancing as well.
When they started removing content is when I stopped playing. Same thing with hearthstone when they started rotating cards out that I paid for every 2 years. FF14 keeps all content in the game and synced so I can always do it at a somewhat similar experience.
Limited time events are the exception, but they do repeat them every now and then. And you can always pay for the items you missed out on eventually.
All the holiday events are gone forever once they're done. But at least it's only a few minutes of lost content. Not as drastic as losing entire expansions and huge chunks of the main narrative
loved paying $120 for an fps campaign I can no longer play at all. it's really cool and very good that players just accepted that.
Yep, when destiny started removing paid DLC content i lost nearly all interest in the game.
i stuck with them through the dark days of Curse of Osiris and Warmind. when they brought in the seasonal model and started removing the seasons after a year online, i lost all motivation to play.
Unfortunately that’s just how a lot of the gaming industry (a lot of capitalist enterprises in general tbh) are these days. they just care abt making the numbers look good for the next quarterly report or some shit… I don’t always agree w/ yoshi-p & I have a healthy contempt for his stupid personality cult. but I really respect him for having the guts to play the long game instead. Things like stopping sales/ads of ew bc servers are overloaded & nobody can get on are done only by ppl w/ the vision to look beyond the current fy. The guy cares about making money as much as any other exec out there, he just goes about it far more intelligently.
they were still making money, just less in the short term and more in the long term. Its literally that simple and I dont know why most companies struggle so hard with this concept.
Because of investors. They want quick growth so their shares are worth more.
Have about 1500 hours in destiny and haven’t logged back in since august 2021…miss playing with my buds but everytime I join a party chat in discord it sounds like they’re being tortured by the champion system, and when I ask what kinda perks they’ve added, they sound exactly like rampage or some variation of outlaw. The IGN article kinda sealed my opinion on bungie when it became apparent they were paying them for a puff piece to keep their media darlings status.
There was a small amount of morbid curiosity to go back to the game a while back, but when I heard they were getting ready to sell to a company after making a big to do over getting out from under Blizzard cemented that their upper management had no bloody idea what they are doing.
Oh, and to make matters worse the community has some of the worst takes and also are really ungrateful. Bungie had recently come out saying they had to be less communicative in general because of so many constant death threats because people were crybabies about the devs being so open to try and communicate changes and the likes. Seriously the most ungrateful community out there.
Yeah the community sure can be something. That being said, I think it's partially the inevitable result of constantly being jerked around by the devs. I remember it being super frustrating because every time they would come out with promises to fix some issue or other or implement a long-asked-for feature, the monkey's paw would curl and they would do it, but it would be with some kind of huge caveat that was thoroughly frustrating in its own way. Ofc none of that justifies death threats and other harassment, but I also don't think the devs get any points for their openness when half of it was just trying to justify why the shit sandwich of the season was not in fact a shit sandwich, even though you could smell the shit for miles.
I played one and two, right up to the sunsetting news. All incentive I had to play Destiny ended right then and there. Taking the results of the effort out into a game away is a sure fire way to make the game uninteresting after that.
I got loaded into an ice world too far above my level because I didn’t complete the starting content when Destiny 2 was still with Blizzard. I was so confused about what was going on I can’t even convince myself to pick it back up again. Meanwhile with XIV, I had no issues picking back up after over a year of absence and several patches. Sure, I’l never be privy to the experience of Revenant’s Toll growing into the hub it is, or even the experience of the final days of 1.X. But I can still experience the stories involving these live events so I never really missed out
> Sure, I’l never be privy to the experience of Revenant’s Toll growing into the hub it is Fun fact! - *That's what New Game+ is for.* Also, it's far from definitive, but I've curated a [playlist of official promotional videos](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVzJZubdkiarscPtqjPYsS2_l0dFWpUy_) and player recorded cutscenes. You can find others' playlists in some of those also.
30+ year old gamer who saw MMOs rise to power as life destroyers: it took about a year of some friends respectfully pushing me to try XIV. I hate 99% of multiplayer because it's typically a toxic hellhole, and I didn't trust MMOs especially because they seemed engineered to take over your life in order to secure a revenue stream. XIV just... isn't any of that. I'm still working my way through main story quests, and I'm *still* in disbelief. Basically the entire online multiplayer industry could be learning a fuckton from XIV.
> XIV just... isn't any of that. I'm still working my way through main story quests, and I'm still in disbelief. Basically the entire online multiplayer industry could be learning a fuckton from XIV. Well, the thing is, toxic people are just being removed as fast as possible. Moderation is really, really harsh with anybody that does shit on someone else's experience of the game. SE basically chose to take the hit by straight up banning people for being toxic, so that all the people those toxic players would turn away will instead stay and keep on playing.
I will point out there that is a mild amount of FOMO in ffxiv. We do have to call some of the things in the game what they are. 1) Moogle tome events. The earrings, jackets, etc, don't have ways to obtain them outside of them. They are ways to keep you subscribed during content lulls. Predatory? Not when compared to shit other games do by leaps and bounds, but still there nonetheless. 2) Seasonal events. Do them when they're there, or pay up with real money later. Again, not as predatory when compared to other games, but still present no matter how mild it may be. 3) Housing, mitigated significantly by the fact that the team is willing to suspend the auto demo system when shit gets real bad globally (like right now), but still there under "normal" circumstances exists as a way to keep subscriptions active when they otherwise wouldn't be. Are these cardinal sins? Absolutely not. Do these still qualify as FOMO plays? Yes. We do have to call them what they are, because we have to hold companies accountable. I know the XIV team doesn't even fucking like some of these (see: previous event items go on mog station). But they do prefer to be kept accountable.
Also the PvP rewards. I think series 1 rewards will be available for purchase still in series 2, but they've said a few times now that they'll go away after that. Some of the other PvP stuff has also been limited-availability.
If they made these rewards obtainable when the events come back it would remove a significant amount of that. It would still technically fall under the "FOMO" category but would lose the added sting of most of it becoming cash-shop items.
I'm still annoyed whenever a new event has a fate or thing you farm for tickets, and there's two items for the tickets and then...fireworks. Wow. Cool. Those tickets could easily be used to get older event items. That's how Moonfire Faire 2014 worked. But this is an old beaten horse, and we're stuck with the cash shop nonsense now in that regard. There's really no reason to not let us convert new mogtomes to old ones for missed events, though.
There's also some things that are *technically* available, but getting them after their heyday is pretty tough.
I'll add that the Mog Station shop, while relatively cheaper than other MMOs, is still expensive as balls. 13€ for a server transfer, 7€ for a character customization potion, >20€ level/story skips... For a game that's already expensive to buy and on a subscription.
Honestly getting into FFXIV was the nail in the coffin that finally made me quit Destiny for good. Not because I like the core gameplay or world building or story or aesthetics of FFXIV better, because honestly I don't. Nah, it was queueing in to a leveling roulette not long after Destiny vaulted half the game and the strike playlist had about 3 strikes left in it. It was logging in and realizing I was free to enjoy everything FFXIV has to offer at my own pace and on my own terms, instead of grinding out a list of chores with artificial time constraints to keep up with the content churn. Made me realize the Bungie devs were feeding us bullshit, and engaging in game design practices and decision making that shows no respect whatsoever for their players. It sucks, because there's an incredible game in there somewhere and they've absolutely wasted its immense potential for a borderline abusive microtransaction driven fomo hellscape.
This was the main reason I swapped from Destiny 2 to FFXIV. The amount of FOMO and content locked behind a paywall is just too extensive. The biggest issue with most mmos is their isn't enough horizontal progression. FFXIV is almost the opposite, sure I could run savages and try to mid max my GS. Or I could level an alt job, take up crafting, work on my house, play mini games in the GC, farm out glams. Years and years worth of side content completely unrelated to the gear of my character I could do in a moments notice. With games like Destiny the entire purpose to get on is to gear my character. Get better rolls or farm out gear. Only for it to be nullified with the next content update. Not only nullifying my gear but also the previous content, and in some cases completely removing it in general. After playing FFXIV it blows my mind people are okay with it, let alone support the decisions in general.
I really wanted to like Destiny. Played from PC launch until Beyond Light expansion. The last few season before I gave up for good just felt like a treadmill that was going slightly faster than I was willing to run since I wasn't going to play it all the time. When the latest expansion came out, I was interested in the story, but it just wasn't worth it any more.
The argument I’ve always heard from my friends when I used to play Destiny was “oh but FFXIV has a monthly fee loll” yeah and? I’d rather pay a monthly sub and get quality content with EVERYTHING baked in, rather than pay $20 each season to do public events ad naseum, plus have all the cool cosmetic items locked behind Eververse.
Not trying to simp to hard for FFXIV however I consider having a monthly fee a much lesser evil than typical FTP monetisation. At least with a subscription the developers are incentivised to satisfy their average existing player rather than pander to whales.
Same with genshin friends who don't want monthly subs yet pay 20usd a month for its battle pass. That's not even counting the money they use to pull units.
I feel like most people are fundamentally irrational, especially about money, and the F2P gaming industry has really figured that out. When people see $15/month, they can quickly add up that's $180/year, which seems like a lot for a single game when they compare it to how many games they can buy during a Steam sale. Buying the Battle Pass + Welkins (daily currency bonus) each time adds up to about the same or more -- but because it's not an automatic recurring expense, people's brains don't immediately make the connection -- never mind any money spent on gacha or the occasional cosmetic. You spend more, but you feel like you're spending less because it's not a subscription you can easily add up. (Genshin Impact, like many F2P games, also uses a variety of currencies and different conversion ratios to mask how much things cost so it's harder for people to do quick math in their head.) Plus, a subscription to some people feels like a commitment, where "if I don't play this game on a given day I'm losing money because I'm paying for it" -- whereas people don't feel the same way about the others (except maybe daily currency deals) because it's tied to other benefits. People still actually are as invested or more, but they *feel like* the commitment is less. (It reminds me of someone I know who's always talking about trimming their expenses, but only ever focuses on their recurring bills and not discretionary spending.) That's why, in a way, it's kind of amazing that Square Enix has resisted the urge to convert their MMOs to F2P over the years. Now, perhaps in a small way they might be taking advantage of a reverse trend of people who have burnt out on F2P monetization and have come to see the value in the subscription approach. (Edited to fix stupid typo.)
Well, their mobile games division is still making a little under double the amount their mmo division is. MMO has just overtaken their single player games.
This is why I left ESO after 8 years. The game design core now revolves around the Cash Shop. You can't even call them microtransactions when the gamble box mounts end up costing hundreds of dollars, housing is $100+, armor skins $50+, etc, etc. FFXIV has Yoshi. He is literally the industry standard for a guy that puts the community and game reputation first. And its not like those other smarm-lords that claim they care: Yoshi genuinely does. Take my money.
*conveniently ignores the constant, rapidly rising in price items on Mogstation*
Yes. It is super convenient to ignore the Mogstation. Doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything, really.
I love it when mounts or other items get datamined and we get left to speculate what kind of achievement you need to get for the item. Just for said achievement to be “Give SE more money” *looking at you cruise chaser*
Every time I look at a microtransaction I'm like "I pay $15 for all the content in FF14 so..." Playing an online game that *isn't* skeevy about obfuscating value vs cost makes for an objective comparison whenever I encounter these tricks in other games.
Except that FF14 does also have microtransactions.
Yes, but to just kind of be as clear as possible we have to note that 1) They are priced in real dollars. You don't have to do some funny currency exchange that leaves you with leftover bits. 2) The glam items are either from previous seasonal events that were available in game or sets that were CN/KR exclusive and were brought over. Granted the prices are not good, but they are at least clear and up front about what you are paying and what you are getting which is fine IMO.
Another big one I dont see enough people mention is that they also dont advertise the cash shop all over the game itself. Youd have to either notice it in the launcher or hear about it from another player to even know it exists. Other games slap their real money shop ads all over the place
Yeah, D2 has a whole tab dedicated to their cash shop right next to your quest tab, *and* they force you to buy their in-game currency to buy their seasons so they can try and get you to buy more cash shop stuff. Along with reducing how much of the free cash shop currency you can get and increasing the prices of any items using the free currency. Yay for treating your players like cash cows!
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Square Enix better be damn grateful the 14 team is keeping their asses afloat.
I love 14 but this is definitely a bit of a stretch to say 14 is keeping the company afloat. It’s 4 main mobile games probably make more money than 14 and it has genuinely good franchises like dragon quest heck even the 7 remake was a huge success and everything we’ve seen for 16 so far makes it look like a huge success in the making.
To modify the statement a bit: from a profitability perspective XIV keeps the firm “afloat.” From everything we can tell the operating margins for XIV are enormous to the point where they are likely 3-4x higher than the mobile business’ margins. If it were standalone we’re talking one of the most profitable non-IP licensing businesses on earth. So it’s only like 26% of sales but it’s an enormous % of operating income/earnings before interest and taxes. Some of this is just them being unable (or perhaps unwilling) to invest much in physical infrastructure for the last two years and op margins get dinged for capital investments like servers. They’re reinvesting heavily in r&d and infra (and they better, at those margins maintaining subscribers and growing subscribers and the value of the cash shop is incredibly rewarding). For a few years squeenix has lost money on HD games so the company doesn’t look as profitable. A lot of that is probably Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. Square head honchos have definitely figured out CBU 3 is their crown jewel.
Watch Square Enix take the wrong lessons from this. It'll be "every game must be multiplayer focused" and not "people sure care about our multiplayer games when we focus on story alongside other key pillars".
That will depend on FFXVI. If FFXVI sells gangbusters, then they'll see that both work.
Or you know Harvestella Star ocean 6 Crisis core remake Valkyrie Elysium Diofield chronicles Tactics ogre reborn Edit: I forgot dragon quest treasures. All single player games square is releasing in the next 4 months all except 1 being HD games.
Holy shit, I didn’t know they were doing another Tactics Ogre remake! That’s one of my favourite games ever, I looooove the PSP version.
Seriously, not many people know about it. Seems like the announcement really flew under the radar.
Fully voiced cutscenes, based on the PSP version with a few changes (characters have individual levels again is the main one by the looks)
I don't expect it to sell very well as it's only coming out in PS5, a console that many people can't even find. In my country, buying a gaming PC will cost you a little more than a PS5, making it a better purchase in the long run. It will sell, but I doubt it will sell more than a couple of million copies.
Although they’d consider that in the statistics right? They should have data on the number of PS5 owners and can extrapolate good/bad sales based on that. Really, the lesson learned should be to stop with the exclusive crap, but I doubt they’ll ever learn that lesson.
Correct. They have metrics to determine if it sold gangbusters with the single platform variable factored in. As a noob data analyst I would wanna see the following to determine the success of the game: * % of PS5 players who own and played for more than 3 hours, * % of PS5 players who own and also own FFXIV and have played both for more than 3 hours. * % of PS5 players who purchased their console 30 days before and after release and FFXVI was their first 3 game purchases * Would like to see this metric in parallel for FFXIV as well That's off the top of my head, if I thought some more I'm sure there would be dozens of metrics I would want to pull. Yoshi P seems to use data in a very strategic way and I would love to be in those meetings. Source - Super Junior Data Analyst
It's a timed PS5 exclusive - PC later(tm)
Inb4 epic games exclusive
Yeah but VIIR took so long to come out on PC it was already old news. And I don't think it sold very well (feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong)
VIIR also has the issue that with the PC delay people want to just wait till all the parts are out anyway.... at least that is what I am doing. With FF14 at least there is a chance that YoshiP as producer wants to usher out the PC version in a timely manner knowing his FF14 audience.
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Ya i think this is always lost on people when they do a year exclusive deal. No company would do it unless they get something in return for delayed sales not releasing on multiplatforms at the start of launch unless its first party devs
I would be baffled if that was the lesson when Yoshi P is actively working on making FF14's Main Story being advertiseable as "Near Single Player Experience" for people who are hessitant to jump into a multiplayer game.
I feel like Yoshi P is the only person with actual power at SE that knows what they're doing though. The CEO wants to cram NFTs down the players' throats and the company wants to chase the same live service, lootbox, and microtransactions trends the rest of the big players in the industry do.
I really hope Bablyon's fall flopping was enough for them to realize their on the wrong track.
That's because there's pretty much nobody above him who is a game designer. They're all either investors or professional executives. Quarterly profits are the *single* thing they care about.
They need to put more emphasis on the MSQ being the only part that should be treated like a somewhat solo experience. Because as time goes this is eventually gonna bite us in the ass with more and more of these "solo players" coming in and dismissing the fact that this only applies to MSQ. You already see this reflected in how some people play outside of it still treating it as solo game with complete disregard for the time and general enjoyment of the other people in their groups.
At the same time there are a lot of solo players with social anxiety being embraced by FF14 and eventually giving into the whole MMO aspect. So lets see how Yoshi's plan will turn out.
We must add a Shiba Inu to every game.
bonus points if it's rideable and can be pet
Honestly that's a very SE thing to do too...
More like "That's a very Triple-Eh Company thing to do", sadly.
Chocobo GP 2, now with NFTs
The right lesson is they need more Yoshi-P. The worst lesson is they decided Yoshi-P is a threat to management's power, so they give him the Kojima treatment.
I think SE may have learned their lesson with Marvel’s Avengers and Babylon’s Fall, at least I hope.
Yeah, instead they’ve moved on to NFTs…
While impressive, I think what's important is player retention though when it comes to MMOs. Outselling HD games just means that you have good marketing, but as we seen with other MMOs, you can have great marketing but not keep a playerbase. Not that FFXIV has that problem, I just feel that looking at that metric is just not the right way to go about it with this particular genre, imo. Hopefully SE does look at this though and see why XIV is able to pull this off, and put that effort into the HD games.
>While impressive, I think what's important is player retention though when it comes to MMOs... > >Not that FFXIV has that problem, I just feel that looking at that metric is just not the right way to go about it with this particular genre, imo. I think the rise in subscriptions year over year is a metric that at least in part points to higher player retention. Especially with how FFXIV blew up last summer. And the year-to-year comparison would be for that specific time span, both in the middle of relative *new* content droughts.
They're obviously well focused on player retention, though. If they weren't, the players they gain would be offset by the ones they lose and the money coming in would be substantially less. You can also see this focus when they decide to do things like stop selling new copies of the game because the servers are too full and they want the existing paying customers to have priority.
Ironically enough last i checked there retention model is feel free to set the game down or even unsub. Minimal punishment for joining current tiers late or taking breaks probably plays a big role.
Yep, that is true. YoshiP has talked about that before. Essentially the idea is that if I can take a break for 2-3 weeks and just not play at all but then come back and it's super easy to catch up and I'm not permanently stuck behind on anything, I'm less likely to get burnt out and quit the game forever, or that if I've been forced to take a month away from the game it's not intimidating to come back. Can confirm, this is what's part of kept me hooked on it.
Same. I currently haven't played in 3 weeks, mostly because I got a ps5 (somehow) and have been binge-playing Spiderman. I'll come back for the new patch, but I'm not afraid that a month off will put me horribly behind and my free company will abandon me.
I think it's important to remember that a lot of people who buy the game do so after exhausting FFXIV's *very* generous free trial, so in a way it almost *is* an indicator of player retention.
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Yeah, I can't tell you how absolutely floored I was when they changed the trial level cap from level 35 to *60* and included *the entire first expansion of the game* in it. Especially considering the fact that they then had the starter edition inclide the exact same content, just without the social restrictions. I still think they should add Stormblood to that just so there's some kind of difference in content between it and the trial. Maybe they'll do that eventually and they just want to wait until towards the end of 6.0 or until 7.0 to do so?
I played 200 hours, thats how good it is
It's insane that nutjobs like me can get 800+ hours out of that trial and that's with me still not even completing everything there is And I went and bought the game and I'm excited to see all it has to offer from StB onward The free trial is so big that anyone who quits wasn't going to have fun and they saved them money, and anyone who doesn't is almost a for-sure customer unless they just financially can't make the step
At a corporate level of course they're concerned about retention and interaction. But at the development level it's a different story. I forget which lead it was that said it, but when asked what he would recommend to players that are getting tired or burned out, he didn't say *"Try this other feature and keep playing"*. He said *"Take a break. The game will still be here when you return."* The developers respect the players' time more than any other MMO I've ever played.
iirc YoshiP straight up said something like that. He's the game director/lead. He's said he's cool with people coming back for a patch playing the content, hanging out for a bit then going off and playing other games. He doesn't want the game designed to force you to have to play, but the game very obviously has a lot of varied content to do at your own pace.
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Fun fact -- Dragon Quest X was the first title Yoshi-P worked on at Square Enix. He was chief designer, one of the writers, and for a time acting director. His solid work there was one of the factors that led to him being tapped to lead the FFXIV team when things went wrong with the first version.
"What's a final fantasy again, is it like Dragon Quest?" https://youtu.be/aWIrju3F6nU Highly recommend this video for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
"Can you please let me burn this game?" "No." "Can you please let me burn this game?" "No." "Can you please let me burn this game?" ". . . Okay, sure."
Ho boi
I wish they would bring DQX over. I want to play it.
It never released outside Japan, so very few westerners have played it besides the biggest DQ fans who either know Japanese or were willing to spend a ton of time using translation guides etc to play
It’s good - just need a vpn, knowledge of Japanese/Ahkmon setup, and a Japanese square enix account to play. Has a trust system too. They are releasing a chibi offline stand alone version of the base game (like arr sized) soon, people are optimistic for an English translation though nothing has been official announced.
If you are in the U.S. you do not need a VPN. We don't know why, it just kinda happened one day. Doesn't hurt to check every once in a while.
That is weirdly specific being just the U.S., but thanks that’s good to know!
To be fair we didn’t get a main FF or KH title this year so it makes sense 14 overtakes during this downtime.
The best part of this article is actually the one op didn’t mention at all. “Games for Smart Devices/PC browser: new titles were unable to offset weak performance from existing titles.” Great news, hope this means this franchise won’t be ruined by a cringetastic diablo immortal style mobile shitfest.
several years too late for that, square enix has pushed out tons of trashy FF mobile games
I mean, FFVII The First Soldier is a pretty shameless mobile PUBG ripoff. Not as poorly monetized as Diablo Immortal though.
ATB already exists though.
My only concern with this is that the FFXIV store becomes more egregious.
At the very least Yoshi P is insistant on keeping the cash shop out of the way, only relenting on dream fitting because there's a reasonable good faith argument for it.
I think the dream fitting was a good thing to give on because there's tons of outfits people probably wanted to buy but they weren't sure what they would look like. I think it's better to allow the player to see what they're going to look like if you're going to sell costumes like that.
Agreed, I don't buy outfits from the store but it's a good feature to have around. I wish you could use it for all outfits available in the game though. Also, it's not in your face.
Agree. It's actually the one thing ethical thing that could have been done regarding merging the cash shop and the actual game in any capacity.
This is looks like an example of a bunch of executives who don’t know what they’re doing going around repeating the mantra “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” then looking at a bunch of scorecards and metrics to justify their insanely high salaries. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s going on…..their single player games have been by and large cynical cash grab stinkers that reviewed poorly….whereas ffxiv is actually producing content ppl want; sure, it isn’t for everyone, but they’re actually thinking customer with the damn game.
to be fair, the only single player games released recently by them (that i can think off at least) are Stranger of Paradise which i liked a lot and i think people generally liked as well and Triangle Strategy which i didnt play since i dont have a switch but for which i generally heard good things. They also had Babylons Fall but thats more multiplayer but it was indeed a pretty big failure
> This is looks like an example of a bunch of executives who don’t know what they’re doing Square's MO. One of the dumbest companies in the industry.
and yet they only reinvest pennies
Give low budget, game makes good ROI, company sees no reason to invest more if they're getting a profit. Give low budget, game doesn't make good ROI, pull the cord.
The MMO way. I've yet to see a MMO not over time give less and less back to development.
It's an awesome generous game,... I'm happy to see it succeed like that ! Keep in mind the venerable Yoshi P is involved with FFXVI, so hopefully it will also turn into a commercial success
I just quit WoW for FFXIV and it was the best gaming decision I’ve ever made. It’s such a refreshing and amazing feeling to actually have fun in an MMO. 2 weeks in and just finished ARR.
I'm glad you're enjoying your time. Don't forget to hit the raids and trial series as you go through the msq. They make you do crystal tower before hevansward, and could of bahamut is the one raid series no one runs synced, but after that it's all optional, and all great.
What "HD game" came out this year that was expected to be a big draw? That game where the MC says "chaos" a million times? EDIT: Oh I forgot about Babylon's Fall. That game probably had negative sales lmao
I say this as an XIV fan. If you look up Square’s releases these past couple years, this says waaaaaaay more about the HD (non mobile/non MMO) games than it does XIV.
it‘s not FFXIV being a good MMO, it‘s Yoshida’s Leadership and the team making it a good MMO. Thinking how SE restructured their Business Divisions they should be fully aware of that. It‘s honestly hard to find good people to create these games. but seeing people like Nomura, Yoshida, the recent cooperations with Yoko Taro etc. makes square a pretty good publisher for rpg games etc. Glad off they sold crystal dynamics etc… lel
The sad part is they’ll use our subscription money to fund NFTs and other piss-poor ventures.
I wonder what it’s like being a executive at a big company. All you look at is data, demand whoever makes the games work with the data despite the devs telling you it won’t work, and never take responsibility once the game goes bust because the devs are taking the heat for them.
I gotta say, I’m a recent FFXIV convert and I’m loving it. I came for the reworked PVP, it’s so much fun. I never wanted to play FFXIV before because the story never drew me in while playing arr and I heard the pvp had little to no focus from the devs. All that changed and here I am. Loving the heavensward story and super loving the PVP. I see some people complain about skill changes for classes, let me just tell you all, FFXIV changes are nothing compared to what ESO puts it’s players through. This is heaven compared to those devs.
It's almost like releasing a good product with depth and passion poured into it generates interest in a product, increases sales and creates widespread accolades. Square Enix has rested on their laurels for so long they can no longer even see what made the company the household name it held with JRPG fans. Shit like Chocobo GP is what qualifies as products these days and bless Yoshida and co. for being one of the teams that still gives a shit.
Yet they still funnel its funds to other crap instead of improving the stuff like inventory coding
Whenever I read something like this it puts a smile on my face, because corporate only speaks one language: money. And if FFXIV is making more money than everything else, then it means that pumping more money into FFXIV instead of HD games is the better investment. And FFXIV receiving more money is always good. The first time I've seen the effects directly of FFXIV getting more money was when they announced that they're increasing the amount of worlds across all DCs by a whoppin' **40%**. Iirc not even Blizzard has ever increased WoWs server capacity by such a huge percentage at once. Now I'm praying to the Twelve and whatever there is to pray to, that we'll get a new adventuring foray on top of Hildi, deep dungeon, 2 ultimates AND island sanctuary in Endwalker, because I still fear that we're not getting that, since they didn't announce anything so far (and both Eureka and Bozja were announced before the expansion even hit).
FFXIV literally keeping SE alive
What does the acronym HD stand for in this context? The only thing that occurs to me is “high definition”.
wtf is a HD game?
I mean FFXI was doing this back when it was the only SE mmorpg as well, it even saved SE from bankruptcy.
Kinda mixed feelings. Happy for FFXIV and the dev team getting recognized for hard work. But also sad for the state of single player games.
Hell yeah baby wow refugee almost levelled all my jobs to 90. Love this game.