He also said it was important for creators to play their own games. Returning to the country analogy: "If the leaders don't live there, why would their subjects? Wrapping up, Yoshida said that Square Enix itself has learned many lessons from the struggle with Final Fantasy While the initial game was a massive failure, it was an important opportunity for the publisher to reassess its methods and grow.
And this is just the start. Start smart, make more money, customize characters, increase inventory, and much more in our guides and walkthroughs. Peter Parker, lost in the multiverse. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Gaming PlayStation Xbox Nintendo. Movies TV Comics. Star Wars Marvel.
Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. What went wrong Beginning with a history of Final Fantasy 14 , Yoshida noted that the game originally launched in to an extremely negative reaction from both fans and press. The fix Yoshida was pulled in to the Final Fantasy 14 team in December and given the unenviable task of fixing this incredibly broken game. Next Up In News. Loading comments Of course, we did do our due diligence with the promotion and the marketing, but that's a given.
We have to promote the title. I think what contributed to the success is the direct communication from us to our fans, and gaining their support in the relaunch of this title. I feel that the support from the fans has greatly contributed to the success. Do you think this lesson that you've learned through recreating this title has changed something about the way people at Square Enix look at game development, look at dealing with the fans, or even maybe how they look at Final Fantasy?
NY: I definitely think it has changed. I've actually been doing Producer Letters via livestream since around September of Originally, the Square Enix internal impression of those shows was like, "What's he doing on livestream? He's a developer! If you promise something to players, that means it's a commitment!
As a developer, what's he trying to do? But now, after it has all been said and done, I'm seeing more and more projects -- every project nowadays is doing livestreams, like going onto [popular Japanese video site] Niconico Douga and doing a program.
If you remember last year's E3, we had a whole broadcast booth set up, and we had livestreams going on the whole time. Yoshida livestreaming at E3. I do see that, internally, within Square Enix, they've figured out the importance in being in direct contact with the fans, the customers. I'm sure you're seeing, from a PR perspective, that there's been a change among the developers?
NY: And in terms of the different teams, proposing ideas to implement into the games, I'm hearing people say more and more, "This is what the fans want. Am I correct in thinking you started more on the Enix side of the company than the Square side of the company? NY: Yes, that's correct.
I've been with Square Enix for about 10 years. I did start with Square Enix after the merger happened. But my first assignment was Dragon Quest , so in that respect I am more leaning toward the Enix side. But, I'm more of a lone wolf-type guy, so I'm more neutral in my stance. I actually get this question often: "Are you more of a Square person, or an Enix person?
I was wondering if you had some kind of perspective that people who were originally working on the project lacked, and where that came from. During the PS2 generation, Square Enix had great success. Their process involved a lot of manual, handmade processes. Once you succeed, you tend to want to follow suit with what worked. But they didn't take the time to notice what's around them, and they seemed to not notice the importance of the game experience and enjoying the gameplay.
It was more about upgrading the graphics quality, and with the original Final Fantasy XIV , that was one of the failures that I wanted to point out to that team.
They were concentrating too much on just trying to upgrade the quality of the graphics. But after that, Square Enix as a whole, I feel, kind of changed. For the Square Enix titles, it is okay if we build our games on our experience with our successful games, but now that the generation has changed to the PlayStation 3 and then moving on to the next generation, I know that process is not going to work.
Of course, this is optional, but I'd get the opportunity to present my findings and people could come and listen to it. But the impression was always, "Oh, Yoshida went to America again, and he was caught by the American bug! He's talking about how you should change the way you build games!
NY: That's a tough question to answer. I'm sure all of the developers at Square Enix kind of already had that notion, and it's just that you don't know until you actually trip and fall, or your game fails.
I don't have a strong sense of feeling vindicated now. Read our policy. Jump to comments Martin is Eurogamer's features and reviews editor. He has a Gradius 2 arcade board and likes to play racing games with special boots and gloves on.
Feature Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Tombs of the Fallen hold funky new lore, mildly-challenging puzzles. Bethesda confirms free Skyrim next-gen upgrade, pricing for Anniversary Edition. Elden Ring network test keys are being sold on eBay. Dragon Quest 12 takes the long-running RPG series down a darker path.
Premium only Off-topic: Getting off the familiar fantasy merry-go-round, and loving it. Premium only The Eurogamer Podcast: how racing games defined one of our finest. Supporters only Letter from the Editor: Feast and famine. The 10 most popular stories of the day, delivered at 5pm UK time. Never miss a thing. Watch on YouTube. Bethesda confirms free Skyrim next-gen upgrade, pricing for Anniversary Edition Ahead of next week's launch.
Elden Ring network test keys are being sold on eBay A new low for scalpers. The Witcher 3 builds: The best alchemy, Death March, Sign builds and other combat builds to use How to make Geralt combat ready for any situation.
Premium only Off-topic: Getting off the familiar fantasy merry-go-round, and loving it A Deadly Education. Coming up with a list of every major feature that would be in the reboot was just the first part of Yoshida's job.
He was also in charge of ensuring everything came together on time. Yoshida was able to utilize his excellent communication skills, his earnest attitude towards games as a whole, and his natural talent as a game creator to compile the necessary information very quickly. He also made it a point to walk the staff members through these plans verbally while providing his reasoning behind it, and not simply sharing the list of elements for their reference.
Each member of the team understands the meaning and importance of their work, and they can stay motivated as they work on the game. I believe that was a very important thing to keep in mind. Square Enix didn't have months to waste deliberating over what features this new version of FF14 would have, and many members on the team didn't have experience developing MMOs or even playing them. So Yoshida pulled together a crack team of experts from both inside Square Enix along with new hires and threw together a complete design document in a matter of weeks by drawing on his own extensive experience as an MMO player.
Time was of the essence, and one of the biggest failures in the original FF14 was due to how little oversight its developers had into the day-to-day production process. In the No Clip documentary , Yoshida explains that, in order to meet the impossible deadline for A Realm Reborn, he broke every development task into its smallest constituent parts and then had each developer give a minimum and a maximum estimate for how long it might take to complete.
All of that was collected into an enormous spreadsheet that factored in everything from meetings to bathroom breaks to give Yoshida a complete yet granular view of the FF14's development.
Every single task, from endgame progression to the leaves of a tree in the forested city of Gridania was broken down like this. It required one hell of a spreadsheet. What's fascinating is how that process shaped the game itself.
The latest update, for example, reworks the entire story of A Realm Reborn to remove some of the bloat and grind that made the story drag. But the problems with A Realm Reborn wasn't with the story; it was how it was told through rote quests. No matter what the quest was, no matter how trivial it was, even if you skipped through all the text and dialogue, it would still take about nine minutes.
It might seem arbitrary, but making every quest equally sized makes sense when you're trying to plot out and develop a hour story under a tight deadline. And A Realm Reborn's rigid quest structure only really became noticeable in hindsight as the development team became more confident and capable. At the time of its release, I just remember being overwhelmed with how much FF14 had improved.
Tedious quests were an easy flaw to overlook. I'd killed my fair share of MMO raid bosses by , but I'll never forget the spectacle of fighting the primal demigod Garuda for the very first time. Instead of just finding her waiting for us in an arena like in every other MMO, I watched her descend like an angel from the heavens as ominous organ music piped—electric guitar sweeping in as she unleashed a furious tornado that trapped my party in her lair. I think this structure is one of the reasons why so many players have received this game so well.
FF14 isn't the first MMO to take this approach, but consistency is the key. As the team moved from A Realm Reborn into the Heavensward expansion and onward, the story always remained front and center, bolstered by setpiece boss fights that felt bespoke and meaningful because they were so closely tied into the story as a whole. You weren't just killing monsters in some nefarious dungeon because they looked cool and had good loot.
Everything tied into a story about you and a group of badasses fighting to dismantle the imperialist Garlean Empire and threats often far worse.
0コメント