Epic's gon on record saying that the fully Cell-supporting version of UE3 shown at E3 took about 3 weeks of porting effort. That doesn't exactly scream "development difficulty".
Read: Gouge the Darkies Edition, Sell to OEMs and then Something Better to the Poor Bastards who Bought It Edition, Sell to OEMs and then Something Better to the Poor Bastards who Bought It (With Added Reacharound) Edition, Actually Useful Edition, Actually Useful Before We Integrated Outlook Edition, Junket Edition, and Redhat Aren't The Only Ones Who Can Ship 9 CDs Of Redundant Trash Edition.
Zeta's a really poor example to cite there---the inexact translations were there by order of the Japanese, who thought that the revisions would get across the point more effectively.
They weren't necessarily -right-, of course, but it's not really fair to blame a bit of outside-imposed Lucasism on the poor bastards given a mandate from above to get out a series that's the Japanese division's bread and butter yet a guaranteed bomb here.
Doesn't seem too likely; early '06 launch is right in line with all expectations, and in fact a longer life for the PS2 than the PS1.
Also note that FF3 came out 27 April 1990 to the Super Famicom's release 21 November, FF6 2 April 1994 to the PS's release 2 December 1994, and FF9 7 July 2000---4 months after the PS2's release on 4 March.
There're the people who are sure they have the one true way, and in all fairness are probably, within the rules of the game, right, but require the exact proper setup to get there. When they don't have that, they tend to break down due to lack of versatility. The better NA players and, I've heard, most of the high-level better Japanese players tend to be like this---after a year and a half of playing, I'm still only lv.40 on my main, with the other people I get detailed play reports from topping out at 55, so I can't directly comment on endgame.
There're also the people who, whether through self-delusion or laziness, have found a provably "false" way---often, one just as difficult to accomplish as the "true" one, but in any case making some distinctly and obviously poor choices out of ego, mistaken assumptions, or personal style. You've touched on these in your post; they tend to break down in all but extremely rare situations.
Then there's an optimal middle path---the versatility to do things that are uncommonly needed, without sacrificing the ability to function in a somewhat-optimal party. Some of my best XP/hour has come from mage-stacked groups in which the RDM was able to pull out armor and a shield and act as first voke for SATA, or a pair of ninja shared tanking duties and I as PLD was asked to pull out my greatsword and start chewing meat 'kabobs since there were no DDs seeking, or hunting worms in Koroloka with a MNK tanking standing far away and spamming Boost while everyone else, playing either PLD, RDM, or WAR/WHM, meleed and rotated cures so none of us took hate from the MNK.
Is a RDM usually a good first voke? Not really, but when it's the difference between SATA and no SATA, it's worth it. Is a PLD the best at hurting things? No, but with proper skills, ability use, and equipment, he can certainly have a decent effect. Is WAR/WHM ever acceptible in a party? When it lets you keep the worm hate on the guy 40 feet away loaded down with +Earth gear, huge HP, and constant Barstone, it's hard to argue against.
Sadly, a playstyle that values versatility seems to be limited to those sated with enough in-game rewards to keep them from craving the absolute fastest advancement possible, yet who aren't completely dedicated to the kind of endgame content where perfect execution -is- everything. While a lot's been made of the difference between NA and Japanese playstyle in the past, I think in the end a fair amount of the "Japanese difference" is the ability to relax and enjoy the game, as I've felt it in a number of LS statics too, even those that I wasn't typically a part of but only a one-session replacement for catching up to someone who'd inadvertently outleveled the others. It's unfortunate that most of the NA player base hasn't yet reached a point where they don't -need- to progress with utmost speed to feel satisfied; however, judging from the history of the game, that day will come soon; just as it has for many of the Japanese who aren't completely caught up in endgame events and/or drama.
Yeah, I should've noted "for damage". Debuffs and other non-damage effects are doable, but weren't really the use I was trying to get at---namely, a Blizzard Whatever for the kill.
Dragoons are worthless if you don't know how to use them. As a heavy DD class, they (and everything else but monks on skeletons) will lose to a well-funded ranger. However, what they lack in raw power they gain back in accuracy bonuses (of a level that most other melees are paying millions for), and the capability (especially in later levels) to sub RDM and use wyvern breath to become a fairly-effective healer. Of course, if you've got the "omgwtf must be leet" mentality that was epidemic among the Japanese at NA launch, and is still epidemic among the NA, you'll already have your NIN tank, Taru WHM/SMN, and your three RNGs, and you'll be rushing off to tear 200xp a shot kicking and screaming from IT++ mobs no matter how long or how many consumables it takes you per kill.
Red Mages being gimped bards is, again, a matter of usage. Bards can't debuff in the same ways, can't do decent elemental DoT in melee, can't burst off renkei, can't rapidly heal, and can only have two spells in effect per target at any one time. However, if you're convinced that RDM is there for Refresh and only Refresh, then...
As for melee/support balance... well... slightly over half the jobs are melee. Slightly over half the -party slots- are typically melee. The main issue with melee invites is that, barring endgame monks, the average party has a set short list of places where they're willing to play and mobs they're willing to fight, and the RNG's ability to throw gil at problems tends to be amplified through these. Nerfing TP gain from Barrage like was done to other multi-hits and changing the HQ yield on arrows from 33/66/99 to 33/33/66/99 would probably improve this... but so would players realizing that if they can't have steak, they're at least better off with a hamburger than nothing. Sadly, there's a good half-year or year to go before this becomes common.
Finally, you're a bit confused about the concept of FFXII. The game engine itself is similar to FFXI with AI-controlled allies, which makes it not too dissimilar from a long list of decent games such as the Star Ocean series, Bioware's Infinity Engine games, and even Secret of Mana. It's only in plot that relation to FFT-A, and Vagrant Story and FFT, are brought in---it's being developed by the creative team behind all of those games, who have thus far used the Ivalice setting for all their projects for Square and later Square-Enix.
There are a few solid technical problems, or at least unintended effects, in FFXI, such as RNG's damage supremacy on common mobs, NIN's unanticipated tanking ability, and predictable NM spawn times; however, the vast majority of "issues" that the playerbase identify are, at worst, the lesser of multiple evils.
a new S-E MMO, "a href="http://www.playonline.com/fe/">"Fantasy Earth The Ring of Dominion", has been announced and in development for some time, with release scheduled for 2005. The system itself is described as a fusion of vaguely PSO-style "action MMO" and "real-time strategy"; this seems to be in keeping with S-E's philosophy of limited PvP by faction.
With the announcement of this and the release of FMO last month, as well as the continued support of FFXI mentioned elsewhere in the interview, it seems unlikely that a FFXI sequel is pending.
While Japan's certainly a major market, it isn't for this generation XBox sales---in the past week, it's sold a total of 161 (not a typo!) units accordinc to Media Create's sales numbers---fewer than the original GBA, and one for every 200 PS2s sold in the week.
While MS is banking on it doing better next gen than this, the Japanese titles creating what hype there is are both slated for Summer '06, some few months after the PS3 launch. Thus, barring something major coming up in the next few months, the initial Japanese shipment will probably suffice for some time.
Already been done. Sakaguchi earned a resignation-demotion for the failure of the movie; and, in fact, in addition to the changes after that FF12 is being done by the team that used to comprise Quest and has gone on to do FFT, FFTA, and Vagrant Story at Square, with direction by Matsuno as part and parcel.
Mario, who's often brought up, has been appearing in sports games for longer than some people on this site have been alive---yet no one gripes about NES Open, even when they bring up (GC or GBA) Mario Golf. Even beyond that, things like Dr. Mario or the truly wretched edutainment titles for the SNES featuring him are ignored by people hoping to improve their retro street cred at the expense of reality.
For that matter, -three seperate- unrelated properties have appeared under the Final Fantasy name in various places; the first SaGa series -and- Seiken Densetsu were marketed as such in the US, while the first SD also was marketed as "FF Side Story" in Japan; and then there's FF: Mystic Quest. All of these back in the idolized 8- and 16-bit eras.
Hell, Dragon Quest 8, in its Japanese release last year, managed to sell about 1 copy for every 30 Japanese citizens---this from a series with only one other entry since the SNES, but a huge pile of spinoffs ranging from top-down action games to monster-trading Pokemon clones to graphical takeoffs on Nethack during that period.
As for FF11, in particular... Even ignoring the fact that the average pretender "oldschool" gamer's complaint is "WTF, why's it so hard, take so long to play, need play sessions so long, and have a loose mission structure? I want the old FFs back, where there was actually a challenge, a good amout of playtime, long dungeons without savepoints all over ruining the challenge, and it wasn't so cinematic!", the fact remains that over the past year, S-E's grossed about $90 million directly from it---that's more money than changes hands directly to retail stores, never mind their lower wholesale price, of a 1.5 million seller. Love it or hate it, you can't complain that it's harming the odds of putting more money into more FF titles.
Various Japanese devs have a long history of getting licenced games right---Camcom put out a series of quality Disney licences for the NES and SNES, while Konami's TMNT, Simpsons, and X-Men arcade games were quite good. The Macross property's been farmed out to various publishers with some excellent (although some crappy) results, and Banpresto, with development support from, among others, Winky Soft and From Software, has proved adept at pumping out great games games that feature a variety of giant robots.
Unless they're making further changes from the Japanese version, it's not 3d at all; the sprites are just updated and a few forgettable character portraits are added in.
(Gameplay-wise, there are some difficulty tweaks and a certain pain-in-the-ass additional quest in 2 to worry about.)
Two screens isn't -too- unusual; it can easily be thought of as one screen, only half of which is touch-sensitive. Aren't there PDAs with a similar layout?
Also, there definitely is a ROM containing a simple onboard system. Not necessary one focused on providing services to other software, but a whiteboard app and the wireless drivers to make it worthwhile count for something.
Are there any player/tagger combinations that support multiple ID3 tags per file? Not as in "one ID3, one ID3v2" but as in "three ID3v2s, the second two of which are hidden in library/playlist except when corresponding to a search".
The release date is 7th July, coinciding with Sakura Taisen 5 and a week before Super Robot Wars Alpha 3; most of the major importers appear to be offering preorders already.
FFXI's a poor example there---at minimum estimate, it sold double that, with an added couple years of $13 a month per.
That said, there's a long list of other sequel or franchise bombs just this year; Capcom's gotten relatively few sales out of Resident Evil 4, and Namco's take on the Gundam franchise sold around 200k in the face of initial shipments of 500k and pre-rease predictions of a million.
One could argue that, especially in those days, "money" and "prestige" were synonymous with "security". Certainly, Spain's high position in Europe rose and fell on the back of exclusive trading with the colonies. Of course, I'll grant that such things were nowhere in the motives of the explorers; only those that funded them.
Slashdot Mirror
Platinum Hits isn't exactly a new idea---there have been budget reprint lines since at least the SNES.
Epic's gon on record saying that the fully Cell-supporting version of UE3 shown at E3 took about 3 weeks of porting effort. That doesn't exactly scream "development difficulty".
Read: Gouge the Darkies Edition, Sell to OEMs and then Something Better to the Poor Bastards who Bought It Edition, Sell to OEMs and then Something Better to the Poor Bastards who Bought It (With Added Reacharound) Edition, Actually Useful Edition, Actually Useful Before We Integrated Outlook Edition, Junket Edition, and Redhat Aren't The Only Ones Who Can Ship 9 CDs Of Redundant Trash Edition.
PS3 supports both Blu-Ray and DVD-ROM games. CD support, however, is currently unannounced, except for PS2 and PS1 titles.
"10-year lifespan" doesn't mean it'll be the lead product in the line.
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/244743.asp is just one example of this effect.
Neither the XBox internal HDD nor the PS2 peripheral one can be upgraded officially.
"When it came here" is inaccurate. The Japanese version uses "Damacy" as well---even pronouncing it without a Japanese accent.
The Japanese have been doing it for about two decades, beginning with VHS. US translations of various of those have existed nearly as long.
Zeta's a really poor example to cite there---the inexact translations were there by order of the Japanese, who thought that the revisions would get across the point more effectively.
They weren't necessarily -right-, of course, but it's not really fair to blame a bit of outside-imposed Lucasism on the poor bastards given a mandate from above to get out a series that's the Japanese division's bread and butter yet a guaranteed bomb here.
Doesn't seem too likely; early '06 launch is right in line with all expectations, and in fact a longer life for the PS2 than the PS1.
Also note that FF3 came out 27 April 1990 to the Super Famicom's release 21 November, FF6 2 April 1994 to the PS's release 2 December 1994, and FF9 7 July 2000---4 months after the PS2's release on 4 March.
Pretty much agreed.
There're the people who are sure they have the one true way, and in all fairness are probably, within the rules of the game, right, but require the exact proper setup to get there. When they don't have that, they tend to break down due to lack of versatility. The better NA players and, I've heard, most of the high-level better Japanese players tend to be like this---after a year and a half of playing, I'm still only lv.40 on my main, with the other people I get detailed play reports from topping out at 55, so I can't directly comment on endgame.
There're also the people who, whether through self-delusion or laziness, have found a provably "false" way---often, one just as difficult to accomplish as the "true" one, but in any case making some distinctly and obviously poor choices out of ego, mistaken assumptions, or personal style. You've touched on these in your post; they tend to break down in all but extremely rare situations.
Then there's an optimal middle path---the versatility to do things that are uncommonly needed, without sacrificing the ability to function in a somewhat-optimal party. Some of my best XP/hour has come from mage-stacked groups in which the RDM was able to pull out armor and a shield and act as first voke for SATA, or a pair of ninja shared tanking duties and I as PLD was asked to pull out my greatsword and start chewing meat 'kabobs since there were no DDs seeking, or hunting worms in Koroloka with a MNK tanking standing far away and spamming Boost while everyone else, playing either PLD, RDM, or WAR/WHM, meleed and rotated cures so none of us took hate from the MNK.
Is a RDM usually a good first voke? Not really, but when it's the difference between SATA and no SATA, it's worth it.
Is a PLD the best at hurting things? No, but with proper skills, ability use, and equipment, he can certainly have a decent effect.
Is WAR/WHM ever acceptible in a party? When it lets you keep the worm hate on the guy 40 feet away loaded down with +Earth gear, huge HP, and constant Barstone, it's hard to argue against.
Sadly, a playstyle that values versatility seems to be limited to those sated with enough in-game rewards to keep them from craving the absolute fastest advancement possible, yet who aren't completely dedicated to the kind of endgame content where perfect execution -is- everything. While a lot's been made of the difference between NA and Japanese playstyle in the past, I think in the end a fair amount of the "Japanese difference" is the ability to relax and enjoy the game, as I've felt it in a number of LS statics too, even those that I wasn't typically a part of but only a one-session replacement for catching up to someone who'd inadvertently outleveled the others.
It's unfortunate that most of the NA player base hasn't yet reached a point where they don't -need- to progress with utmost speed to feel satisfied; however, judging from the history of the game, that day will come soon; just as it has for many of the Japanese who aren't completely caught up in endgame events and/or drama.
Yeah, I should've noted "for damage". Debuffs and other non-damage effects are doable, but weren't really the use I was trying to get at---namely, a Blizzard Whatever for the kill.
Dragoons are worthless if you don't know how to use them. As a heavy DD class, they (and everything else but monks on skeletons) will lose to a well-funded ranger. However, what they lack in raw power they gain back in accuracy bonuses (of a level that most other melees are paying millions for), and the capability (especially in later levels) to sub RDM and use wyvern breath to become a fairly-effective healer. Of course, if you've got the "omgwtf must be leet" mentality that was epidemic among the Japanese at NA launch, and is still epidemic among the NA, you'll already have your NIN tank, Taru WHM/SMN, and your three RNGs, and you'll be rushing off to tear 200xp a shot kicking and screaming from IT++ mobs no matter how long or how many consumables it takes you per kill.
Red Mages being gimped bards is, again, a matter of usage. Bards can't debuff in the same ways, can't do decent elemental DoT in melee, can't burst off renkei, can't rapidly heal, and can only have two spells in effect per target at any one time. However, if you're convinced that RDM is there for Refresh and only Refresh, then...
As for melee/support balance... well... slightly over half the jobs are melee. Slightly over half the -party slots- are typically melee. The main issue with melee invites is that, barring endgame monks, the average party has a set short list of places where they're willing to play and mobs they're willing to fight, and the RNG's ability to throw gil at problems tends to be amplified through these. Nerfing TP gain from Barrage like was done to other multi-hits and changing the HQ yield on arrows from 33/66/99 to 33/33/66/99 would probably improve this...
but so would players realizing that if they can't have steak, they're at least better off with a hamburger than nothing. Sadly, there's a good half-year or year to go before this becomes common.
Finally, you're a bit confused about the concept of FFXII. The game engine itself is similar to FFXI with AI-controlled allies, which makes it not too dissimilar from a long list of decent games such as the Star Ocean series, Bioware's Infinity Engine games, and even Secret of Mana.
It's only in plot that relation to FFT-A, and Vagrant Story and FFT, are brought in---it's being developed by the creative team behind all of those games, who have thus far used the Ivalice setting for all their projects for Square and later Square-Enix.
There are a few solid technical problems, or at least unintended effects, in FFXI, such as RNG's damage supremacy on common mobs, NIN's unanticipated tanking ability, and predictable NM spawn times; however, the vast majority of "issues" that the playerbase identify are, at worst, the lesser of multiple evils.
a new S-E MMO, "a href="http://www.playonline.com/fe/">"Fantasy Earth The Ring of Dominion", has been announced and in development for some time, with release scheduled for 2005. The system itself is described as a fusion of vaguely PSO-style "action MMO" and "real-time strategy"; this seems to be in keeping with S-E's philosophy of limited PvP by faction.
With the announcement of this and the release of FMO last month, as well as the continued support of FFXI mentioned elsewhere in the interview, it seems unlikely that a FFXI sequel is pending.
While Japan's certainly a major market, it isn't for this generation XBox sales---in the past week, it's sold a total of 161 (not a typo!) units accordinc to Media Create's sales numbers---fewer than the original GBA, and one for every 200 PS2s sold in the week.
While MS is banking on it doing better next gen than this, the Japanese titles creating what hype there is are both slated for Summer '06, some few months after the PS3 launch. Thus, barring something major coming up in the next few months, the initial Japanese shipment will probably suffice for some time.
Already been done. Sakaguchi earned a resignation-demotion for the failure of the movie; and, in fact, in addition to the changes after that FF12 is being done by the team that used to comprise Quest and has gone on to do FFT, FFTA, and Vagrant Story at Square, with direction by Matsuno as part and parcel.
Spinoffs aren't a damn thing new.
Mario, who's often brought up, has been appearing in sports games for longer than some people on this site have been alive---yet no one gripes about NES Open, even when they bring up (GC or GBA) Mario Golf. Even beyond that, things like Dr. Mario or the truly wretched edutainment titles for the SNES featuring him are ignored by people hoping to improve their retro street cred at the expense of reality.
For that matter, -three seperate- unrelated properties have appeared under the Final Fantasy name in various places; the first SaGa series -and- Seiken Densetsu were marketed as such in the US, while the first SD also was marketed as "FF Side Story" in Japan; and then there's FF: Mystic Quest. All of these back in the idolized 8- and 16-bit eras.
Hell, Dragon Quest 8, in its Japanese release last year, managed to sell about 1 copy for every 30 Japanese citizens---this from a series with only one other entry since the SNES, but a huge pile of spinoffs ranging from top-down action games to monster-trading Pokemon clones to graphical takeoffs on Nethack during that period.
As for FF11, in particular...
Even ignoring the fact that the average pretender "oldschool" gamer's complaint is "WTF, why's it so hard, take so long to play, need play sessions so long, and have a loose mission structure? I want the old FFs back, where there was actually a challenge, a good amout of playtime, long dungeons without savepoints all over ruining the challenge, and it wasn't so cinematic!", the fact remains that over the past year, S-E's grossed about $90 million directly from it---that's more money than changes hands directly to retail stores, never mind their lower wholesale price, of a 1.5 million seller. Love it or hate it, you can't complain that it's harming the odds of putting more money into more FF titles.
Various Japanese devs have a long history of getting licenced games right---Camcom put out a series of quality Disney licences for the NES and SNES, while Konami's TMNT, Simpsons, and X-Men arcade games were quite good. The Macross property's been farmed out to various publishers with some excellent (although some crappy) results, and Banpresto, with development support from, among others, Winky Soft and From Software, has proved adept at pumping out great games games that feature a variety of giant robots.
Unless they're making further changes from the Japanese version, it's not 3d at all; the sprites are just updated and a few forgettable character portraits are added in.
(Gameplay-wise, there are some difficulty tweaks and a certain pain-in-the-ass additional quest in 2 to worry about.)
Two screens isn't -too- unusual; it can easily be thought of as one screen, only half of which is touch-sensitive. Aren't there PDAs with a similar layout?
Also, there definitely is a ROM containing a simple onboard system. Not necessary one focused on providing services to other software, but a whiteboard app and the wireless drivers to make it worthwhile count for something.
Are there any player/tagger combinations that support multiple ID3 tags per file? Not as in "one ID3, one ID3v2" but as in "three ID3v2s, the second two of which are hidden in library/playlist except when corresponding to a search".
The release date is 7th July, coinciding with Sakura Taisen 5 and a week before Super Robot Wars Alpha 3; most of the major importers appear to be offering preorders already.
FFXI's a poor example there---at minimum estimate, it sold double that, with an added couple years of $13 a month per.
That said, there's a long list of other sequel or franchise bombs just this year; Capcom's gotten relatively few sales out of Resident Evil 4, and Namco's take on the Gundam franchise sold around 200k in the face of initial shipments of 500k and pre-rease predictions of a million.
Nope, it's tatsujin. Means "master", as opposed to tetsujin's "iron man".
One could argue that, especially in those days, "money" and "prestige" were synonymous with "security". Certainly, Spain's high position in Europe rose and fell on the back of exclusive trading with the colonies. Of course, I'll grant that such things were nowhere in the motives of the explorers; only those that funded them.