Ewwww... gamespot link.  Here is metacritic... 2 critic review so far... dont look that bad
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/final-fantasy-xiv-online

It's an MMORPG so I don't trust any review until at least 3 months after the release.

I'm not gonna argue the score as that's pointless and it's his opinion but I'm having a lot of fun with the game. That said though he's mostly right in his review. 
 
I do want to argue one point in that it's not really aimless, it just has a different design philosophy. Yes getting quests in WoW or other modern mmos that tell you to kill X amount of rats is nice, but do you really need that motivation to kill those rats? If you get rewarded in experience and items just for killing the rats, is a quest absolutely necessary for you to enjoy killing said rats? The goal of the game is to follow the main story, level up and acquire new gear. It's not really that different from other mmo's in that regard you just aren't completely handheld along the way.

I was just going to post that review.
 
I was hoping it would be good, because I'd like to try playing an MMORPG on my PS3. But like bartok said, these types of games are never any good the first few days (or months) after release.

Chocobo's aren't worth a monthly fee.

One review isn't enough to say anything as fallen, much less the Final Fantasy series. Wait until more reviews come out.

I've heard nothing but bad things about this game, so a 4.0 doesn't come as much of surprise. 

It's a multiplayer Final Fantasy. What did you expect?

Not surprised. All the news leading up to the release sounded like a total mess. Scrap the MMOs, Square. You're just not very good at it.

They've been falling for nearly 10 years. Its just nobody wanted to admit it.

Dude I don't blame them, I run almost any game smoothly on my laptop (YES LAPTOP) but FFXIV eats it and shits it out sideways, I really wanted to like it but damn it's hard to when it's taken 5 steps backwards, the game is fucking impossible to play when it doesn't explain anything and how the keyboard and mouse system blows ass, the menus are set up horribly, the questing is set up horribly.
 
The game is bad, that's all I can say, the only way this will get better is with time but damn does it suck right now.

They've been fading out of influence for about a decade now. I wouldn't call them "mighty" to begin with.

Eeeehhhhhh everyone reviews MMO's way to soon. Especially since they're only online. There will always be problems. So give it some time to get the kinks out before reviewing people.

A different design philosophy does not mean a good design philosophy. Let's look at quests like hallways and goals like rooms. Traditionally, in a house, a hallway is used to get to a room which has a purpose. To sleep, eat, shit, etc. I could decide to build a house with nothing but doors and hallways. Would it be unique? Sure. Would it be liveable or at all useful? Fuck no.

I'm definitely not surprised. 
 
Also, in terms of calling the Final Fantasy series mighty and using this as an example of how it's fallen is a bit wrong. FFXI and XIV are MMOs and are not standard for FInal Fantasy games. They're usually single player roleplaying games and personally, when someone asks me how many Final Fantasies I've played, I don't even count XI (and now XIV) as an option.

" They've been falling for nearly 10 years. Its just nobody wanted to admit it. "

Not surprised, just about everyone I've talked to hated it. 
 
It seems the laundry list of failures, once again, stem from an issue of poor design. Specifically the huge cornucopia of games that not just provide better design, but at this point have perfected whatever they were trying to do. It's "towns are too hard to do in HD" all over again, this mentality of not even bothering to recognize what other people are doing. It's like the devs at Square are stuck in this shielded bubble. 
 
It's frustrating.

" It's an MMORPG so I don't trust any review until at least 3 months after the release. "

Seeing how Final Fantasy XIV isn't (yet) the revolution it was supposed to be, I'm kind of interested in returning to FFXI (for the 9th time in five years).  FFXI is truly epic.

" http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/finalfantasy14/review.html   A 4.0 out of 10..  I've never seen a Square Enix game, let alone a Final Fantasy game,  rated that low. Is it really that monotonous and uneventful like the review says, or is the reviewer missing something?  "

Maybe travelling to the future with my time machine so often has gotten me mixed up, but hasn't Final Fantasy been going steadily downhill at least 5 years now? I never thought it was a series worth mentioning to begin with...

It'd be foolish to try to relate the failure of a MMO to any other products a company makes.  MMOs are a whole other beast and are known to crush great developers whenever said developer is stupid enough to take on the Beast genre.

Was it ever mighty?

In games like WoW, quest XP makes up the majority of your experience gain and quest rewards get you most of your good items and gear (outside of dungeons and raids).  Killing rats isn't on its own a ton of fun, which is why having quests behind the killing/collecting of items lessens the grinding aspect of the game.  A structured quest system allows you to have a story; otherwise you're just killing rats with no motivation. Also, I feel like for MMOs to evolve they need a heavier emphasis on story, and that means perhaps more guided experiences and more story that isn't reading text in a window. "

Even the Japanese players are hating the game.

FFXIII was a warning.

i am waiting for the Japan gaming crowd to DEFEND THY PRODUCT.

" Ewwww... gamespot link.  Here is metacritic... 2 critic review so far... dont look that bad
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/final-fantasy-xiv-online "

well it's very simple really, Square released this too early. It ain't like this is gonna finish them, they just made a bad decision. The thing about MMO's is that they can take some time to get OKAY to play. It sucks because WoW is such a tough act to follow, if you read a lot of the early reviews on WoW you'll find that it launched very playable. That doesn't mean it didn't have problems but above all else it was a fun game to play even in the beginning. I imagine that Square would take it's time to complete this game an optimize it for the PS3. At least that's what I would hope. 
 
Even then from what I've played already unless they over hall the level and quest system this game won't be able to live up to it's own set of expectations.

Anyway, now we get to wait for some gaudy FF15 trailer and the cycle begins again. 

I wonder what would have happened if Sony never sold their shares in Square to Enix the second they bought them. Right after that Spirits Within fiasco, SE seems to have been grindin out the spinoffs. 
 
I really liked Square's non-FF games from the SNES to the PS1 era.

lol, anyone that defends this game is simply deluded. If Square wasn't the developer then FFXIV would follow the footsteps of APB - right back into the garbage where it belongs.

After the stupid decisions they made with Final Fantasy XIII, I'm not surprised this is so bad.

" @TheRemedy said:

" y. Yes getting quests in WoW or other modern mmos that tell you to kill X amount of rats is nice, but do you really need that motivation to kill those rats? If you get rewarded in experience and items just for killing the rats, is a quest absolutely necessary for you to enjoy killing said rats? The goal of the game is to follow the main story, level up and acquire new gear. It's not really that different from other mmo's in that regard you just aren't completely handheld along the way. "

In games like WoW, quest XP makes up the majority of your experience gain and quest rewards get you most of your good items and gear (outside of dungeons and raids).  Killing rats isn't on its own a ton of fun, which is why having quests behind the killing/collecting of items lessens the grinding aspect of the game.  A structured quest system allows you to have a story; otherwise you're just killing rats with no motivation. Also, I feel like for MMOs to evolve they need a heavier emphasis on story, and that means perhaps more guided experiences and more story that isn't reading text in a window. "

Ok, since when has this series been mighty? FF13 was fun and all, but it's not really a big name. It has not been a big name since FF7.

Remember when WoW was first release?  It wasn't perfect.

While I haven't enjoyed an FF in quite some time, I've always considered the MMO titles separate from the single-player ones. Besides, I don't think anyone will remember FF XIV once Cataclysm hits in December.
 
Also, I just read Blizzard's announcement about WoW reaching 12 million subscribers. How comically ironic.

Plus I will add I don't trust anything gamespot says.   
 
FF14 is a MMO and no MMO is perfect when it's first release.  It's all base around the community, the community is was builds around the game to make it better for the player to play in later patches, (We the people are the leaders).   Give the game some time I'm sure by December after a few patches the game will do just fine.  I really don't understand also why any review site would rush a review of this game.  I mean for one the next patch will help players buy gear in towns instead of searching each player in the game, ect.  Why give the game all that bad hate when there still working on the a few tweaks?

I do not trust a gamespot mmo review after the original Global agenda review

The series has been a slow slope downhill for a while now, I've noticed. Though I am unexplainably excited for FFXIII Versus.

" It's an MMORPG so I don't trust any review until at least 3 months after the release. "

I haven't heard a single good thing about this game.

" Eeeehhhhhh everyone reviews MMO's way to soon. Especially since they're only online. There will always be problems. So give it some time to get the kinks out before reviewing people. "

They had the fucking beta to "work the kinks out people". If its good enough for them to ship, its good enough to review. WoW was reviewed, positively, based on what it shipped as. Not what the dev notes promise, not ignoring glaring flaws assuming they'd be fixed later.

Well no because the online FF games are nothing to do with normal FF games. I don't even know why they insist on putting the damn numbers in them. Still...14 looks and sounds shitty from what I've seen and heard, I guess it can only get better, like pretty much any MMO, but it's a disappointing start.

From what I played in the beta I'd say 4/10 is just about right..

" I do not trust a gamespot mmo review after the original Global agenda review "