Final Fantasy XIII -3

[Emanresu13]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

NO

new games suck

/overgeneralizing

[Wayward Vagabond]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

last good ff games i played were 1-2 and tactics advance

or i should say the last and only ff games i played were 1-2 and tactics advance

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

They know damn well their games suck, but people play them anyway because they're profitable Skinner boxes.

MMO's are incredibly expensive to make and continuously break new studios who receive backing from investors simply because the investors have seen how profitable the MMO business can be.

Due to the ridiculous costs involved, none of the parties involved want to take any risks, so they just blatantly rip off whatever is the most popular because, hey, that's already proven itself to work, right? It's the same approach you see many studios taking with new shooters nowadays, and it's happening there for the exact same reasons. That's why you get so many shitty MMO's and so many retarded WoW clones.

I know I'm delving into fanboyrantmode with this post, but it's one of the reasons I've gotten jaded with the state of gaming. A lot of awesome franchises have failed to produce anything truly awesome in recent years. Personally, my preferences are pretty much lodged back in the 90's and early 2000's. Then again, it might just be childhood nostalgia overriding reason. :P

I definitely sympathize with this. The more money the business generates, the more streamlined and hollow everything seem to get. It's grating.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

i get your point there are too much but belive me , it hasnt lost its magic , ffxiii saga is a master piece , i dare to say better than ffiv or ffvii , the first ffxiii is kinda slow to introduce you to the game itself , it doesnt have a free world till almost the end , but the story is just epic.
the sencond one is a master piece itself , inovating , cativating , its just very very very good.
if you liked ffxii i sugest you give ffxiii a try

This was actually what I disliked the most about FFXIII -- it was just so darn linear. Too much linearity/nonlinearity can be boring, no matter what the story is. I like the feeling of being in control, and yet still maintaining some sense of general direction. It's a delicate balance that has unfortunately taken a hard shock in recent years.

MMO's are incredibly expensive to make and continuously break new studios who receive backing from investors simply because the investors have seen how profitable the MMO business can be.

Due to the ridiculous costs involved, none of the parties involved want to take any risks, so they just blatantly rip off whatever is the most popular because, hey, that's already proven itself to work, right? It's the same approach you see many studios taking with new shooters nowadays, and it's happening there for the exact same reasons. That's why you get so many shitty MMO's and so many retarded WoW clones.

You see this in the Flash gaming market, too. Flash MMO's are pricey to make because they usually require stellar artists, skilled developers, and lots of servers -- plus constant upkeep/maintenance/production. The resulting games are extremely profitable but they're all just carbon copies of each other.

I definitely sympathize with this. The more money the business generates, the more streamlined and hollow everything seem to get. It's grating.

I think what irritates me the most is how the distribution has shifted. Back in the 90's, we had "gamers." Nowadays, the market has opened up so wide that now it's no longer dictated by "gamers," but by people-who-play-games. The casual market has taken off -- which leads to games that are linear, easy, short, and braindead. The FPS genre has especially suffered for this.

For a long time I've wanted to make my own RPG that recaptures the essence of everything I liked about 90's (and early 2000's) gaming. Something made purely for the sake of fun without giving a crap about whether or not it'd be profitable (although I think it would be anyway). Tough without a team, though.

[Emanresu13]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

i remember the buffs you got in ff8 from never casting drawn magic

[Senip]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

I never finished 13, just lost interest. That said, FF6 is finished: FF4, with it's continuation, was really fun, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'd like to see Square do more Secret of Mana type games, but since Kingdom Hearts killed that...

[Tyson ultima]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

You also have to remember that there is final fantasy versus 13 coming out also which i admit looks really good

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

extremely profitable but they're all just carbon copies of each other

I don't know where you get "extremely profitable" from, really. The fact that everything is a carbon copy of The One Game That Made It is exactly what's killing studios, as nobody wants to play a game that's a carbon copy of another better game. I don't know shit about the Flash game industry, so you may be correct there, but it definitely doesn't apply to the general MMO industry.

I reckon there's a point where people get fed up with the streamlining as critics almost unanimously agreed FFXIII was terrible, and although sales were initially quite good, they quickly declined to the point where stores wouldn't even accept used copies of the game anymore.

The casual market has taken off -- which leads to games that are linear, easy, short, and braindead. The FPS genre has especially suffered for this.

The casual market has absolutely nothing to do with this. The FPS genre has suffered partially because of games like Call of Duty cashing in big-time, and partially because games are becoming increasingly expensive to make.

Anyway, I thought they scrapped Versus just recently? Or at the very least put it on hiatus for an indefinite time.

[Mike Weedmark]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

I know I'm delving into fanboyrantmode with this post, but it's one of the reasons I've gotten jaded with the state of gaming. A lot of awesome franchises have failed to produce anything truly awesome in recent years. Personally, my preferences are pretty much lodged back in the 90's and early 2000's. Then again, it might just be childhood nostalgia overriding reason. :P

Right is right regardless of how fueled by fanboyrage it might be. Comparing something like FF13 to FF6 is so impossibly stupid it would take someone who just discovered games last year to do it. FF13 is such baffling garbage compared to the legacy it borrowed its undeserved name from.

[Senip]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

FF 13 versus looks ridiculously fun though!

[Reincarnate]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

I don't know where you get "extremely profitable" from, really. The fact that everything is a carbon copy of The One Game That Made It is exactly what's killing studios, as nobody wants to play a game that's a carbon copy of another better game. I don't know shit about the Flash game industry, so you may be correct there, but it definitely doesn't apply to the general MMO industry.

I'm referring to the Flash industry in this case -- it's still extremely profitable because it costs a lot less to develop compared to PC MMO's (which nobody is buying these days), so there's a *bit* more liberty to change things around, but it's still the same formula in the end. A massive portion of Kongregate's revenue comes from games like Dream World, Heroes of Gaia, etc, which is impressive when you consider how many non-MMO games are on that site and how well they've done. The Flash MMO's are Kong's cash cows.

The casual market has absolutely nothing to do with this. The FPS genre has suffered partially because of games like Call of Duty cashing in big-time, and partially because games are becoming increasingly expensive to make.

The paragraph you're quoting from was talking about the shift in market distribution. By "this" I didn't mean to imply that the casual markets led to the decline of the FPS -- I was referring to the distribution shift in general. I probably should have rewritten that to be clearer (that's what you get for typing @ work I guess).

Call of Duty is a good example, really -- it's an easy game that isn't geared towards the hardcore gamer. It's a mass-market game that acts as more of a "fix" for a greater number of people who aren't necessarily gamers in the same sense. Unfortunately, these type of people make up a significant part of the new market and they are now the ones dictating the direction of game development.

And you're definitely right about the costs. They have gone up for a variety of reasons (3D artists/modellers, voice actors, skilled programmers, bigger marketing teams/expenses, licensing and distribution, etc). If you make an easy, pretty, short game, tons of people will play it and be willing to throw money at it. It just isn't profitable anymore to make your game a long, difficult, epic journey -- especially since fewer and fewer people actually reach the end, which makes ROI shittier and shittier towards the endgame with respect to resources used: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-17/t...ers?_s=PM:TECH

The profitable idea is to get your player done with single-player mode as fast as possible so you can move them into multiplayer. Some even worry it will eventually go a step further: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/m...ne-in-3-years/

Stuff like this, though, is a breath of fresh air:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilw7qreDlOk

[StoneMcKnuckle]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

Ah, I had an inkling you were referring solely to the Flash industry there, but that definitely wasn't obvious from your first post. And derp, I completely misunderstood what you meant when you were referring to the casual market as I've seen people pushing that exact same misinformed and idiotic point before. Glad to have been wrong about you there.

You're right on all the other accounts, and although I'm saddened by the constant reminder that the meat of action games are declining, I'm really not all that concerned about it - various studios continue to prove that long, meaty games are still very much viable as far as profitable products go, and indie game studios are never afraid to innovate. It really boils down to whether the studio (and often consequently also the other parties involved) cares about making a great product or simply their own bottom end.

ps I find it hilarious that you refer to a game released almost eight years ago is a "breath of fresh air".

anyway discussion over let's stop trying to derail the thread heh

[Emanresu13]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

YEAH THIS IS ABOUT FF

i'm gonna bring up ff8 again cause it's like the bastard child or something but i like it

laguna is 2 cool

gameplay sux

music top tier

get rid of squall

also i don't like ff5 very much

[Senip]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

YEAH THIS IS ABOUT FF

i'm gonna bring up ff8 again cause it's like the bastard child or something but i like it

laguna is 2 cool

gameplay sux

music top tier

get rid of squall

also i don't like ff5 very much

I loved FF8. FF5 was much better once I did the GBA version, rather than the translation.

[Mike Weedmark]

Re: Final Fantasy XIII -3

The profitable idea is to get your player done with single-player mode as fast as possible so you can move them into multiplayer. Some even worry it will eventually go a step further: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/m...ne-in-3-years/

I want it to be acknowledged that I read that link and think it's a load of shit, but I don't feel like it justifies going into detail. This guy is simply a sensationalist videogame doomer.