Was FFXIV 1.0 Really SO BAD? | React to NoClip #1

[@patyos2]

Yes Hildibrand was a 1.0 character and throughout 2.0 it’s hinted that Hildibrand died during the Calamity and then when you start the Hildibrand quest line it starts with Nashu crying at Hildibrand’s grave.

[@foxdavion6865]

Death *is* a thing in Final Fantasy and Square Enix is never afraid to shy away from it (that is what I love about Japanese writers, they are not afraid of killing off characters to advance the plot unlike in the west, where characters get killed off because of RL reasons then get shoe horned into the plot. Video game deaths of central characters? Never happens unless it's a genre where it is expected) However, in Final Fantasy... implied death doesn't mean death, it just means a character is killed off until they decide they are not killed off anymore. So, unless you witness someone die, they didn't. Also, another not so fun fact: There was going to be a Hildibrand arc for Shadowbringers, but the pandemic resulted in the entire thing being shelved. Roughly a third of the quest cutscenes were partially finished. These scenes later had new dialogue placed into with them being meshed together into what we got in Endwalker. It was originally intended to be released with patch 5.35 with the remaining parts releasing up till 3.55 requiring to have finished the MSQ up to 3.5. Which is why there is a lot of story elements in it involving post 5.3 content.

[@DayleDiamond]

Would love to see your coverage of XI! So many memories of that game. It still beats XIV in some respects, especially job complexity. Bards in XIV have three songs. Bards in XI have closer to a hundred. Summoners in XIV have Ifrit, Garuda and Titan, with limited appearances of Phoenix and Bahamut. Summoners in XI have separate move lists depending on their pet, with choices for Carbuncle, Fenrir, Ifrit, Titan, Leviathan, Guruda, Shiva, Ramuh, Diabolos, Cait Sith, Siren, Atomos, Alexander, Odin, and eight elemental spirits. And so on!

[@TDOTCRFH4]

ffxiv and NMS's turnarounds have had an odd knock-on effect where whenever a big game launches in an unacceptable state (Anthem springs to mind), some part of the discourse goes "maybe they can ffxiv it???" despite us really only having those two major examples of such successes, amongst the countless failures that made those successes so special to begin with

[@tommyspringfield7687]

warframe is among that as well

[@PreviouslyDelicious]

I was there when the reigns changed, in the early patches of 1.0 through a series of surveys this team turned a shit show into something that was actually playable and showed promise by 1.25. They did all those improvements to a failed launch that they knew they would be discarding all while building a brand new version of the game. I saw potential in this game from the beginning and I'm so glad I stuck with it, my faith in this game has paid off in spades!

[@sijrichters]

I was surprised you haven't seen this yet. Glad you liked it! Coming from the BPO industry, I really appreciated how Yoshi-P used real management methodology to lead XIV out of the hole they were stuck in. I was like, "woah. I didn't realize this sht could be used for other fields as well".

[@erlandir9121]

Hell yeah ! Was waiting for you to react to NoClip finally. Glad you found the time. It's really worth it and eye-opening how FF14 was back then and how much it improved.

[@celfhelp]

recently went back and rewatched this doc, and especially after Endwalker, it's just amazing to see how far they've come

[@Spectacular_Insanity]

Speaking of banter in MMOs. When I played SWTOR frequently several years ago, Fleet Chat was always full of Jawa jokes. That is, we would randomly list out movie titles but replace one of the words with "Jawa". I remember seeing it go on for literally hours. Like, I'd be joking in chat, queue and go into a Nightmare Operation (raid), then come back and the joke string was still going, but with completely different people. And it happened all the time. I'm not sure why these jokes were so frequent, but they were kind of a running in-joke meme of the community. Good times.

[@adamslosslessmusiccollection]

Koji Fox was also playing on my 1.0 server Pandemonium/Excalibur as a character named Amanda Huggenkiss, which was play on words for “a man to hug and kiss.”

[@tigrabelle]

Someone has probably mentioned this already, but the menu that you were reacting to at about 1:01:36, (with the choices for Hume, Elvaan, Tartaru, Mithra, and Galka) was the FFXI character creation screen. Hume and Elvaan pretty obvious, Tarutaru are Lalafell (just like Tataru Taru). Mithra is the Miqo'te analog and Galka is the basis for Roegadyn. All the other playable races don't exist as playable races in FFXI.

[@RETROtheGAMER]

I've watched creators react to this documentary several times by now. It never gets old. Really makes me respect the XIV team and Yoshi-P

[@dafire9634]

27:30 the "speakers network" channel has great vids on 1.0, and yes previously the 3 city states were all 1 map, rather than being split in two(old gridania,new gridania) etc, the maps on general were a lot bigger(but bad to navigate). And with the scripts issue as well, i dont see how this could EVER run on the ps3(which as a reminder had 256mb of ram) or something immensely small(by modern standards) like that 32:50 the main difference is that FF11 came out in 2002, while 1.0 came out in 2013/14 given the gap in years, mmos had progressed so far, while square was left in the dust, while the same situation is true now of Blizzards situation 1:07:00 they were able to squeak it out in 2 years, in great part because of yoship, but also because they reused as much code and as many assets as they could(see almost all of ARRs armor and locations) that brought with it technical debt as well, as the spaghetti code of 1.0 is now the spaghetti code of 2.0, and im sure their problems with an "infinite glamour dresser" like certain other games, stems no doubt from this 1:16:40 as i cited in this comment, the "fall and rise of FF14" series from the speakers network shows the player side of the situation while this is more the dev side

[@FF-tp7qs]

Yoshitaka Amano has a unique art style that is instantly recognisable. Aside from Final Fantasy, he's also responsible for illustrations in the Vampire Hunter D novel series that is really worth checking out. I have only read the first two books in the series but I really recommend taking a look

[@Azaysol]

@Quazii the pre made chat selections were actually created in FF11 as a way for JP and NA players to communicate as they were allowed to play on the same server. The premade chat get auto transformed into your local language. Its something that was kept in FF14 although not needed as much since servers were so divided till DC travel was implemented recently.

[@Azaysol]

later in the video i saw the mention of the market ward in 1.0 but it didnt go into detail. You should deff google how that worked on release and even after it was fixed/patched... its was a horrible system to say the least

[@Berguna645]

It still needed Dc jp still pretty much eng jp ppl Mixed together

[@Krescentwolf]

Speaking of Jumping in MMOs... there was a now pretty infamous interview with the original head of ff14's developement where someone seriously asked him about adding jumping to the game... and he laughed, thinking they were joking. Totally shows the mindset at the time.

[@rennierzamora3582]

I was waiting for this reaction video. You always have good insights regarding these things

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

I love that Hinageshi’s backstory (botanist/miner studium quests) is basically Koji’s.

[@pngmk2]

Man, I remembered my Ultimate Online day, when I often play during midnight to avoid the connection break because someone called us

[@TheZoe132]

Can't watch it now, but I've been waiting for this since you last reacted to the speaker's network channel series of videos about 1.0. I'll have this in my watch list later for when I've time!

[@foomp]

Time gating in 1.0 was an RMT countermeasure. That same fatigue system was literally developed during the early years of FFXI to combat fishing botters. Many things that exist today with FFXIV were originally created for FFXI, including the Special Task Force.

[@MugiwarasNakama]

No. You are dead wrong. The developers explained in detail why they did it. It was a mechanism to keep casual players and hardcore players on an even playing field. But they only ended up making both playstyles upset with it.

[@foomp]

@@MugiwarasNakama That is what was said and likely is true to an extent, but think about what point such a system would have in the long run. After the first several months or so, when players would in theory have started their endgame journey. What purpose does such a system have for new characters in a game that endgame is already being engaged with? Again, as I said, the fatigue system was LITERALLY created for FFXI to combat RMT. There is zero reason to bring such a drastically hindering system designed for a specific purpose unless it's to include that purpose.

[@MugiwarasNakama]

@@foomp You are wrong again because you do not know the concept behind ffxiv original design philosophy. Originally ffxiv was not going to have jobs at all. The classes were simply a stand in for the skill level system from Ffxi. You were able to mix and match the different abilities from the ranks you gained in the different classes to essentially create your own unique job. This was stated by the devs to be the intention of the armoury system. There was a deesign document that was leaked from the alpha/beta client of 1.0 that listed well over 80 different planned classes to be implemented over the lifetime of the game. They were intending ffxiv to be a grind centric mmo similar to everquest and ffxi before it. So such a system would have actually grown more and more impactful over time. It also reveals the true intentions behind the system. Keeping people in the hamster wheel grinding over and over again while the devs put in the minimum amount of work possible to release content for the game just as they did in FFXI. Tanaka was a lazy prick and his endgoal was to make as much money as possible while doing the least amount of work possible. One of the main things he wanted to achieve with the release of XIV was to have ff fans pay a sub for both xi and xiv and have them consistently playing both games. The way they were going to achieve this was with the release of abyssea. Abyssea purpose was to minimize the time investment required to play ffxi.

[@Viehzerrer]

Since you said that you didn't know that Hildibrand was in 1.0, I can recommend you other Speakers Network series "Remnants of a Realm" and "Secrets of a Realm" (maybe also "Chronicles of a Realm", if you want to know what the story was), which talk about things that 1.0 had, what was left unfinished after it ended and what, if anything, remains of it in ARR. I tried FFXI a while back, but while I might come back to it, it wasn't exactly to my taste. Of course, the game is quite different from what it was back in the day (like, it's more beginner- and solo-friendly now), but it's still very different from XIV. If you try it out, I'd recommend you to use a controller, though. Even know, after the console version shut down, the game doesn't have proper mouse and keyboard controls and playing with those feels like playing on an emulator.

[@Cous1000]

In FF11 'check' was a way to gauge a mob's strength. You had results such as 'Easy Prey,' 'Even Match,' 'Tough,' 'Very Tough,' 'Incredibly Tough,' and 'Impossible to Gauge (Notorious Monsters/NMs).' Check can be used on your fellow players. You get to see what gear they have on, their title, and what job/subjob they're using at that point in time unless they used the /anon command. If /anon is used, you can't see their current job/subjob. Also, FF11 didn't have jump. If you started from 11 and came to 14, it was like.. *shrug.*

[@megamage911]

YoshiP is basically the ultimate proof of how important a good project manager is.

[@jeremybrown2116]

One last comment, it had in it's battle system probably the coolest feature in breaking monster body parts. It was confusing to pull off but if you had a party that could rengeki together you could break the monsters leg with combo attacks and get hooves and immobilize it or break off it's horn to blind it while actually getting the item for crafting. The system was replaced in 2.0 with limit breaks but I wish we could still break monster parts off. If you have any questions let me know I played since launch.

[@ChrisMorray]

Can't wait for the rest. This is probably one of the most gripping stories Noclip has ever told.

[@saulmadrid9950]

It's funny you say that about Yoshi P working on another MMO. In a recent interview he said before calling it quits, he would love to do one more MMO.

[@Wogle]

As Koji mentions, the beauty of the 1.0 to 2.0 shift, is the whole meta level of lore. In most games, you have legends of old heroes and stories passed on, but it's all written as part of the flavour text for world building. With Final Fantasy XIV, we HAVE players who survived Dalamud and experienced the old version of the game. They are not just PCs, but the NPCs who reminisce of old times. Actual real life equivalents of the company of heroes from ARR. And then there was the fact the team ACTUALLY included elements like the great goobbue wall into the games lore and quests, which was an entirely player-led RP decision. I love it

[@serisothikos]

I always like seeing people watch through these. I'd love it if NoClip could do a followup tracking the literal explosion of the game in the several years since this came out, on the eve of Stormblood.

[@walkseva]

That Ul'dah scene that you praised raises two issues that plagued 1.0's longevity from the start. One is hardware. The elephant in the room is that the then current PS3 would explode trying to run the game let alone that cutscene, making the promised console port impossible. The other was that a good portion of PCs couldn't handle it either (a major issue if you want a large player population). As an anecdote, I had an acquaintance in college who was blazing the hype train for 1.0's release and said it was going to be his main game when it released. This friend was better off, so they had a state of the art gaming laptop that could run most current games like Mass Effect or CoD in the highest settings. Cue FFXIV: sluggish, slow, choppy, and that was just what I saw of him walking around old Limsa Lominsa. To top it off, even if you had the PC to run it, plenty of the game's infrastructure relied on server end functions, so if you didn't have a good PC AND impeccable internet (or if the servers weren't running slow themselves), it would still stutter like crazy. Second is development content: considerable chunks of the cutscenes were painstakingly crafted with a combination of motion capture and elbow grease. It looks great to see all those fluid body poses, head turns, and expressions, but it is suicide for developing newer cutscenes, especially in bulk. Even in EW where they're the most funded they've ever been, they still keep within their time and monetary budget to prevent glut. Crystal Tools did the team no favors for these issues either.

[@Elban19]

As someone who was there on day one you did not want to play the original Final Fantasy XIV I remember trying to figure out the fishing class and it was the most obnoxious thing that I would have played World of Warcraft a million times more than having to sit through that again

[@kmurphy0620]

For FFXI, I would be interested to hear you have a conversation with someone like Mr Happy about the past of FFXI of what it used to be versus now before jumping into FFXI. It is now and end game grind game, I'm told. It used to be a grind all the way from the start to the finish when I tried it. The game has changed a lot. I don't go back because I like the memories about what it once was without the experience of what it has become. I'm amazed you haven't seen this video. For streamers this is often a required watch once completing ARR to help appreciate what you experienced, and know the special history the game has.

[@Rennat9002]

I didn’t realize you hadn’t seen this! I’m here for it, let’s gooo!

[@foomp]

12:11 You might actually like FFXI. The key thing to always remember going in to that game is that it's old. It's one of the OG "modern" MMOs, older than WoW, and it follows old school text based commands. There are menus, but you're more reliant on text, specifically text through macros. FYI, that "check" command is how you determine the level or difficulty of the monster. It doesn't give you actual numbers, but generic text like "too easy" or "incredibly tough" and the community was left to themselves to figure out what that meant. If you use macros in XIV, you might be a little familiar with it. Example: /ma "cure ii" Combat is very very slow compared to XIV or WoW, which is another thing to always keep in mind. For some people, the combat speed might be too slow for them, but others seem to enjoy it. As long as you move away from comparing XIV or WoW to XI, as though one is superior than the other, then you probably won't find too much issue with it. Combat does pick up a lot when you start getting to endgame, because your gear REALLY changes how you play the game. It is a night and day difference in what you character can do. One major saving grace for players in XI is a 3rd party tool called Windower (or the less popular Ashita). It is irreplaceable if you're wanting to not only have some modern day fixes to problems the game inherently has and a lack of quality of life, but it even provides the ability to improve the graphics to be a little better. If you ever do an XI video, expect people like me to throw out a ton of input on the game lol. Whether you ask for it or not lol.

[@nekogami87]

"They created a task force" You have to understand that a "task force" in Japan traditionnal companies usually results in no one making any decision or taking any initiative.

[@Lizard14]

Ohh I was sure you had already watched it!! Nice, I hope you like it, it's a great documentary! Grabbing lunch to watch your reaction now! :D

[@PsTymier]

Playing Final fantasy 11 is such a good idea :D. I've been playing FF14 since release, and just recently have paid my sub in FF11. There is so much to do in 11, and the systems are very cool. Also the lore, there are many connections to be made with 11 and 14. It's a very cozy game. The community in 11 is another different beast, FF11 players are insanely laidback, helpful, and happy to interact with you. Definitely get Windower to at least frame rate cap at 60 fps.

[@hyperionnova2854]

Been waiting for your reaction to this one :) Can’t wait for parts 2 and 3!

[@xenomemphate]

The Devs really are a reflection of the game. Yoshi-P might be a real life Warrior of Light but the likes of Ishikawa, Soken, Koji, and Amano and I am sure there are loads of others, who make up the Scions. Yoshi-P might be a hero but he could not have pushed this game as far as he has without an incredible team supporting him. Also, you asked about the networking peripheral for PS2 - it was attached in the back. On the original (not the slim) there was a flap on the back of it you could open for the network controller to plug in.

[@eshbena]

I am a fan of Amano's as well, actually. His work on Dunbine, Five Star Stories, and Vampire Hunter D, was what made me fall in love with his artwork. I'd been playing FF since the first one, but his art wasn't as easy to see back in the 8 bit days. XD

[@Poldovico]

I think a lot of what makes every Final Fantasy so recognizable even when the style varies so wildly can be traced directly to him. Sure, if you see a Moguri or a Chocobo it's a no brainer, but being able to see the OG Warrior of Light, Balthier from 12, Cloud from 7, Shantotto from 11 and Y'Shtola from 14, and somehow recognize them all as Final Fantasy is something I can't understand.

[@clarkiie8620]

I remember attacking in FFXI sitting there auto attacking whilst building up TP to use skills you had and trying to chain it with another players skill etc I use to play a BLM and using ancient magic use to take so long to cast. It was very heavily party based and I remember being new with a friend, hit level 10 and headed for the Dunes where spent 3-5 hours depending, waiting for an exp party at the pugils and stuff but the fact no instances and had to communicate with people more to try an level and progress in the game and socialise I use to like, I do sometimes miss that aspect but at the same time I'm older now, not at college like I was when played FFXI and have a job, I can't spend hours waiting for a party so it's nice to be able to jump into Duty Finder and get things done lol. If you ever found a party in FFXI with a powerleveller (someones mate normally on a WHM) who would heal out of the party and basically make levelling a safer experience (because dying = loss of exp and potentia delevelling if you didn't get a nice exp buffer after you've levelled). So many things I loved about FFXI but they're best left in my fond memories. I also played FFXIV 1.0 and had such high hopes and it was quite the let down but I stuck with it any ways and then ARR arrived and I've been playing on and off over the years ever since. (Currently on my Island farming for upgrades, watching this and felt like sharing few little FFXI memories that cropped up in my head seeing the old footage)

[@Cous1000]

Lol, not even that. If you got a Japanese party in FF11, cancel any plans you had for that night. You were not leaving that party even if the 8th umbral calamity was coming. It was THE BEST xp gains you could get; getting over 6k-8k xp per hour. Those were the days.

[@clarkiie8620]

@@Cous1000 Oh yeah!! that was always a Jackpot party lol Use to try have convos best I could with the in game translation settings lol

[@angelicadahurica6888]

Nice! Can’t wait for part 2 and 3!

[@QuaziiFFXIV]

coming for sure! eventually!

[@FtanmoOfEtheirys]

18:48 that's exactly why the auto-translate was created. Even today in xiv on Elemental, it's almost never that you will see someone speaking Japanese in public chat, we generally keep it to /tell or /fc only.

[@elosaybonjour4250]

Europeans thanks auto-translate

[@Red-fg9qr]

A 1 hour video from Quazii, sign me up, fuck yea. Edit: And that's why XIV's devs and everyone involved deserves praise, doing possible the impossible.

[@FtanmoOfEtheirys]

The only thing more iconic than watching Dalamud fall, was partaking in the Great Goobbue Wall of Uldah, which funny enough, is canon per the 2.0 story lol.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

I keep saying it. I feel like FF14 needs a "legacy campaign" adventure where you can relive the end of the 6th astral era lovingly remade in the modern engine.

[@UltrEgoVegeta]

I agree I want to play through it

[@MugiwarasNakama]

PS2 did not have a HDD. The HDD was added together with the modem , not swaped with the HDD. Also FFXI was the only reason the HDD was released at all. Sony actually had scraped their plans to release the HDD but square had to litterally beg them to allow the HDD to be released and then it was only done with the deal that FFXI would have to ship with the HDD making FFXI one of the most expensive PS2 games ever released. I bought my copy of FFXI for almost 120 dollars.

[@Auhsa]

Watching the beginning it's great to realize how far gaming has come, not just as an art-form but technology-wise. My first console had wood paneling, lol, but at least cartridges just had to be slotted in and was good to go. I remember having to wait for cassettes to slowly load and only work sometimes or having to go through like 5 floppy disks in one game and hoping none were corrupted. On the other hand, no microtransactions! Oh the nostalgia. =)

[@OakesParker]

The Noclip documentary is more focused on the SE side of things, honestly. If you want to see about things on the player side, check out the Speakers Networks Rise and Fall (or was it Fall and Rise?) series in KZbin. That one is a lot more focused on what the players experienced.

[@Viehzerrer]

He already did.

[@FingerPuppetSarcasm]

Balmung in Uldah sounds like your story of the Barrens. The shout chat is almost always going. Its like an mmo launch and makes other servers feel lonely, when you get used to Balmung chat.

[@helloarchives]

FFXI to this day has the best gearing system of any MMO. It's also still being updated with story and End game content. Just a comment since he mentioned it.

[@Feast_]

Based on the title: It was bad at the start yes, but when Yoshida took the helm and the patches progressed, the game got better. 1.23 was actually some semblance of a good game, and has some of my best MMO memories that I will always treasure. I wear my legacy tattoo with pride and honestly wouldn't mind getting the same tattoo irl

[@bighert9287]

It’s funny to see where game companies started as. I know Nintendo used to do household appliances and even in the automotive industry before they did gaming

[@jonathancruz5848]

So much is taken for granted on how we used to play MMOs back in the day that always gets me. Playing FF11 during premier launch and noticing the difference is just crazy now. Getting a group together took anywhere from 10min min to 30min max, going to the location took another 10ish min or so pending if you could grab a mount to ride to the location or teleport, then go to the leveling spot to level up over the timeframe of around like 2hrs min to half a day. People were always helpful, always subbed themselves out so if they had to go they would replace themselves FIRST before bailing, and dying ACTUALLY held consequence like lost xp. People today definitely have very little patience even though a lot of their days are spent doing nothing a good majority (or maybe that's due to shorter attention span).

[@MugiwarasNakama]

In FFXI enemies do not have their levels displayed or their aggro type. In order to figure out if an enemy is too strong for you to fight or not you need to use a check command that gave you a hint as to how strong the enemy was.

[@TDOTCRFH4]

also going to add to the folks recommending Speakers of Hydaelin's videos if you want a more thorough account of how 1.0 went down from the players' perspective, made by folks who were there

[@ThePawn02]

Losing EXP, Gear, etc and 20 hour grinds were absolutely normal. FFXI predicated much of its game from Everquest. XI was often referred to as the Japanese EQ. Having abilities that you could only use once a day, or having mobs that only spawned once a week on random timers, or mobs that you could only kill once EVER in the life of a server. All of these were things that came from the first 3D MMO, which was Everquest. It wasn't until games like WoW came out, which still had a lot of those features, with world bosses and such, started to ease things up, trying to make the game more inclusive and less off-putting to a wider audience. This was the catalyst to what you have now in most MMO's where you get that instant gratification, that we never had in the first 10 years or so, in the beginning of MMO's.

[@Pmak]

"Check" was actually how to check the strength of the monster. There is a wide range of levels sometimes where levels of mobs in an area are very different. One mob could be say 24 and another is 30. As you would only like to fight things a certain level above you, you would not want to fight something too high level and "check" is to see if the mob is "Impossible to gauge" which means it's too strong and way above your level. It's basically the "Skull" in WoW. But since they had no way to do character portraits at the time -- this was their way of circumventing that limitation.

[@Deuzen_FIN]

"Impossible to gauge" was also applied to most Notorious Monster spawns (think Boss FATEs in XIV) and story bosses - obfuscating the info of their power relative to you made them appear much more formidable threats than they might've actually been stats-wise.

[@Poldovico]

@@Deuzen_FIN A vestige of that approach remains in XIV, as story bosses still have ?? as their level. Doesn't do much for the intimidation factor though :P

[@patrickoverstreet2372]

Bit late to this one but I agree completely with what you said about ff14 taking you back to childhood times, with 6.2 hearing the ff4 battle and boss theme just sent me back to one of the few good memories of my childhood playing ff4. This game just has something that other games fail to have and I cant really put my finger on what it is.

[@QuaziiFFXIV]

just wanted to say even though you are late to the video - i still really appreciate your comments

[@jatoetenel]

I played FF11 in 2003 juni and it was a great journey! there where hard parts that doesnt exist anymore like: You need to farm 3 items and it was a lvl 30 cap and after those items farm you need with these items to open a dungeon boss if you lose! you lose your items your money (money was really low to farrm) aand you lose EXP. But overall it was worth the experience

[@patyos2]

Yoshi said before in an interview that he would love to make an MMO starting from scratch this time so it is very plausible that we may get a brand new Final Fantasy MMORPG when the team are done doing expansions to 14

[@Zlei.]

I get nostalgia no matter how many times I've seen this. Excellent documentary.

[@jeffreywong6842]

I played FFXI for 3 years before WOW, I enjoyed it immensely, more so than FFXIV if I'm completely being honest. I felt so proud when I complete my AF equipment set not by just doing the same dungeon over and over again but the hunt of coffers in dungeons that some are 5+ levels above me, using sneak and invisible potions... those were the days.

[@Berguna645]

In 1.25 getting af gear Pretty much like that I got my first warrior af like that ini 1.25

[@foxdavion6865]

YoshiP has said on multiple occasions he'd like to make a game like Diablo one day.

[@Kasaaz]

Not having Jump was so annoying because you'd find like... small ledges that extended for meters and you'd have to just walk all the way around.

[@SMNtheNight]

I remember trying the beta on my lower high-end PC and it ran like absolute crap even with settings at minimum. I tolerated that long enough to give it a shot but gave up soon after when I discovered there was nothing else to redeem it besides pretty character models and music.

[@Balblair]

I'm happy you mentioned Amano's art, but Akihiko Yoshida's impeccable fantasy costumes, character designs, promotional art and world design for the game really shouldn't be understated either. He's probably most known for his work on Final Fantasy Tactics and the Ivalice series but he's responsible for so much of the world of XIV that we see, especially being the lead artist for 1.0 and 2.0.

[@zeroblade9800]

Having played the FFXI beta and FFXIV beta the concern was real. XI beta was cool cause Sony sent us a prototype hard drive for our PS2. The network adapter had the IDE interface the drives connects to. After the beta ended, we had to ship back the original drive. Sony determined the beta so sucessful that all participants got a free copy of XI which included the retail hard drive. If I remember right it cost $100 back in 2003. I played on PC though when that version releaed and my bro played on the PS2. It was pretty hardcore even back then. The important thing was even the beta worked though, FFXIV was immediate how bad it was. I stopped playing a month or so after released and jumped back in a day here and there.

[@ahskagrimmrose5555]

As someone who has played since the very beginning, I will freely admit that the story of Heavensward and beyond is by far superior to 1.0 BUT the open world feel, the sense of wonder and discovery and the more in depth combat and multi leveling systems were by far superior in 1.0 in regards to being ffxi's successor and not wow's.

[@Yajirushi89]

I too loved the semi-open world of 1.0 and the almost sandbox method that was used in dungeons and encounters. I hope beyond hope that one day, CBU3 will have the resources to make the world truly open. Unfortunately linear dungeons are just better for a larger audience and as much as I miss the almost procedural nature of places like Thousand Maws, I know that style will never return.

[@kratosgow342]

the semi-open world design have actually big downside back then it cause heavy load on the server and the engine at the time not to mention they have to reuse the similar layout to keep it "seamless"

[@girodleo31]

Long ass comment incoming, answering some Quazii questions about ffxi: - ffxi is not turned based, there is auto attack based on weapon delay, and you gather TP (tactical points) to make weapon skills. With those weapon skills you could chain them to make skillchains. And then after those skillchains, mages could Magic Burst with a big ass spell for huge numbers. So a recap: autoattacks, abilities with cooldowns (from 15 seconds to 2hours CD), skills with TP, and spells with cooldown. - your life and mana would NOT replenish by themselves. You would need to drink potions or get buffs from support classes. Or you could /heal. Literally typing /heal would make you sit on the grounds and slowly tick up your HP and mana. - One amazing thing in ffxi is that you had specialized gears for everything. As a healer, I had around 15 differents gearset that I would swap around with macros. For instance, one would make my heals stronger, another one would make them casted faster, I would have a gearset for damage spells, or enfeebling spells etc... I loved that about this game. Every piece of gear you got was a slight improvement on your build. You basically never threw away gears. They each had their uses. - when they announced ffxiv, their was three schools of thought among the community basically: people who hoped it would be ffxi with better graphics, others were a bit more curious and eager to play a brand new MMO, and doomsayers saying it was the end of ffxi, handing pitchforks etc. - ffxi had a dangerous, dangerous open world. You asked what was the "check" button. It was to know how stronger the ennemi was. "Too weak to be worthwile": gives no exp, is more than 5 level below you (depending on your job and how low level the mob is, you May still have troubles to solo that monster..), "easy prey" (couple levels below), "decent challenge" (around same level), "even match" (a bit higher than you), "tough" (higher), "Very tough" (much higher), and finally "impossible to gauge". The last one being for the Notorious Monsters (Named ennemies with special drops). Game knowledge was important. Going after a Bee monster or a crab was very different. Bees had lot of évasion, and à big finisher move that could one shot you. Crabs were very tanky, could make your strength drop etc... every monster was very différent, not like ffxiv where it doesn't matter what monster it is your rotation is pretty much the same... - one last thing about monsters: they had différent détection type. Some monsters could smell you, and aggro even if they didn't see you. Some others would aggro if you used Magic nearby. Some other by sight, so you had to wait for them to turn their back to go near them. Some would have both smell and sight. Some had "True sight", they would always aggro you no matter what. Healers and buffers classes have spells to make you invisible to monsters, or unsmellable... I played Final Fantasy XI for 15 years I have around 4 years of Playtime during those 15 years. The game was awesome, big, with a huge sense of community. I cannot emphasis this enough. The community was everything. Linkshells (guilds), were aplenty and pretty much mandatory to play endgame, and even to level up and do story content, some static 6 man groups were mandatory. that's old time, and that's only possible to experience on private (and illegal, I wouldnt encourage you to stream or share content from those) servers nowadays. I still play the game, and its very différent now. Mostly you can play solo, with NPCs following your around and helping you (up to 5 NPCs to make a 6 man group). The story and the music is lovely thouh Mizuta never gets enough credit for his work. If you found installing ffxiv was a pain you're not ready for ffxi tho... ^^ I wish ffxi would get more love from SE, since it literraly saved their company during the 1.0 disaster. And I wish they would bundle ffxi and ffxiv together for a small increase of price but apparently The ffxiv team doesn't care about making this happen. If you have more questions, i'd be delighted to answer them, I will drop on discord and you can chat me anytime. Thank you for this reaction vidéo, lots of interesting takes! Forben Stralken

[@SaigaTenshi]

way back it was Sakaguchi and Uematsu saved Final Fantasy. now its Yoshi P and Soken. just pure coincidence

[@kmurphy0620]

1:01:32 absolutely, having played FFXI at one point I viewed the new races as plan B. Galka and Tarutaru will forever be better than their successors. Race actually meant something in FFXI. Tarutaru casters would forever be better than Elven Casters and worst melee in that game. FFXIV made it only a skin. I used to think so high of my dark knight Galka's power, and rival Elven melee, but in FFXIV you are very generic, and that little Lala not taller than your knee may be the best melee in the game.

[@shintenkai1648]

If you never got kicked off/disconnected while entering lower jeuno from the sheer amount of people afk next to the auction house, you never really played ff11.

[@EagleCeres]

Mithra are the FF11 equivalent race of FF14's Miqo'te, but gender locked to females only (like Viera as originally developed) Galka are the FF11 equivalent race to FF14's Roegadyn, but gender locked to males only (like Hrothgar as originally developed) YoshiP's Dev team gave us the corresponding missing genders for FF14 2.0 beta gotta love that YoshiP and Soken Bromance

[@Nox_XIV]

Fun fact about the old game cartridges. Blowing on them didn’t actually fix anything, but rather it being reseated back into the console. Sometimes the cartridge wasn’t placed in the console properly and would cause your game to not work.

[@kurokusa-199]

you should watch the final fantasy XI video by pro Jared on youtube if you are interested to learn about it, it's a very interesting watch and FF14 1.0, tho looks dated relatively to now but the cinematic quality is still miles ahead of endwalker now, it had proper mocap, custom animation, and dynamic camera movement, it would be hard to pull off something like that now a day with 4-months release cycle.

[@jeremybrown2116]

Typically in FFXI you have a party, you make a base camp, and you have a ranged pull a mob to the party have the tank voke it and then go back out to find another mob for the party to kill. You would spend hours in a party in the same spot to get 3 - 4 levels. The game was more like a chat room with objectives.

[@sparkz6135]

Then when you got high enough it was 3-4 hours to get a level.

[@jeremybrown2116]

@@sparkz6135 Oh yes, those days of being trapped in the crawlers nest where you would message random people to come take your place so you could log out.

[@chungwong1010]

@@jeremybrown2116 Bat chain and crawler trained to zone due to bst failure.

[@AoiKaze2000]

Yoshi-P did a GDC talk that goes into this. It's a really fascinating react content to follow the No-Clip documentary.

[@adamslosslessmusiccollection]

Quazii, you need to watch the Rise and Fall of Final Fantasy XIV on Speakers Network. They go more in depth with the technical aspects of the game in 1.0. It will blow your mind.

[@Josua070]

11:15 This has been a thing for a long time now in Japan. People get put into positions that tend to have nothing to do with their specialty. This is why sometimes stuff coming from those companies just being either weird, a massive hit, or an utter garbage not worthy of remembering. This is even worse when they get promoted, because them getting into something that has nothing to do with their specialty I said earlier? Yeah, this applies to even when getting promoted to a higher position. So, next time, don't ask why. Ask who thought it was a good idea to promote A from X to Y.

[@rdvchio]

That's everywhere! It's called "The Peter Principle"

[@Josua070]

@@rdvchio Not really. It may happen outside of Japan, but this is ridiculously prevalent in Japanese work society.

[@dirusj4006]

Huge fan of FF series since the 90s. FFXI was one of my favorite MMOs... FFXIV 1.0 was so bad I never even tried to play it. I ignored it to the point I didn't even know about ARR until the day it released.

[@ARainWhisper]

Thank you for the video. Love the feeling of nostalgia. Going to the local neighborhood and renting game cartridges.

[@al7ntakor]

@quazii i was there... in the gobbie mount wall around Uldah... and when the server fell... it was magical

[@knicknevin9975]

Was 1.0 really that bad? Well. Yes. In terms of performance, it as absolutely awful. Even with a top of the line, purpose built, brand new PC, the game ran sluggishly. Menus had a noticeable delay between every click and the game responding. Even moving the mouse had a time lag between the motion of the mouse and the motion on screen. There was a workaround for that, you could go in and edit a config file to force the game to use the physical hardware mouse instead of the horrific software mouse emulation it used by default, but that was still pretty yikes. In terms of the actual gameplay, it really put the wrong foot forward at every opportunity. Targeting and engaging enemies in combat was awkward and unintuitive. Combat was dull. The game had a 'stamina' system that caused you to have diminishing returns after longer play sessions. The zones ranged from overly desolate to a horrifying maze of trees that made the jungles of FFXI pale in comparison. Now to be fair- I wish SE would release the source code for 1.0, and allow private servers for it. Both so players can experience the story of 1.0, which we can only see now in old youtube videos or flashbacks in the current game, but also so they could experience just how utterly janky it was.

[@greggreyes6869]

"NIGHTMARE" -Yoshi P, when asked if there will be a 1.0 server ala wow classic

[@Null_Experis]

Early Stormblood was the ideal time to join FF14. You dodged the jank of ARR release, and the mechanical issues of HW, but you still had more complex skills below level 40 on every job.

[@Direwolf13PS3]

I started playing just before Shadowbringers came out. I tried WoW once back in 2016 and it just didn't do anything for me. Prior to that I played Flyff for several years, before the game got ruined by bs. Eventually I made the mistake of getting into Tera, which had great movement and combat, but lacked in story and depth. FFXIV is on a completely different level, and while I may not play it all the time it is a game I will always enjoy going back to. The music alone is a 10/10

[@shiburu]

Regarding amano 's contribution, if I am not wrong, since the original FFXIV he hasn't done any artwork contributions outside of the logos and promo art for each expansion. BUT the concept art team have constantly cited him as an inspiration to their works for the game! In the magazine imagine fx there was a section with an interview with the art team, and amanos name deff came up quite a few times. Rokuma saito did the concept art for Eulmore, radz at han, thavnair, kugane and more! His work is wonderful

[@TsuchiGamer06]

Watched Sambonz Lets Play and he had an awesome FC and somewhat daily videos of him doing story and doing stuff wjth the FC. He satiated my thirst for FFXIV as I didnt wanna buy 1.0. But I watched his content for months and months before the servers went down and THEN months of waiting for 2.0. Still a great experience and I've been playing ever since

[@ralstongregson3330]

The PS 2 was the only way at the time I could afford to play FF11. In the USA FF11 was bundled with the HD.

[@Silvist]

You can still play a private server of 1.0 called project Meteor. Its not easy to setup, and there's alot of code missing. But you can at least get a better scale for the zones and world from back then. I beta tested both 1.0 and 2.0, and alot of what people think of when they think of "1.0" is much towards the end of its lifespan. I was lucky that I didn't experience any issues, probably because I had a high end beefy computer.

[@jatoetenel]

The problem is Crystal tools it wasn't meant for MMO. It was too heavy even sometimes in FF13's on PS3 still runs instable with load times or even stuttering. It was a bad tool. Creative business unit III is the best for the productions of SE now. The good thing is about creative business unit They overlap the old system from 1 to 3 with graphics and other things on that system and that is how FFXIV ARR started with Creative unit business 1 and now we are at 3.

[@deriklarue8433]

I love the token exchanges too. I am glad you made mention of it, it is one of the key reasons why I still play this and not wow.

[@setakh]

Ah yes, good ol' "Crossroads + Barrens" chat in WoW was unique for sure xD Back in TBC it was quite hilarious back then. Its was literally dead by Legion came around :/

[@Lexxicon13]

I had a pre-purchase of FFXIV 1.0 and the beta was so absolutely terrible I cancelled it. ultimately I kinda wish I didn't despite how terrible it was but it was just a giant no thank you. I noticed multiple times in the video you reacted to FFXI stuff as though it was FFXIV 1.0 stuff. (example the menu showing elvaan/hume/tarutaru/mithra/galka and the multiple times they showed FFXI opening cutscene). mentioning it incase you were unaware.

[@DifunctedReble]

Thank you. I thought he was going to say the names were similar to The First, but then he assumed that it was all 1.0 footage. 🤦

[@MugiwarasNakama]

1.0 wasn't completely bad. When Naoki Yoshida took over the project the game changed so much that ARR should have been labled version 5.0. By the time the game shutdown in version 1.23b the game so much improved and actually alot of fun. Nowhere near what FFXIV would eventually become in 2.2 onwards, but a decent enough experience all things considered. (with the exception of the games insanely janky engine and terrible net code... those things were beyond any redemption.) The dev team actually used 1.0 as a test bed for different ideas of content they would eventually implement into the re-release. This includes 5 different types of dungeons... one of which was a hybrid of the Open World Dungeon design of FFXI and the WoW type dungeons we would eventually get. ( That dungeon was redesigned in ARR and released as what we now know as Sastasha). Cutter's Cry, Aurume Vale and Dzemael Darkhold were actually originally raids in 1.0 and they were all exceptionally challenging. This is why those dungeons were very difficult in ARR because despite them no longer being raids or max leveled... they did keep most of the bosses in tact for the most part... especially Aurume Vale.

[@quixadhal]

Heh, I still have my PS2 with FFXI installed on it. The Playstation 2 didn't HAVE a hard drive, at all. Back then, games game on discs and you put the disc in, played it, and put it back in the case. When FFXI came out, it was sold in a bundle with a hard drive and network adapter that was the big unit you saw being plugged into the back. You then had to install the game onto the hard disk so it could be updated and you could play. It's also worth noting that originaly, Square didn't support credit cards, and you actually had to juggle 3 different accounts... your PSN account, your Square account, and an intermediate "PlayOnline" account. Fun times.

[@MugiwarasNakama]

Fun fact: the ps2 version of FFXI almost was cancelled because sony was planing on not releasing the HDD. Square had to promise to bundle the HDD and ship a certain number of units as part of a deal they struck with sony. I think if Square wasn't as big as it was during that time with FF being as successful as it was sony would never had made that deal with them.

[@fyrestorme]

I still remember the good old days of Squaresoft and Enix. Square did Final Fantasy. Enix did Dragon Quest (or as I knew it - Dragon Warrior). Every release an instant classic in each series.... Good times. I was also invited to the closed beta test period of ff14 1.0 and man the performance on my system back then was horrendous. I was starting to wonder if my PC was just getting outdated and this new game (ff14 1.0) was just a sign of how much more demanding games were going to be at the time.. lol I also played the retail version of ff14 1.0 at launch, but the frame rate was still so awful for me I didn't last long. Pretty sure my first (and only) character was a lala blm named Vivvi xD

[@moogleboy]

If you do try FFXI, just keep it in mind that it is not like any other MMO in all of gaming history. It's probably the closest thing to being an MMO Turn-based RPG.

[@demillion]

while I believe you should check out ffxi, the current retail version is absolutely different from the 11 that is even being talked about in this. A lot of QoL and extras that started in 14 ended up in 11, plus it was made soloable with the trust system. Though there are ways to see it as it once was :) I can help ya with either :D

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

A lot of japanese games and anime is very popular in Canada where i live in the East Coast it is nuts when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s it was all about Dragon Ball, A ghost in the shell and Samurai Pizza Cats etc and of course Ninja turtles etc, but games also even till this day i talk to people playing Final Fantasy of all sorts its nice to share these games with all sorts of different people and even though you are so different from them it seem that Final Fantasy where i live just brings everyone together its that special this game to world and i can see that. Final Fantasy is my life its been with me since i was 5 years old playing the First one on NES in the late 80s and till this day i'm 40 now and play FFXIV like crazy for the past 7 years now man and I still play it hardcore. The reason i'm taking the time to watch this video cause its in Maintenance right now lol and i already saw this video and its nice to see your reaction yes dude FFXIV is the best game :)

[@SxPlant]

FFXI was a really hard game. The 'check' system was only a way to know if you can kill or not an enemy but on text only, like easy or even match or impossible to caugh but even with 'even match' there would be a good chance to die in 1 v 1. You can give it a try on private server since i think the version now is really different from what it was.

[@Poldovico]

Even match actually meant even match. 50-50 either the monster dies or you do.

[@SxPlant]

@@Poldovico base on lv yea but the majority of the time, you didnt had the gear to be a real 'even match'