DAISHI Wrote:Also I take umbrage with describing FFXIV as phenomenal. It's good, but not great, let alone phenomenal.
Heh, fair enough, but I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who's been following two tiny development teams for two recent MMO releases, both of which, when compared to FFXIV, have a host of issues FFXIV will never expirience. For that reason, based on the fact that it has just released, speaking in terms of mechanics I can't help but feel that FFXIV is rather accomplished. I'll retract my phenomenal though.
And Zeah, I can certainly relate with that thought, there is definetely a certain amount of nostalgia for games I've played in the past that add to the world, simply because of my expiriences in the game. I can certainly conjure up a whole host of locations throughout my list of MMOs that were/are incredibly significant to me whenever I hop in the game.
To me though, at least as I remember, many of the MMORPGs I know and love always held a sense of "magic", for lack of a better term, a simple example, to depart from the common theme of FFXI, is Anarchy Online. From the moment I took my place in the desolate hopeless existence on Rubi-Ka I fell in love with the world. And, in this case, it isn't even about the quality of the game. The graphics in Anarchy Online were rather bad, though they did have spectacular scenery admittedly, the gameplay was horrific, the game was plagued with bugs, and the basest of features weren't implemented until many patches down the line. Hell, even today people who I've dragged into Anarchy Online when a relapse occurs come out with the same sense of the world immediately.
FFXI was certainly like this too, as I brought in friends, unbiased by events within the game, and they were immediately struck with the same sense of wonder and awe. We actually grouped up and often explored the world just for the sake of it, I re-experienced a lot of the content, and loved it (Possibly due to the nostalgia) and they simply fell in love with it. You could say that because we were playing together it made the expirience better, and you wouldn't be wrong, but they all fell in love with the world even more because of the shared expirience, it wasn't that their love of Vanadiel was caused by it.
I certainly hope that you're right and I pray that I'll begin to fall in love with Eorzea the same way I have in previous game worlds, but I' don't feel as though I will.
And I'll reply to you later Satisiun, but I need to run out the door for now.
