It’s not bad if you are an active player. The msq drips are a welcome addition when you have “run out” of content and is very manageable.
That said, I tried to catch up from 80 to 90 and I could just not justify any more hours doing the msq just to be able to raid. It was just hours and hours and days and days of clicking people reading text and going to the next location clicking more boxes
I’ll be honest compared to many of the main FF games like X, XIII or XVI, XIV’s story from ARR->EW, especially once you’re in the last segments of ShB and EW, easily outdoes them. It’s slow as molasses since it has to fit a whole MMO with 2y release cycles into it, but it’s also damn good.
Oh hi! I played XI from release until recently (with some breaks). IMHO the original story (basically up to Rank 6 where you defeat the Shadow Lord) is fine, but it’s really more of a prelude and setting up the stakes. If you stop there it’s not really worth your time.
Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia (+ optionally Apocalypse Nigh) are pretty good from a story perspective. These can be completed solo. This is what I’d recommend playing through to anyone interested in the real story.
From there it’s somewhat diminishing returns. Treasures and Wings add some interesting bits to the lore. Rhapsody is actually great but will take a lot of time and effort and is probably only worth it to a die hard fan.
I also crave a new Kings Field! Some of my favorite childhood games.
Have you heard of Lunacid? Indie PC game that fully released this year by the developer behind Lost in Vivo. It’s absolutely crammed full with the legacy of Kings Field. First person dungeon crawl with magic rings to equip (Eternal Ring!) and a weapon stamina build up mechanic like KF. A TON of hidden secrets behind fake walls. Very obscure story that you piece together by the few characters in the game and environmental story telling.
I wouldn’t call it a perfect Kings Field clone, but it sure scratched the itch. It’s on Steam for probably 15-20 usd.
Hey, I just wanted to say I bought Lunacid right after your comment and finally got around to playing it. I’m only at the Catacombs, but so far it’s excellent and a great throwback to Kings Field (though I miss having armor; with only weapons and rings there’s far less exciting loot).
Nice! Glad to hear that you are enjoying it, happy that the recommendation worked for you! Agreed about the armor. I did miss that. I did enjoy the weapon level ups and finding rings that worked well together. It was a good way to scratch the first person dungeon crawler itch.
I'm curious on how signers of this petition think companies could afford to do this. Often times shutting a game down is because the interest of players has waned. Making a law to require them to keep that server and software running...forever? Is the end goal to kill any online game development?
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
The company will have the make that decision then, if it means opening the server for use or patching the game for local p2p play then so be it. Otherwise they should be forced to state the game is a rental not purchased if it requires a server that may shut down.
Otherwise they should be forced to state the game is a rental not purchased if it requires a server that may shut down.
But that is what they already do. Currently this might be hidden in the EULA, that no one reads, but even making this plainly visible during purchase wouldn't change much. I is not like the players have much choice when they want to play that specific game.
I think part of the next phase is to force the companies to list a minimum supported life span, I think the average length a game is supported for now days is around two years, so if the game isn’t kept alive the minimum listed time you get a refund but if the life span of the game is listed too short then people will be less likely to spend money on it
That’s sort of what they do, except they still call it a purchase. I’ve never seen the word ‘rental’ on any game store. They shouldn’t be allowed to even call it a purchase if it isn’t one.
This is why we got Stadia. Imagine Netflix where you pay a monthly fee and still have to buy all the movies and shows at full price. That was Stadia’s model.
Thos erodes the concept of ownership so that it is substituted for rental, without stating that clearly. Stadia failed but in doing so it probably helped Microsoft figure out how to eventually get away with doing the exact same thing.
Games should clearly say if you’re basically renting them, not have it buried in the EULA. Let publishers full price and let consumers decide if they are prepared to live with it.
Looking at the petition itself it wasn't very specific on the terms, which is why I questioned the very broadness of the request . "Keep" implies maintaining how it is currently, not a transition to open source and player run.
It’s true it does cost to keep things running. But like you say there are ways around this to push server costs onto players, or simply allow offline play with online features disabled.
I think if there were legislation in place then design decisions would adapt. If it were costly to just shut a game down abruptly, there would be player hosted options in place from the start and ideally less spurious “always online” requirements woven into the fabric of every game.
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
That’s basically what people are asking for. Instead of not being playable anymore, give consumers the means to keep it going for themselves.
This could mean always-online having to be gutted from the game after it’s support ends so you can play it offline. Or server hosting files to host your own private or public server.
The goal is to have games not be impossible to play after X amount of time. How companies reach that goal is up to them.
Ross and the team have been very specific about not wanting to force companies to pay for server infrastructure forever.
They’ve said quite a few times that what they want is for game companies to at least patch their games so they can keep running without the online connection or provide players the tools to host their own servers so that the company can end support without the game becoming a brick.
Hopefully by requiring games to be playable after support ends and the servers shut down it will also change the way games are made so that they no longer require the constant connection.
I would also wonder how this would work with MMOs where the server side, both in processing power and in bandwidth, is not insignificant. I mean I suppose “are required to publish the code, no requirement that it’s feasible for others to run” but…yeah.
He talks about that. I think the gist is that a lot of games that are online services could run locally, the publisher just chooses not to. That’s why Ross chose the Crew 2 as his hill to die on: there’s evidence that an offline does/did exist and just wasn’t enabled. That’s a practice that needs to be challenged.
The argument goes that a game that relies on server side technology to run in any form shouldn’t be sold as a product that you can own. This needs to be reflected in the price and licensing model. That seems fair.
The big question is why TF we’re at a point where a company should be allowed to sell you a product and say you own it then remove your right to use the product arbitrarily. I bet there’s IP in the server side code, but having a system where a corporation’s IP and ability to make money from the IP is more important that the concept of ownership is deeply fucked up.
Technology Tangents did a video where a game he bought on CD and tried to play on period-correct hardware won’t run because there was DRM that called a server to check the date and to make sure it wasn’t leaked early. Decades after the release, the server is gone and the game can’t run, ironically, because it’s so far outside of its release date. That’s the kind of bullshit that absolutely shouldn’t be tolerated.
I’m aware of good old fashioned multiplayer where an average Pentium 2 rig has enough grunt to host a multiplayer session and be one of the client machines, obviously games of that scale should be able to be run by enthusiasts. I’m talking about, what if something like WoW shuts down?
Wow private servers aren’t uncommon, although I do think they violate the TOS as it stands. I imagine people would continue to use those in the event blizzard shuts the official servers down.
It would make sense to require a company to release the code for players to host their own servers, which has been done by many games in the past. Not to continue to run it themselves.
That counts as “working state”, assuming the published code is reasonable to operate (it must be FOSS, or at least permit open modification and distribution; and it must run in a server with specs that’s reasonable to have at the time of game publication)
The year is 2067, i have to learn compatibility programming for Applesoft’s newest OS so players can still play Spiderman Model I Ripped Online and Put Into Unreal Engines Third Person Platformer Demo
The one from Accursed Farms that set off this entire campaign. It’s not about supporting a game forever. It’s about not killing them intentionally when support ends.
I dont see any mention of them or video here, theres a petition with text here that definitely reads as supporting games indefinitely, even criticizing servers shutting down.
What part of that petition says that it’s to support games indefinitely? It explicitly requests action to protect customers after support ends. That inherently means it won’t be supported indefinitely.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne