Phaelog youre rebuttal cracked me up

I thought final fantasy was bad, but I don't think it was horrible. Also, along with a Mr. Ebert I think that it will be looked back on as a landmark film that although unsuccessful and pretty stale, changed the way movies could be made...ala the jazz singer or something. It was still terribly impressive concept wize, it just had a really shitty story.

dave snider
co-founder | guzzlefish.com
my dvd, cd, and game collections
http://www.guzzlefish.com/?user=dave

Hey Chunk... Lettermen was the only thing keeping it at #2 and not #1.

And Ray, the reason it sucked had something to do with terrible plot, terrible writing, terrible 'acting', horrible musical score, poor direction, need I go on?

When you walk out of a movie and the only good thing people have to say about it is... 'wow, her hair looked so real' does not a good movie make. And, although the CGI looked real in places, the facial expressions and movement of the characters was way too robotic and lifeless.

The movie suffered from it's own CGI glory because the more real you make CGI look the easier it is to spot imperfection. Whereas, nobody spots imperfection in a Disney/Pixar film because the characters are usualy non-human or are more cartoony.

Also, that's just MY top 5 worst movies because I'm very good about taking people's advise and avoiding bad movies.
Movies I've avoided on people's advice include Battlefield Earth, Monkeybone, Gigli, Howard the Duck, I am Sam.

Ack, I just remembered that the movie "Simone" with Al Pacino belongs in the top 5.

I really hate when you guys have these conversations because I did and do like the Final Fantasy movie.

Even without Aki.

Wondering what people were expecting from it,
Ray

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10-03-03 at 10:24 PM: My mother, Deborah Lynn Marden, passed away.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
I love you, mom.

As for an extra $1/month to prevent griefers... nice try! Look at how many people spend HOURS online tweaking their cheats or just being general assholes to other players.

I think you might be right for a lot of people out there, but let me make an analogy with locking your doors at home: If someone *really* wants to break into your house, they will, no matter what you do. But locking your doors might dissuade your average filcher. They are looking to diminish a very specific problem, and this is probably one of many ways.

Regarding storage, you're totally right. But their maintenance costs don't solely consist of a 40 GB hard drive.

Yeah, gamers are whiney, and they all think companies are trying to ream them. But in this case, they are right.

If something's not worth paying for, don't pay for it. I think their claim that it's a solution (of arguable merit) to their cheating problem is valid. --yrns

"They probably (no duh) expect a pretty large user base. If they let you have 3 free characters, and the rest were $1/month, pretty much everyone would have 3, so their database size would triple."

Yet out of all the myriad online RPG developers out there only ONE has even mentioned data storage as a concern. Additionally as has been mentioned here, before, and on what was a huge thread in the SWG beta forums, that space was negligable.

"By charging a nominal fee they're keeping their costs lower, and increasing revenue. I say "nominal" because, for the people who actually play with multiple characters, $1 is nothing. That's $12 a year. I spend $12 on lunch."

And in your zeal to justify their business model you have a.) missed the goddamn point which you apparently took the time to quote but not read and b.) supported my position. I'll say it again for completness sake. During the beta it came to their attention a way to seriously disrupt what they have said is the core feature of the game. Their barrier to said disruption is a solitary dollar which, as you said, is nothing. Now use your brain here...that means their affor mentioned reason for the cost per slot is bullshit. As I said before, if their gonna lie to us they can at least give us the credit of possessing some modicum of intelligence. On a small tangent, sure a buck is nothing. Also, as I said already (hmm..I see a pattern here) would you drop an extra buck on every meal you ate? On every and any transaction? The people of Washington struck down a bill that would tax coffee drinks by a whole 10 CENTS so they can help put a dent in some $8.2 billion in state debt and provide money for education. 10 cents. The key is (obviously) how much people want something which leads us right to...

"Now, for a company just starting out with their first MMO game, you're going to want to do everything you can to get people to play your game. That probably includes not charging your players extra for *anything*. Square, on the other hand, knows that millions of people out there love Square and Final Fantasy games, and they'll handily pay anything just to get their hands on it."

Umm...I said just that. Reading and comprehension is the key here.

"It's called business. This is also called the "business high-road post" in your sadly typical "why all game companies are out to ream their customers" thread."

Golf clap for you, genius. My first post actually had more to do with the fact that PEOPLE are willing to lube up and receive than whether a company is "out to ream their customers". They can charge whatever the fuck they want; it's their property. They can proffer up whatever reason (or in this case bullshit) they want as well. I can still call them on it.

Of course, feel free to just ignore all of this too and spam out some more rote responses from your "Defending blatent company lies for lackies" guide. I'm compeled to the same. I think we know what kind of sadly typical post yours is, and the stench is overwhelming

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that some people would pitch in that $1.00 a month to MAKE that character with the SOLE PURPOSE of pissing people off.

Hey! Cabin Boy was funny!

"Do ya wanna buy a monkey?"

Creston hit the nail on the head. Still, I'm sure it will be wildly successful, which is truly unfortunate.

As for an extra $1/month to prevent griefers... nice try! Look at how many people spend HOURS online tweaking their cheats or just being general assholes to other players. For $13 a month I can play FF. For $14 I can play FF and totally piss off a bunch of people. For any griefer out there, the extra 8% cost is nothing.

And YMS, storage space is not an issue here. Do the math. If each character is 100K (that is a LOT of data) and you had 400,000 subscribers, that's still only 40GB. Lets go nuts and say you had a MILLION subscribers. That's still only 100GB. In these days of 300GB IDE drives and SAN's, even 1TB is small potatoes. And it's not like FF will require more data per player than other MMO games.

Yeah, gamers are whiney, and they all think companies are trying to ream them. But in this case, they are right.

I'm so glad I gave up on FF and its ilk back in the SNES days!

Anyone who thinks this game will die on its arse should be reminded that it's already got over 300,000 subscribers in Japan.

Dude, you just admitted you saw From Justin to Kelly...

That's so sad, man...

Supporter of the "A fredster By Any Other Name Is Still The Same" fan club.

http://www.yearoftherabbit.net/

I haven't played any of these games, yet I went to go see the Final Fantasy "movie" when it came out and after seeing that steaming pile of waste, I don't think I'd touch those games with a 10 foot pole for fear of being reminded of that awful-awful movie.

And just to give some perspective of how it ranks... Worst movies I've ever seen:

5) Surf Nazi's Must Die
4) Black Knight
3) From Justin to Kelly
2) Cabin Boy
1) Final Fantasy

So I'm being told by Square that creating a character under a rival nation and dying repeatedly can ruin the central feature of the game and that a fucking dollar is going to be a barrier between good play and breaking the game?

They probably (no duh) expect a pretty large user base. If they let you have 3 free characters, and the rest were $1/month, pretty much everyone would have 3, so their database size would triple. I highly doubt 1 player = 1 row in a SQL database. 1 player consistutes a large amount of data for any RPG, MMO or not. By charging a nominal fee they're keeping their costs lower, and increasing revenue. I say "nominal" because, for the people who actually play with multiple characters, $1 is nothing. That's $12 a year. I spend $12 on lunch.

Now, for a company just starting out with their first MMO game, you're going to want to do everything you can to get people to play your game. That probably includes not charging your players extra for *anything*. Square, on the other hand, knows that millions of people out there love Square and Final Fantasy games, and they'll handily pay anything just to get their hands on it.

It's called business. This is also called the "business high-road post" in your sadly typical "why all game companies are out to ream their customers" thread. --yrns

Now that's some funny shit:

"The conquest system is central to the game, and players will want to participate in the conquest campaign, otherwise their character and nation will suffer. The conquest campaign is so influential that many people sought to sabotage it in the beta by starting new characters under a rival nation and simply dying over and over. This was easy to do in the beta, but the retail version of the game will require an additional charge for extra characters, hopefully reducing this sort of misanthropic behavior."

So I'm being told by Square that creating a character under a rival nation and dying repeatedly can ruin the central feature of the game and that a fucking dollar is going to be a barrier between good play and breaking the game? What a crackerjack group of asshats over there. For fucks sake if your going to lie to me do a decent job at it. They must think we're all stupid in the extreme. Of course, I think that about people in general so I guess this'll work out nicely then.

This comment was edited on Oct 9, 14:48.

My feelings mirror your own. However time and experience has shown me that people are more than willing to take it up the ass. Already we have the specious logic that since _one_ other game (among how many so far in this genre?) has a single character slot that this "trend" is set in stone. "It's only a buck" cry the masses. Try applying that to everything you spend money on. You'll quickly find that there are limits to that credo. However, my gut feeling is that this is not going to catch hold. Square is doing this for the same reason Sony has one character slot in SWG. They both have mega-hot properties that they know weak-willed consumers will pay thorugh the nose for. However I've learned not to underestimate the gross stupity of people in general so only time will tell.

This comment was edited on Oct 9, 14:41.

These kind of pricing scams just reduce my interest in these games more and more. My first MMORPG was DAOC and my last was Galaxies. I had lot of fun with DAOC, Galaxies just didn't do anything for me, and I couldn't find a single person that I couldn't dislike. I'm giving these games up. I'm not sorry to leave them either.

There was an article posted in Bluesnews' "Morning Previews" section for a Final Fantasy XI article on GameSpy.com on October 6th that gave an "official" explanation for this pricing scheme.

http://www.gamespy.com/previews/october03/ffximulti/

"The conquest system is central to the game, and players will want to participate in the conquest campaign, otherwise their character and nation will suffer. The conquest campaign is so influential that many people sought to sabotage it in the beta by starting new characters under a rival nation and simply dying over and over. This was easy to do in the beta, but the retail version of the game will require an additional charge for extra characters, hopefully reducing this sort of misanthropic behavior."

Of course whether this really justifies the need to charge extra or not is still debatable, but that is the most direct explanation I have seen.

BJB
This comment was edited on Oct 9, 14:25.

I am a big Final Fantasy fan, and am a great supporter of Square and everything they do, but I hope this game dies a gruesome death.

This kind of pricing method needs to be smothered and strangled in its infancy, because the next thing is that you'll have to pay for single player savegames.

Paying extra for extra characters, and paying extra for access to part of the game...

Creston

yeah, but the majority of online MMROPGs allow you to have at the very least 3 per server.

dave snider
co-founder | guzzlefish.com
my dvd, cd, and game collections
http://www.guzzlefish.com/?user=dave

I'm willing to pay the 1 dollar extra charge if I want another char on a server. In Star Wars Galaxies you only get ONE char per a server (not including a force sensitive slot, but good luck on actually unlocking that). So I rather pay a extra dollar to make a alt then pay a extra 13 bucks a month( buying another account ) for a alt. The trend has already been set. These games are going to start costing more and more per a month and will have a few "extra" fees.

honestly i dont get this, theorectically a new character should just be a new row in the database, how do they justify this cost? i can see how cost goes up per user, hence a monthly fee, but per character? unless one user has multiple characters online at the same time (very very unlikely) then the cost to the company should be the exact same no matter how many characters the user has. What a scam

dave snider
co-founder | guzzlefish.com
my dvd, cd, and game collections
http://www.guzzlefish.com/?user=dave