Tried playing FF, always got bored within a weeks time. Just didn’t resonate with me, would much rather play through SWTOR since that’s not basically a single player game with narrative. Wow however has always always drawn me back.
It isn’t that bad. Probably better to call it Old English lite. They just throw a few words in to make the more educated characters sound more educated. Most commoners speak pretty plainly.
I tend to find both fanbases tend to have loyalists which dismiss or downplay the strengths of the other or outright refuse to even consider the other MMO. It is a weird game tribalism thing which is funny since there are many members of both game’s dev teams who are big fans of the other franchise. I have read an indepth analysis of how well crafted the Thordan Extreme fight was from a WoW raid developer and Yoshi P himself has said he is a fan of WoW and has attended several Blizzcons.
I suppose it depends on how they are telling the story. However WoW has made the PC the main character so it really doesn’t make much difference these days.
Nobodies don’t fight major threats. If they do they stop being nobodies. Really the only way to avoid this is to keep the content pretty mundane and never fight anything more impressive than a big dragon. The moment major events or catastrophic disasters come into it the narrative really can’t fit nobodies in it anymore.
Honestly this is very much a subject of opinion. I agree with it because I personally favor FF14 in no small part to being a huge story junkie, however it is in no way an objective viewpoint. Case in point would be for people who aren’t interested in the story and are interested in PvP instead or just want to do dungeons and raids. The fact FF14 forces you to do all the MSQ becomes a negative for those people and frankly FF14’s PvP has never quite manage to hit its target.
In short, everyone has their own tastes. I do think that FF14 is well worth playing if you enjoy a story as it is one of the best scripted and emotional stories I have played with some of the most compelling villains I have seen in the MMO space. It is also probably one of the few games where it has actually felt like my character would lose even though I knew rationally they would win in the end. The story actually made me feel the sense of despair my character would have felt and that was surprisingly profound, particularly when my character overcame it (in one of the most badass moments I have seen in a MMO).
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If I could get the writers to change just one thing, it would be this. Let the story grow from the characters, don’t decide on your “cool cinematic moment” and then pick characters from a hat and contort them into the service of whatever rule of cool nonsense you’ve come up with.
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You say things are done better in Final Fantasy without illustrrating how.
The Final Fantasy franchise has vastly different cultural roots and avenues of appeal and tradition than the Warcraft one. Much of it’s fan base is attacted to Warcraft’s particular blend of drama and tongue-in-cheek. Trying to remake it into a clone of Final Fantasy is a disservice to both franchises.
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I can tell you why with bullet points.
- Tighter narrative
- Smaller cast of main characters which keeps the story focused.
- Because of the tighter narrative and smaller cast, they are able to tell a complete story in the period of a single expansion that doesn’t lose itself in the weeds.
It honestly has nothing to do with the cultural roots and the like, especially since Blizzard did have stories with tighter narratives (see WC3), smaller cast of characters (see WC3 again), and can tell a complete story when they want to (see every leveling zone). They just don’t do it for expansion storylines anymore and it’s frustrating lol
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You’re comparing single player games to an MMORG. (I’ve played the MMORG versions of Final Fantasy, they roll very much like WOW to me, only less focused.)
BFA had quite a few narrative arcs such as Jaina Proudmoore’s Kul Tiran arc and Talananj’s succession arc on the Horde side.
FFXIV is a bad game coz it cant capture its audience at the start. there I said it.
You dont play mmorpgs because of its good story, you play it because you want to interact and become better than other people or do whatever the hell you want. You dont play it for the story.
Its like buying Fortnite for the artstyle.
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People like different things. We don’t need to make them all the same.
I have absolutely 0 interest in ever playing FF14 or any FF game. It has never interested me. The visual style and what little I have seen and heard of the story do not stoke any interest in me.
I am old enough to have played Star Wars Galaxies when that was live. I loved that game. I would not defend its flaws or say it was the best - but it had a story and activities I enjoyed, in a style I enjoyed.
Elder Scrolls has a pretty interesting story, but the gameplay has been meh.
World of Warcraft checks a lot of boxes for me. I won’t say it is the best or that other games are objectively worse - WoW is good for me.
What ever FF fans think is good, they can get it from FF games. Though the constant chatter and cutscenes in the Maw intro reminds me of watching one of my friends play a FF game in high school.
Playing in the Maw reminds me of Diablo. Especially with Torghast’s shapechanging dungeons.
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I’m comparing the MMO Final Fantasy XIV, with the MMO World of Warcraft.
WoW’s story has been an unfocused shotgun affair for years now, which is why I praise XIV’s focused narrative. I know Blizzard can do focused narratives, they’ve done it in the past. I just don’t know why they don’t do it now.
And again, that’s frustrating lol.
You bring up Talanji’s and Jaina’s arcs, which are perfect examples of this issue.
Talanji’s arc basically ends after the Battle of Dazar’alor and isn’t picked up again until a book. Jaina’s arc lasted 6 years Lightdamned years, from it’s start with the bombing of Theramore, to the leveling experience of BfA.
Talanji’s arc could have covered the entire length of the expansion, from the beginning to to be wrapped up in the last patch. Jaina’s could have been handled back in Mists lol. But Blizzard shotgun storytelling is all about foreshadowing things to come, which is just…aaaaaahhh lol
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I was mostly talking about the Maw intro, with the Jaina and Thrall talking all day and stopping to pick weapons and this one talking and that one talking and Helya saying hi.
Is it really a MMORPG? It seems more like a RPG with MMO aspects.
aka a RPGMMO.
I mean, I’ve played Warcraft on and off since Vanilla (admittedly never got to max level in Vanilla). Then I played through quite a while of Classic, stopping just short of Naxxramas. On the other end, I’ve played almost no Final Fantasy game outside of Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and then FFXIV.
Warcraft’s ‘blend of drama and tongue-in-cheek’ has never really been an appeal to me. I only really play it over something like FFXIV because investment and gameplay. The second primarily because Warcraft handles smoother to me. Both in normal movement and combat. Just feels more reactive and fluid. But the narrative style (as I’d described in my other post) definitely works better than Warcraft’s.
I mean, I played all the expansions but this latest one for that very reason. Why someone plays a game is personal to them.
Sure, but then you’re play two games if you want something from both.
And the difference is???
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One is tied to MMORPG the other is like a singleplayer RPG with MassiveMultiplayer Online attached. As in there are alot of players there. and that is it.
I’m not even going to pretend to understand what you are getting at here.
Not that I think it matters in this situation as we are talking about how Blizzard handles their story. And the way Blizzard handles their story is…baaaaaad lol.
I want to stress again, it took 6 years for Jaina’s story to conclude. Because Blizzard’s style is apparently “Foreshadow”. And I’m not even knocking the dropping of small hints here and there to keep a mystery going. Like the mystery around Denathrias and the dreadlords is great.
I’m talking about the things like starting a story, like Tyrande and the Night Warrior, with no plans to conclude it until the next expansion 2 years later. And even then only in a way that parts of your audience will likely see.
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Every game after XII has been absolutely putrid with XIV being the sole exception. They all play differently, anyway.
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Warning: Choosing this phrase in a Story Forum Drinking Game can lead to alcohol poisoning.
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Let me clarify this statement with just throwing SWTOR out there as an example of what they meant, it plays basically like a single player rpg with the mmo part tacked on and not offering much satisfaction in terms of gameplay loops.