If Sony Computer Entertainment America had one trick up their sleeve to reveal at the Press Conference on June 2nd at the Shrine Theater in downtown Los Angeles, it was the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV Online. They showed a trailer and announced that Hiromichi Tanaka will produce the game and Nobuaki Komoto will serve as director. Final Fantasy fans will be pleased to know that Nobu Uematsu will return to score the music and Chocobos will indeed be in Final Fantasy XIV. The game will be set in the world of Eorzea. The trailers showed races similar to those seen in Final Fantasy XI as well as Chocobos.
Square Enix invited some press members to an event the next day. As we lined up outside at the LA Convention Center, we speculated what it would be. Would it be more information regarding FFXIV? Yet, another surprise? It was a Q&A session with Producer Hiromichi Tanaka and Director Nobuaki Komoto of FFXIV Online.
Hiromichi Tanaka opened by clarifying the remarks made during the Sony Press Conference. Final Fantasy XIV Online will not be exclusive to the PS3, but will be released on the PS3 and PC platforms simultaneously. It will also be released globally across all regions in English, Japanese, French and German.
Both Tanaka and Komoto stressed that the world of FFXIV - Eorzea - is a different world from FFXI. The game trailer had shown us that the races looked similar. This was done intentionally to give a sense of the familiar to the players of FFXI.
Tanaka: FFXIV is completely different from FFXI and as such, there won’t be any porting over of characters from FFXI to FFXIV, even though the character design is similar. We will not be using the PlayOnline system but a new design.
Komoto: The game systems will be different. FFXIV will have new in-game systems for character development as well as an expanded job system. It is quite different from FFXI. Many features of FFXI will be improved upon. We want to bring content for solo players and casual players as well as large party play from the beginning of the game.
Tanaka: The Game system will provide the type of content that players want. FFXIV will be more than just party based. There is solo content, party content, content for those that just want to play 40 minutes a day and content for those that wish to play all day.
The former head of developer relations for the Stratics Network, Carolyn Koh has years of experience covering the MMORPG genre. Carolyn first started playing games such as Pong & Moon Buggy on the 8086, and arcade games like Ms. PacMan, Centipede, Red Baron and Joust before graduating to text muds through University computers and Doom on the LAN in the Engineering department after office hours. She claims she didn't frag the guys. Carolyn enjoys reviewing casual games and children's games for us. She also maintains a staff blog commenting on the emails crossing her desk that touch on the gaming industry in one form or another.
