Final Fantasy XIV press conference notes
Square Enix held it’s not-so-secret press event today and didn’t have a lot to talk about because, well, Sony co-opted its big surprise for its E3 press event. I am speaking of Final Fantasy XIV that went from being a PS3 exclusive to multi-platform in the span of a few hours last night. Today that issue remains cloudy as Square Enix gives a non-committal answer on whether or not it will show up on the Xbox 360.. The plot sickens. Kyle Orland was in attendance at the event and gleaned a bit more interesting information on the game.
But first the biggest question - will Final Fantasy XIV be available on the Xbox 360? Senior Vice President of Square Enix, Shinji Hashimoto answers as best he can: “We are considering all other options at this time.”
So that’s a firm .. maybe.
Some additional information about the game was offered by Hiromichi Tanak, Producer and Nobuaki Komoto, Director - mostly responses to questions from the gallery:
The races in Final Fantasy XIV are slightly different from FFXI and the game takes place in a different world called Eorzea. The good news is that these new races are similar to those found in FFXI so players can choose something similar. Square Enix describes it like this “Like having one actor in many movies: In one he’s an action hero, another a spy, but always the same actor.”
Some other stuff mention in the press conference:
Content development on FFXI will continue after the release of FFXIV. In other words, the game isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Square Enix is aiming for a more casual type of player with this game but they are not making a World of Warcraft clone.
When asked if the combat was action or turn-based, Square Enix declined to comment.
A Spanish language version of the game is a possibility if there’s enough demand for it from users.
A announced last night, the game will be released globally, with English, Japanese, German, French version of the game available at launch.
Square Enix hopes to have worldwide servers that are cross platform and cross region, but there’s also a possibility of regional servers.
Character growth is important in FFXIV; players will be able to grow and develop in a more natural way and should offer a job system that is different from what we have seen in FFI.
The game will support all kinds of play styles: casual players, people that like to play in groups, people that like to play with a handful of friends, people that like to play PVPE, etc.
You won’t be able to port your FFXI characters to FFXI, but you’ll be able to create similar characters. You will be able to port your friends list over - assuming that all your friends are playing the game.
Finally, i’ll leave you with this quote, which attempts to explain why Square Enix decided to create another FF Online game, as opposed to a new IP:
“We believe players will fall in love with the world we’ve created and the story we have to offer, and that is probably our biggest thing.”
Kyle Orland contributed to this story.
