NowGamer Speaks with Hiromichi Tanaka(E3 Interview)

Another interview out of E3 has appeared on NowGamer.com. Hiromichi
Tanaka goes over the basic premise of Final Fantasy XIV once again, but
also lets loose a few new tidbits.
Tanaka elaborates on why job names have taken such a noted departure
from the Final Fantasy series:

"By learning different abilities you
can make your own class and actually this time, we purposely decided
not to use job names we used in previous Final Fantasy titles, so you
really have to make sure you combine the exact skills you need to
become say, a white mage in the future. So it really is up to you how
you develop your character."

And he confirms the new subscription model
that should remove the confusion that can sometimes arise with monthly
payments:

"It’s going to be a 30 days
subscription model and for the price we are currently unable to
confirm, but we should be announcing details shortly."


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The fantasy goes online once more...
What is the idea behind Final Fantasy XIV? What are you
looking to achieve and what will the player experience be like? It's quite the looker


There are two unique points to Final Fantasy XIV. The
first is ‘guildleve’, a system that allows people to get rewards or
learn certain skills in a short time, like 30 minutes. So even if you
are a solid player or part of a smaller group you can still manage your
time very efficiently and level up your character any way you like. We
also have the armoury system, which allows players to change class by
holding different equipment, so this allows more flexibility to players.
They can learn abilities during this process and by combining different
abilities you can customise and create your character. Also, because
it’s Final Fantasy, you can expect a huge storyline.“Because it’s an MMO we
feel it’s very important to be ‘in the game’”


From the mission I played it was difficult to get
a handle on the size of the world as we were fighting in a cave
setting. How expansive is the in-game world?
So what we have in the beta version is 20 per cent of the actual game
content, so it’s like 5 kilometres across.Graaah! Giant enemy crabs!


It was an unexpected pleasure to play the game in
3D and I understand that’s just an experiment. What do you find
exciting about 3D from a game designer’s perspective and why was it
important to try that here?
Because it’s an MMO we feel it’s very important to be ‘in the game’
and 3D really adds that aspect to your gaming experience. We believe
it’s very suitable for MMOs. It feels like this year is a 3D year for
every company in the industry so we thought we’d try it out and
experiment to see how it goes.
Can you tell us more about the different character classes
and how they relate to Final Fantasy games that we already know?
This time there are four different categories; Disciples of War,
Disciples of Magic, Disciples of Land and Disciples of Hand. Within each
are many different classes. By changing your equipment you can
customise your character, so there are several characters in the game.
By learning different abilities you can make your own class and actually
this time, we purposely decided not to use job names we used in
previous Final Fantasy titles, so you really have to make sure you
combine the exact skills you need to become say, a white mage in the
future. So it really is up to you how you develop your character.
You mentioned before an epic storyline running throughout the
entire game. That’s quite difficult to do in an MMO because you’re
either going on a secondary mission or, - the way Warcraft does it – is
to have the story going on around the player, rather than through the
player. I wanted to see how you’ve made the player feel very much a part
of that storyline and to still give them a sense of freedom...…continued
The main idea is the same as the package titles of the Final Fantasy
series. NPCs will be the key trigger of the game, so by talking to NPCs
they will give you the storyline and you will experience it in this way.
The key points of the Final Fantasy XIV storyline are that you will be
experiencing what happened in the past. By doing that you will discover
the secrets of the world. If it’s a package title, sometimes by
following the story you can’t do anything else, you just have to keep
following the story. But because it’s an MMO, you can stop the story at
certain points when you like and try out a different quest. So you have
much more freedom and also by trying the quests that might help you
experience the storyline, the character will feel a part of the main
story. We managed to do that as we have a lot of experience from Final
Fantasy XI so we have the know-how to do that.Sweet draw distance


This is the second time the Final Fantasy series
has gone into the online MMO space. How do you feel about the MMO genre
as a whole and because, to an extent, it’s younger than RPGs, do you
feel that it’s still coming of age? Do you feel there are a lot of
places for it still to go, or has it reached a point where it’s
maturing?
Final Fantasy XI has been out for eight years now, when you think
about how long the new game has been in development, it’s been about ten
years now. My experience in the games industry has been about 27 years,
so about a third of my life in the games industry has been spent on
online titles. So I believe that MMOs are much more established now,
however, it will evolve in the future, it will keep on changing as Final
Fantasy XI did. Thanks to version updates, the game can change
drastically, so there are a lot of possibilities for change.
What’s the business model? Is it going to be subscription
based?

It’s going to be a 30 days subscription model and for the price we are
currently unable to confirm, but we should be announcing details
shortly.Tetra Master returns?


When I pick up a new MMO and I really like it, I
pretty much play it to the exclusivity of every other game in my
collection and that ends up being the only game I play. I was wondering
if there has been any resistance at all from platform holders like Sony,
because obviously if you bring out something like Final Fantasy XIV,
let’s say a million people play it and they don’t want to play anything
else, how does this affect the relationship with the platform holder?
That’s a very good point and also a concern. With the PS3, you will
have to log in to PSN to enjoy the game so that’s an aspect we ask for.
In terms of where the MMO space can go. Do you feel we could
ever see a Final Fantasy MMO on handhelds? Could that work?
Yes I believe so. It’s definitely possible. Both DS and PSP both have
networks so it’s definitely possible, but The CPU of these mobile
consoles are much lower spec when compared to home consoles or PC so
that could be the aspect that causes difficulty when you want to
transfer a console MMO to handheld. If you want to make one custom built
for the technology, this is more possible