It has been just over a year since the original launch of Square Enix MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, and during that time players haven’t had to fork out once for a subscription. Harbouring a myriad of bugs and belligerent design flaws, the highly anticipated online RPG was nothing short of a catastrophe, Square dropping the game into a free-to-play state in order to keep player tensions low as the team began work to fix it.
After a number of updates and patches Final Fantasy XIV will finally return to its original subscription model later this year, though game director Naoki Yoshida has promised more. This time next year the MMO will make a transition to Final Fantasy XIV 2.0, featuring a number of game-changing updates and visual improvements.
Yoshida also confirmed that a PlayStation 3 version is still in the works, also scheduled for next year (with a retail version planned for 2013.) Though some fans will moan, it’s a no-brainer really; launching 2.0 to the console audience instead of a patched up version of the original is the only viable solution to save the game from a second barrage of critical and commercial abuse.
Deathbrin
“with a retail version planned for 2010” – What?
Sympozium
get the ninjas!
BIGAL-1992
Critical typo error!
kivi95
In other MMO news. Does anyone no when DC Universe is going to be released for Free this month?
Jim H [Teabags]
No official word, though I’m guessing towards the end of the month.
Charmed_Fanatic
Im waiting for this, October is half gone already!
Kite
Dead on arrival…
…unless they reconsider their subscription plans!
Guild Wars 2 will probably be out by then, so I can see them struggling to justify why a better game does not have subscriptions and yet they do!
BTW:
After taking a look at the PDF, they are really REMAKING THE WHOLE GAME FROM SCRATCH!
Kreisash
I still have a character on there and jumped on the other day actually. Improvements have been made since last years shambles but you can still feel it needs more so a complete overhaul is pretty necessary.
It’s a good thing really because the designs, ideas, model tech and such are there, it was just implemented badly.
Hopefully it will become the game it was meant to be, and everyone wanted.
Apparently they’re charging from this year though? I won’t be paying for it quite yet.
The Lone Steven
This is probably the only game where the developers/publisher ended up apologising in the history of gaming. You know a game is bad when that happens. I’m surprised that they are still willing to improve it instead of letting it die. I suspect the PS3 version may be in development hell and we may end up with another Duke Nukem Forver development cycle. ;)
Roynaldo
I love my Final Fantasy but subscription games can choke on my short and curlys.
MayContainEvil
Agreed! When this is all fixed up and comes to PS3 I would.like to give it a go. Hope it has the lifetime sub option.
KeRaSh
I actually didn’t think it was THAT bad when I played but glad they are still improving it. I still. heck the update release notes now and then. I’m sure I’ll try to come back to it someday but only if there is a lifetime sub because I won’t have time to play it regularly. FFXI had great storylines and from what I’ve seen so far this won’t be any different. FFXI had similar problems when it got released in Japan back then and it turned into the best MMO I’ve ever played. I have faith in Square Enix.
Ben
Right decision made there. They need to get it sorted before console release.