"We Rift players are a pretty lucky bunch. Over the past few months post-launch, we’ve received almost-monthly major updates with some pretty quality content." - PC Gamer (link below)
Can the most dedicated of FFXIV fans really claim that they've "received almost-monthly major updates"? No, because FFXIV has had, in fact, only six, since last September. Rift, on the other hand, launched at the beginning of March, and has had four - one a month, and on pace to stay close to that in the coming days.
Allow me to reiterate the fact that Square Enix has multiple times the MMORPG (and general game development) experience and money Trion does, and SE has insisted they're doing everything in their power to turn FFXIV around.
Yes, there's the "But SE is doing a complete overhaul!" argument, but that fails on two fronts. First, "complete overhaul" is, to use the fanboy's favorite term, hyperbole ("DING DING DING! YOU SAID THE SECRET WORD!"). The basics are still there. The game is not being built from the ground up. The most significant changes coming are to *certain* maps, and some battle adjustments.
Most of what's there will still exist, and new content will build upon that, which is not, by definition, an "overhaul", which is defined as a repair to the existing. The only promised overhauls are to the battle system, with the major addition being auto-attack, and some of the more repetitive zones - that's the extent of what developers have told us is being overhauled.
Developers add new quests and variations all the time, for example, so the upcoming Companies are not an "overhaul" but simply "new content". Crafting is remaining the same. The abilities as a whole are remaining mostly the same. Most of the zones, as far as we've been told, are remaining the same. Yes, significant changes are coming, but there's very little evidence of a "complete overhaul" to the game as a whole, as some try to argue.
Essentially, we've been waiting for promised *content* more than an overhaul, and have gotten neither.
Second, it's been ten months - better games have been completed in this timeframe. Even if it's a "complete overhaul", it should be much further along than this, we have yet to see any actual progress. 1.18, should it not be pushed back again, is releasing later this month, and may actually be the first real showing of significant changes, almost a year later.
But it's not out yet, and Square Enix has already greatly scaled back on their plans. The aforementioned Companies, for instance, are no longer player run, and appear to be simple repeatable quest hubs for points toward special items - and the brunt of the quests will not yet be available by SE's own admission.
Could 1.18 be the first step in often promised, long significant changes? It could be, or it could be more half-baked improvements that make things "better" without really making them "good" or "fixed" or "acceptable" - even the most ardent fanboys never refer to these changes as making the game "good", simply "better". We'll find out soon enough.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/14/rifts-next-update-will-bring-plenty-of-gaming-goodness-for-raid-phobic-and-pvp-focused-players/
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