Seriha wrote:
Might someone at SE hope for that? Sure, I wouldn't doubt it. Will it convince the XI loyalists? Nope. This is usually the point where someone might try to rationalize they're two different games, but I think it's more apt to recognize them as two different eras of MMOs. XI simply isn't capable of some of the more modern things under its engine
The irony is: XI managed and manages to do so much more that XIV currently isn't doing. So it's not an engine problem, that's like saying Unity can't do AI properly because it's not the Unreal 4 engine. It's a development problem, specifically direction problem. Yoshida doesn't want to "increase backend load times" which is why XIV feels more limited than XI when it comes to storage space - Look at the Porter Mog system, something that would kill XIV in a heart beat.
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In time, I think the "hatred" for what XIV has done to XI, real or imagined, will wane.
I don't think it will ever fade and none of it is imagined. XIV 1.0 was developed during WoTG, 2007 and released during 2010. Not only did they skim on XI development to make 1.0, 1.0 was never even completed at the end of it all. So that's a good bit of why XI suffered during that time and WoTG, to this date, remains the only expansion that spread its main content out as long as it did. Then comes ARR, which SE openly admitted to pulling almost every department and development member onto it, including XI's dev team, which ques: Abyssea trilogy which again, made permanent damage to XI whether good or bad, none of this would have happened in the way it did if it wasn't for XIV.
You're thinking purely player focus, but from THE OTHER SIDE of the coin, e.g developers, it did hurt XI pretty badly, and it was obvious, not imagined. Honestly, when you actually work in the industry, even for a year certain things become quite obvious to you much like when you're playing online games in general you'll ***** and moan about problems and "OMG 7 HOURS TO MAKE ONE CHANGE?", yet when you're the same person after working in the field relating to server technology, you immediately realize what's actually happening and no longer blindly assuming things.
It's not a "hidden push", SE made it clear over the last 2 years XIV will be their main MMO focus since it's the current hot topic. DQX is even suffering a bit due to ARR's development, more directly so because it was Yoshida's child essentially. Now ARR and HW is his next. XI would have been revamped and/or given an offline version as well but SE doesn't want to devote resources to it, which is why Heavensward being essentially 2.0 yet again isn't exactly the wisest decision but the MMO in general is geared more towards newer people to MMOs (Yoshida makes this clear) and the fact it's vertical progression but in the same breath he says the progression is halted until 3.1 (which is weird for an expansion alone that raises level cap to halt progress until the following update whereas in XI your "best in slot" was always split between multiple content) it's just weird times.
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XI at its height was never ground breaking
Incorrect. XI introduced an actual storyline that felt like such. Gameplay elements that were similar to older MMOs like EQ (what it was inspired by) and even to this day still introduced more features and content concepts other MMOs haven't. In reality, it's the older MMOs that are ground breaking, none of the new ones will ever come as such. Saying WoW was groundbreaking is weird when all WoW did was make MMOs easier to get into..it didn't exactly change the genre for the better.
If anything, Maplestory is groundbreaking, because it shown developers you can make SERIOUS bank on people, when before developers, by large, considered MMOs to not be insanely profitable and more of a risk than just sticking to offline titles. This kind of statement is why there will always be hate, because it's really hard to deny that XI, not only one of SE's most profitable titles ever, did indeed bring a lot to the genre for its time. WoW was released only 2 years later, meaning it was still an "older" MMO.
Edited, May 1st 2015 7:38am by Theonehio