FFXIV 2.0 Patch IGN E3 Interview

E3 2012: The Plan for Final Fantasy XIV on PlayStation 3
Square Enix outlines its vision for Version 2.0, and talks about plans for its launch on PC and PlayStation 3.



Talking to Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida is really refreshing. He’s so obviously eager to please fans, willing to admit past mistakes and to clearly lay out how his team at Square Enix is going to right the wrongs of its big budget MMO and successfully transition to Version 2.0, which is essentially meant to be a full relaunch of the game, currently scheduled for this coming winter, which could mean late 2012 or early 2013.

In addition to updating the current version of the game with content, the team has been busy building a new graphics engine that’s said to be better optimized, ensuring all sorts of new content is ready for launch, and completely reworking the user interface. “We believe that having a polished, easy-to-use, stress-free interface is one of the most important things,” said Yoshida. “So we’re going to spend up to the last minute polishing this, making sure it’s something that the players want.”




The PC and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will feature different interfaces, both tailored to the platforms and the different control inputs. One of the first things Yoshida and team decided to do with the interface was look to the global standard. “We looked to World of Warcraft. What they have there is pretty much what most players are used to. We’re using that as a base.”

When Version 2.0 launches, Yoshida and team want those familiar with World of Warcraft to be able to transition into Final Fantasy XIV without a lot of hassle. “A lot of the Japanese development team members aren’t used to playing MMOs. They always focused on consoles. It’s easy for them to make a game that feels good on a console but not a mouse and keyboard.” In order for the team to learn, Yoshida directed them to play a number of Western MMOs to get a sense of how they should refocus their efforts.

“You can go around E3 and see all these different first-person shooters. But when you pick up the controller, whether it be a Call of Duty or a Halo, you pretty much know how it’s going to feel,” said Yoshida. “You know this is going to be your strafe, this is going to be your fire, this is going to be your aiming. We want it to be the same for MMO players.”




Throughout all this research for creating an updated interface for Final Fantasy XIV on PC, Square Enix has been busy refining its PS3 interface as well. “We have put a lot of effort into also designing a specific UI for the PlayStation 3 users. We have a special team set up that’s making the UI and control interface for PlayStation 3, using that know-how that Japanese developers have creating games for consoles and transferring that into an MMO where people from PS3 and PC can play together.” Though you’ll see the same content, it won’t look quite at good on PS3. “The draw distance and the textures will be, because of memory issues [on PlayStation 3] lowered a bit,” said Yoshida.

With Version 2.0 and the in-development console version, the gameplay mechanics of Final Fantasy XIV will also be changed a bit. The existing battle regimen system, which allows for players to essentially combo attacks, will be made more responsive, making it easier for players to group up and chain offensive skills to take down targets.

Chocobos will also play a much larger role. They’ll no longer just be for travel, but can be raised and actually brought into battle to fight alongside you and make soloing a little bit easier. While raising the Chocobos, you’ll be able to customize their battle role, so they can become casters or up-close fighters. It'll also be possible to store them in stables attached to player-owned housing, where you can keep multiple types of raised Chocobos.



Perhaps most interesting is what Square Enix is doing with summons. Instead of giving every player the ability to summon primals like Ifrit or Shiva, there will only be one Ifrit per server. “The players will get together in their Free Companies [guilds] and they will fight Ifrit. If they defeat him, they will get the opportunity to summon him once. That Free Company will get to decide where and when to use him. Then Ifrit goes out to another place in the world for other people to go get him, so it’s like this competition between people in the world. This won’t be instanced, this will be public content, so anyone in the world can do it.” Until Ifrit is summoned, no other player group will be able to summon him. When Ifrit is actually brought into a fight it seems like nearly everyone in the server will know, because the skies will turn red. Then once the skies clear, you’ll know Ifrit is again available to defeat and acquire. “The whole world is involved in the summoning of these monsters.”

So what’s the timeline on all this? First, in August, Square Enix will ramp up more detailed reveals about what’s to come in Final Fantasy XIV. Then in September, there’ll be an alpha test, and after feedback is collected and incorporated into the game, a beta test version will roll out first for PC, then for PlayStation 3. “We want to make sure this time we take a lot of time to listen to feedback from users during this beta test and implement as much of it as possible before the release,” said Yoshida. “We want to make sure we have a massive amount of content at launch. We don’t want to go into launch without enough to do. So it’s going to be building up that content base and getting this feedback in. That might end up pushing the release back a little. It’s all going to depend on that.”




Expect many more details about Square Enix’s plans for rebooting Final Fantasy XIV on IGN in the near future.
source:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/07/e3-2012-the-plan-for-final-fantasy-xiv-on-playstation-3

What happens if a group gets him then just decides not to summon him for whatever reason?

Sigh.

WoW is a strong game with some incredible features and approaches to design SE could learn a lot from. It's a positive thing!

I can see mass griefing in the future....and groups just claiming and killing the avatars to hold on to them just because they can.

/laugh

Also, INB4 PS3limitations...oh wait...


andandand BATTLE CHOCOBOZ!!!<3

SE can learn a lot from tera online in terms of graphics and backgrounds field design

Did they just "PS3 limitations" us?

In that case, forget the idea of FF14 being on PS3 altogether.

The revolution will be televised :<

and then we will realize what SE made all over again.

But, bolded is a good sign...PS3limitations for PS3onry...hopefully

So..yeah looks like no SMN class for FFXIV shame I'll probably be tossing this out soon.

more than likely there will be one...but then....there will prolly only be one per group..,and then that person will be amazingly useless until the group gets the summon again.

smn and bst will be the first class to be on patch 2.0, mainly smn

though it doesn't sound like it, i'm pretty sure theres going to be a summoner class, theres new screens of cait sith and in an interview they mentioned carbuncle.

if i had to say, i think the smn would be in charge of summoning these primals or w/e, while they get access to a handful of reg avatars to play with normally.

also on the ps3 limitations thing, i took it as they are letting pc users max everything out while the ps3 will have its own thing

but i think its for the best because the new graphics engine is going to be a hybrid of the old and the new stuff made from the luminous engine that was displayed on the tech demo they showed @ e3.

we are basically getting a brand new game when 2.0 launches. its going to be kray and worth it.


btw, did anyone catch him slip on saying that we are going to get Ramuh and Shiva primals also? (ramuh lance <can i have it?>)

we already knew about (or should) of leviathan and Odin coming soon, but this adds even more to the list of primals X_x

There are other interviews online that explain this a little better. That group which gets said primal will have 2 weeks to use it (timeframe not finalized). During that time they will also have to build up the ability to use it (not sure what this entails yet). Once that primal is summoned the skies across the world will change (red for Ifrit for instance) and the server population will know that primal is up for hunt again.

...did you people only read this IGN interview?

Also there are plans for a summoner class, we've known this for a while now. We've also known of this primal summoning system too.

Ugh, They pretty much just spelled out it was likely going to be pushed back. Dammit.

well so far he said they are on track with things, but i would def not be suprised if the actual game release for 2.0 was jan/feb 2013

I'm sure they thought about that already. They'll end up putting a time limit for how long you can hold on to Ifrit.

I wish people would stop saying FFXIV 2.0 is using the Luminous Engine, because it's not.

From a recent (this week) interview with Yoichi Wada:

i forgot which Q/A it was from but he said that the new graphics engine was going to use some of this technology (i could be wrong i guess, but pretty sure i read this when i was reading all the different Q/A's) by some, i believe it was said the lighting and shading effects onry

also when do you think 2.0 is going to be released O.o

2.0 = totally different game. new client and new discs and everything.

Yes, 2.0 will use similiar code of the Luminous engine's lighting engine, that's about it.


And 3-4ish months from now?

I'm not really liking this whole primal summon thing. I'm sure we all know how some linkshells can be and I have a feeling that some people will never be able to use a primal. I think they should have basic summons and then make the primals like Odin or Alex from XI. Everyone can obtain them but can only be used once every two hours.

It sounds really dumb to me to. One and done for a smn, what?

It's hard to judge a system not even available yet.

Are you on about free companies summoning primals? Because that's not SMN. It's something that has been planned since way before release.
SMN will most likely summon small avatars, like Carbuncle or Caitsith, not primals.

another job i'll prolly only use for its non-exclusive abilities (if any)

From what the Interview said each server would only get 1 Primal so like my mains on Balmung and if we get Shiva means we only have her and cant get a different one.Odin will prob be the only primal thats on all servers.

Which is kinda lame they should atleast rotate them out every month or so.And like said before Smn will prob get the lesser(smaller) summons.

It looks like it will have 2 classes of summons, Primals and Avatars. Primals are more powerful but can only be summoned by a Grand Company where as a Avatar is a pet that may be summoned by the summoner at any time. Ifrit and Garuda will be a Primal where as Shiva or Fenrir may be an avatar. I think Primals will just be the beastmen gods.

go re-read it cause i'm pretty sure thats not what they said/meant


i read it as only 1 (lets just say element) of primal per server, for example

one free company defeats shiva, they then work on building meter to summon and use it. on the same server a different free company defeats ramuh, they also get to build meter and summon it. but if a single group defeats an [element]primal, then that [element]primal cannot be summoned on that same server until its been defeated again after whatever set time.

i also think all avatars including ifrit / garuda are going to be wandering nms only after 2.0; unless they make it seperate from the current bc.
tldr; BC version doesn't let you summon it.

i think if the wait time is kept to 3~5 days[max] and they add over 10 different primals (easily possible), i think it won't be that bad of a system tbh.


edit-


i'm REALLY hoping that summoner will be used to summon not only avatar but beasts as well. i hope they don't add beastmaster to the game and instead, have the summoner be able to summon different smaller avatars and beasts. just my opinion on it i guess D:

(thought of myself summoning a mini-behemoth to aid the party just sounds awesome :< )