Fewer points

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Fewer points of interest continuing the thoughts here below. With some redundancy.

– The characters are created on a server selected by the system. This coincides to a familiar “single-player gateway”. First few steps learning the basics of the game.

– Server travel is possible under certain rules to keep the population and factional balance between the servers even.

– The PvE is instanced and divided into two types. The first type is “small worlds”. Mmorpg-like instances hosting hundreds of players and working as social hubs. The second type is “adventures”. Private instances opened by the players for small groups up to raids.

– The PvP is sharded and persistent, as most of the current mmorpgs are structured through different “home” servers. Every character is always bound to one and just one home PvP shard. There are portals in all the PvP shards leading to the PvE “small worlds”. From there the players can go back to a different PvP shard if they want so. Shard travel would require the player to re-bind.

– Guilds are also bound to a shard, as are the characters. A guild can be moved to a different shard, but it will get dispossessed of territories conquered, shard-based resources and other forms of progress.

The idea of these points is to define the scope of the plan. The server travel system is there to regulate the population and faction balance on the PvP servers, while the PvE servers are simply instanced on necessity. Bringing together the need of persistence for PvP with a massive PvE world that can still remain balanced.

The barriers between the players are still there, for example in the form of PvP shards. This creates smaller, manageable communities. At the same time these barriers are kept permeable, so that the players can move past them. Join friends through the PvE instances or rebind to different PvP shards.

While moving between PvP shards is possible, the system is also planned to encourage the players to settle in their home shard to reach a stability. This is why the guilds are also bound and they cannot conquer territories and participate to PvP on multiple shards. The goal is to create server-specific realities, economies and social connections. So that the PvP isn’t felt impersonal and dispersive.

Balancing massive worlds

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As anticipated there’s something fundamentally wrong in the announce from Blizzard to “disperse the players”. This because from mmorpgs you would ideally expect the exact opposite: connect the players.

This is a topic of a general importance and something I often ranted about because it brings together design and technology. Often these two are treated separately and it is why so many recent games have huge problem to balance the server population, high and off peaks, high and low levels and even the factions in a PvP environment.

It is not a case that one of my first ideas was to find a solution to all these problems together. A basic structure planned around some core goals that I’ve always seen dismissed (or considered too late) in the current mmorpgs.

In the meantime a few mmorpgs made smaller steps toward that goal. While WoW got swamped with a inappropriate server structure even more aggravated by the foolish decision to divide the servers by timezones (that forced them a quick backpedaling by removing them in the servers tab just two weeks after launch with an hotfix) and forbid european players to play on the american servers, other games like FFXI and Guild Wars went through a more conscious planning phase and effectively achieved very good results.

We all know that in Guild Wars the whole world is instanced. As a zone reaches a certain population a new instance is created and the arriving players are moved there. This makes possible a dynamic adaptation: if there are only a few players around, one zone is enough, if there are more players to the point that the problem is the overpopulation, then they get splitted.

This brings to two important goals. The first is to keep the servers balanced, avoiding crashes, instability and cronic lag. The second is to keep high and off-peaks also balanced, which is important to have the PvP arenas always playable, for example. See in comparison how it is absolutely impossible to join a BattleGround in WoW during the morning. And notice again how their plan to cluster some servers is still inappropriate since it is still a fixed mechanic opposed to a dynamic, self-adapting one. The same limitation of the clustering plan made by Mythic (which is merely a less-dramatic server merge).

FFXI also tried something in the form of WorldPasses. Here the solution they found is more debatable since it’s considered as a huge annoyment by the majority of the players. The bottom line is: it worked, but it also pissed off everyone. In FFXI you cannot pick the server where your character will be created, instead the choice is automated so that the population is spread evenly between all servers. It is obvious that this is a major problem if you are trying to join your friends who already started on another server. So there was the possibility to override the automated choice with the in-game purchase of “WorldPasses” that could be used at the character creation to select a precise server. Simply put: a “referral code” given to you by someone already in the game. This code cost some in-game money so you still needed a player already there buying the code for you. Which was still quite annoying.

This mechanic was harshly criticized and still is. But it undoubtedly worked as expected and FFXI is today the game that has achieved the best population balance of any other mmorpg. It worked perfectly. All the servers show similar numbers and are equally populated. The decision to use “global server” to bring together players from all nationalities also allowed them to keep high and off-peaks almost uniform during the 24h cycle. With the considerable advantage that there are less risks that during sharp high peaks of population the servers start to lag and crash.

An undesirable rule that was still worth the pain? Only if there weren’t better solutions. And yes, I have one.

A better solution could have been about taking the WorldPass mechanic and overturn it. Instead of requiring established characters to buy referral codes to allow other players to join, they should have locked completely the possibility to choose where to create the character. With or without the WorldPass. Your character would be created in a server chosen by the system, without offering you the possibility to override this choice in any way. Then you would have the possibility to buy directly (and not through other players) a WorldPass working as a “server teleport system” so that your character could be migrated to the server of your choice. This would have removed the pressure to find the WorldPass as the very first thing you need to play the game. Letting you start to play wirthout worrying where you finish, because you will always have the possibility to move somewhere else later on. The server choice isn’t anymore a cage or an impassable barrier separating you from your friends.

What I described is exactly what happens in Guild Wars. The system itself picks the zones where you’ll finish, but if you arrive at the instance 9 while your friends are in the instance 3 you can still easily join them by picking manually where you want to go. Guild Wars has demonstrated that this is possible.

Now the problem is that GW isn’t a real “virtual world”, nor the VW is something in its objectives. It’s a different kind of game and it leaves out the traits that really define a “massive” online game (like “persistence”). The ideal of a virtual world. Even if it’s exactly in THIS ideal that the technology in GW would be useful.

You could argue about this “massive” idea. It is common to say that having thousands of players around you doesn’t really add anything worthwhile because, even in the best scenario, you’ll only interact with a few of them. The rest is chaotic, disorienting. It would just bring to something unmanageable. But again, this is false. Games like Eve-Online have concretely demonstrated that while you don’t interact directly with every single other players, these players still affect the game-world, so they still indirectly interact with you. Not just a potential, but something concrete. When these systems reach a decent amount of complexity (the systemic approach) every single element in the system has a weight and an effect on every other.

It’s important to segment the playerbase and create groups to keep the game and its community on a manageable level (for game designers and players). But it’s also important to make these barriers, these “wrappers”, permeable.

Permeable barriers.

Permeable barriers in the sense that they exist for an useful purpose, but at the same time they don’t become also restrictions.

Instead of a cage, they would become lines drawn on the ground. They define a space and help to organize it, but at the same time they still allow you to cross the line if you need to. They don’t trap you. They don’t isolate.

This concept of “permeable barriers” is a general one that I reused for other design core systems. Not only the server infrastructure, but even the class and the aligment system. Offering the players to experiment and never remain stuck in a state they don’t like. A system that can remain flexible and adaptable in every part. A system that remains open so that you can access all the content without unsolvable restrictions. A system that could “connect the players” and, in particular remain always accessible. Including instead of excluding. Opening doors instead of shutting them in your face as you try to pass. Something that “moves along” and favors the social fabric instead of going against it as another obstacle.

These are all goals from where I started. My system is based on a very simple principle. Think to the game servers as containers and think the players as water. The idea is to introduce the water into the system so that is kept balanced uniformly between the containers. From the very beginning. Then there is the possibility for the water to mix and move between the containers, but through a system of rules so that its level would be always kept even.

We have already seen in Guild Wars and in WoW (with the server migrations) that the players polish themselves if you give them the possibility to do so. Noone wants to play on a overcrowded, lagged server as noone wants to play on one that is empty. This balance happens spontaneously, this is the point. What is important is to design a dynamic system that can compensate and solve these core problems radically. As I often wrote my system is just a possible implementation but what is important is that these problems are tackled appropriately and not months after release when shit happens as with WoW. At that point it’s too late and you’ll never be able to go back and plan the server infrastructure differently.

Two moments.

One is about replacing the level system with a skill-based system to avoid the segregation and division of the players.

The other is planning the server structure so that it can valorize what these game can offer. Meet and play with your friends and other players you don’t know yet. Removing all the obstacles in the mmorpgs currently on the market.

Random thought

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I was just thinking that it wouldn’t be conceivable to start hosting official interviews and previews on sites like this one. We just select and comment things we pick outside, we don’t produce content directly, nor we are a vehicle for anything. External observers.

But I really cannot understand how the game companies can find acceptable to give previews, interviews or whatever else to more official and commercial sites when these sites put on the same page a bunch of ad banners publicizing the competitors.

If I was giving out an official interview or preview, I would pretend, at the very least, to not have competitors publicized in the same page and, often, even between a line and the other.

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David Allen? This name sounds familiar…

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Or he is back or this is a case of homonymy.

Noone remembers David Allen? Come on, there was much drama around him. He is the guy who started Horizon before he quit and was replaced by the other clueless guy (David Bowman). Then he went to start another company without any concrete foundation (Pharaoh), planned big and failed again. I think in the meantime he only delivered a crappy “Eye of the Beholder” clone. More or less on the same level of the Glitchless guys and Dawn.

I went digging old links and stuff but got bored quickly. You can find some legendary stories here, though. The internet is rich if you have time to waste.

Summarizing, this is part of the golden age of mmorpgs when everyone thought you could homebrew one in a garage with a bunch of amateurs. I thought this age was long over and that we didn’t believe anymore on fairy tales.

Instead he is back. At least for a laugh.

“As a group of dedicated gamers, we feel that the design of Crusade marks the direction we would like to see the industry go,” said David Allen, co-founder and CEO of QOL. “The MMOG subscriber base is growing at a rate that the current quality of products cannot keep up with. We must raise our vision of what is held as innovative and learn from what has been successful. Stay grounded while reaching for the stars. That is what Crusade is about – taking MMORPGs to the next level.” David continued, “we are also working to establish a strong player-developer relationship that allows the player base to actively participate in the ongoing development of the game by interacting with our team members to provide detailed feedback on what is important to gamers. Evolving the core concept and design of Crusade during development based on player feedback is key to developing a successful product.”

Yeah, sure. /yawn

I’m sure he can see the stars.

Some people REALLY never learn. It seems time didn’t pass at all, they took him back out of the wardrobe and he’s still saying the same stuff with the same confidence.

Just the other day I was writing how we really don’t need another mmorpg. In particular amateurish ones that are dead before even entering the very first day of development. The day of brand new companies who pretend to do a mmorpg as their very first project are over. If you want to be in the industry and have a talent to offer, join one of the companies who are already out there and do your best to make things as good as possible. As I wrote, all these game worlds have huge potential and they only need resources, execution and good ideas.

There’s so much to do. And noone needs another pretentious shoebox sold as a mmorpg.

You can be sure he won’t go anywhere, but you can be also sure he’ll try again. How sweet.

Something fundamentally wrong

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I don’t really know what to think.

I don’t really understand how a Producer’s letter for a mmorpg can start with this resonant objective:

Dispersing the Population

I mean, it’s just wickedly wrong.

I know the reasons, the situation and all the rest. I know what it means and why they talk about this.

But think to what a mmorpg really should be. There’s obviously something that just isn’t working as it should.

Something at the core.

At least this is followed by something better:

The new zones added to the game in The Burning Crusade will increase Azeroth’s current land mass by 25 percent. To insure that Azeroth continues to feel vibrant and populated, we will be increasing the player caps on all our realms by the same percentage.

EDIT: I was thinking about this. They are adding another starting zone for each race so the “space” for the entry levels will be upped of 1/3, which means 33%. I also guess that there will be less content in percentual connecting the early and late game, leaving more of it for the 60-70 range and the endgame.

Now if we think about the expansion it’s quite obvious that there won’t be many reasons to reroll new characters. I suppose that the large majority of players, or returning players, will log in their level 60s and rush to 70. This means that 90% of the newbie characters as the expansion launches will be of the new race. So we will have an overload of one noob zone while the other three are deserted. In the longer term all four will return to their semi-empty status.

The rest of the players will be once again packed at the cap, or moving toward the cap. Considering that 90% of this endgame is trapped in private rooms, the percent of the land mass added won’t really matter much. There will be another temporary overload and then another stagnation at level 70.

Considering that the current cap is around 3200 players the 25% increase will bring it up to 4000.

—
They also say that this summer they’ll finally open the character transfer service and they hint they’ll use this as another way to balance the servers.

Scheduled to go live this summer, this feature will allow players to move their characters, within certain restrictions, to a realm of their choosing. This means that player’s will now be able to join their friends on other realms without the need to wait for a pre-set mass realm transfer. In addition, this will also contribute to a balancing of the player load from realm to realm, which again is a specific way for us to reduce realm queues and lag.

I’ll return on these arguments because they are of a general importance and Blizzard’s workaround is lame at best.

Anyway, it’s quite sad to read a producer’s letter just about hardware issues.

“Yes, two years have passed and we are still swamped trying to unfuck a fundamentally flawed infrastructure.”

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Do One Thing

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Both Darniaq and Ubiq wrote some thoughts after an interview with the Garriott’s bothers and I think they bit a poisoned leaf (Darniaq thinks aloud but doesn’t seem to arrive at a conclusion).

I find those marketing strategies fundamentally flawed and I expect there will be a backlash sooner or later. It’s true that there’s a group of casual mmorpg players with ADD that jump from game to game, but I see this as a periphery of larger consolidations of players. I wouldn’t base any business on a completely unreliable target. It’s foolish.

Darniaq summarizes that strategy in two points:
– Portfolios are good. Why offer one title when you can offer many?
– Retention in a game is good. Retention in your portfolio, better.

The scenario doesn’t look so well, from my point of view. A miriad of mediocre games that could have a potential, but that are destined to have a forgettable and brief life.

I can imagine some players trying a new game as it launches, but I really cannot imagine that, in a year, players bored with Dungeon Runners will go buy Auto Assault. Come on. This strategy could work while we are still in a mmorpg frenzy phase where everything is undecided. In the longer term I think the dust will settle and the purchases will be more driven by the confidence the players have in a product and a company.

My point of view here is somewhat rigged because I don’t see the “churn” as a feature. But as a standard of quality. A solid playerbase means that the game has a value, so it’s a general definition of “worth”. Trying to embrace it would mean embracing a mediocrity. Favoring volatile, forgettable experiences. Swarming the market with a bunch of products to disorient a noob customer.

It could work till the market is chaotic and immature, but I don’t see this as a good strategy in the longer term. I’m from a completely different school: do one thing, invest everything you can on it so that it can be the best possible. This is the only way I see to hope in a growth. Betting on the quality of what you can do, your dedication and commitment to offer the best service you can.

NCSoft strategy looks instead more like a market speculation, at some point they’ll need a magistral exit strategy.

I also don’t understand how their ideas apply to the single company. It may make sense for NCSoft to have “casual subscribers”, but how can the single games survive without imploding? Chasing the mediocrity grounds the quality, it doesn’t improve it. Things go progressively worse, not progressively better.

I don’t know. I really cannot understand how it can be better to disperse the resources on multiple projects that will be short-lived and with no future, compared to instead *consolidate* the resources to do something right. And when you got something right you can work to build on top of what you achieved. This is the only way I know to hope in a growth. Working toward a goal, reinvesting. Adding bricks to a solid house instead of building a bunch of shacks that will be blown off by a weak wind.

I always wonder what could have happened if SOE used and reinvested all its resources in one game instead of spawning multiple ones. Every time I hear about a new mmorpg in development I roll my eyes: do we really need another?

I’m a wannabe designer, but I’d never try to start from zero in a brand new company even if I had the possibility. That’s a recipe for failure and this industry needs a consolidation of resources and talents. Not more fragmentation and more unfinished, amateurish projects with no future. We had enough already of those. “Bring together”, join the efforts. Every single game world has a huge potential, it just need ideas, resources and a good execution. Not a wipe and a restart every two steps.

Building things so that they can last. So that they can be solid. If we are two groups with similar goals it makes sense to work together so that the house can be more solid. It’s part of the cooperation.

I hope that in the future won’t get swarmed by a bunch of mediocre titles competing over a tiny group of players. Instead I hope there will be more aggregation. This is how I think the market should be tackled.

Even from the perspective of the development good results only come from well-oiled teams that learnt to work together and perfectioned what they can do. Blizzard came out of that. An high churn is never good. It isn’t good for the communities as it isn’t good for the developers.

It’s true that “communities are portable”, but seconding this concept never brought to good results. When SOE built EQ2 the former EQ players didn’t move to it. They moved to WoW. I think communities try to choose an home with a roof that appears solid and doesn’t drip. There are of course swarms of players that float around these consolidations, but I wouldn’t found a market on them. You are trying to survive of the breadcrumbs of passing players.

It would be interesting to map the migratory fluxes between games if we had precise, disclosed data. But I suspect that the major ones would be unidirectional. Because the core point is this one: how many come back? I still think that these players are more on a research driven by a dissatisfaction. As the market matures I think we’ll see the opposite of what Ubiq says. The players will know better what they are looking for and will become less incline to move. Harder to seduce with inconsistent hype.

I also don’t think that the companies that NCSoft “hosts” will like to be used as disposable fuel.

This is how I would rewrite those two rules:
– Better do one good thing to which you commit and dedicate than a bunch of mediocre ones.
– Retention is an health measure, even (and in particular) in a competitive market.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor it was made of paper. (!?)

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SOE rises the bar

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Yes, but of the prices of their games. Heh.

Yesterday the announcement of an increase of 3$ for the Station Pass, bringing it to 25$. It is starting to feel rather pricey, even more so if you consider that european players have to pay taxes on that. Which brings the price to 30$. Not a small amount to pay monthly. Plus original games and expansions that you have to purchase separately.

Now, I’ve written in the past that I’m all for rising the monthly fees. No, I’m not crazy. Behind this statement there’s a development plan. I believe that expanding a game through expansions finishes to hurt the game because instead of working uniformly on every part, as a choesive project (like Eve-Online is doing), you are forced to develop “optional” parts and never address core issues that would improve the game significantly. Basically you are bound to an horizontal development that brings directly to the mudflation and a game world that ages awfully.

The idea to increase the monthly fee came with that premise: we up the monthly fee, but to keep a serious, radical ongoing development that replaces the expansions. That is part of the monthly fee. As long you are subscribed you can experience all the game has to offer without any barrier or divisions.

Here SOE not only upped the price of the Station Pass, this would be negligible and I glided on the news, but they are also going to rise significantly the prices of the upcoming expansions.

Today the announce of the new EQ2 expansion, slated for November and named, as anticipated, “Echoes of Faydwer”. The very first thing I noticed in the press release wasn’t the features list, but the retail price going up to 40$ and approaching that of a stand-alone game. It reminds me Guild Wars, but in this case NOT stand-alone and WITH the monthly fee. I guess that’s what they meant when they said they were going to slow down the release of the expansion packs to improve the quality. This surely wasn’t planned as a gift.

I have a suspect. There have been rumors that the upcoming WoW’s expansion will be rather pricey. I think SOE with this press release wanted to send Blizzard a clear sign. *nudge-nudge* Let’s rise the prices together.

With the difference that WoW isn’t that pricey. This November you will probably have to buy the expansion and the basic game if you want to open a new account. It’s not a small price, but still less than what you’d have to pay for a “full” EQ2. Three expansion packs plus three adventure packs. For european players you still have to apply taxes at least for the adventure packs and monthly fee, something that doesn’t apply to Blizzard. Game boxes and monthly fees.

There’s also another relevant difference that should determine a completely different marketing strategy between the two. Blizzard is betting on returning subscribers with this new expansion, they have a huge pool of players to draw from. Instead I think SOE should aim at luring in new players. This would require a completely different and aggressive approach, instead of moving along with Blizzard as a parallel line. They need to collide, not to cooperate.

The “price of admission” to EQ2 is significantly higher, and if you count the expansion, adventure packs and station player services, Station Pass and RMTs, SOE resembles more like a sponge for money.

This June the third adventure pack will be released, “The Fallen Dynasty” (7.99$), about which we know three relevant traits: high-end content, asian-themed and outsourced.

Developed in conjunction with SOE’s Taiwan studio, The Fallen Dynasty Adventure Pack promises to deliver the same downloadable story-rich content seen in the previously released The Bloodline Chronicles and The Splitpaw Saga, but this time with Asian influenced adventure zones, weapons, tradeskill rewards, as well as all new quests.

A few more words from another preview:

Veteran players will get to explore seven new areas, visit a new village, explore a new dungeon – there’s even talk of a forsaken city. We do mean veterans, though – only level 55 to 70 need apply –

The few screenshot on the newly opened page look pretty. But not as pretty as the asian-themed Guild Wars and, in particular, I seriously doubt it will move at the same framerate.

But lets even look at the feature list of that massive expansion coming out for EQ2:

Echoes of Faydwer is the third expansion pack for EverQuest II, and introduces a new playable race, The Fae. An enchanted race of winged creatures, the Fae dwell on the continent of Faydwer, in the arboreal city of Kelethin, the new starting city being added to this latest chapter in the EQII saga. Echoes of Faydwer includes over 350 new quests, a new selection of profession hats, cloaks, armor, and new horse mounts available to players of all levels. EQII players will encounter over 40 new types of creatures to face, more than 20 new zones and adventure areas, and will be able to compete against other players for new PvP (Player vs. Player) rewards, plus all-new items, equipment, spells and tradeskill recipes. The Achievement system introduced in the Kingdom of Sky expansion has been enhanced to include additional sub-class abilities, allowing players to further customize their characters’ abilities.

Which all amounts to the usual: Nothing New.

There isn’t really any new idea or significant development. Not a single new feature. Zones, monsters, quests, items, skills, spells. But nothing adding a different flavor if not as an overstretched, bloated “More Of The Same”.

Looking at the official site there are a few more details but not so encouraging. There is a bland copy of WoW’s jewelcrafting system with the addition of “adornments” that can be applied to armors and weapons to gain a few bonuses and a “Belief System” which sounds like a faction with some prizes to get.

Both Guild Wars and Final Fantasy XI have tried to explore new and innovative gameplay modes with the recent expansion. On this perspective EQ Classic is experimenting a lot more and developing new systems and types of interaction even if it’s also plagued by its incredibly dispersive and inaccessible scope. EQ2 here risks to borrow the worst. Just the overstretched development without any significant progress for the game. “More content”, but nothing that stands out or brings something new to the game.

I’ve recently written about the entrance of new players in the game. I even discussed various strategies to add new content at the low levels without fragmenting and dispersing the community, while still enriching the game. Here SOE seems to dismiss every valid consideration to just reuse a mindless approach: more zones, more quests.

I think EQ2 deserves more ambition and should develop a more aggressive marketing strategy. Instead of reconfirming a stereotype.

The prices go up, the ambition goes down.

Let me backfire now

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Now that I’m pissed off, let me backfire.

I had archived (when I still didn’t have reasons to flame the game) a link to a Gamespot review of FFXI on the XBOX360 to comment later on. It fits prefectly the momentum:

Preposterously long installation period, plus layers of unnecessary inconvenience; virtually nothing done to enhance the experience for the xbox 360; slowly paced action and exploration caters almost exclusively to the hardcore; tough-to-swallow monthly fees required.

That’s a quite good beginning, isn’t it?

Let me quote more:

There’s something to be said for a game that can stand the test of time. Final Fantasy XI Online dates back to 2002, when it was originally released in Japan. Clearly inspired by the influential massively multiplayer PC game EverQuest, FFXI infused the online role-playing formula with the distinctive look and feel of Square Enix’s hugely popular franchise. The game naturally attracted thousands of players, many of whom stuck with FFXI over the long haul, since it featured a deep character class system and a huge, evolving world to explore. However, it’s simply impossible to look at FFXI for the Xbox 360 in the same way as the previously released PC and PlayStation 2 versions. Paradoxically, that’s because this latest translation of the game is essentially no different than the others. It makes no concessions whatsoever to take advantage of the Xbox 360, and it practically goes out of its way to inconvenience and alienate new players. If you’re addicted to FFXI already, now you can play it in HD on the Xbox 360 if you feel like buying another copy. But if you’ve avoided the game up until now, you’d best keep that up.

The game’s sprawling environments and initially slow-paced combat makes the underlying action feel like a chore even early on.

Just beginning play for the very first time literally takes close to three hours, from the hour it takes just to install the game to your Xbox 360 hard drive (the game gobbles up more than a third of the total amount of free space on that thing), to the hour it takes to update the game files once you connect, to the hour it takes to enter about half a dozen registration codes and, finally, spending a few minutes to create your character. Like other versions of FFXI, this game is unfortunately saddled within Square Enix’s PlayOnline viewer, a shell that provides you with a free e-mail address and some other completely unnecessary services. It must be an inextricable part of the game, but all it does here is make it more difficult for you to jump into a session of FFXI.

Once you’re in the game, you’d better get comfortable, because the slow pacing means you’ll have little to show for your time spent unless you play for at least several hours at a time. You’ll also find it’s almost impossible to make progress after a while unless you join a well-coordinated group of players. And after you manage to find an adequate group and start slowly grinding your way toward your next level, killing monster after monster, you’ll naturally pressure each other to keep playing. In the past few years, online role-playing games have evolved to cater to more types of players, by doing a better job of accommodating people with less time on their hands or those who prefer the option to play solo. Such games as World of Warcraft and City of Heroes have attempted to become less restrictive, easier to get into, better looking, and simply more fun than their predecessors. By comparison, a game like FFXI feels like work, not play. No wonder the game’s character classes are called jobs.

Another issue worth mentioning is that, for better or worse, FFXI throws all kinds of different players into the mix. That means you’ll run into Japanese players running the PS2 version of the game, American players running the PC version of the game, and so on. Most of them have probably been at it for months already, so don’t expect much sympathy as you try to learn the ropes. Don’t expect the game to do a good job of teaching you the ropes, either. The manual spends about as much time explaining the registration process as it does telling you how to play, and the game itself pretty much drops you into the world without any instruction. At least the PlayOnline service itself offers some advice, though in FFXI, you’ll have to learn most everything the hard way…or hope that an experienced player is kind enough to walk you through some of the finer points of etiquette, grouping, combat, macros, travel, and so on. Prepare for a frustrating uphill battle just trying to get your bearings in Vana’diel.

You can still look forward to some decent character graphics and environments, but this game looks seriously below par, and rough edges like an inexplicably uneven frame rate and distant objects suddenly popping up on the horizon hurt it further.

While each of these expansion packs add substantial amounts of content, none of them are likely to even come into play until you’ve already invested dozens of hours in the game. So while FFXI has grown over time, it hasn’t really evolved. One of these expansion packs might have done something about the interface or the graphics, for example.

Whatever mystique there was surrounding FFXI is gone now, and what’s left is a great, big game that’s almost intolerably cumbersome. If you’re very brave, masochistic, or stubborn, you might find some rewarding experiences in FFXI. But chances are good that you won’t. Considering this is the first time the Final Fantasy series has appeared on the Xbox, it’s hard not to feel sorely disappointed by the slapdash job done in clumsily pushing this game onto the 360.

That’s what I define a good review. Even if here I collected the gripes, these are good gripes, whether you like the game or not. The point is that you can like it. But IN SPITE of these problems, and not because they do not exist. These are problems that existed since the very beginning and that affected just everyone. Square did very little to address them and the game remained essentially the same without even trying to improve.

I believe FFXI is a wonderful game. One of the best mmorpgs, sitting close to WoW. Even better on certain aspects. But the fundamental point is that the game is CRIPPLED
by absurd problems that could be extemely trivial to address. This is why the lowest common denominator is Square’s masochism in those choices that cut the legs of this game and, as the review says, alienate possible players.

Some of the common gripes have good reasons behind and I can even defend them. Compromises that have a foundation. For example the “worldpass” mechanic (you cannot create a character on a server of your choice) was a “lesser evil” that pissed of every single player. But that was still able to effectively achieve the miracle of balanced servers. See what is happening to Blizzard and you’ll understand why this choice wasn’t so terrible.

The same for the decision to unify the interface and technology between the different hardware platforms, or the decision to have global servers to cut the maintenance/administration costs while striving for a good ideal. There were good ideas behind, good principles. Even innovation and the desire to try something different. Something to strive for.

But beside those valid points, there were also other, fundamental flaws without good reasons to support them. From the decision to not allow the game to run in a window or deleting not only the characters, but even whole accounts after a period of inactivity, to the very little work on the game client to take advantage a bit more of the different platforms.

It wouldn’t have been too hard to code a better mouse support to improve the controls on the PC.

That review lists and explains clearly most the perceived major problems at the high level. It is interesting to notice that the great majority of them aren’t even directly related to the game.

The issues of course don’t end there. Even the game has serious accessibility and design problems and it’s again interesting to observe that it was fairly successful in spite of them. It’s a game with a huge potential, high production value and execution, but that suffers from very simple problems that are evident to everyone but Square (and here there’s obviously the cultural gap that hinders a good communication between the comunity and the japanese devs). It could have been much, much, much more successful than how it is now but it is again grounded by those basic flaws. As I wrote on Q23: “I hate the retard, masochist parts of the game, not all of it”.

FFXI is a game I always wanted to love but that has remained really hard to approach for me. I’m sure I’m part of a large majority in this.

It’s fundamental for every mmorpg to remain flexible, evolve and adapt. FFXI, while remaining one of the best game worlds to date, performs very poorly with these three.

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FUCK YOU, SquareEnix

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It seems I have no luck buying european expansions for mmorpgs. And SquareEnix continues to have a passion for masochism.

This morning I received the latest expansion box for FFXI. This time it comes as just a dvd box. I always like to find manuals and give them a read while offline, I’ve already commented as it would be a good idea to start giving the retail boxes more value as we move to the online distribution. Not through lame items in the game, but with some content in the form of good manuals, atlas and so on. Something you wouldn’t find in the digital download and something that would appropriate for a physical box, like something you can read offline.

Well, this dvd box has two DVDs inside and a sticker with the registration code. Nothing else. Not a single piece of paper, not even install instruction. I wish I could have got a digital download version, but it seems it is too smart for them. So I can only buy a retail box that is essentially empty.

I’ve seen a discussion complaining about the lack of transparence on the monthly fee if you buy the game for the XBOX360. Well, the expansion box for the PC version I bought doesn’t tell you anything. There’s “online” written in the title, obviously, but no mention that it is an online game, nor that it is an expansion pack. It doesn’t say anywhere that the basic FFXI is required to play. On the back of the box there are five screenshots and the system requirements. Nothing else. It doesn’t say anywhere that it requires FFXI, nor that it is an expansion pack, nor that it requires a monthly fee. What you can see is the title logo and the “PlayOnline” logo.

I said there are two DVDs in the box. Well, one is for the manual and nothing else. I’ve looked at this manual, it’s a pathetic five pages pdf. Let me repeat: a WHOLE DVD used to contain a five page pdf. If this isn’t retareded I don’t know what could.

So I insert the other “game” DVD to install the expansion… and I cannot. It tells me that Final Fantasy XI is not installed. The problem is that I am using the american version, and it seems that I cannot install the english european version I bought over the english american version of the game.

No, I’m not that stupid. The past expansions WERE compatible. I guess this isn’t anymore the case. Right now the billing system is down for maintenance so I cannot say if the key-code works, at least. I’m quite sure it won’t. Anyway, I won’t be able to install the files, even though they are identic to the version I have.

As the billing system comes back up I won’t go there to register the expansion, but to cancel my subscription for good. I wish I could send them a FUCK YOU in big, fluorescent letters. I won’t touch another SquareEnix online game with a long pole. It could even be the Jesus of mmorpgs.

EDIT:
To begin with, I was owned (they rebill the first of the month, one day late to cancel).

While I was waiting for the billing system to come back up, I was able to install the expansion by creating dummy registry keys and let the game believe it is the european version. This worked smoothly and I was able to verify, patch and run the game without a hitch. The client works with all the expansion enabled.

Now the problem is that it doesn’t fucking accept the european key code. Let me rephrase. I have a working client with all the expansion enabled, but now I cannot activate it because it doesn’t accept a fucking key code. What is the purpose of this, I really don’t know. Square self-publishes and distributes, so they don’t even have a good reason to protect the local market. Why do they care where I buy the expansion? They have global servers no matter where you live and a multi platform game, but you still cannot use a fucking key code from a different country. The billing system physically resides in the smae machine, it is in Japan, and it still discriminates over a key code for no apparent reason. I bought the game legitimately, but this is still not enough to let me play the game.

My account was created when the game launched in the US. I don’t want to spend 60$ just for the shipment plus taxes and there is no fucking way to buy a gooddamn keycode online because it seems we are still in the prehistory of the internet. Or maybe it would be a too good business practice while Square must always do something stupid to fuck up their games. What is fun is that with my username and password I can play on any client version. On PC, PSX2, XBOX360. From Italy, Japan, Australia or USA. But not the fucking key code. It won’t work. The key code is the only goodamn thing to be picky.

Fucky you, SquareEnix. I’m done giving you money.

Btw, when shit happened with SOE (see the first link) the problem was promptly acknowledged. I don’t think Square will come in my help this time. “Customer care”, of course.

P.S.
To complete the fun: a gaming magazine in Italy received a review copy of the expansion from Square. Obviously european. Since this expansion has only high-level content it’s necessary that you enable it on an account with an high level character. But their only account with which they originally played is american since the european version was published only one year after.

They weren’t able to play the game and Square will do without its review. Win-win.

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