Dude, yes. I’m 36 and also have fond memories of UO in the early days. Beyond what you said, online communities at the time were pretty rare/non-existant in the way we think about them today. So if a “secret” was discovered it wasn’t immediately everywhere the next day (or within a few hours). Most of the things I…

Galaxies was amazing before they added Jedi.

I’m the over 35 guy this article is talking about! Nostalgia me, please!

I think there’s something to be said about the chunky, unyielding MMOs of yesteryear, that seemed like they were genuinely trying to make you feel like you were living in a world and a place. Every MMO now just feels like a skinner box.

Must be nice to get credit for a story by asking readers for their opinions and then get credit for another story by publishing those opinions verbatim. Despite the best efforts of many of its writers and editors, G/O Media is such a disgrace.

Should be titled “Kotaku Readers Do Our Work For Us.”

Yet more characters who can’t be used, because Square Enix has no idea what they’re doing.  Oh well. At least he wasnt demoted to a character that is only there for the computer to fight itself.

Even if Cid resents Shera for her part in destroying his dream, that can be communicated in a far healthier way.

Blizzard was no different back in the day. Corporate structures and them catering to shareholders leads to the near-complete erosion of the talent, the hardworking, the passionate as the executives push for a “quantity over quality” or content mill throughout the industry.

Great point! Much of the compilation, aside from choice moments from Crisis Core (The best product of the bunch), lost much of that absurd quality that made FF7 great.

I mentioned in the other thread that FF7 is the WarioWare of all of the Final Fantasy series. Minigames and madcap absurdity is core to FF7's identity which is held together by some of the most charming player characters in the series, their strong relationship with each other, and the relatable overarching story and…

Yeah. Here’s the thing though: the signs were there for quite a while when it comes to Embracer. Many don’t seem to notice that a lot of industry executives are all out at war against the working class. The fact they can get away with laying off anyone they like for a gain means this practice will not only accelerate…

Sadly, none of the staff that made Bioware Bioware have been there in the last ~10 years

ARROW MUST ALWAYS GO UP! ANY DOWNTURN IS FAIL!

Its the MMO thing all over again. Everyone was trying to get inon that sub money WoW had - and no one could really do it. Everyone one of them spent a ton of money and fizzled. It took how many years and a massive reboot before FFXIV came along?? That is a lot of studio time and money dumped in the trash heap.

We’ve reached a point in the games industry where trends are moving faster than development cycles, and the results are calamitous.

I get the appeal for a studio to think that if a live service games catches fire they’ll make bank. But that is a very big if. And while I also understand the inclination to branch out into other genres, most of these studios should probably stick to what works for them. Bioware made their name developing amazing singl…

A smart exec would say, “Hey, this is popular in this moment and won’t be by the time we’re done, so maybe we should make something different.” But then again, when was the last time you heard about an executive that could see past the next fiscal quarter?

It’s basically like opening a restaurant now. Most of them are going to fail in that first year, but investors are going to blindly hope and invest that their product is the one that will break through.

I also gotta think that the name Z-A ties into the X/Y character AZ, the immortal man who lived 3000 years earlier and worked to revive his beloved Floette. They definitely wouldn’t be setting the game 3000 years ago and building (or rebuilding) Lumiose City, but I’m also not sure if a “Legends” game would make sense…