Todays FFIV newsletter spam made me laugh. I played FF14 for about 2 hours after it was hot off the press. In its state, I cannot see how anyone can turn the game around to make it any better. Basic gameplay mechanics are wrong as well as the lack of a tutorial of any sort. Which ends up with you killing one rabbit, then make a shot at another and die… for hours.
Screw that. I understand that FF14 “just came out” and it does not have the development time of 6 years behind them like World of Warcraft does, but for the love of all things gaming: get the basics right!
Official juice is at the link below while I have quoted and gave some rant-like responses.
https://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/topics/detail?id=c499e4c5df4f3f0fde1fb47a28574cb9c3991c9f
While more than two months have passed since the official launch of FINAL FANTASY XIV service, we deeply regret that the game has yet to achieve the level of enjoyability that FINAL FANTASY fans have come to expect from the franchise, and for this we offer our sincerest of apologies.
At least they are sorry. I am sorry, also, that I paid money for the game. I looked on the box to confirm publisher at least 10 times during the one hour long install process that failed to complete (update failed to apply at 98%), followed by another hour uninstalling the game, just to try and install it over again. I did not include this idle time in my “total game time played” as it would greatly inflate what should have been “fun” time and instead it was WTF time. “Square Enix” I kept telling myself, “it will be a good game.”
After thorough deliberation on how to meet those expectations, it was decided that the most viable step was to approach improvements under new leadership and with a restructured team.
Translation: Management will be in the unemployment line as of yesterday.
We realize time is of the essence and are fully determined to provide our customers with quality service. It is because of this that we ask our customers to be patient until we are able to confidently present them with a concrete plan outlining FINAL FANTASY XIV’s new direction. The free trial period will be extended until that time.
Oh … just take your time, like you should have done before it ever hit the shelves. Pushing out crap for a Holiday drsdpm release does not mean you get a lot of people behind you or pull people away when the rival Blizzard kicked out an oustanding sequel to their MMO with little or no issues. That is what time affords you. I can play for free? If I could decipher the damn account management website, I would be all up for that.
Losts more in the release, but I just wanted a few cuts to comment on.
Now, time to figure out how to log back into the game, I may look at the pretty pictures once again, since that is the only thing going for it.
Update: After reinstall, large patches and a successful account reactivation (I canned it 3 days after original release), I logged back into the game, just to be greeted with downtime due to “maintenance”. As a side note, account expires January 3, 2011… I assume that it will be extended at that time.