Games need to end

 The unspoken rule.

Final Fantasy XIV: Suffering from Success

My golden crown is to heavy!

Something whack is in the waters as far as multiplayer games are concerned, because they are in a verifiable rut nowadays! Call of Duty is underselling worse than it has in 10 years (guess we won't be seeing 'the boring squad' return in Vanguard 2) Battlefield is a total disaster (When you have to beg the developers to put a scoreboard and persistent servers in their online war simulator game, you can just tell that something fundamental has snapped in the universe's fabric) and World of Warcraft is a social pariah that's even more embarrassing to have on one's 'recent played' list than Fortnite. And I don't need to remind you the way that most of the gaming world outside of that specific community thinks about Fortnite playtime. It's funny considering so many companies hop up and down to make their big online games, only for the topic to fall out of favour within a year and the game to be dropped like a flaming bag of chips. I mean just take Gears POP for example. Hmm? You don't remember Gears Pop? Well just as well then, because the thing did so poorly that it's been discontinued. But of course there is but one Grey Prince of the industry still proving that online games have a place in our ecosystem even in the midst of all this chaos.

Final Fantasy XIV, the second MMO of the long running FF franchise, has had a meteoric rise at the same time as WOW had her latest fall, in fact some might say that FF14's boost was directly due to people jumping ship from World of Warcraft. (And a lot of  anecdotal evidence and testimony seems to back that up.) And we mustn't forget how this was a game which, once upon a time, was so troubled that the developers decided to do an Anthem and reboot the whole thing; an event that was represented in the game by a gigantic meteor crashing down into the world and wiping it clean. (Talk about extreme measures!) Contrary to Anthem's ill-fated Phoenix Down tactic, FFXIV managed to come back slowly, steadily, but with a proud and stable spine from which has grown one of the most lauded MMOs of it's age. Even New World, once the lustre of that new release wore off, has shed it's base to FFXIV. For  Massively Multiplayer fans, it seems that all roads lead to Hydaelyn. (Hang on, the world is called that? I'd heard of Eorzea, but Hyda- whatitsface? Not sure I like that name... it doesn't roll off the tongue so nice.)  

Now you know that I'm a huge Role Playing fan, so it would make sense if this game was all my jam as well. Unfortunately I have a deep seated allergy to MMO games spawned from my inherent fear of social interaction and my distinct lack of stable internet. Which it to say, I've actually never played the game. But apparently I'm the absolute minority in this field because everyone else is hopping through expansions, grinding their little catboi toons up, and wrestling tooth and nail for those all-important que slots so that they can spend one more all-important day in that special world. I do sympathise, back when I was involved with an MMO, I was right in that nigh-on addictive stage of "have to do these dallies in this exact order and then run this specific dungeon whilst making time to prepare some PVP time!". It's all encompassing. But what if that very factor, usually a boon for any online game, was it's greatest foe today?

This year saw the drop of FF14's long awaited Endwalker content, an update which had been hyped up and delayed, and has courted much positive feedback now that it's finally here. Once again, this particular Square Enix division is doing the heavy lifting to keep public sentiments high whilst behind the scenes the higher-ups try to screw with gaming economy by selling FF7Remake on PC for £70. (Yeah, I saw that little tidbit in the news cycle which the majority of folk just brushed over. That is totally unreasonable and I will not be buying a single game at such a scandalous mark-up.) I can't say I know a great deal about it's story, and Square are genuinely pathetic at putting together their own marketing material, so their trailers are nigh on incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't already play the game. (Which makes them a tad moot as 'interest raisers', doesn't it?) What I do know, however, is much like the title implies this does represent the game's first culmination of a major narrative arc and thus it's safe to say that everyone with a stake in the story is raving to see where things go next.

But it's that very fervour which has been the issue of late, hasn't it? Because even from far outside the fandom I can't help but see calls for new server worlds and que time improvements as it bleeds out of that community and to the rest of gaming in general. People can't seem to get into this game, as in: they can't actually enter the servers, and that's likely because every square inch of online space is crammed full from the vast influx of attention that the game has been enjoying. It's arguably a good problem to have, but also it's not because people want to play the game who can't and when we're talking about a subscription-based MMO, time lost is money wasted. Now the team, angels that they are, have already swooped in to slap some free weeks on people currently playing, so that they're not losing any bought time during these sordid server stumps, but its bandaids on a fracture at this point. Something has to be done about all of this player congestion.

Drastic measures have to be taken for the good of community and it doesn't matter how- woah, they stopped selling the game and halted commercials? That's- wow, that's pretty drastic even for a situation like this! Imagine selling your non-perishable product so well that you have to actually close up shop from the ravenous hoards trying to smash through your store window and snatch some of that sweet game up. I think in marketing that would be considered a rather flagrant break down in the supply-demand equation, but I guess that's nothing we're not used to in this day and age, huh? For me, I just find it adorable that, in an industry where every development team wants to think they've created the next Minecraft and so overstuff their resources to creating online infrastructure that will never so much as hit half capacity, Square's apparently modest expectations have been utterly drowned out and now they're struggling to keep people happy. It's almost sweet.

Austere those the 'lockdown on new players' may be, it undoubtedly demonstrates a distinct willingness to have the team stretch themselves thin in order to do whatever needs to be done for the good of the game, even if it's limiting their own momentary sales so that the platform can be stabilised. And make no mistake, this all comes back to the good of the game. When the director played through the Endwalker content and decided to delay it just so that it would meet the standard he'd built up for it alongside the community, that came from a place of love. It's so rare to see someone with that level of integrity in the decision making positions at video game companies, and one just writhes at the prospect of more studio heads that gave a damn about their reputation. Imagine what sort of game Cyberpunk 2077 would have been if there was any integrity in management. (Heck, it probably still wouldn't be out; and that might have been for the best.)

Of course this is a dilemma that'll be measurable in days, not weeks, and I'm sure FFXIV is going to be back on sale presently. (Else it becomes a mad-max style commodity as rare and sought after as fuel, leading to an apocalyptic breakdown of RPG society.) I just think it makes for a funny anecdote to share, 'The game too successful for it's own good', slap that on the box! At least this marks a positive (depending on who's side your own) story out of the AAA side of this industry, which has proven to be more and more rare over the years. So for the sake of all of our collective sanities, may FFXIV carry on long into the future and keep the smiles on our faces when everything feels crummy and bad. Yoshi-P's always got our back.

The WOW exodus

 "Do you hear the people sing-"

So full cards on the table; I haven't played an MMO for nigh on 3 years now and back when I did that MMO was not World of Warcraft. As it just so happens that was my days of playing the Elder Scrolls Onlin, which crucially is not a subscription based MMO and thus many out there wouldn't even consider that a real MMO background. So what I'm trying to say is that I am no great authority on the world of Massively Multiplayer Online games, nor the definition of what constitutes an online ecosystem to be 'massive'. (Always hated the MMO acronym) As such the comings and goings of WOW have been nothing but background noise to me throughout the years, I've peaked a few of their world grade cinematic trailers from time-to-time, but without any context it's pretty much just a fireworks show, and I find fireworks shows deathly boring. (Don't tell Yoimiya I said that.) But if you've been around this blog any length of time at all you'll be fully aware of my addict-like obsession with a 'story'; thus the tale of the WOW exodus has sparked my attention such to the point I want to talk about it today.

But firstly I feel it's important to say, this is the second Blizzard story this week that I've covered without going into their recent allegations, because honestly I don't even want to talk about all that stuff anyway. It's hardly related to gaming for one, and for two it just makes me feel icky to think about. Besides, it's not necessarily related to the exodus, although I think there's a case to be made that it certainly exacerbated the issue. Not to take the thunder out of the winds of the FF team, nor to exonerate the WOW team of any and all misdeeds, but this has been an absolutely awful few months for Blizzard and it's impossible to divorce any of their wrong-doings from one another at this point. Be that as it may, that's exactly what I'm going to do even if I have to purposefully and pointedly adopt a reductive view of the situation in order to do. We all understand? General agreement reached? Good. Now for the story.

What if I told you that WOW is not the last hope of the MMO world? What if I was to enigmatically turn my little green puppet head to the unknowable stars and mumble "No. There is another..." Because whilst all of these years the subscription MMO of the world was World of Warcraft, another game slowly stirred in the wings, born from a franchise even more beloved than Warcraft. I speak, of course, of the Final Fantasy MMO: Final Fantasy Ni- oh wait not that one. Final Fantasy XIV! (The one they bought out whilst the Kingdom Hearts guy was screwing around with his Versus Thirteen game for 8 years.) There was a MMO which started off as a disappointment to the series name, but then was treated to a total conversion treatment and came out the belle of the ball; like the protagonist of an early 2000's high school movie. In an alternate universe one might call this the 'Anthem 2.0 manoeuvre', but that universe it not this one... for obvious reasons.

In the proceeding years FFXIV has been getting more and more popular as an alternative to WOW, all the while the general lack of competition in the MMO space has slowly drained the player pool thus bringing the gap between these games closer and closer. In retrospect I hear that a lot of WOW players had been decently unsatisfied with the direction of their personality-defining hobby for a while now since the integrity of the game had given way to general team laziness, anaemic updates that seemed to take longer and longer to come out, and, surprise surprise, microtransactions. Oh the microtransactions. I never knew this at the time, but Blizzard have been slowly perfecting their craft as the 'time saver' kings, finding ways to turn literally every single possible thing one can achieve in the game into a service purchasable with real money. Collectibles, gear, levels, progress; give the horned man in the executive suit his blood money and Daddy Blizzard will pretty much play the game for you. So you can get back to... not playing the game, I guess.

Seriously though, when we're talking about MMO's the monetisation model is so important to get right it might as well be considered part of the gameplay balancing. (Well, in the case of WOW it should be, at least.) It's just like the problem approaching Star Citizen whenever that game is actually realised; if you turn everything that could be an achievement into a marketplace item then you rob the satisfaction of the player actually achieving something, and if there's nothing to achieve then why should you play the game? Yes, experiencing something new will get you through the door, but sticking around for months and staying to dropping those subscription bucks; that only happens when your community has viable goals to shoot for. Of course, that is by no means the only problem with WOW of today, (at least not how the haters tell it) but from what I hear it's a big one. But what about this Exodus I'm talking about?

Well, in the early days of July a popular WOW streamer called Asmongold unintentionally proved once again why influencer marketing is some of the most powerful in the entire entertainment industry, when he switched his MMO of choice to Final Fantasy XIV citing dissatisfaction with Blizzard and the direction of WOW. With his departure came a ludicrous amount of attention and coverage which, predictably, encouraged many to follow suit to the point where, for the first time in their careers, Final Fantasy XIV actually overtook WOW in online attention. Now we can't lay this all at the feet of Asmongold, (as much as supposed internal leak documents are trying to do) but it's clear that if so many people were willing to jump ships so expediently, they must have been pushed to the gangplank already. What followed was a Burning Crusade of sorts as fans burnt out of WOW, cancelled their subscriptions and spent the next half day trying to buy FFXIV because that's how long it takes and the FF team really need to rework that. (Oh, that half-hearted reference is about the extent of my WOW knowledge expended by-the-by; don't expect anything else)

Now of course this doesn't mean that World of Warcraft is going to explode overnight due to lack of users, the game can probably run perfectly fine with a fraction of the margins that it has, but this does represent something of a watershed moment for the 17 year old game. Because with Blizzard how it is now, the way they exist and the people they have working for them, they probably won't be coming back from this moment to retake the MMO crown. Now when you think about that, it's incredibly flattering to old school WOW to think that they were on top for over a decade, and a little bit sad to see the landscape of the genre change so much since. Like watching a venerated golden-scaled dragon loss it's last hit point and tumble from the skin, except nowhere near as dramatic as that; where did I even get that visual from? Which isn't to say FFXIV is the new top-dog now, New Worlds is on the way and despite the fact I think that game looks like flaming hot garbage there are a sizable number of MMO starved players out there and new comers to the genre entirely who are willing to give it a shot. Could this be a renaissance for the MMO genre we're looking at, maybe one with a crown shared amidst a handful of titles? Never say never, I'd say.

But what does this mean for Blizzard going forward? World of Warcraft was one of their biggest points of self pride for the company, being a game that every MMO fan in the universe was stuck with no matter how much they wanted out, and now the spell is broken and thus so is the '1# MMO' mug on the team's desk. Well with any luck this might be a moment of sell reflection for the company where they see the ways in which they changed from the 'player first' initiative they were founded on and try to rectify that wound, but that's not going to happen. Games companies have this point where they grow so big that the heart becomes clotted and diseased, or simply is cut out entirely. Passion falls to the wayside as those that actually 'play' games are discarded for those that only 'make' them. It's a big difference, and one that can be felt by anyone who plays these games only to feel that the soul behind decisions is not made by someone who wants the game to be better. Do you think an actual player of an MMO would want every single achievement they made to be invalidated with 'time saver purchases'? Do you think they would want to throw in timegates stopping you from playing more than 4 dungeons a day? (I used to have a friend who thought it would be a great idea to throw in a day-long cooldown after character death. We're not friends anymore.) The player-makers have moved on, some from the industry entirely and others to smaller ventures where they're in control, and that which remains are mere doppelgangers; wearing the skin of those that we respected, but sharing none of the inner substance. So WOW isn't coming back, Blizzard isn't getting better, Bioware aren't redeeming themselves, Bethesda has me distinctly worried, CDPR need to pull up their bootstraps and Ubisoft can talk considering the allegations they've been through recently. (That last point wasn't necessarily related, but if I'm not going to write a blog about it I need to vent my frustrations some way)

76 Problems with subcription services

Oh shut up, Todd.

Has it even been a week? Honestly, I'm too scared to look back and find out. Already those- people at Bethesda feel it's right to test the patience of it's loyal fandom once again and I'm not sure I, personally, can take it anymore. It's tugging at my heartstings to read about these stories time and time again and wonder what happened to the studio that was once my favourite game developer. If we weren't a breath away from the release of The Outer Worlds I don't know what I would do. At least Obsidian can provide us action-RPG fans with some vague semblance of hope now that our heroes have died and been rebuilt as a sacrilegious parodies of themselves. (It just sickens me.)

If you hadn't heard or were just plain lucky enough to avoid Bethesda news altogether, Fallout 76 has found a way to get on everybody's lips once again for all the wrong reasons. Not a week after we hear news about Bethesda's attempt to squeeze the last drops of blood out of their rapidly diminishing fanbase, another blog post drops on Bethesda.Net with a chilling ultimatum. Fallout 76 will be receiving one of it's most requested (and promised) features after all this time, private servers. (with mod support at a later date.)  What's the catch? A 100$ a year subscription service, obviously. (Someone pinch me. I hope I'm dreaming.)

There is so much wrong with this announcement and what it means for the future of Fallout 76, that to attempt to cover it all without any mind bleach might just prove fatal, so I'll use this blog to compare other subscription offers with this one. (I need some positivity today, else I might just explode.) Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing this on the off-chance that some Bethesda employee happens across this post by some nobody and takes inspiration, this is purely for my own catharsis. This is the way I intend to process this tragedy and I'd appreciate you sticking around and bearing with me through this one. (It's going to get rant-ey.)

First of all, let me start of by saying that I do not like subscription services. I understand why they exist and hold nothing against those who partake (which is a lot more than I can say for Lootbox consumers) but my inherent stinginess physically repulses at the idea of opting into a monthly fee. On a more practical note, I'm a huge nostalgia nut who likes to find his way back to stories that I love years down the line; Therefore I'd rather own something definitively rather than rent it for the moment only to realize that I've lost it due to having dropped my subscription years ago. (It literally took me a decade to rediscover 'Devil May Cry 2' after renting it for a week. I don't want to go through that headache again.) Yet even with that inherent distaste on my part, I can recognize when a subscription deal is too good to pass up. A good deal is a good deal no matter what the asking price is; Fallout 76's Fallout 1st program is not a good deal.

The launch period of Fallout 76 has already gone down in the books as one of the most disastrous of all times, and it wasn't just because of connection woes. (Although we did have a lot of them.) There were problems with rampant glitches, lack of progression incentives, no endgame, unbalanced world bosses, unbalanced perk cards, and a sorely empty and forgettable world space. All of this should have signalled red flags for Bethesda but they all subscribed to the belief that the game would get better, sentiments that Todd Howard shared in a candid interview. (For which he was relentlessly blasted online.) So it wasn't the end of the world that the game launched as a hollow mess, for it was a platform that would start to improve.

Fast forward one year later and many of those problems that I've mentioned still persist. In fact, some of the stability issues were relived only to be re-introduced during the Raids update. Another, just as unbalanced, world boss was added and progression has been relegated entirely to the marketplace. Higher levels are just for show at this point. All this was supposed to fixed by now due to the Wastelanders update that was recently delayed, and instead the community who have stuck by this game have been sidelined and told that future incremental updates to player's quality of life will be exclusive to either the in-game store or an embarrassingly overpriced subscription service.

I'm sure that Bethesda 'diehards' (see: sunk cost fallacy) will march to Bethesda's defence and claim that none of the items on offer are necessities, but, once again, Bethesda are playing a game of attrition. The more small nicks of annoyance that they poke you with, the weaker you become to their attempts to sell the big items to you. This is simple marketing strategy, you don't need to be genius to see it. This time, Bethesda are offering an ingame camp system as an exclusive subscription item (Which allows players to create a fast-travel beacon without moving their entire base) and a free Desert Ranger outfit. Which makes no sense canonically as that organization was born on the West coast and were famously exclusive to the area of the Mojave until they encountered the NCR (Which wouldn't be formed yet for a good hundred years.), but it's nice to see that Bethesda are profiteering off of Obsidian's work on New Vegas. Real classy, guys.

The paltry offering isn't even the biggest rub here, nor is the fact that Bethesda want to attach another paywall to their sinking ship. For me, it's that ludicrous price tag. $11.99 a month? Will Todd Howard personally come around my house to give me a foot massage? If not then I expect a damn good explanation as to why I should fork out three times the cost of one month of Xbox game pass in order to play the worst Fallout game ever made. (And I'm including 'Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel' in that comparison) Game pass, may I remind you, is a service that allows buyers to play over 100 high-quality games for a paltry monthly sum, sometimes on the day of release! (And I'm not even paid to say that. I just hate Fallout 1st so much that I'll sing the praises of a serial killer if he offered a subscription for his crimes.)

But Microsoft aren't the only ones who offer a superior 'paid subscription'. Perhaps the closest direct comparison I can make off the top of my head is that of WoW Classic. (Seeing as how Bethesda fancy this game as their very own MMO) WoW was the game the defined the MMO genre and spawned a thousand failure copy cats. (Ranks that Bethesda seem eager to join.) I'm not sure how subscription works today, but back in it's prime WoW operated on a nominal fee that could be purchased directly or earnt through playing the game religiously, meaning that you theoretically only had to buy a subscription once. (Wait... is this how Battlepasses were born too? This game really was ahead of it's time!)

How about Nintendo's online service that they offer with the Switch. Initially it seemed like something of a raw deal. (Especially with the way they robbed previously online games of their connectivity.) But the deal has become a whole of a lot sweeter since the 'virtual' consoles were introduced. Just like with game pass, you can play through Nintendo's legendary library of classic games (albeit, drip fed from the big N) for no extra charge then the purchase of the online itself. "How much does it cost?" you ask? £15 for a year. (Bethesda best be taking some serious notes right now.)

If you're looking for a more traditional one-on-one comparison with a modern MMO, look no further than the best MMO on the market right now; Final Fantasy XIV. This is a game that nails every aspect of it's required agenda as an MMO and does so with absolute style. There are countless activities, events, vocations, end-game grinds, and top-tier raids to take part in. Not only that, but many of the DLC story add ons have been hailed as some of the best Final Fantasy stories ever told. (And that's coming from the franchise that practically wrote the book on epic storytelling.) How much is this game's subscription? Well for the first 35 levels it's free, after that you are hit with a $12 monthly fee. (That's kinda deceptive, honestly.) So this is a price that is closer to Fallout 76's proposition, but what's the difference? Hmm, how about the fact that you are paying for the best MMO on the market right now that is renowned for inundating it's player base with premium quality content. Not exactly a one-to-one comparison to Bethesda's game, and yet they seem to think their worth it. (Some folk are easily deluded.)

I didn't think I'd have to write another blog about abject stupidity on Bethesda's front. I hoped I wouldn't have to. But when you are met by a studio that are so adamant on throttling their loyal consumer base to their last penny, it's hard not to point and stare. At this point, I can't imagine anyone taking this game seriously unless they do a 'Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn' style overhaul, but honestly, I doubt modern Bethesda have enough passion and ingenuity to pull something like that off. Well, the blog has done the trick. I'm no longer seething with rage and have settled into my natural state of despair. So I guess I'm going to end this here. See you the next time Bethesda do something dumb, I guess.