Problem with that Penny Arcade review is it focuses too much on negativity and not on the positive, there is a small paragraph at the bottom saying what's good but it doesn't balance the article very well when the majority of it is negative.
It also compared FFXIV to GW2 saying that it copied many aspects although didn't GW2 copy a lot of things from RIFT and WAR ?
Yeah---the complaints, while most likely valid in some form or another, just come off more finicky than anything and because of it, the article itself just reads imbalanced and churlish. Most aren't gonna get anything from it because the problems mentioned aren't gonna equate to anything that most newcomers or veterans can benefit from information-wise anyway. Whether due to NDA, the game's BETA status, or just personal bias, an article like this has an extremely limited reach in terms of being informative or critical.
Kevin VanOrd's impressions weren't necessarily positive, but he was far more reasonable in articulating the possible setbacks the game will inevitably face.
"Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn isn't trying to be different from other MMOGs--it's just trying to be different from Final Fantasy XIV as it currently exists."
Even when the game DOES finally launch, I'll only be paying attention to mostly MMO-focused blogs/websites (e.g. The Mog Log) anyway, because they bring constructive criticism to the table in an informative/insightful manner for a genre that is inherently meant to go through many iterative versions (though to be fair, if you go to far in
that direction, you'll just wind up depressed on the Final Fantasy Official Forums in some inane thread). Everything else seems to be towards the layman and is written in such a way that only a superficial glance will be worth discussing, often very generally.
Fans are gonna be very defensive about this game since its baggage and its relaunch are kind of an inspiring thing to look at and how negative word of mouth is so closely tied to its initial release ("aww this game still sux, square has really lost it"). Plenty of people are also unfairly going to want it to be the second coming of Jesus as well, since XIV is charging them a subscription fee to play, which many if not most of people consider audacious now for whatever reason.
It is time to start getting used to the negative impressions though as more and more of the press get their hands on it, particularly people with no prior insight on the game's long and turbulent development process or exposure to the online Final Fantasies in general and mostly just modern ones.
Chalor said:
"I don't think any kind of preview article written by someone who hasn't been closely following the game's development is going to be valuable at this point.
PAR writes for the average gamer (which is becoming harder and harder to do), but I'm not sure ARR is even going to be aimed at the average gamer at launch, let alone ready for their consumption at the start of beta. No, the ones best placed to advise on the ongoing development of this game are the ones that have been keeping an eye on it all the way, and fortunately, that's who Yoshi-P has proved he's paying attention to.
I guess basically my point is that the only people who will seek out an article like this one at this time are likely to be better informed about the game than the person who wrote it."
