I wouldn't call "clunky UI design" and "Play experience destroying lag" a niche market.
You can innovate without having to totally reinvent the wheel.
But you are correct, you can't just copy WoW and try to steal their customers. My beef with Square is this, 9 out of 10 MMO's you can right click on items to swap them from your inventory to another item slot for a bank or trade or whatever...and it's done near-instantly..I can hit 'I' or 'B' to bring up my inventory, 'C' or 'P' to view my character, 'J' or 'L' to bring up my Quests....
WoW certainly didn't create that schema, but they knew that it was fast and responsive enough to be unobtrusive to the players and if it didn't add to the experience of playing the game, it certainly didn't detract from it. Don't get me wrong, the fact that FF14 has the Map bound to the 'M' key is a gigantic step in the right direction for them...I just don't know why they stopped there and insisted on keeping the damned "Main Menu"
It took me 20 minutes to move an albeit hefty stack of items (I think it was 40 before I just decided to stop from boredom/frustration) from my inventory to my retainers storage box. Why? Why should it take and more importantly why DOES it take that long to simply make space in my bag? Can anyone explain to me HOW that adds to the overall experience of the game? How does that level of pointless tedium add anything positive to the experience?
You can innovate without having to totally reinvent the wheel.
But you are correct, you can't just copy WoW and try to steal their customers. My beef with Square is this, 9 out of 10 MMO's you can right click on items to swap them from your inventory to another item slot for a bank or trade or whatever...and it's done near-instantly..I can hit 'I' or 'B' to bring up my inventory, 'C' or 'P' to view my character, 'J' or 'L' to bring up my Quests....
WoW certainly didn't create that schema, but they knew that it was fast and responsive enough to be unobtrusive to the players and if it didn't add to the experience of playing the game, it certainly didn't detract from it. Don't get me wrong, the fact that FF14 has the Map bound to the 'M' key is a gigantic step in the right direction for them...I just don't know why they stopped there and insisted on keeping the damned "Main Menu"
It took me 20 minutes to move an albeit hefty stack of items (I think it was 40 before I just decided to stop from boredom/frustration) from my inventory to my retainers storage box. Why? Why should it take and more importantly why DOES it take that long to simply make space in my bag? Can anyone explain to me HOW that adds to the overall experience of the game? How does that level of pointless tedium add anything positive to the experience?