Since Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was released, I’ve been playing pretty much every day. I’ve got a Gladiator to level 50, and every other battle class to at least level 15. Per my Raptr Profile, I’m just short of 200 hours played, and I decided last week that it was time for a break. I haven’t started to dislike the game or anything like that, but I have that feeling I get when I’m about to get burnt out on a game. So, break time. Coincidentally, I just picked up a copy of Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX. I’ve been playing that like a boss. It includes Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, and Kingdom Hearts re: Chain of Memories, both of which I’ve played previously. Also included in the pack is all of the FMV cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (heretofore known as KHD) in a kind of movie format. I played KHD when it initially came out, but never quite finished it.
Things came up. You know how it is.
Finally got around to watching the story, and OMG, I’m pretty sure that there were ninjas in my apartment cutting onions. Either that, or the whole thing just got me right in the feels. It feels odd to remark on the story of a game that’s been out several years, but the movie-like presentation of the KHD story in the KH 1.5 HD ReMIX deserves special mention.
Anyways, I’m sitting at a bar while writing this, and so I’m going to go back to making fun of hipsters while talking about the government shutdown. Y’all have a good week, great gaming and happy Oktoberfest.
In a brilliant change of pace, we record the show on Google Hangout. In this episode we cover the launch of Final Fantasy XIV: a Realm Reborn, the rise of the pay2play model, Neverwinter’s expansion, and of course dabble into EverQuest Next.
The betas for Final Fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn are finally over, Early Access starts soon, and official launch soon after that. I’m going to miss the betas, as they’ve been an interesting experience; I’ll miss the beta forums most of all. As such, I want to say a public good bye to all the people I’ll miss.
I’ll miss you, the wannabe critics who points out “flaws” in the game but offers no suggestions on how they should be changed or fixed.
I’ll miss you self-styled designer, who’s feature should be put in POST HASTE!
“Hey everyone, check out this really weird UI I created and posted to deviantart! I think Square Enix should just start using it immediately rather than the one they’ve been spending all their time perfecting and polishing!”
I’ll miss you arm-chair producer, who apparently wants FFXIV to be some other game entirely.
“Instead of Eorzea, the game should be set in space! And instead of chocobos, we should all ride space ships! And instead of shooting arrows and wielding swords, we should all use blasters and lightsabers!”
I’ll miss you other arm-chair producer, who thinks FFXIV is way too much like another game entirely!
“This game is a WoW-clone because it uses WASD movement.”
I’ll miss you .gif reaction thread because you were frakking hilarious. You gave me this picture of a female Ellezen walking through Limsa Lominsa.
I’ll miss you, repeat poster. Boy that searchbox was hard to use.
I’ll miss you .dat miner stupid enough to post in the official forums.
I’ll miss you, free-to-play doomsayer!
I’ll miss you, uber-entitled Legacy hater!
I’ll miss you, person who said B3 was too hard; now you’re saying B4 is too easy!
I’ll miss the White Knights, those players who defended Square Enix at all cost, even when something they did was demonstrably bad.
I’ll miss the rage-quitters, “cancelling” their pre-orders! Goodnight you princes of Eorzea, you kings of Hydaelyn.
The problem Everquest Next has isn’t that the graphics look highly animated. It’s that it looks like a cartoon. Specifically it looks like cartoons that young children would like. This pulls it out of the teen demo which has historically been the target for the majority of MMOs and lands it (whether intentional or not) into a more general audience. This raises the question of how mature can content be, when they know children are watching?
Whom is EQN designed for? What is the target audience? Right now it looks very plausible that 10-year-olds will flock to the game due to the Saturday morning cartoon animation. If SOE knows this and wants this, that means they must game design around it.
Even if they don’t want it, I can see the confusion parents and kids alike could have watching promos for this game. It would absolutely look like something that would be appropriate for a young child. That means parents will buy it for them, thinking it’s age appropriate. That means kids will end up playing it. And that will most certainly have a massive effect on the community.
Is SOE concerned that 10-year-olds are going to want to play this game?
Does SOE want this game to be for 10-year-olds and their parents?
Does SOE want this game to be for teenagers and adults?
How young are they targeting with the game?
These are answers they should be able to answer now. Hopefully we’ll get them soon.
‘SOE Live’ is now over and some (cryptic) information has come out for the new MMORPG kid on the block, Everquest Next. But one of the major glaring omissions from the information shoveled carefully spoon fed out to the awaiting masses is PVP implementation. Perhaps though we can read the tea leaves and see maybe there’s more than what you would find at first glance. I would like to take you down the rabbit hole with me, as we explore the possibility of faction PVP in Everquest Next.
First to establish that there will be factions in #EQN and to what extent will their importance be.
We know that factions are important because John Smedley tweeted this in response to a question about factions:
@mhoward48 you have no idea just how far we are going to make them important. Oh yeah. You will both be very happy.
Specifically I’m going to look at two questions that happened at the Q&A Panel. For brevity I have omitted non-pertinent crosstalk. Link to the panel video included below. The three devs that are answering the questions are Dave Georgeson, Terry Michaels, and Darren McPherson.
Regarding Faction or its equivalent in the emergent AI to what extent will it shut players off from content for example. Me and my guildies start up in Qeynos and do like good Qeynusies and clear out gnolls nearby. One of our guildie friends does what he always does with his character which is kill merchants and sell the loot to the gnolls. Is he going to be shut out from questing with us because he’s not going to come into Qeynos or share our quests or anything. Unless of course he…he… [snip] Will there be no place for him in our guild cause he can’t quest with us?
So great question. We want you to be able to play how you want and who you want with the friends you have. So having locked in exclusivity for I can’t go to Qeynos anymore – would be difficult. There’s a balance to be struck there and it’s something we’re still working through, so that’s a great question.
And remember the game remembers things that you’ve done and it impacts the world around you.
Yes.
We want you to be making choices that matter. And so, They’re going to be consequences for the choices of your friend that are going to be different from the consequences that you choose to partake in.
From this exchange we know that Darren has expressed looking for a balance, but in-between those comments Dave and Terry stressed the importance of choice having consequences. At that point you see Darren nod in agreement with the two gentlemen. The one main thing you get from this answer is that choice has consequences.
Now we will look at the second question.
Top Question on reddit right now is for me to ask about racism. Specifically, will NPCs or entire towns of humans kill you on sight for being a dark elf and vice versa?
Yeah. Good Question. So, We answered something similar to this the other day. It just touches on the stuff we already talked about. We aren’t going to release the details of the lore. But when you log into the game, orcs won’t like you. And they will kill you. That’s a race in the game. What you do…will determine…what the races do and how they view you. Without giving away spoilers to how the story works, you will be KOS to some things, some people, some races for sure.
Will those be races that other players are apart of?
Right. (shakes head in agreement, smiling)
And that’s the answer we can’t give you.
That’s the answer we can’t give you right now. Right?
First off, awesome top question reddit! Very nice, but let’s look into the answer more.
When we look at these given points of information together:
NPCs will be KOS based on how that race ‘feels’ towards you.
Players will be of the same race that these KOS races are.
Smedley’s tweet about factions “You have no idea how far we’re going with them.”
Choices matter, even if that means you might be separated from other players/towns.
And perhaps the most insignificant moment is the most poignant.
After Darren McQuid’s confirming other players will be playing the same race that you may be KOS to, Dave Georgeson says “And that’s the answer we can’t give you.”
Why? Why can’t they answer that? They already had in fact. Why would Dave feel the need to step in? So I don’t really see why it would be such a big deal to talk about players being of the same race/faction as NPCs that are KOS to you. Unless…
Unless that means those players would be KOS to you as well?
joystick love 
