Filed under: Fantasy, Events, real-world, New titles, Consoles, Rumors, Final Fantasy XIV
Sometimes new information comes from the strangest sources. Apparently, when Square-Enix made their last update to the Final Fantasy XIV with two new jobs revealed, they added a little something unexpected. Not what would have been expected, either — it was the support site for the game. Since the game is yet to be released or even have a finalized date published, said site contains only a handful of questions, which largely contain no new information… but there are at least two interesting pieces to be gleaned from the site, one minor and one slightly larger.
The smaller piece of information is the list of supported platforms for the game: Windows PC and Playstation 3. That isn’t exactly new information, but it’s confirmed. The slightly larger tidbit is the confirmation that Japanese releases of Final Fantasy XIII will contain a code to obtain an exclusive in-game item for Final Fantasy XIV. The answer specifies that plans to include said code in the North American or European releases have yet to be decided… which could mean anything. Will the item be exclusive to Japanese players to compensate for the game having a global launch instead of one in Japan first a la Final Fantasy XI? Will the item be cosmetic or have some game impact? Will there be different items based on region? No answers are yet forthcoming, but it should be an interesting tidbit for fans looking forward hungrily to the game’s release some time in 2010.
Final Fantasy XIV support page located originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on November 18th, 2009 at 6:00pm by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: ff, ffxi, ffxiv, final-fantasy, final-fantasy-xi, final-fantasy-xiii, final-fantasy-xiv, new-titles, rumors, square, square-enix, support-site
Scott “Lum the Mad” Jennings, well-known blogosphere participant and game designer, has recently been working on a game that is now sadly canceled. This is bad both for the natural sadness of a game having been canceled and the voyeuristic MMO fan impulse to ask, “Well, what was it going to be?” We don’t know. The only reference made was to the cryptic in-joke name of John Deere Online. In his own words: “As a condition of my severance I can’t discuss a great deal, and anything I say here will most likely be picked up by the MMO news sites (wave, wave!).”
Well, he’s right about that last part. But neither waiting for him to change his mind nor camping outside his front door has yielded any new information, so perhaps we can take a look at more pieces of information and speculate? After all, we know of at least two of his co-workers. From them and from the little which Scott Jennings himself has said, we can derive the following bits of information: that they were working for 2K Games, developing an MMO based on an existing franchise, that the game would have been strategy-based, and that it might possibly have had something to do with tractors.
Considering that Jon Jones mentions on his LinkedIn page that he “created a series of low polygon highly optimized building models with a small set of textures that can be reused across that nation’s entire series of buildings appropriate to that age,” it’s difficult to argue with the conclusion that the team was working on a Civilization MMO. But 2K Games also could mean Elder Scrolls projects… which might be pertinent, as both Jon Jones and Matthew Weigel have been working on Dungeon Runners. It’s all idle speculation, sadly, and for all we know the game really would have been a massively multiplayer tractor simulator. (In which case it might even be for the best – lawnmowers would probably have been totally overpowered against seeders in PvP.)
Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion, Academic, MMORTS, Rumors
Unraveling the mystery of John Deere Online originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on October 30th, 2009 at 10:00am by Eliot Lefebvre
Filed Under: 2k-games, canceled-games, civilization, dungeon-runners, elder-scrolls, john-deere, jon-jones, lum-the-mad, matthew-weigel, mmo-industry, pvp, rumors, scott-jennings, tractors
