Mercer

Wait, we're supposed to make one of these? Crap.

Lore and lore related issues have always been awkward in FFXIV. For the longest time, there were so few lore resources that we all just blindly groped at the darkness hoping that Square wouldn't slam a hammer down and negate our character. Even today there are still a lot of lore questions on what's suitable and not for each race, it's not exactly written out what is acceptable or not. Things have changed in the last five years, there are a lot more resources out there and the dev team are a lot more forthcoming on lore. It's also gotten fucking weird. We've got inter-dimensional travelers, mortals sleeping for thousands of years, magically induced bloodlines, sentient weaponry and enough cross pollination from other Square games that there are two major conflicting viewpoints on lore. The people that use and develop characters from other dimensions or games aren't technically wrong now, though they are odd ducks in the community. The flip side are the traditionalists that prefer a more grounded RP setting in the traditional lore. Neither are technically wrong but both sides kind of give one another the evil eye. When it comes down to it, live and let live. XIV is the kind of game that under the table politics greatly transform the landscape at the same time a giant themepark opens up. Live and let live, it's an absurd world we play in. Strange things are going to happen, either form the devs or players. Roll with it. The inter-dimensional hopper is just a loon that can't get used to the Aether. That city folk won't listen to your story about how you want to get home to your world, the ignorance of it all. Spin it, fake it and embrace it because the best stories at the bar come from the strangest places.

Nothing you can really do then. Can't get around class restrictions. =/

Level up those classes and hide your weapon. You don't have to RP out a class you've leveled, just don't acknowledge that you'd have to use those weapons. Mind, you'll never be able to glamor the items or use them in combat but it should work out well for RP.

I just went and read through these. A lot of people gave some good advice in each of those threads... but it seems OP posts something like this then never comes back to work with the community on it. It's a shame he refuses to work with people, it's going to make him miss so many opportunities. I just went back and noticed this as well. Parts of this post are word for word copied from another in March. This seems like a cry for attention and an unwillingness to engage with the community that responds to them.

There's a lot going against you here, Nara. Shy character combined with a name and class that might make people take a second look in the worst way and an unwillingness to coordinate RP. This isn't a knock against what you enjoy, just the fact that your own standards severely limits RP. RP is an investment, you get what you invest in other people. Random, spontaneous RP is like a high risk investment. It might pay off big time but more often than not it's going to crash and burn over and over again. I'm not sure if there is anything that I can say to help you, outside of be willing to step out of your boundaries and compromise what you want with what others want to create something that works for everyone. In a lot of ways breaking into RP is like a new artist trying to make a big break in the art scene. You've got to have a style all your own, something that interests others in wanting to know more, to invest in you and your character's future. The number one thing to remember with RP is that everyone is putting time into the game and their characters. You, the person across from you and the rest of the people in the Sands. What makes you unique, interesting and engaging enough that others want to get to know your work?

I'm going to stick with what I've got. Honestly, I'm not ready to go through the main scenario again just to get to Heavensward and new classes when I've got a perfectly good, fun character I'm playing now. It'll be interesting to see if Hyur becomes a minority though!

I doubt we'll see much more lore about the Au Ra, Square hasn't been the most forthcoming with lore for the different races. Conceptually they are based on a combination of demonic and dragon concepts back when Heavensward was first being created. They are a hybridization of both ideals, thus don't really fit either. They are unique, not demonic or draconic.

I think a hybrid system between chat and forum could work, if that is possible. Like the chat system would be running like a ticker, updating to show new threads being made in the RP in Progress forum. That way people can see that RP is happening, while also giving people a chance to see who is RPing where and communicating exactly who/where they are meeting up.

One last thing before I head off. Variety seems to be the name of the game here, people want more variety in the characters they want to create. I would like to reiterate that variety takes time. The Au Ra are something completely different that the game has not seen before. They stand out as very unique, given there demonic and draconic imagery, the wide size differences, the large variety of skin tones. Do they rely heavily on moe and shonen themes? Yes, but nothing else in this game has really done that look. Regardless of how focus tested they maybe, they are definitely unique in the game world. It hints that Yoshi-P and the developers do want a diverse and strange world to explore, as each race does bring something unique to that table as far as looks, stature, muscle structure and diversity goes.

That depends, I'd say it's likely. They were one of the races they attempted when Heavensward was in it's concept stages and there is a ton of concept out art about them. The Au Ra are a combination of two different race designs being hybridized into a final product, a combination of Demonic and Dragon concepts.

Hi there, welcome to AAA game design where everything is about profit and trying not to drown in a sea of crap. In all seriousness, I'd like to retread on something about FFXIV. The fact that this is a series on a second chance. Heavensward is really the first content we've seen since ARR was first developed. Yoshi-P has said that voice recording for the full 2.0 patch cycle was done before 2.1 launched. Features, ideas, story have all been done before the re-launch two years ago. This is the first content shown that has been developed with the idea that FFXIV may be profitable. Even then, the plans and designs for Ishgard have been building since 1.0, five years ago. That is something that I think people lose track of during a game development cycle, all this plans and creations have been in place literally for years before they are shown. To be blunt, game design is rarely on the same timeline as current events. It can take up to three years of real time for game development to catch up. All the concept and story work for this expansion is done, it's in production. Concepts for classes and races for the expansion after that are what are being developed now or might even already be done. MMO design is not a cut and dry process, it takes literal years to move from concept to production to launch. With as structured and consistent of a patching environment as XIV has, it's guaranteed that if Square does want to expand on it's race availability it's years out.

Criticism of parts of a game doesn't mean you dislike the game. There are always ways for games to improve, and criticism is the examination on what could be improved. I'd love to see FFXIV have a better character creator. It's the one thing that's missing from a fantastic game. I'd like to see some more options, body sliders, power customization, etc and so on. That doesn't take away from the fact that they push out content more reliably than any other MMO developer with a consistent patch cycle that delivers content on every front, from PvP to endgame to casual play to roleplay. Do I wish the Au Ra had some more diversity to their height and body choices? Sure, it'd give some more diversity to the roleplayers. At the same time though, I understand the restrictions that Square has with the PS3 and PS4. Let's just keep it civil and remember that criticism to a fantastic game should not be regarded as a personal attack. It's a game, made by a developer for profit, mind that FFXIV has a lot more developer love than most. It's nothing personal, we'd just like to see some things improved, even if it is just a pipedream.

Good morning folks, today I'd like to retread a topic form earlier this week that has compounded further. A topic that many are passionate for as it's one of the cornerstone reasons to play a PC game over a console game. I'm of course talking about Mods. This last week has been turbulent for the Skyrim/Bethesda mod scene to say the least. After a heavy handed implementation of paid mods on Steam, Valve and Bethesda backed off and reverted the changes citing that they implemented it in the worst way. It's plain to see that they took the blame for this mistake, something that has redeemed them in a small way. The controversy hasn't ended, however. The vitriol against mod authors that wished to be paid for their work has lead to the same kind of anger from the authors themselves. Many are spitting acid back at their users, citing some damning statistics about how little their work is paid or even appreciated. Sir Edhelsereg made a post detailing exactly how much recognition and pay he's received for his free mods on steam: The team behind the popular SkyUI, a mod that makes a more user friendly PC UI, are backing away from the scene they just re-entered. The lead developer, Madoxx, noted that for over 5 years of the addon's deployment his team earned less than $500 in donations. He goes on to say that there never was a community. Other modders have called gamers 'fairweather friends'. More are calling for the end of free modding at all. What was left of the Skyrim mod community has descended into infighting, chaos and disdain that poisons the relationship between developer and user. Why do I bring this up in this thread instead of the old Valve thread? Because this kind of controversy has a damning effect on a single game company: Bethesda. Bethesda is a game development company notorious for wanting to tell a story but not having the talent or resources to tell it reliably. Their games are as notorious as Obsidian's in that both companies tend to make buggy messes of games that require a modding community to stabilize it. In the last week some have even speculated that by allowing mods to be paid and Bethesda taking a cut of those sales that they are promoting the sloppy work and profiting from it for years to come. So the effect on Bethesda is three fold. First, gamers have lost more faith in the company after what some see as a blatant cash grab. Two, one of the biggest communities of their games is imploding in an explosion of venomous attacks between developers and users. Three, the truth of the matter is that Bethesda games do require a strong modding scene to reach their full potential. This scene is shrinking and vanishing before our eyes. This implosion is good evidence on why not to piss off a consumer base that you rely on. So many game companies have been nickle and diming their consumers this last past decade and it seems that this was the breaking point for some. Others have been toiling away in a literally thankless money pit trying to repair broken games while trying to help other players have as much fun as possible. Both sides are fed up with the trigger being the very developer and publisher for that game.

Clever characters. It doesn't matter if they are meat heads or intellectuals they always end up being clever.

My question to you Otto is: What proof do you have? So far we've been sourcing numbers and facts about the decline of the series as well as the average age of gamers. In fact, before 2013 the average age was 38, because the ESA was not using mobile gamers as part of their equation. Children are a small minority of gamers, nothing I've referenced was on who buys the games but actually plays them. Do you have any proof or evidence that is not hearsay? I want to be clear that I am just curious on where you are getting your information.

There's a lot going on with the indie scene and AAA scene, in a lot of ways they are complete opposites. AAA developers have their names out there, they have established franchises to draw from, but little creative freedom. Indie developers are idea people, but their ideas aren't as well developed in most cases. The end result is the same though, poorly created games that are either stagnent or can't preform as grandly as their creators hope. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Out of the muck comes grand new enterprises like Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Binding of Isaac or Killing Floor. They will get refined more over time as they reach a larger audience. There's no real answer for any of the problems the video game community has right now. There are underlying currents of mistrust between gamers, developers and publishers that has been growing for years now. There's little trust let to give out, and more of it being destroyed as the months go on.

COD could release an empty blue-ray and it would still sell. I can't even complain, I bought COD Black Ops and World at War to play with friends mostly. It's was pretty joyful fun playing Zombies at night and surviving to wave 60 something. All in all, I honestly believe that, much like music, the more fresh ideas have gone to the Indie industry. This is very true, but also dangerous. Something that Valve has been criticized for is the lack of moderation in their green light and early access services. Low quality games have flooded the market, and some games never leave Early Access, becoming abandonware after gamers have already paid for the game they are beta testing. Practices like this, where large amounts of mediocre games flooded the market, is what lead to the first video game crash.

This is a side effect of rising developmental costs. Games need to be more approachable to read a wider range of audiences. This coined the now famous term "We want the CoD audience".

Is the dollar value fixed? There is lots of variables, like inflation and modern coin value there... Dollar value is not fixed but according to inflation is about a 120% decrease in the value of a dollar. In 1985 $20 would equal $43.89 in 2015. This does in no way explain the the astronomical rise in development cost. Source - Inflation Calculator

Happy to, Warren. So the common misconception is that video games have ever been a children's 'toy'. Dating back to the late 70s and early 80s, video games have always been a predominately adult activity. It may not seem that way the average gamer today, as when we were born the NES had just come out and the market was just recovering from the Video Game Crash. What has changed is the astronomical increase to video game development. This fancy graph from 2013 does an excellent job of showing the exponential growth of game design cost: Edit: Image at most post. Ok, so the other part of this is the publisher's taking a cut ontop of development costs. Afterall, publishers are the ones taking the risk of marketing and manufacturing the game. In the last five years, a new clause has come up in that relationship, that if a game doesn't hit a metacritic value then the developer earns even less money from the publisher. Metacritic is a very important part of today's developer culture because of the importance common gamers place in critic scores. A low quality game drops sales and lowers the pay out per game sold for the developer.

Factually untrue. In the 2014 Usage Date and Demographics made by the ESA, the average age of gamers is 31, with women over 18 making up over twice the gaming population of boys under 18. Most game revenue comes from adults, the majority over thirty. Source There is nothing inherently wrong with Battlefield and CoD, the recent trend has just shown a decrease in quality for their respective franchises. We're reaching a level of saturation for the 'modern shooter' that hasn't been seen since the saturation the same genre had in the 'WW2' theater. Yes, those people are buying games for their kids. This isn't a surprise to anyone. Their kids tastes have changed compared to ours at their age. I'm deeply skeptical of the claim that COD or Battlefield have gone down in quality when, at least when I played Battlefield4 (my most recent forray into modern FPS on a PC) I was blown away at all the quality: visuals, audio, destructible environments, and on and on. What specifically is bad about BF5 compared to BF4? Please also note the space I mentioned that the majority of gamers are over 18, with minors as a small minority over all. The critical and public reception of the battlefield series have been on a decline over the last ten years, Battlefield 2 (2005) being the most well received with a 91 average score. Battlefield 3 (2011) had it's score drop to an average 89, not a steep drop. Battlefield 4 (2013) dropped to a 79 average. The most recent, Battlefield Hardline (2015) has continued to fall to a 71 average score. Source - Metacritic PC scores. I'm not a big CoD or Battlefield player, but going by the data available the people that buy the majority of these games are adults and there has also been a decline of quality for these games in the last ten years.

Factually untrue. In the 2014 Usage Date and Demographics made by the ESA, the average age of gamers is 31, with women over 18 making up over twice the gaming population of boys under 18. Most game revenue comes from adults, the majority over thirty. Source There is nothing inherently wrong with Battlefield and CoD, the recent trend has just shown a decrease in quality for their respective franchises. We're reaching a level of saturation for the 'modern shooter' that hasn't been seen since the saturation the same genre had in the 'WW2' theater.

The nature of video games has changes in the last ten years. Video games have been becoming more generic as companies are less willing to try new ideas when video games come at such a high price. DLC was created to further monetize their products over a long period, giving more value to each game. Sadly the exploitation of gamers who want the same level of entertainment they previously got at the same price point has lead to the starts of a consumer exodus. Europe in particular is having none of these shenanigans anymore as Pre-order and Season Pass sales have fallen considerably since last year. Games that are being released, especially for next gen consoles, are not receiving the critical acclaim or financial success needed to continue to develop for them. I doubt video games will disappear, they are a beloved part of current culture, but will stay the course. Big AAA games will continue to homogenize while independent games will attempt to try new and exciting ways to capture the market.