Comment on the mini-expansions - people are saying CoP felt like a whole story and I agree it did, I especially agree with the fact I didn't like this because it was like any other JRPG from the '90s including the confusing story. But I do appreciate what it endeavored to do, up to the final cutscene where your screen actually removes its chat log and plays you a movie.
Anyone notice ACP did something very similar? (I haven't completed the other two so I dunno about them). An conclusory cutscene supposed to be 'epic' but just utterly terrible considering the crap they threw at us with that story. That was one cutscene I would speed through if I'd known there was nothing of importance.
ACP was a weird case because it was 'written' by the same guy who gave us FFXI's original story up to Rise of the Zilart. A relatively profilic writer, actually.
I have absolutely no idea what happened there. He wasn't involved directly in CoP, and if he did, he only laid out some lore groundwork during his time before RotZ.
None, I didn't play the game for the storyline, the missions were just prerequisites to get access to stuff I wanted, there was no mission line I even enjoyed in terms of what you have to do, to me it was nothing short of annoying stuff I have to do just so I can have access to Sea for example. I never really even read the cutscenes.. Although that latter part has more to do with not wanting to hold everyone else up who's already done this is and is just helping me than it does with not being interested in the story. If I want to play a game for a story line, I'll play a single player game.
To each his own, not gonna judge, but I've never understood this. Being a FF fan I think storyline was what I was most concerned with when I heard about XI being online. Because of familiarity with games like Diablo where it's all infinite Baal runs using map hacks for teleportation and not a single person follows the story, that was my opinion of online games. The genre of MMO changed this in that it wasn't just an easy to access, low output high input rewarding game - which is critiscized, and most 'MMOs' bandwagoning now follow the 'casual gamer' stereotype that WoW has turned into. I'm glad XI had a story, I don't see why people wouldn't plug in CoD if they just wanted online fun.
I'm not a Final Fantasy fan, I'm not even your typical 'OMG new RPG!' gamer. I'm actually a FPSer.. If I had to pick one genre for the rest of my life, it would be FPS without a second thought or a seconds hesitation. I started playing the game because I had nothing really better to do, and a friend wanted me to start playing so I did.. I never came into this game with a concern for the story, or the Final Fantasy series in general (to date I've only played FF7, FFXI, FFXIII, and FFXIV, I've also done ***for the friend that got me to play FFXI and my wife on other FF games and Kingdom Hearts if that counts). FFXI has always been, just as FFXIV will always be, just a time waster for me. I'm not really concerned with story line, I care more about the battles themselves, I do find some fun, but the story behind them is nothing I really concern myself with.. It's more like Go to NPC, NPC says I should check in <place a> so I go to place a, of course that leads me to b and then eventually to c, but all of that means nothing to me, I only went through all that because I HAD TO, if I could have just skipped straight to the fight and the reward it offers, I would have.
I can understand that a lot better. Your statement that you'd play a single player game for storyline read to me like those players who are typically RPG fans but for some reason have no interest in this game's story. I'd like to think I've a fair balance between elite endgame and being a casual Mog Houser and mission guy, leaning far more on the side of experiencing the game's story and the other niches it has to offer. If I wanted pure elite endgame I'd play the MMOs that are famous for it - though I'm not an MMO fan in the least. I may have liked WoW at its release, but truly the only reason I play XI is I'm such a FF fan. I'd be a MMO fan if they followed the hard-earned reward scheme they were intended to as well.
Nah, just that my reasons for playing Online games aren't for story, it's for the social interaction mostly. I don't play FPS for the story either, as there usually is none..
I'm not a fan of MMO stories, because by nature they are either long, drawn out and ridiculously convoluted, or worse, all that but also flat out boring.
If I actually want to play a game for it's story, it's almost always single player.
I'm sure MMO designers do their best to make good, compelling stories, but they face a dilemma, the story will either be short, or will surely be drug out and suffer as a consequence.
Think of it like Saw, yeah it was new and edgy and the first couple were 'OMG this is the best ***ever!' but after so many, it just gets tired and boring, and you're just like 'again?!'.. That's what MMOs are like for me.. At first it's cool and I'm actaully interested in what's going on, but after 2-3 sequels, I'm just sick of it and it's just getting in my way (much the way saw 3,405,265 will soon be interrupting my TV shows.)
