What are Yoshi P's credentials? Follow

Actually, I'm going to agree with Poubelle on this one. I'm going to agree with catwho, too. Yoshi-P seems like an excellent project manager-- someone I could even aspire to be more like. I think regarding that, he couldn't be doing much more.

However, his design credentials do not instill me with any faith. He doesn't have some great track record as a game designer, and I can't tell you how many people I know who play lots of MMOs hardcore, have all the theories about game design in the world, and would be absolute disasters. More likely, his designs will be pretty average, maybe a bit better than your average MMO.

Very few game designers are consistently successful because very few understand why a game is successful. They develop their own theories about games just like all of you do--they have no expert knowledge of the subject. They don't learn about it or study it. They play games, they take note of what they like and don't like--maybe they even take note of what other people seem to like or dislike. But what it boils down to is that they're mostly winging it. They're not operating off of some checklist or guidebook, so they never know if they're doing something correctly or not. And sometimes that works out, but mostly not. And when a hit game comes along, they'll remake that game in sequels for a decade, or other designers will copy large parts of the design, because by god, they finally found something that works.

Point being, having faith in any game designer to be consistently successful is pretty much nuts. Almost all of them have some failures on their resume, and are perfectly capable of making a flop.



So would you let your mother, who is probably more motivated and driven to protect you than anyone else in the world (sorry if this is a touchy assumption), perform open heart surgery on you (assuming she's not a heart surgeon)? Or would you want the person with the most skill and experience? I've worked in education for many years, and it's not actually that different from game design in a lot of ways--teachers are trying to design an experience that will engage their students, and make them excited about participating in class. And I can't tell you how many committed, passionate, driven people have failed as teachers. Now, -eventually- they will learn from their mistakes, persist at growth, persevere and emerge successful. But FFXIV doesn't have the time for those mistakes.

Can we just stop with the bad analogies? Yoshi-P has experience in the game industry.

I didn't know 20 years meant "Not much".

I'll link this again in case you missed it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoki_Yoshida

And if he were making Final Bomberman XIV, or his games were huge hits, that would be very encouraging. An MMO is a whole nother baby, and his experience is below average if anything for someone in his position. Look at the leads for other MMOs that failed, consider their track records, and it's apparent why Yoshi-P doesn't seem that experienced.

I don't think I'd want Yoshi-P performing open heart surgery on me... but I think I'll let him design an MMO.

Honestly, you probably wouldn't want someone with decades of experience in MMO design running this show... we actually tried that already, look what happened. This project called for a fresh perspective and it got one.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Judge his design when you play it.

You must not have worked with many newer teachers. They'll prove to you that there's a huge difference between trying your hardest and being successful.



Well, I will say that I'd pick Yoshi-P over McCain any day. Probably even as president of the U.S..

I guess I still find this idea that any problem can be solved with enough money and/or passion a bit naive, to be honest. There are many passionate failures, and many well-funded failures, and one doesn't have to look very hard for either, particularly in the entertainment industry.

Luck surely has a lot to do with many success stories, but I prefer skill. And that's where my skepticism stems from. I don't have enough evidence to believe that the skill is there. I'm not saying that it isn't, just that I haven't seen it. Skill as a project manager, most likely, but doesn't translate to skill in game design... which leaves us with luck. And for me, luck is not enough to bolster confidence. SE decided to gamble on FFXIV; that doesn't mean I will. And in fact, I've never regretted passing on a chance to back a gambler. Most of them lose.

Your point is taken, and I certainly would not fault Yoshi-P if ARR fails. But really, isn't that even worse? If Yoshi-P is not responsible for the major design decisions, and merely plays a role in steering the direction, why should that give us any more faith? Now we have nameless game designers (at least unknown to the masses) who hold the future of the game in their hands.

For example, the cooldown is a huge matter. As any good game designer knows, a small change like that creates a dominal effect in the design which -should- impact many other aspects of the game. If you just let Joe Designer go and reduce it by half a second because it makes the combat seem a bit faster paced, you also have to consider the impact on every encounter in the game, as well as the implications for party chat and cooperative mechanics. It's these kinds of problems that make me almost prefer a single cook in the kitchen.

This is a MMO that will constantly be worked on and evolved. Once a movie is released, that's pretty much it. Almost the same with non MMO games. You get your patches and maybe some DLC. Then there is Mass Effect 3, where the ending was redone. The thing with other MMOs that have failed is they chose to give up on them. SE has stated they they will keep working on XIV. Shows heart to me.

Based on the videos I've seen and the stories I've read, I think some die-hard gaming enthusiasts are being a little too critical about the design of FFXIV:ARR.

Step back and look at this from the mindset of the average gamer (and not people who feel personally offended by someone else having Legacy status, or the initial version of game being bad), and Final Fantasy XIV is shaping up to be a fun, solid, beautiful game filled with throwbacks the Final Fantasy franchise.

We can talk all we want about game mechanics, design gimmicks, etc., but at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself basic questions such as:

1) Is the game enjoyable? (Looks like it will be, from all the videos I've seen)
2) Is the game broken? (Too early to know, but I don't imagine any aspect of this game being broken at launch like v1.0 was)
3) Is it nice to look at? (Hell yes)
4) Is the user interface seamless? (Both user interfaces seem flawless)
5) Is there lots to do? (questing, story missions, hunters manuals, hamlet, FATE, dungeons, crystal tower, labrynth, leves, solo and party play, grand companies, free companies, crafting.... I'd say yes)
6) Stuff to do for hardcore gamers? (yes, see above)
7) Do people want to play this game? (yes, including gamers in the untapped PS3 market)

There will always be things for armchair game developers to second-guess. At the end of the day though, a game is either good or bad.

I've simply seen too much of FFXIV:ARR to honestly believe it will be bad.

Edited, Feb 28th 2013 10:26am by Thayos

I felt the same way about Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The gaming media didn't get its hands on the Aliens game until after it had launched. Meanwhile, game reviewers have been invited en masse to try out FFXIV.

The reviews have been mostly positive, with a hint of "be cautious, mainly because Version 1 was bad."