I hope this time Fable will be a more ‘open’ RPG. I’m almost to the end of Fable 2 (I’m slow) and so far the game feels like more of an action adventure than it does a full-blown RPG and although it’s probably intended to play that way I feel it would be better if they would just open it up significantly. The rumor mill – admittedly the only thing I’m tapped into for Fable 3 info – is saying that this will place you in the role of King and you get to control the kingdom.  That sounds like it’s taking town-play to a whole new level of boredom and micromanagement, but maybe there’s more to it. I’ve also heard that Natal might be utilized which isn’t a stretch given Molyneux’s involvement.
Graev directed me to some FFXIV gameplay vids this morning. They’re all taken with cameras showing the displays/presentations at Gamescon 09 so it’s tough to get a feel for the graphics quality (and equally hard to understand the language) but watching the videos gets a few points across.
Scenery from the Lalafell gameplay was beautiful. Affirms that the game will be pretty. Unfortunately, the rest of the videos I’ve seen look boring and clunky. I want to be a big fan of the game but these did nothing for me.
Shoot something!!!! Maybe the guy speaking (German?) is expounding upon some great features or something but the gameplay being shown is…. so…. slow…. and… boring… and … slow …. and… Shoot something already!
Oh well. I won’t be too hard on them until I can figure out what’s actually being shown in the video. I’m just not impressed yet.
Anyone have videos of decent FFXIV gameplay or able to tell me what’s being said in these vids?
Beware the Evil Dodo birds! Full plate armor with a sword has got nothing on them!
lololol yeah this has me officially unexcited for the game Still, it looks like an improvement over FF11, so that’s at least to their credit. I dunno but this trailer needs help.
The german moderator unfortunately doesn’t tell us much in the video:
In the scene with the char holding a bow, he tells us that we will see some bow combat (which we didn’t see -.-)
And later when we see the guy with the sword, he tells us that you have to be careful if attacked from behind and that the char is allready too powerful for the dodos and thats why they die in one hit. after that its just bla bla quest finished….
As you allready mentioned, the combat is really slow.
Thats because you have to wait until your action bar fills up (5-6 seconds) per action.
This behavior is well known from other final fantasy titles.
I haven’t played 11 but in 7 to 10 it was allways like that.
They search for another battleground (prolly quest) to kill more mobs.
0:19+ “So here are 3 more dodos and we will see another fight with the bow. Taking out the bow is taking quite a while so the enemy is already retreating…”
all hes saying from 0:44+ is not rly important. YOu can dodge attacks to avoid hits and use special attacks.
Ive seen the other videos too and the guy presenting them is rly boring ^^. Stuff basically isnt working properly (hes unable to attack a lot of times without any reason). You might have noticed that with all the standing around without anything happening in most of the vids 😀
Eww, I don’t like the 5-6 seconds per action. That might turn me off the game entirely. 🙁 The rest of combat would really have to make up for it.
Fable III? Not interested.
FFXIV better give you the ability to breed, raise, sell, and race Chocobos, and build, sell, and race Airships. This would be a huge plus for the game.
I loved Final Fantasy games…but the MMOs just seem so, boring.
I loved the stately pace of FFXI, but I am perhaps in a minority of MMO afficionados, in that I value relaxation in games and tend to dislike excitement.
Almost all MMOs play at least a little too fast for my taste, and many much too fast, so this looks good to me.
Also, let’s not forget FFXIV is only in alpha – can’t expect it to be too slick. Although whether they should really be promoing an alpha build is another topic…
It’s hard for me to really get excited or turned off by these videos because the game is still in it’s Alpha state and really nothing much is going on. If I had a full English explanation of everything (like the combat system, Jobs etc) I could voice an opinion. Right now all I can say is that the graphics look awesome (even though there’s draw in and clipping issues) and the animation seems to be very smooth.
Alex
FFXI offered the ability to breed, raise, and race chocobos, with selling them available through breeder cards. It died a long, painful death, with no one using the chocobo racing arena at all, and raised chocobos used mostly for farming. It took way too much work to raise one for no real benefit.
As for the gameplay, well it’s obvious the demonstrator has no idea what to, well, do. Of course it will seem dull.
FFXIV *looks* gorgeous anyway. Really can’t take anything else from that video.
It’s a weeee bit early to tell.
You have missed the best part. The two Aion Angel girls were having a rehearsal, and the Elyos one was flying around with a string tanga! 🙂 Watch the Aion Twitter Feeds for links to the live cam.
I dunno, I think I like the slower combat. I want combat that is more strategic and less about button mashing (like it is in WOW, EQ2, most MMOs these days really…)
FFXI had pretty slow combat often, and it still kept you on the ball reacting to events. For example, when tanking with my Paladin, the goblin would start reaching into its bag and pull out a bomb. If I used Shield Bash at the right time I could bounce the bomb back on him when he threw it at the party, causing it to blow him up instead. Since most of these stuns/abilities had long resets like 3-5 minutes, you had to coordinate with the group to make sure someone always had a stun ready.
That made it fun, even if I might sometimes not hit a key more than once every fifteen seconds.
On the other hand, in EQ2, I’m hitting like five keys a second and it’s a lot less enjoyable.
I’m comfortable somewhere in the middle. I don’t like button mashing (Age of Conan) and I don’t like to spaz out mashing keys either. It just all depends on how the rest of the systems come into play. The Realm was a turn based combat MMO and it was great, so I’m not entirely against slower combat. It just has to work well.
Takes a while to shift gears from game to game. Having just played Aion it’s hard to fathom an ability charging for 6 seconds.
I agree with Nissl here. All we can really take from the footage shown so far is that the game looks absolutely beautiful.
Combat does seem to be very similar to that of XI, which in my opinion is not a bad thing. I am not too excited about an action bar based combat system. That system works in a single player rpg very well because you have 2-3 other characters to control while people’s bars are filling. Even in XI where combat can often consist of /attack and waiting for tp there are a ton of abilities on CD’s that you can use to liven up combat. If there is just one 6 second GCD working combat will get old fast.
I’m getting quite excited about FFXIV. I always liked the FF series but couldn’t quite get into FFXI.