Square, FFXI, and the MMORPG

LukeG writes "Squaresoft's latest instalment in the ubiquitous Final Fantasy series will mark huge departure from previous titles, as they gamble on the popularity of massively multiplayer gaming on consoles. The genre, already succesful on the PC, has yet to be tested on a console audience, but that is exactly what Square are planning with the groundbreaking release of Final Fantasy XI later this year on PS2." I'm interested to see the FF world taken to an MMORPG. If anyone can make the genre not suck, it's Square.

Comments

It's Been Done

[cancrman]

It's called Phantasy Star Online. It did (and still does) quite well IIRC.

Too many sequals?

[68030]

I've heard it commented many times that the series as a whole is slowly declining and even more whining over Uematsu's musical ability, yet none the less the game continue to be popular enough to warrent a decent fan following. Each release will the first introduction to the series to many gamers. I would venture that many of those gamers do not own a SNES or NES that they could play the older games on, so the only frame of referance they have are the more recent sequals.

Square wouldn't be making another sequal if they didn't think there wasn't a demand for it.

Probably the same reason that almost half of the remixes at Overclocked Remix are from a Final Fantasy game. :P

There is one way to be sucessful

[Lumpy]

Make your multiplayer game NOT REQUIRE your companies servers to work.. The entire doom and Quake series is a testament to this.. and The best examples of how not to do it is anything that works with WON online. (SOF is a great game, and I finished it in single player mode. but then the game becomes a throw away.)

If I cant pop up the game, and select "play online" and then be presented with a list of games running from a list server (Open source so it's not that company hogging it) and play then it wont work.. WON games require you to sell your soul to them in personal information and then you have to go through their horribly slow servers. No I'm not going to create a login, no I'm not gonna watch your pepsi ad whil the game starts.

If Squarsoft screws up their Multiplayer with stupid "lock IN" devices then they will fail. and they will fail horribly.

I don't WANT an MMORPG FF

[mckwant]

I, evidently, am the only human on the planet who does NOT want his gameplaying experience to be sandwiched between 133t h7x0rz talking fractured, misspelled english at each other while wondering "any girlz out there?".

I happen to enjoy sitting by myself, undeterred by lag times or server outages, enjoying the content as provided. I may be the only one, but I hope not.

FF allows you to get into a movie, and play a role. I don't want to have to rely on anyone else to provide content, nor do I want to have to find people to go adventuring with.

If it's MMORPG only, I, for one, will not purchase it. Period.

end of rant.