This past week, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn was launched. Though the game play is good (review coming later by LagSpike), the front end issues on this game, from logging in to customer service responses have been less than stellar. No, that is kind. They have been horrible.
Why?
With as many MMO games coming out, why do publishers fall into the same traps each and every time with a game launch, thus assuring their game will be neutered and not reach earning potential?
For their bottom line, Square Enix needed this game to launch smoothly. If smooth is going down the Colorado River rapids on a lilly pad, this game has not even reached that level. World of Warcraft's initial launch is Rift's launch compared to the disaster Final Fantasy XIV has reached. Anarchy Online has competition for horrid game launches, and not because of game bugs. This should not have happened.
First, Final Fantasy is configured for a maximum user base of 230,000 concurrent users. Did anyone bother to check back on previous game launches in the MMO category? Two million subscriptions for Guild Wars 2, for instance? Final Fantasy has a fond background for many gamers out there. For many, it was their first major fantasy adventure. Final Fantasy VII is still regarded as one of the best games of all time. It was going to draw many people who wanted to see the game succeed as a MMO, since the previous attempt XI broke even, but could have been done better. People had very high hopes.
They still may, if they could get online. Not only is the concurrent users limited, the queue system cannot handle more than 99 people sitting in it. Why, in this day and age, is the queue so low? I remember the days of thousand person queues on World of Warcraft at launch. But, at least you did not get an Error 1017 saying the world is full, try again later. You left it on, did other things while glancing back at the screen, waiting, on WoW.
Second, idle disconnections do not exist on Final Fantasy. Thus, people go off to school, off to work, and are leaving their characters just standing around the world. This is to circumvent the fact logging out, they'll never get back into the game. This ties up concurrent users, so people cannot get in.
Now, add the fact the lobby keeps crashing, taking down the entire client. Or, the server list fails to load due to the massive amount of spamming used to try and break through for that one second to open up allowing a login. Things have turned out to be a total disaster.
All this is being compounded by the fact customer service is, to say the least, poor. I understand sending out form letters about the problem, but the ones I've seen screen shot and posted on Facebook have been very condescending towards the customers, and completely ignore the problem. A simple 'we are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issues getting into the game' would be far preferable to what is being sent out. Who sends out a 'we have not been able to answer this issue in twenty four hours, so we're just going to cancel this help request' does not win over users in the United States. In customer service terms, it is just plain stupid to say something like that in a form letter. Just because Square Enix has not been able to respond in a timely fashion, they decide to close the ticket? That's not how it works, folks.
The proposed fixes to the problem do not include institution of a idle timeout, do not increase per server capacity thus keeping the limit of the game at 230,000 concurrent users, and fail to address making more servers available for use. I understand not wanting to increase the number of servers, for the inevitable contraction after the first couple of months.
The key thing is, however: is this worth spending money for a subscription for? Right now, the answer is no. Unless Square Enix gets its act together and seriously takes the reins to fix these problems, many people will drop this game after the free month finishes and Square Enix will start losing money.
I joined the game in order to play with my friends, and perhaps to stream it over Twitch.tv as a part of Lagspike.tv. Streaming me hitting the start button over and over is not really streaming the game, is it?
This all happened on the three day holiday in the United States, when people had plenty of time to get into the game to play it. Instead, it has been a wasted vacation, spraining fingers hitting the O button on the controller, or hitting the mouse button trying to get in and getting more and more frustrated.
For Square Enix, this game could be make or break. Unless fixed by people who have a clue, it will be break.