FFXIV - A clash of communitiesFollow

In the game it won't matter much. Forums are where you will see the worst of it, and we have already seen what will be the zenith of the conflict.

The biggest thing is mainly the different attitudes of the playerbases of each game. I think the fact that both communities behave differently and have different ways of doing things might cause some sparks. I am probably just wording what I want to say incorrectly.

They have Aoin to worry about as we speak, let’s see how WoW will hold up against Aion before jumping the gun on FF14 Vs. WoW ;D

Meh. Any "lolz N00B! KEKEKEKEKEKEKE" people from WoW won't last long.

I know I for one won't put up with people talking like complete idiots. I like at least a little bit of intelligence in my FF MMOs.

I think most members will be from FFXI anyway.

Not saying everyone from WoW talks like that. But I tried WoW and saw so much of that I couldn't take it anymore. Is it so hard to learn to spell?

I know you aren't, but you are asserting that a nontrivial number of people fit that stereotype, when they don't.

It's like saying "I don't want to live in a black neighborhood, I'd rather not get robbed." You can't defend that by saying "I'm not saying all blacks are thieves, but some are!" It's still racist.

People speak in WoW like they do in FFXI. There is no significant difference.

Oh no.. there's a very definite difference. And WoW has it much worse.

Trust me here; I really, really feel you on this issue. If I had my way, more people would be typing correctly.

But typing poorly isn't the worst thing out there, really. I've still met people who can type but still call things gay, or are elitist asses, or drama kings/queens.

But then, that could just be me. As much as I like having a proper conversation, please and thank you come first.

If I see a dead person, I'm going to raise him/her regardless of what game they chose to play. I never played WoW, because, personally, I thought the graphics sucked. However, I did play Warcrafts 1&2 during the 1990's. I loved designing my own levels and playing online against my RL friends. Sometimes I'd pawn. Sometimes I would get pawned. Everyone starts off as my friend, until they prove to me they are no friend of mine. You never know what you're going to get when online; that's both the bane and beauty of online play.

Allegory, having played both games to a nauseating degree myself, you'd be fooling yourself if you honestly believe there are not significant differences between the community of WoW and the community of XI. (Not necessarily just language, aside from game-specific lingo)

Edited, Jun 16th 2009 1:17am by Kirbster

Even then, I still think there is a somewhat significant difference.

However, this is probably due to the fact that WoW is more 'mainstream.'

In my experience, older players usually tend to flock towards XI, younger towards WoW. Not necessarily a set rule, but a good rule of thumb. Of course, you can have mature teenagers and immature adults, but generally, it tends to flow the opposite direction.

Again, there is the fact that WoW gives players so many more opportunities to be immature and general asshats. For instance, Alts.

In XI, often before a person acts, they have to think about their reputation. Your reputation sticks with you the entire game. It's one of the things I enjoy about it. If you've established yourself as a total bastard, people will know it.

In WoW, you're given alts, tons of them. You can be a complete prick on one character, and even steal from your friends or guild, then restart anew on an alt, and nobody would know the difference. It's infuriatingly common.

And then, obviously, world PvP.

So it may not be the playerbase itself, (although I honestly believe it is, to a degree), but the style and structure of the games themselves. FFXI completely depends on teamwork and cooperation with others, so it makes logical sense that there would be a larger population of more socially-inclined people than WoW, which you can effectively solo to 80 without speaking to anyone.

Edited, Jun 16th 2009 1:54am by Kirbster

I couldn't agree more with that. I played XI a long time ago now so I dunno if its worse now, but the worse you got on XI in terms of spam was people saying they wanted to sell something.
In WoW like everyday non stop you get people linking things (abilities and such) with the word anal next to it...its so childish and annoying.

Although I wouldn't want half of my school to play XIV, it'd be nice to see SE advertise like that outside Nippon! I don't think I ever saw an FFXI advert anywhere in my country when it came out in europe >_>;.

That's what I hope too. However, that's where the 'clash of communities' comes in I guess.

Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man...

:P

Im almost positive XIV will draw the young-uns since SE mentioned the casual gamer thing. Just gota hope they make ignore lists big enough to handle the influx of children and child like adults.

BTW, played XI for 3yrs and have now been in WoW for 1 year. With an increase in hours at work WoW is a much more accessible game to those limited on time but I still miss XI everytime I log into WoW.

Word up Kirbster. Word up.

I don't think there'll be a huge clash. The people from other MMOs that choose this over Star Wars: The Old Republic are doing so because they're FF fans. The immature ones will either learn their ways or be ignored by a large portion of the [more mature] player base that lends itself to any FF title.

From my experience WoW has a bit more immature players while FFXI has a bit more arrogant players. The only difference is since a larger number of WoW players compared to FFXI are still teens they actually have an excuse to be immature while a number of FFXI players only think they are better than everyone else.

I definitely think this is an overgeneralization that occurs way too often.

Is there a tendency in WoW to attract more immature players? Definitely. But having played both games, I can point to innumerable individuals that I met in FFXI who were highly childish, and I can point to innumerable individuals in WoW who were very mature working adults.

Steriotypes are ultimately nothing more than steriotypes.

Every type of attitude and player mentality and maturity level exists in both gamse. Some may be more common in one game than the other, but they still exist in significant quantites in both...

Sad as that may be... I wish there was a MMO out there without immature children. Best thing to do is ignore them, and move along.

I still think the graphics in WoW are better than FFXI. Yes they are cartoony and not realistic. However, I feel that the textures, models, and animations, of both characters and enviroments, tended towards having higher artistic integrity and detail. Some of the things that Blizzard managed to do with extremely low-poly models is simply mind blowing.

That artistic design just happens to fall closer in line with American comics than it did with Japanese Anime. I may not like every style of art, music, or writing, but I can still appreciate what is skillfully done.

Having a minor background in game art, I've personally developed a greater appreciation for detailed sprite-work and low-poly models that are still expressive, as opposed to highly realistic high poly model. Too many game artists feel that they can simply throw more polys into a model, and that it will help overcome the lack of expressiveness in their model... Unfortunately from an artistic standpoint, too many gamers do ignore flatter characters if they have a higher poly count.

As far as I'm concerned, if a graphics artist manages to produce a similar model, but with significantly less polys of another artist's model, while still upholding the integrity of the model, I feel that the artist who made the lower poly model has more skill.

This is all purely my opinion of course.

It is worthy to note that WoW tends to have almost an equal quantity of adult and teenage players. The adult players tend to only socialize between themselves, and not in public channels.

This creates the illusion that only immature teenages play WoW. Most adults have turned off the public channels, like trade, and general, and allow the teenagers to have fun with them.

Part of being a mature adult, is having the ability to ignore and not associate with childish behavior, and still have fun with the game. I have not socialized with children for over a year in WoW, nor have I had to deal with, nor witness, nor play with these kinds of immature jerks that are described as incorrectly described as the average playerbase in WOW. And in no way do I ever feel like I am restricted to only a small part of the player population. It typically feels that we outnumber the immature teenagers ten to one.

It is an opinion thing. So it's fine to disagree.

In WoW, I believe every race/gender has the following different player combat animations...
Casting (three animations used for different spells)
Two-handed Weapon (two animations each for 5 different weapons, ten total)
One-handed Weapon (two animations each for 5 different weapons, ten total)
Ranged Weapon (one animations for each of 3 different weapons, three total)
Special Attack animations (I think around 7 different ones per race)
Block
Parry
Dodge
Being hit (two animations)

That's over 300 different player combat animations between the races and genders, not even including noncombat animations. I think a few may be readjusted and reused for different races, but it is still a LOT of different animations. You have not lived until you have seen the amazing feral agression that is a Undead Female's Unarmed animation and special attacks.

One of my few complaints about FFXI, was I felt there were too few different animations, which lead characters to look very rigid in their movement, almost like marionettes.

As for cutscenes, WoW definitely has too few of those. But for a good example of some official WoW Machima, you could look at the Ulduar Trailor, or the Wraithgate Cutscene... You probably won't understand the plot of what is going on in them... both are dealing with several complex subplots coming together very rapidly in a short videoclip, but they are still well done. (I would link them myself for you off of Youtube, but I am currently on a public computer that blocks Youtube.)


I have high hopes for FFXIV graphics :D


I wasn't offended. Just pointing out my differing opinion.

Edited, Jun 16th 2009 12:33pm by Karelyn

It's been a long time since I played FFXI, did characters have idle animations? I seem to recall that they did not. That when you stood almost perfectly still, the character stood perfectly rock solid still for hours at a time unmoving and unbreathing.

That was creepy.

Now I think WoW idle animations probably occur too often, but I think every WoW race had like three different ones they would use at random every 15 seconds or so of standing still (probably shouldn't have occured that often). But they are still a nice addition to making the characters feel more alive. Doesn't have to be much, just like stretching, or shifting from one foot to the other, or sighing, or other things that normal real life people do when they are standing still.

Nope. No idle animations. All you do is stand still, or /sit your character down. Tarutarus head bobbles from side to side. I don't recall blinking. There does need to be the stretching, yawning, and blinking. Hopefully, SE will have an eye for the small details for this generation of gaming. We'll see;)