FF XI Goes Live in Japan

Castolari writes "Gameforms reports about the Japanese launch of FF XI, Square's online venture with the series. Apparently, there's some serious technical problems with the server load as well." They also have some Screenshots. I'm still hoping that someone will get the MMORPG right in the not so distant future.

Comments

Re:Stay safe out there, everyone

[Te1waz]

You are not kidding.

I had to take the bus to work for a month after playing GTA3...

A. I'd lost the habit of driving on the left side of the road (I live in U.K/Ireland).
B. I had the temptation to mount the pavement to get past slow moving traffic.
C. I could not longer drive 1st person, I'd have to sit on the roof and control the car via a complicated set of cables through the sunroof.

I'm hoping the next version of GTA will have some neato network gaming ability. Imagine being able to hook up with an online cartel, or the thrill of starting a riot with other players or foiling their missions with a well-aimed grenade...

Your life or my life ?

[MosesJones]

I don't know about you but for some strange reason playing football (soccer), basketball etc with my mates is for some reason alot more fun than looking at a computer game.

Life isn't watching a TV set, and as good as graphics get, no game will ever equal that feeling as you blast in a shot from 20 yards, or nail a 3 pointer over your work mates.

Games are fun, but if you can't tell the difference between a game and your life... then you need help.

And no game ever will beat the smile you get from your kid first thing in the morning.

Cool game, I might get it, but please... like real life ?

Re:Your life or my life ?

[chrysrobyn]

Life isn't watching a TV set, and as good as graphics get, no game will ever equal that feeling as you blast in a shot from 20 yards, or nail a 3 pointer over your work mates.

I respect your opinion, MosesJones, but I disagree with the spirit of your statement. I'm a 26 year old engineer-- I'm not in the best of shape, but I work out three times a week. There's no way I can keep up with a true athlete, a few of which are my [co-workers|work mates]. "Blasting shots", "nailing 3 pointers", wouldn't mean much to me anyway. But when I can challenge my boss's boss to a game of Rush 2049 in Dave and Busters, and actually compete, that means a great deal to me. Electronics in this case even the field. He may be 39, but he runs for an hour every day and helps his 16 year old son practice football (American). With my current goals, I couldn't hope to compete athletically. But, I can keep up in a game, and we can have experiences that he'll talk about for months. What does it mean when your boss's boss happily talks about how you almost ran him off the road in a game 4 months after the fact? To me, that means we used the false reality to actually share a personal experience that ends up benefitting our professional relationship in the end.

And no game ever will beat the smile you get from your kid first thing in the morning.

I can't disagree with you there. Some day, God willing, I hope to be able to agree with you.

The online console wars

[Dark Paladin]

So, Round 1 of the console wars is over, with Sony far in 1st place, and Nintendo and the Xbox somewhere in second. (Most of my figures say Nintendo is in the 2nd place slot, but its so close nobody can tell.)

Round 2 has now begun - and it's over before it's even started. Look at the competition:

Sony - spend $150 on a 40 Gigabyte hard drive with ethernet and modem ports. Use with any ISP you with. Developers provide the servers.

The games: Final Fantasy XI, Everquest, and Star Wars: Galaxies

Nintendo - spend $35 on either an ethernet adapter, or a modem. Use with any ISP you want. Developers provide the servers.

The Games: Phantasy Star Online 1 and 2.

Xbox - spend $0 dollars - but you have to sign up for a fee (price unknown, assumed to be $5-$10 a month). Servers maintained by Microsoft (a point that kept that kept EA out of the Xbox online system.

The Games: Um....

This is why I sold my Xbox yesterday. (And have exactly enough in store credit that I could get a new one in case the Xbox comes out with something pretty damn cool.)

But so far, Sony is far and away doing the best job with online gaming, and with their partnership with AOL, and the Linux system on the PS2, I think the fears Microsoft had (as detailed in the first part of the book Opening the Xbox, where the Xbox was mainly a reaction to the fear that the PS2 would become a hoome computer), are all coming true.

"Right" means different things to different people

[JaredOfEuropa]

Some people do not like to go after anyone they don't like. Some people even don't like to fight monsters.

Which is fine! A problem that has often been mentioned in relation to MMORPGs is that everyone wants to be a king, a mighty warrior or a mage, and no one wants to play a peasant, underdog or craftsman. Existing MMORPGS have shown that that is not true: plenty of people do not mind roleplaying such a role. The truly succesful MMORPG will either cater to a sufficiently large group of one particular kind of player, or combine a multitude of play-styles, both within the game-world, and by having different worlds for different people (like the normal and the roleplay servers of Dark age of Camelot). I would prefer the second, since it will result in diversity, and create an opportunity to try different playstyles.

That is the hard part, try and make all of the following play styles and roles viable:
- people who like to play solo
- people who like to team up
- Hardcore / casual PvP'ers
- Both casual and full-time players. A big, big problem with many of these games is that low-level characters cannot join up with the more experienced warriors and go hunting together
- Craftsmen, peasants, merchants, diplomats, etc.
- People playing for fame, for gold, for fun or for company.
Also take in mind that people will switch from one role to the other often.

Next is your environment. You need stable servers and good staff, to help out players in trouble, catch grief players and cheaters, and perhaps provide content as well.

Lastly, players need to have an impact on the environment. This can take many forms, but the idea that your actions matter in the game is a big draw for many people.

Most of todays MMORPSs seem to focus on fighting and/or PvP, and have no viable crafter classes. The ever so popular 1st person view makes having conversations with more than 2 people rather hard Compare looking at a tiny chat window that shows all text around you, to the overhead view of Ultima Online, where speech text appears over the heads of the people speaking. Whatever faults that game may have, they got that part right. Lack of meaningful, non-aggressive interaction and having only combat characters as a viable class makes all the current MMORPGs a rather bland experience. Excepting Ultima Online: I have tried all the others, but I have never given up on that one. It is still the game with by far the widest possible range of play styles.

Butterfly Grid

[DeadBugs]

IBM and Butterfly.net are working to create a new network for Massive Mutliplayer Online Gaming. They are hoping to license the technology to companies such as Sony.
Here are some of the highlights:

Unlimited numbers of players within one persistent-state world

Advance, Distributed Artificial Intelligence

Every game genre

Multiple, concurrent games

Any connected device

Hot-swappable components

Shared-source developer sandbox

Re:Japan and bugs....

[DrSkwid]

How odd then that they don't even appear in the standings for the Motorbike World Endurance Championship
In fact *every* entry in the 2001 series was a Japanese bike.