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The Hassles of FFXI on the 360
Via GameSetWatch, an IGN article looking at the frustration and hassles of the SquareEnix PlayOnline interface on the Xbox 360. From the article: "If you've played FFXI previously, the process of going through Play Online to get into and out of a game session may seem familiar. On the PS2, which didn't have a complete Online solution like Xbox Live, Play Online's existence was justified and even welcomed. On Xbox 360... not so justified, and definitely not welcomed."
Before you mod me troll, hear me out...
I am a LONG time fan of square, from back in the days of the original nes final fantasy games up though the "Secret of XXXXXXX" games and even up to FF7, but recently they have been pissing off a lot of long time fans such as myself by implementing dumb ideas like this. It seems that they are running out of ideas. Crystal Chronicals when compared to such gems as Chrono Trigger looks like they arent even trying anymore. There is no more story, there is no more feeling for the characters, there is no more fun. Just empty shells of what could have been really great games.
I dont want to see them fail by any means, but I refuse to buy into these half assed attempts they have been making.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
Maybe they missed the hastle of dealing with SE all together. The useless GM's, the horrible IT staff that can never keep things running (wait no, the game is being "DDoS'd"), and the emergancy maitnence that never ends when it is supposed to (I didn't want to play on my day off anyways).
But then again, M$ Fanboys should be completely used to such problems.
Scott Swezey
"On the PS2, which didn't have a complete Online solution like Xbox Live"
Bwhahahahah!!!
It is mind boggling to see the remnants of Microsoft's late 90s dream of creating their own personal Internet that they completely control and have a tax on use that has shown up in the xbox in a vastly reduced form being used as some sort of fanboyish whine about a four(?) year old game Microsoft was given as sign of contept of their pathetic status in the console market.
So the point of this article is that Square designed Final Fantasy IX to include a complete system for registration of players, management of accounts, and now that they are trying to port it to the Xbox360 which already contains that funtionality...they are having a hard time.
Wow, big suprise there. While I am not going to absolve the Square-Enix team, they're taking a game made for one platform, and putting it on another platform which has a totally different set of features they are required to use. I don't really see this as news. If the person who wrote this article is pissed, just think what the dev team is dealing with. They are required to do certain things for the Xbox 360, which conflict with infistructure already in place because the PS2 (nor will the PS3 support) any kind of unified online service. This means that every individual developer/publisher will have to develop their own solution for online play. When you try to move those solutions to another console which has an inteligent design, you will get burned.
Of course players will want to access their old accounts (if they allow this feature) so they will have to tie into the existing user database. This will confuse users because they will have an Xbox Live login, and then a FFIX login, and there is no good solution to this.
We PC players had to put up with the exact same crap. Eternal install times, stupid interfaces, bad jazz music. Then there were the patches...
Will there be issues, of COURSE there will be issues. Is it dated? Well last I saw Ultima is what 10 years old or so and still being played? Is it for everyone, probabaly not the normal American 360 players but then general opinion is it wasnt ment for them nor are many MMOs in the traditional sense since they have a want for fast pace action akin to what SoE did to Star Wars (and we all know how well that was recieved by true MMO players)
Seriously Im starting to both get tired by people thinking
a) betas are ment to be perfect representations of the game.
b) all games HAVE to be exactly like the twitchy first person shooters on PCs
c) Everyone HAS to love your game or else.
Course I would expect nothing less from IGN since they have managed to alienate most gamers against each other in recent months.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
After all, they did just release this awesome GBA game called "Final Fantasy IV". It's the latest and greatest of the FF series and you should definitely give it a try before giving up on Square/Enix.
It reminds me of the glory days of console RPG's on systems like SNES and PSX.
I'm not saying you're a troll, but I wonder exactly what you're talking about here. Specifically, what "dumb idea like this" you're referring to. Also the sanity of the article in question.
First, assuming you're referring to FFXI when you mean either "dumb ideas like this" or "there is no more story," this is far from true. FFXI has a very deep and long-running storyline; the fact it takes a lot of work to experience may turn off a lot of people, but no one is demanding they play it, either. In fact, I warn most people away from FFXI unless they have time to dedicate.
But the story is just about as Final-Fantasy-esque as they come. (There is even Cid!) I will not spoil it (and indeed I don't know a good bit of it, having not yet played all the way through it), but there is far, far more than your typical MMO, involving multiple large story arcs. Both current expansions (Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia), as well as the upcoming Treasures of Aht Urhgan, are for the most part story additions, consisting of a large number of new missions.
While the game is obviously adapted toward a large multiplayer world, you still have all the typical Final Fantasy bits you'd expect, like riding chocobos, fighting large critters, summoning familiar faces, and going to weird magical worlds to save the planet. But you do it with your friends, and you are the characters that experience the story. (Given the fact FF1 and FF3 had "you" as the characters, not predefined roles, this not something unusual to the series.)
But it takes a major time dedication. This is not something you will finish in 50-100 hours. This is for people who want to have the time they spend now still paying off after a year, two years, three years down the road. (Although you will be "into" the game in a much shorter period of time.) It's not for everyone.
On the issue of PlayOnline, having used POL on a regular basis (being a FFXI player since the PS2 release), I can say (along with many who have played it since the PC beta) that POL is very nice. This is one benefit of "some companies" to leave the online handling to publishers; when they need an integrated multiplatform framework, they're not locked in by the platform.
The article basically boils down to "waah, this UI is just like the PS2 version!" What do they expect? The interface provides uniform features to two other platforms. Unless Microsoft wants to provide its Live functionality to other platforms, only exclusive titles are going to use it. This is something XBOX fans had better get used to.
Additionally, it's somewhat humorous to note the complaint about 6GB of space taken up for the hdd image. The X360 drive is suprisingly small... even the PS2 HDD is 40GB, and the FFXI image there (which loads completely and requires no disc) is 12-16GB now with all the expansions loaded. Yes, this is a big game. Don't complain to Square about having a lot of content, complain to Microsoft about having restrictively small media.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Crystal Chronicles should be compared more to Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, or even Secret of Evermore, than Chrono Trigger.
The fucking game works the exact same goddamned way on the PC, which ALSO has absolutely no reason to do so.
You start the game. The launcher comes up. You log in. The launcher DOWNLOADS A FUCKING WEBPAGE that contains the root menu. Not kidding. You select "Games" from the root menu. You select Final Fantasy XI. Then you download the Final Fantasy XI menu. And you can tell those are downloads, because it takes a good five seconds for the fuckers to load, and you can watch the pages download over a packet sniffer.
So now you're playing the game, right? WRONG. You then select "Play Game" to actually START playing the fucking game. So that's a single click, right? Wrong. It pops up a dialog box warning you that FFXI will ruin your life - at least they're being honest. Click "OK" to that. Now Final Fantasy XI FINALLY starts.
And asks you to accept the Terms of Service agreement, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME - which is totally pointless, 'cause they don't bother enforcing it. Then, FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY, you're at the Final Fantasy XI title screen, and it's just one more menu level before you can actually choose a character.
Of course, there's a "shortcut" icon that's supposed to skip the above steps and take you straight to the Final Fantasy XI menu. It doesn't. It just makes it so that on that first screen you get a "Final Fantasy XI" option at the same level as the "Games" option. So instead of "Games -> Final Fantasy XI" you can just go "Final Fantasy XI". Good job, Squeenix, way to earn that monthly fee.
Given that the system is so backwards and braindead on the PC, I can't imagine it won't remain as braindead and backwards on the PS2.
Fortunately Dragon Quest VIII came with a FFXII demo, so I now KNOW I can safely ignore all things Final Fantasy from Squeenix now. Squaresoft is dead, and Final Fantasy along with them.
First, assuming you're referring to FFXI when you mean either "dumb ideas like this" or "there is no more story," this is far from true. FFXI has a very deep and long-running storyline; the fact it takes a lot of work to experience may turn off a lot of people, but no one is demanding they play it, either. In fact, I warn most people away from FFXI unless they have time to dedicate.
WHAT?! The story is cutscenes. CUTSCENES. That's IT. JUST CUTSCENES. You play absolutely no roll in the story. None. There are no choices. There's no influence at all. Just cutscenes. Eventually someone will probably decode the datafiles and allow people to view the cutscenes without having to go through the task of playing the game.
What's even better, is that there's little logical reason as to why you're unlocking the cutscenes. Essentially you'll go fight some raid boss with 18 people, and then unlock a "story". Yay.
But the story is just about as Final-Fantasy-esque as they come. (There is even Cid!)
Cid does not make something Final Fantasy. The story is NOT Final-Fantasy-esque in that NOTHING HAPPENS. You can't alter the world. The world is ALWAYS the same. The story may as well just be a series of cutscenes you have to unlock, it's incidental to the game.
I will not spoil it
I will, at least the core game, not the expansion packs. Shadowlord summoned beastmen that are swarming the world, making it a more dangerous place than it otherwise has to be. You go and kill the Shadowlord...... and nothing changes. Yay.
So not only do you have no influence on the story, the story has no influence on the world.
(Given the fact FF1 and FF3 had "you" as the characters, not predefined roles, this not something unusual to the series.)
Actually, based on that 1:5 ratio you gave, I'd say it is...
POL is very nice
Um, no. It's a hastle. A GIANT hastle. There's ONE GAME on PlayOnline: Final Fantasy XI. (Well, and their tech demo, Tetra Master.) There's no reason to have to touch PlayOnline. RTFA! The author is 100% correct.
I could barely put up with POL when I played on the PC, I can't imagine having to put up with it on the XBox360. POL is just an annoying hastle you have to go through to get to the game.
...it wasn't welcomed on the PC version, either. Yet there it is, patching itself uselessly every time I played FFXI. Maybe they felt bad FFXI didn't have as many bugs as SWG so they thought they'd get as much of their quota of MMO annoyance out of the way as early as possible.
I had to get all the way to the ultra-tedious resource gathering and tracking which stores were open when before I remembered what kind of game it was.
-jpowers
Lets count the clicks it takes me to get into WoW:
1. Click the button on my hotbar.
2. Type in my password and hit enter.
3. Doubleclick my character.
So, 3 or 4 depending on if you count the doubleclick as two.
Now lets examine FFXI.
1. Click the ffxi button on my hotbar.
2. This actually just opens up pol, so click login.
3. This brings up the password box, but it is already filled in. Click login again.
4. It thinks for 5 or 6 seconds and we get the main screen. Click "Games"
5. Click "FFXI" instead of "Tetra Master"
6. Click Play FFXI on the welcoming menu.
7. Click the "ok, I won't forget to feed myself or use the restroom" button.
8. Click to skip the opening cinema.
9. Click '"play" to get to character selection.
10. Doubleclick your character.
11. Doubleclick your "Handle" (a completely unnecessary creation that is distinct from both your character name AND your login ID).
12. Confirm your choices and hit "OK".
Simple! 12 clicks (14 if you count doubles) and you're in the game.
Or you could just hold down Enter/ X, until you ended up in the game-like a normal person would.
I guess the PS2 can't keep up with the game.
or maybe its a beta.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
I guess you didn't play FFXI for long. Step 4 can be obviated if you activate the shortcut option in the control panel. Step 8 can also be disabled. Hell, I did that before I even watched the damn movie. And the Handle selection process doesn't exist anymore.
Handles existed so that people could choose whether to have a character friended or an entire profile of characters. Let's say I have two separate characters that I both play, one with a bunch of rowdy guys and another that I play solo quietly. I can allow people to friend my first character without them even knowing of the existence of the second character. If they were on the same handle, then people would know I had another character and they'd see it if I logged in on it.
POL is stupid for many reasons, but you are stretching things out. I can get logged in within 15 seconds. Step 4 isn't "thinking" - it's network communcation and authentication. There's a network activity indicator in POL - I guess you never noticed it.
The thing is that POL was designed to be everything that Live is, and the reason that FFXI never made it onto the Xbox was because Microsoft wouldn't let Square use POL, and, as I'm sure you're no doubt aware, there's a very good reason for that. POL was also designed to eventually blossom into a "portal" of sorts, which is why Square charges for services like PlayOnline Plus. They were hoping to make it a one-stop communications centre so that they could make money off of you even if you weren't playing a game.
Also, as many people are aware, the Japanese player base is far larger on the PS2 than on the PC, and many PS2 players don't even own a PC, so POL provided a messaging tool that those players may not have already had.
I know it's fun to be indignant and make fun of everything Square does these days, but let's be a bit more informed and realistic, please.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Yeah, so I just started up the PC version, and, um - that doesn't work. You have to press Enter every single step of the way.
I don't know when you get out the POL viewer and into FFXI itself if you can just hold enter, because the update process is also a giant hassle. You can't tell it to just keep trying, you have to press Enter every single time the update fails.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Now lets examine FFXI.
1. Click the ffxi button on my hotbar.
2. This actually just opens up pol, so click login.
3. This brings up the password box, but it is already filled in. Click login again.
4. It thinks for 5 or 6 seconds and we get the main screen. Click "Games"
5. Click "FFXI" instead of "Tetra Master"
6. Click Play FFXI on the welcoming menu.
7. Click the "ok, I won't forget to feed myself or use the restroom" button.
8. Click to skip the opening cinema.
9. Click '"play" to get to character selection.
10. Doubleclick your character.
11. Doubleclick your "Handle" (a completely unnecessary creation that is distinct from both your character name AND your login ID).
12. Confirm your choices and hit "OK".
I have no clue what you're talking about..
1) I double click on POL. Since I'd previously hit remmember password and auto-login, it brings me straight to the main menu. I see that I have no new messages or mail.
2) I click on games.
3) I click on final fantasy.
4) I click play.
5) I click play again at the "don't forget you have a life outside of this game!" screen. Which I feel is nifty and wish that WOW would have a similar one so that may people who now play that game and I used to know would get a hint.
6) Hit "ok" at the accept TOS screen (just to save them their ass)
7) Hit select character.
8) Select a character, and confirm selection.
And I'm in. Fast. Painless. No bitching.
Hey! It finally completely updated successfully!
And you can't hold down Enter to get into the game once in the actual game either. You actually have to press Enter every step of the way.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
By comparison, in WoW the process is "Fire up WoW, type in password, click login, click enter game world" (possibly type in account name if you don't have the auto-remember setting checked). If you're playing a different character than you were last time, add one mouse click. If you're playing on a different server, add three. Total elapsed time for the typical case is about 15 seconds, most of it at the loading screen.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Not only do you have to press the enter, you also have to select some options (like "I agree, I will not ruin my life playing this game") which are not the default options. And you can only type your input after the screen is fully loaded, which literally doubles the amount of attention you have to pay since the entire process gets bogged down with pointless 3D eyecandy during the load screen. I liked FFXI for a while but the login process was something decent shareware developers would have slit their wrists over ten years ago if they had let it into a program.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Blizzard must have been feeling left out, as they have (since the last patch) made WoW pop up a 'launcher' first, which displays a mini-browser with various news items about the game, and has a little sniff round your machine to see if you are running any cheats. It can be disabled by faffing about with shortcuts, but still, it just shows how much these companies love their portals.
Having played FFXI for over a year I can agree with the author of the article. The login process for FFXI is horrible. You would think that SE might learn something from other games. For WoW you launch it, enter password, select avatar, and play. Usually takes about 20 seconds, and you don't have to wade through 10+ menus.
"it's still pretty slow at copying data over from DVD to hard disk. "
From the DVD to the what? The Core system doesn't have a hard drive, and because of it I distinctly remember Microsoft saying that no game will actually require the hard drive. Are they now backpedalling?
"And then, of course, there's the nuisance of having to fully log-off in order to exit a game of FFXI."
/shutdown instead of /logoff next time.
Try