Square-Enix Shows How NOT To Run an MMO
February 28th, 2010 by Samodean

Rally up, Nerd Nation. Some of our people are being hosed by Square-Enix.

My MMO-playing career started many years ago with Final Fantasy XI. I played for quite a while, but eventually left for greener pastures. The endless grind was getting to me. My girlfriend, however still plays to this day. Perhaps not much longer PAST this day, but at least TO this day.

While FFXI may not have been a roaring success like WoW, it was a success nonetheless. Along with City of Heroes, FFXI found its niche and built up a loyal core of fans, allowing it to carry on where many other games have failed over the years.

Of course, with a new wave of MMOs coming out, they need to evolve or die. City of Heroes seems to be moving in the right direction with Going Rogue, their first paid expansion in years. FFXI, on the other hand, is reinforcing what I’ve always known:

Square-Enix either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care.

SE’s annual VanaFest kicked off last night in Japan. They unveiled their plans for FFXI in the face of the upcoming FFXIV.

There do seem to be some nice story elements coming up to wrap up their most recent Wings of the Goddess expansion. While FFXI did many things wrong, it did tell a great story. Too bad the missions to actually SEE that story are a brutal pain.

The biggest announcement? They’re FINALLY raising the level cap from 75 to 99.

This is not as good as it sounds.

The level cap has been set at 75 since the game released in North America six years ago. To put the development of the game since release into WoW-terms, imagine if Blizzard had released Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King without raising the level cap. New content, new bosses, new items, even new classes, but no new leveling. Karazhan, Black Temple, Ulduar and Icecrown were all tuned for level 60, and tuned so freaking HARD that only a small percentage of the population had completed the entire gauntlet. Since there were no more levels to work with, new skills for classes are few and far between. Six years of careful tweaking has led to a nice balance that most of the players are content with.

Now imagine that Blizzard announced that Cataclysm would be raising the level cap to 80. Six years worth of balance, tuning and hard work completely thrown out the window.

Also, remember how much time it took to reach level 60 in old-school WoW? Well, to get to level 80, it will require the same amount of time, plus half. In WoW and many other modern MMOs, you gain experience through killing enemies, questing and running group events. FFXI is a pure grind. You gather up five friends and go hunt monsters for hours on end. Sure, the community has come up with some tricks that make this easier for some classes, but for the most part, it’s a pure, endless grind.

The best thing about cross-region servers? You can ask players in other countries their opinions. When my girlfriend asked some Japanese friends, they were THRILLED with the prospect of getting to grind out 24 new levels. It’s no secret that Eastern MMO players love the grind while Western players want something a little more interesting.

This is one the biggest problems I’ve had with FFXI since Day 1. The game has always been designed for the Japanese audience, with NO thought given to the North American and European players. We’re good enough to pay our subscription fees, but not good enough to have our voices heard in the community.

But WHERE will you grind? SE is adding in two new zones and adding some higher-level enemies into previous ones. To explain for the uninitiated: there is a limited amount of enemies in any zone, and even less that you actually WANT to fight at that level. They respawn incredibly slowly and are on a “first-hit-claim” system. If a zone has enough enemies to support three parties, when a fourth shows up, their options are either leave, or stay and NOBODY gets experience at a decent rate. The last thing you want in a grind is to make it take longer.

This isn’t WoW, where you have options. Sure, new areas are always a cluster-frak when an expansion releases, but you have options. With the exception of named quest mobs, there’s usually enough to go around. The more players in an area, the faster the spawn rate. You can run quests out of a less-populated hub. You can run instances for experience. None of this exists in FFXI. The entire population of each server is going to descend into these four or five leveling areas and fight over the same enemies. It’s not going to be pretty.

Ah, what about those server populations? “Unfortunately, in part due to some RMT activities, player population has diminished on some worlds.” First of all, SE has done next to nothing over the years to combat Real Money Trading. In fact, most of their “security” enhancements have prevented normal players from paying the game. Yet, RMT continues. Secondly, I’m sure the player loss has NOTHING to do with the fact that the game hasn’t changed one bit in six years, right?

“After many discussions, the consensus was reached to merge the lower populated worlds with fuller ones. The goal of the merger is to balance adventurer populations across all regions time zones and increase the quality of play for everyone.” You know, at least EA has the integrity to admit they’re shutting down servers for monetary reasons. We get it, there’s a new game coming out soon, and keeping all the old servers running is no longer going to be profitable. Server merges are nothing new at the end of an MMO’s life cycle. Just be honest.

So, we won’t see the entire population of a server descending on those leveling areas. We’ll see the entire population of TWO servers.

The changes and displeasure involved go much deeper than this. I hope to have more in-depth coverage of VanaFAIL 2010 over the coming days..

All information in this article is courtesy of the VanaFest 2010 Twitter

Tags: convention, FAIL, FFXI, Square