Since Gamescom, there wasn’t really too much interesting news from the FFXIV developer. You’d see an occasional update from Dengeki!

Anyway, lets catch up with some readings about FFXIV.

Real Money Trade in FFX

It’s good to know they are in the game of cat-and-mouse. RMT has been a big problem, and it’s still a problem. They’ve tried very hard to eliminate RMT but I think the developer should think about building a game that is not too dependent on gil. Rare/Ex (Bind on Pickup) is definitely a good start, keep up with the 3-D system and just track down people who intends to sell Rare/Ex (BoP) item as RMT, and the game should be much more enjoyable.

Lets hope SE can stay ahead of the game this time around, and not playing catch up!

Source: CESA Developer Conference / Alla

Ishgard, Final Fantasy XV

The latest article/interview with Tanaka and Komoto showcased the penalty of dying. Without experience system, there’s got to be a way to punish a careless adventurer! With weapon being the upmost important thing, it would probably be where penalization be applied to.

Unlike other games, FFXIV will not make you lose your weapon when you are repairing them =P However, a crafter is needed to fix your equipment so it’s not like WoW where you just walk up to the NPC and pay the repair bill.

That’s being said, they also showcased more about the graphics engine. This time around, even the Weather will play a role. Rings and Necklace could be rendered in our character, not just the “super avatar customization” that will be offered in the beginning. I personally can’t wait to really see it!

Voice acting will be part of important cutscenes and NPC. So maybe we’ll have fun talking to NPC this time, rather than just spamming enter key through a lot of the Cutscenes.

You can read the rest on Zam by Elmer, or at FF14Core.

1Up – The Future of Online Gaming

I find this article quite interesting, discussing the future of online gaming. What I find more interesting, is the first comment (by Rhinau).

Japanese games have awesome offline content, but most of them are usually subpar in the online arena. It seems like most Japanese developers don’t know how to make a good online game. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because of what vsonic128 said about everyone being crammed into a smaller space, which would certainly make a lot sense. I mean, if you want a multiplayer gaming experience, why bother to play over the internet when you could just invite your friends over and play with each other that way? Online gaming is great and all, but it doesn’t even come close to the incredible social experience of actually playing together with people who are there physically in the same room as you.

Japan has about 50% as many people as the United Stated, but only about 20% of the landmass. And even then, a good majority of that land is too mountainous to support a large population, which forces everyone to futher congregate into large cities. With everyone all crammed together in such a small space, I suppose it’s only natural that Japanese game developers wouldn’t bother to cultivate any serious online capabilities, as such functionality is generally only used for communicating over long distances.

Japan’s extreme population density has had an impact on other aspects of Japanese games as well. For example, in Metroid Prime Hunters on the Nintendo DS, there’s this little feature called the Rival Radar, which works like this: you activate the Rival Radar, then close your Nintentdo DS and just walk around town with it in your pocket. If you come near someone else who is also using the Rival Radar, you will automatically be added to each others Rivals Roster. I tried using this feature when I first got the game, and I kept my DS in my pocket with the Radar running for nearly a week as I went about my normal activites, but I never ran into a single other person using it. I guess in the USA, we’re generally spread out over an area that’s just too big for such a feature to be practical. If I had been using it in Japan, though, I imagine that I probably would have run into a ton of people.

Also on the Nintendo DS, we have PictoChat, a little Instant Messaging program that is completely useless in most places due to its horribly limited range. In Japan, however, its range is probably perfectly adiquate, since people are all crammed together anyway.

On a seperate issue, in the article above Kaname Fujioka said that non-Japanese gamers tend to treat online games like a quick sports match, while Japanese gamers want to play all day long. But then that raises the question: is it wise to spend all day playing a video game? Perhaps these extreme Japanese gamers are not making responsible decisions with their time management. Perhaps part of the responsibility lies with the gamers themselves.

I’ll leave the thoughts up to you.

The Future of this Blog?

One might seem that we are simply just an official news reporter, but it’s only because there’s just not much interesting article to report (plus, I don’t want to waste your time reading useless article). But we do have plans to swing this blog in a totally different direction once the game launches. But for now just bare with us =) and the boring times.