Category Archives: Final Fantasy XIV

2016 MMO predictions

Posted on December 21, 2015 by SynCaine

2015 was, FFXIV aside, basically a waste in the MMO space in terms of what was delivered. A bit of ‘wake up’ progress was made regarding F2P MMOs, but for the most part nothing new of significance arrived, though some … Continue reading →

Posted in Camelot Unchained, Crowfall, Final Fantasy XIV, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 1 Comment

2015 predictions review

Posted on December 15, 2015 by SynCaine

Prompted by Wilhelm again, lets look back at my 2015 predictions. DF:UW will shut down. The population is at an all-time low, AV is completely lost with the title, and Forumfall continues to stick daggers into the one game even … Continue reading →

Posted in ArcheAge, Camelot Unchained, Clash of Clans, Crowfall, Darkfall Online, EQNext, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Kickstarter, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Random, Site update, SOE being SOE, SW:TOR, Trion being Trion, World of Warcraft | 16 Comments

It’s in the books, FFXIV is the largest sub MMO out today

Posted on August 21, 2015 by SynCaine

The troll job from SquareEnix using ‘registered accounts’ for subs continues, this time to announce that the game has crossed the 5m sub mark. As WoW has likely continued to bleed subs since the 5.4m announcement, I think its rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft | 29 Comments

Hitting rocks to build success

Posted on August 13, 2015 by SynCaine

For me the simplest measure of how much you liked a game is how long you played it. I think there is certainly value in a great 10 hour experience, but IMO no matter how great that 10 hours was, … Continue reading →

Posted in ARK, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 9 Comments

WoW Legion: We get to watch it all burn down to the ground

Posted on August 7, 2015 by SynCaine

Oh New Blizzard. After attempting “We are making the game like Vanilla again, come back!” with WoD, and failing to actually deliver, New Blizzard is back with “We are making the game like TBC, our one good expansion, come back!”, … Continue reading →

Posted in Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 15 Comments

New Blizzard investor call ‘highlights’

Posted on August 5, 2015 by SynCaine

Items that jumped out at me from the Activision Blizzard investor call: “Destiny now has over 20 million registered players, with an average of about 100 hours of game play each” First, the statement that the average gameplay length from … Continue reading →

Posted in Diablo 3, Final Fantasy XIV, Random, RMT, World of Warcraft | 21 Comments

FFXIV: The good kind of difficult

Posted on July 6, 2015 by SynCaine

One of the aspects that soured me on WoW post TBC (although even prior to WotLK this was already somewhat of a trend in the game, just much slower) was the decrease in challenge in the ‘normal’ game, with only … Continue reading →

Posted in Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 4 Comments

Fun vs Reward

Posted on June 23, 2015 by SynCaine

Designing MMO content is, IMO, far different than designing gaming content, primarily because MMO content has to last, while other gaming content has to be as fun as possible. It may sound odd, but I don’t think you should try … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design | 12 Comments

Bringing games to prison

Posted on June 9, 2015 by SynCaine

Via Az, what PC game would you pick if you were in prison for 10 years with no internet, and what three games would you pick if you were locked up for life but had Internet to play games but … Continue reading →

Posted in Civilization Series, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Mount and Blade: Warband | 5 Comments

What really makes a themepark tick, and why FFXIV is a rolex

Posted on June 9, 2015 by SynCaine

Where a good sandbox is like a mountain climb with incredible peaks along with plenty of valleys, playing a good themepark is like taking a nice walk on a familiar path; at no point are you overly thrilled, but the … Continue reading →

Posted in crafting, Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments