Final Fantasy 14: Flop to fab in a few short years

 

Final Fantasy 14: Flop to fab in a few short years

Final Fantasy 14 (FF14) is a multi-award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Square Enix that boasts a worldwide player base of over 40 million players, with an average daily play rate of 2 million people.  But the game was not always this successful, during its launch period back in 2010 the game was hit with heavy criticism by both Final Fantasy fans and the media.  This was blamed on the game’s poor optimisation, terrible UI and the dev teams not having enough specialised staff.

Dalamud falls

By 2012 the servers were to be closed, and the fans looked on as a timer counted down the impending doom that would fall on the FF14 world of Eorzea, in the shape of Dalamud a man-made moon that had been worked into the story.  This moon would cause destruction to Eorzea and lead to an umbral calamity.

A Realm Reborn

Square Enix decided to rework the game instead of scrapping it indefinitely.  They brought in a full new dev team led by Yoshida Naoki, lovingly referred to as Yoshi-P by the final fantasy fan community.  By 2013 FF14 had been reworked and rereleased and with that a Realm was Reborn.  The opening credits are set 5 years after the fall of Dalamud, they contain impressive cinematics and music to match.  The game was an instant success with both gamers and the media this time around.

FF14 Rework

 So, what made the new version so much better than the last? All the old systems were scrapped, new ones were created, and a heavy focus was placed on console gameplay, allowing cross-platform gameplay between PC and console players.  The gameplay itself was very story driven and created the player as a warrior of light.  This hooks the player's interest as they want to find out more about what is happening to the warrior of light.   

Free companies and all things social

The social aspect of the game also had an overhaul, focusing on making it much easier to meet up and party with fellow warriors of light.  This was done by adding free companies where like-minded players can group out, hang out or just even sit and chat with each other.  Link shells were also added where people looking for specific groups could be invited to join.  Even the duty system had a revamp introducing a party system that would randomly match players to carry out duties together such as dungeon runs.

My Opinion

I bought "A Realm Reborn" back in October 2013 and have been playing ever since, I have met a great group of people that have become close friends whom I keep in contact with daily both inside and outside the game.  The game is updated regularly making it feel relevant and this holds my interest to continue playing.  I found the story both gripping and immersive and found myself waiting in anticipation for the next patch to release to find out a little bit more.