A Realm Reborn: A Look AheadFollow

Stellar gameplay in all it's forms is not required to survive or do fine. Meeting the expected functional critera serves that. Uniqueness is not required to sell millions. Developing a cut above the rest serves that. But to be a game everyone remembers, the game must accomplish and bring together all aspects into a well developed package.

Relentless drive/fervor is the recipe for success in life, work, and love. It can be good like Martin Luthor King or bad like Adolf Hitler. Will the game become the messianic coming of mmorpgs because of that drive? Probably not, who knows? All I'm sure of is this company has been humbled drastically. They realize that if that past notion of entitled arrogance was not fixed. Their company faces possible turbulent times in the future of this IP. Firing all the staff and closing shop may have saved money. But in that case nothing could be done to fix past mistakes. You can see the dedication to at least try. Yoshi looks like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, his body looks like it aged ten years since he took the reins. But he didn't shoulder it alone. He has a team of people who have that rare second chance. And a body of players that encourage or garrote him.

Now until the dust settles with the game releasing and attempting to find it's place. Neither you or I can do more than worry or speculate on it's future. But from what we've seen recently. One can not say the drive is not there. It's for this reason alone I feel the game will not die anytime soon. Regardless of what happens, all of us have devoted a piece of our heart & time to this journey. And anything that has those two factors can't be a bad thing.

Not my intention. But to say that the game speaks for itself at this point. It has turned a sufficient number of heads to look at it in a new light instead of a suspicious eye. The pessimism can suffer the scrutiny of the game-play, rather than the other way around.

An even if all that was invalid. Any meaningful discussion with those who do have more knowledge of the game would be hampered by NDA

Personally I would prefer if my skepticism were only used constructively, rather than to convince people that they shouldn't play the game. I would much rather other players recognize my concerns as valid and actionable, and use that to vocalize meaningful feedback to the development team. That's the only way any of this makes the game better.

But having said that, that's not why I come here, not even a little. At the end of the day, it's just a video game (from a franchise that I love) and I enjoy using it as a case study in game design principles. So while I would hope my skeptical words are taken as precautionary constructive criticism and nothing more, I really don't have a dog in the fight other than the pleasure of conversation.

Yep, Kachi was actually beginning to look like a normal person, and naturally Ostia has to take up the slack in haterade distribution. Sounds bout right.

Actually what I said Ostia is that the game at this point pretty much has to sell itself. Even if testiomony was available, those who are not currently excited won't be swayed by words. Some individuals have concerns to fall back upon when their concerns are aleviated. We've seen issue after issue be addressed as information comes to light.

Also, if this feels like Beta 1.0... I'd check your pill subscriptions or something because there was absolutely zero transparency for 1.0, through its entire development really. ARR's been more open than most western developers at this point and this is ignoring the fact that we're talking about Square Enix, one of the most tight lipped companies in the video game industry.

So no, this isn't a "it's just Beta" excuse. (The public annoucment was Beta starts the 25th btw) Wait and see for yourself. In the meanwhile, read up on all the interview data you've been ignoring. There have been other, more legitimate issues raised than the ones I've seen here.

Edited, Feb 23rd 2013 12:31am by Hyrist

Hey, I didn't trust my life savings to this guy to not drink the fruit punch at the end.