The bad press has begun to roll in

Everyone's favourite gaming news source, Kotatsu, comes in with some hot scoops regarding the server issues that's plagued the Early Access weekend! Read all about it here! (Or just take my word for it if you prefer to not give them the clicks.)

Even Joystiq is getting in on the action!

As someone that had a blast during the last few phases of beta and wants this game to succeed, I've been kind of dreading this day. With everyone watching to see if FFXIV blows up a second time, and the current server issues, I'm kind of worried about the publicity the game will have during official release. :(

MMO having struggling to keep up with release demand is not exactly a "horrible problem".

At least this time, the game is actually great when you can get into it. In 1.0, there was nothing at all redeeming about it. Personally, I'll be playing regardless, and I'm having a blast. Though I've run into the same login issues as most people on and off this weekend, I've still managed to play a whole ton and get a whole lot of stuff done. Also no lag issues at all so far, which is great.

Awh man, the comments on the Kotaku one are actually the reasonable part. That's like a rare Pokemon or something.

I did my best in the Kotaku comments to give my thoughts. People seem to approve.

I'd be more concerned for the success of an MMO if the launch went smoothly.

Being too popular isn't exactly the worst problem you can face.

It seems like people really like this mmo so it wouldn't surprise me if they underestimated how many people would want in on early access. Servers being down for that is hardly the worst thing in the world that can happen to a game, especially when you consider what this game apparently was in 1.0

I'd say it is. Im sure SE is grinning at the fact that people care about their game this week but they've launched an MMO before. And eventually this week will be over, and a lot of people having these issues will have given up on the game. So no, its not a good problem to have in the same way understocking your game isnt a good problem to have even if "stores out of stock" makes a nice week one headline. This is less a showing of the game's popularity than it is a showing that SE doesn't know how to run its MMO when people are actually playing it.

Well, Kotakuites are similar to folks here and elsewhere; so, they understand. It's certainly disappointing that they couldn't have a smoother introduction weekend, but as many have already discussed, it's just how it happens with MMO's unless they establish queue's right out of the gate.

Hopefully it'll all be under control in no time. :)

The thing the team over at Square-Enix has done correctly in the face of the disaster of 1.0 is be honest, contrite, and setting out plans on going forward. People wanted the game to succeed and are willing to cut them a bit a slack as long as they show they are trying and delivering.

This maybe somewhat historic. No other MMO has had such a disastrous release and rebooted and recovered. I don't know if they'll get to "millions" but if they can sustain a hundred thousand for years then that will be amazing considering the dump 1.0 was.

As for the release problems, I think they are handling it about as well as anyone has. If you are looking to start on a specific server you might have issues but if you don't care you can probably get right in.

@extomar said:

The more frustrating part is not being able to play characters that you've already made. I think they've been handling today pretty poorly to be honest. Their response to the problem was to severely restrict access to all servers without making any kind of queue available, so nobody knows whether they have any chance of getting in and when. Also because of this lots of people who did manage to get on simply left their character idle all day so they wouldn't have to log back in, which meant very few of the limited slots ever opened up.

I've been trying to get on with my character since like 10:30 this morning and 12 hours later I still can't get on. That's pretty dumb. It's not the end of the world, and certainly not the first MMO to have a rough start, but man, it's certainly not helping me feel confident in spending what little money I had to play this game.

Edit: And right after I post this I get in. Ha.

I gave up trying to play that game this weekend maybe next when things calm down a bit, it seemed like every two seconds they took the servers down lol.

Hardly surprising. Launch hiccups are pretty much expected at this point for MMOs and such, right? At least the game itself seems to be good this time around, apparently.

Hah, it's like nobody has played any game at launch ever but let's stick with MMOs for a while.

Of course there are problems for every MMO at launch, heck, WoW still has problems even when they just release a new expansion.

Thats putting it lightly WoW is actively on fire most times something new gets implemented. People just got spoiled from TOR and TSW launching with no massive problems but that was more a lack of people playing then anything else, if anything there probably somewhat stoked to get so many early entry people in

TOR must stand for something other than "The Old Republic", since that game totally had launch issues.

Yeah but "on fire" sounds so dire because in the end it gets fixed.
And yes, I'm sure they're perfectly happy having so many people wanting to play it's just sad when they weren't ready for it.

Aim for the stars, and all that. If you miss, hey, you're still in space.

If all else fails, we've still got that expansion of FFXI to look forward to. (Why that exists, I don't know).

Still, I want to point out that I know little about this game (I love FF, but hate MMOs) and the two things about this game that have been brought up more frequently are: 1) The game has been drastically improved, and 2) They've been very transparent about what they have done, and look like they aim to succeed by trying to meet demand rather than continuing with their own fixed vision. I must say, that makes Square Enix look pretty good. A shaky launch will have little, if any, affect on the general perception of the game. If the game is good, it will survive on its own merits. The bigger problem is going to be convincing people to pay a monthly fee for long periods of time; but the act of them re-releasing the game at least shows to me they won't let it die easily (and ultimately, maybe that's the kind of blind faith an MMO really needs to give it the chance to get on its feet).

Weird, I got no problem trying it out last weekend. Maybe I was just lucky.

I think people are just kind of surprised that MMO launches continue to be such massive train wrecks. The sentiment of "it's like no one has seen an MMO launch before" can be applied to Square Enix here. Then again, if Blizzard had such an amazing clusterfuck with Diablo 3 and they, of all people, should know exactly how to launch a massive online game.. well I guess you can give SE a bit of slack.

Still MMO launch woes is something that should have stopped being a "thing" a long time ago.

I'm mad I clicked that Kotaku article.

This is honestly more of a stress test than phase 4 was which sucks cause if the people logging now would have done it during phase 4 we might have eliminated this whole catastrophe that was supposed to be early access.

I'll be holding off until everything stabilizes some more but this isn't the worst thing to have happening.

Honestly, writing about any MMO at launch is a fool's errand. You can't write an accurate review if you only cover what you see in a week or two.

My suggestion to people who want a perfect experience as they begin an MMO...Don't buy it in the first two months of launch. There are always more players at launch, and a lot of them don't stick around, no matter how good the game might be.

Does an MMO developer spend thousands of dollars on servers to handle launch demands, only to have them sit idle later on, only to have to announce a server merge. This causes the internet to engage in a lot of negative feedback, decrying the "death" of a game because it simply put up too many launch servers.

Finally, A Realm Reborn is outselling expectations, at least in North America. I don't think it's a giant step for Square Enix to anticipate a lukewarm reception to what is essentially a remake for a failed MMO.

Only a company with many big online games like Blizzard should really be criticized for stuff like this. It has the capacity to do this, shifting hardware from the declining World of Warcraft to shore up demand for Diablo 3, or Starcraft as needed.

What the industry has realized at this stage is that "MMO architecture" isn't vulnerable to failure due to bad planning on their part but it is external factors. Just the way the Internet is built means failures can come from load before it traffic even comes close to any of the available data centers because of peering agreements and bandwidth availability between ISPs.

So I'm a Legacy and beta player (haven't seen the game since phase 2) and I'm struggling to find the client for early access, which I'm supposed to be able to play. The links for the Beta Phase 4 in my email isn't working.

There must be a way to download the client if you meet the requirements on your SE account.

It's like seeing 2 charizards.

I hope this game bombs and they make haste in releasing actual good games.

I got in last night. It felt pretty rad to finally use that early access.

An MMO having server issues at launch?

You don't say.

I have plenty of reasons for feeling negatively toward FFXIV as a huge money-sink for a company that makes some of my favorite games (through both their Japanese and Western studios). I suppose, though, that I want them to make enough on this that they can stop setting unrealistic targets for their other games and focus on other things.

Lots of people who haven't played the game and will never play it sure have a lot to say about it.

I just can't wait to get back in. This game is like a streamlined FINAL FANTASY XI. Not that it's easier, but that it's less time consuming and therefore way more fun more of the time.

Some people want to watch the world burn. These are the cheerleaders to every major online game having server issues on launch. I don't know which they derive more lulz from; the developers stressing and frantically trying to fix what problems they can, or players having bad experiences so they can then launch abuse and condemnation at them for even daring to try to have fun. Just an internet full of tin pot Jokers.

Man this game looks so good. I want it to succeed so bad. And then have a free version, Guild Wars 2 style.

I assume a f2p would only happen if it doesn't succeed.

While it's not good to have negative press out the gate, it's at least only about server issues and not about the quality of the game itself.

You mean sitting in Yutunga Jungle for hours on end flagged LFP and shouting every five minutes wasn't fun?

I loved XI quite a bit but this is an MMO more my style with my current time commitments.

Will FFXIV: A Realm Reborn be available on PSN day one?

Also, any experiences with the PS3 version? Checked out a gameplay stream, and it looked like it has a frame rate of like, 5. Confirm or deny?

I am kind of done with subscription mmos. Guild wars 2 was the best mmo i ever played, along with planetside 2. And I feel like that model provides more content for my money.

@zirilius: Oh I was never able to get into XI because of the immense time commitment. At the time, I just didn't have the time for it.

I am kind of done with subscription mmos. Guild wars 2 was the best mmo i ever played, along with planetside 2. And I feel like that model provides more content for my money.

On a ps3 and I love this Shiit. I was piiiiissed about the servers yesterday but its workin great now.

Thought this would be at actual quality of the game... :/

The game isn't even technically out yet. And it's an MMO. If it wasn't broken at launch I'd be pretty worried about the future of the game.