• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Documentary Part #3 - "The New World"

Link.

In the third and final video in our series, we rejoin the team at the launch of A Realm Reborn and take a look at how the events of 1.0 have echoed through time, even as the realm of Eorzea moves on.

Noclip operates entirely through the funding of its members. To help us tell more stories about video games and the people who make them, please consider becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/dannyodwyer

Produced by Danny O'Dwyer & Jeremy Jayne
@dannyodwyer / @adackmusic
 

duckroll

Member
Damn, the whole thing is less than 2 hours long? Was hoping for something over 2 hours since they split it into 3 parts. Each part is shorter and shorter. :(

I felt they skimmed a lot in the second part, hoping the third part has more interesting info. The first part was excellent though.
 

Loona

Member
This one felt like more of a Stormblood commercial - the previous ones felt a bit more information-rich. Maybe it's because I already knew the rough outline of how things played out.

It still feels weird to see them say that the story of 1.x will live on if there seem to be no plans to make it possible to experience somehow (in-game stories and quests, I mean) - it's a bit of a pet issue with game history preservation that a company like SE should be able to afford...

It's probably my concern for XI's future acting up, but it would have been interesting to see to which extent XI's profits may have helped to pay for XIV's renewal, in the absence of a real-world narrative like the latter's dramatic "prodigal son" turnaround - especially now that Yoshida has jurisdiction over both games, since he in charge of SE's Division V, which handles the company's online games (and therefore both online FFs, although Yoshida's heavily associated with one of them).
 
I've been really disappointed with this documentary. Maybe I had too high expectations but aside from some interesting sound bites and additional tidbits I don't feel like I learned anything significant new since it was still relatively macro-level.

And hearing from only so few perspectives for what was a project where the entire company steered to get the game done made this feel smaller than it actually was. I was hoping to hear more across the entire Square family, not just the devs of XIV.
 
This whole series made me want to start playing XIV. I was never a really a MMO guy but man, does it look like the best FF in years. I know this has been said before, but SE needs to let Yoshi P make a non MMO mainline FF game. I feel like he could bring the mainline series back to that top tier jrpg status.
 

duckroll

Member
After finishing the entire thing, it's definitely disappointing overall. The first part started really strong and captured a good range of thoughts and reflection on 1.0 with interesting stories and cool anecdotes from the team. Then when it came to talking about fixing the game itself, there's a whole bunch of nothing. Very few details which you can't get from just reading a Wikipedia blurb, there weren't any interesting stories during development, and it basically just repeated the "we knew we couldn't fail again so we worked really hard and didn't take anything for granted" line over and over and over.

Why wasn't there more coverage on the post-mortem of 1.0 which YoshiP managed to make an entire GDC talk out of? Why wasn't there more interviews with the people who specifically stayed between 1.0 and 2.0? Like the director of 1.0 who is now the lead game designer? IIRC he wasn't even in the documentary. If they were going to talk about Heavensward and Stormblood, why not talk about the changes behind the scenes and both the positive and negative aspects? The vacation the team took after HW which led to a long break in content? The major revamp of the battle system in SB that drops the last remnants of 1.x class/job stuff? Instead all we got was heavy PR shit about how AWESOME Stormblood is going to be. I'm almost done with Stormblood, I know it's awesome, I already bought it, I'm watching this for insight, not to get marketed to. Anyone watching this is probably already interested in FFXIV and doesn't need an ad. MEH!

6/10
 

Marcel

Member
I have mixed feelings on the whole thing. This documentary is a decent primer of the FFXIV 1.0 situation but for anyone who's even somewhat aware of the game part 2 and 3 are especially barebones. It's nice they got Koji and Yoshida in for sit-downs but there isn't much new here if you're an active member of the FFXIV community.

This is a minor quibble but the establishing shots of Japan streets and offices usually have nothing to do with anything being talked about and are just cut to arbitrarily. Poor form for a doc.
 
I think it's awesome that they did this, but overall it isn't as good as their other documentaries. Noclip should take care of their issues with subtitles before they do another Japanese language doc. Preferably hardsubbed with correct timing.

Yoshida is awesome, though. This really is an amazing tale, but one I already knew. I feel that there were probably more interesting ways to go into it, but unfortunately that was not done.

This is a minor quibble but the establishing shots of Japan streets and offices usually have nothing to do with anything being talked about and are just cut to arbitrarily. Poor form for a doc.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with it. They did it with the other ones and it was great. It just needed compelling dialogue to go with it.
 

Gunblade47

Neo Member
1st episode was good as someone who only had passing interest in 1.0 at that point in time.

2nd episode had me worried for the dev team tbh. It's easy for top management to sit there and talk about sacrifices and so on but I honestly wonder how many team members got the boot once the 2.0 project started, how many of them had their lively hoods threatened to meet the deadline and how many got the boot as soon as the second launch was deemed a success.

I love FF but square-enix seems like a terrible place to work and I'd rather not go by the word of the top guys when it comes to the hardships the team had to face. It's nice to have yoshi up there and I have a lot of respect for him and koji but I was hoping for more members.

Also the 3rd episode seemed like an advertisement as previous posters stated. But I've been playing since the second phase of the ARR beta so perhaps that explains my disinterest in it.
 
This whole series made me want to start playing XIV. I was never a really a MMO guy but man, does it look like the best FF in years. I know this has been said before, but SE needs to let Yoshi P make a non MMO mainline FF game. I feel like he could bring the mainline series back to that top tier jrpg status.

FFXIV was probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite FF even before the amazing expansions.
 

Marcel

Member
I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with it. They did it with the other ones and it was great. It just needed compelling dialogue to go with it.

It eventually begins to feel like "we have to use this footage we took on this active street corner" rather than anything artful is my point. More competent documentaries know when to implement their coverage.

It's not a big deal as I stated. There are limits to what you can work with and do when you're on the Patreon dime.
 

jett

D-Member
I agree that Part #1 was the best and most interesting episode.

I don't play FF14, I barely even knew anything about this whole situation, and even I thought the documentary felt kinda lightweight in parts 2 and 3. There's a lot of repeated information throughout all parts. Maybe it was a language barrier issue. But mostly it seems they got really limited access to Square Enix and their staff. Which I guess is more than anyone ever gets! It was still pretty good. It taught that while this company is completely insane, they actually hold their fans in high regard.

After finishing the entire thing, it's definitely disappointing overall. The first part started really strong and captured a good range of thoughts and reflection on 1.0 with interesting stories and cool anecdotes from the team. Then when it came to talking about fixing the game itself, there's a whole bunch of nothing. Very few details which you can't get from just reading a Wikipedia blurb, there weren't any interesting stories during development, and it basically just repeated the "we knew we couldn't fail again so we worked really hard and didn't take anything for granted" line over and over and over.

Why wasn't there more coverage on the post-mortem of 1.0 which YoshiP managed to make an entire GDC talk out of? Why wasn't there more interviews with the people who specifically stayed between 1.0 and 2.0? Like the director of 1.0 who is now the lead game designer? IIRC he wasn't even in the documentary. If they were going to talk about Heavensward and Stormblood, why not talk about the changes behind the scenes and both the positive and negative aspects? The vacation the team took after HW which led to a long break in content? The major revamp of the battle system in SB that drops the last remnants of 1.x class/job stuff? Instead all we got was heavy PR shit about how AWESOME Stormblood is going to be. I'm almost done with Stormblood, I know it's awesome, I already bought it, I'm watching this for insight, not to get marketed to. Anyone watching this is probably already interested in FFXIV and doesn't need an ad. MEH!

6/10

I think Falk or somebody else said Squeenix had their mitts on the doc's content. So it is what it is.
 

SOLDIER

Member
Man that Yoshi P guy seems pretty cool

You can tell he's just repressing his rage any time he brings up 1.0.

The highlight would have to be in part 2 where he could only stand five minutes of playing it and

he couldn't figure out how to exit the game

I still don't know what's more absurd: that they actually felt confident releasing that blight upon the world, or that they managed to roll it back.
 

duckroll

Member
I agree that Part #1 was the best and most interesting episode.

I don't play FF14, I barely even knew anything about this whole situation, and even I thought the documentary felt kinda lightweight in parts 2 and 3. There's a lot of repeated information throughout all parts. Maybe it was a language barrier issue. But mostly it seems they got really limited access to Square Enix and their staff. Which I guess is more than anyone ever gets! It was still pretty good. It taught that while this company is completely insane, they actually hold their fans in high regard.

You might be interested in following up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRZ_4H0OK60

:)
 

SOLDIER

Member
Also, it seems pretty apparent that Yoshi-P and other members really want to bring up the whole FFXIII fiasco, but are holding their tongues out of respect.

It's no coincidence that the back-to-back release of FFXIII and XIV is when guys like Yoshida and Matsuda were willing to admit that the FF franchise was "in trouble".
 

PaulLFC

Member
Just finished it - enjoyed the series, as I have the rest of Noclip's output.

Not being familiar with FFXIV beyond the name and the fact it was an MMO, and having never played it, I enjoyed the content more than some judging by some of the reactions here, but I can see why those with more understanding of the series might be disappointed as there were aspects that were glossed over or moved on from quickly rather than being explored further.

In terms of documentaries though, I'm really enjoying Noclip and also Cloth Map's first travel documentary was fantastic. Besides those two, are there any channels / creators focused on gaming documentaries that I should be following? I have The Point to check out later, any further recommendations besides these?
 

Keasar

Member
Felt like part 1 was the strongest, Part 2 was alright but it got a bit boring now in Part 3. Nothing of real interest came up in the latter half about the revival, the development etc. of FFXIV:ARR and it's expansions.
 

Marcel

Member
Also, it seems pretty apparent that Yoshi-P and other members really want to bring up the whole FFXIII fiasco, but are holding their tongues out of respect.

It's no coincidence that the back-to-back release of FFXIII and XIV is when guys like Yoshida and Matsuda were willing to admit that the FF franchise was "in trouble".

The mention of Crystal Tools is about as close as you'll get to XIII being rightfully thrown under the bus.
 

Loona

Member
In terms of documentaries though, I'm really enjoying Noclip and also Cloth Map's first travel documentary was fantastic. Besides those two, are there any channels / creators focused on gaming documentaries that I should be following? I have The Point to check out later, any further recommendations besides these?

Super Bunnyhop tends to release some good stuff, although most of his videos aren't what I'd describe as documentaries, but when it goes into investigation/history mode it's quite worth it, like in the video about who pachinko laws started affecting companies like SNK.
 

Renekton

Member
FjX7bWV.jpg


This Yoshi P guy is awesome
 

kiyomi

Member
2nd and 3rd parts really felt like a pat on the back for Yoshi-P's efforts rather than being a source of interesting information and in the end it came across as kind of a fluff piece, which is a shame given the comparative strength of the first episode. We really didn't get too see much of what the redevelopment of FFXIV really was, like in the way we heard from the makers of Doom 2016, prototyping the glory kills, and the original Doom 4 designs and concepts, their influences, their problems. It was more just "Yeah wow this first game sucked so we worked really hard to make it better", but the doc gives no real insight into how that was achieved outside of Yoshi P. I would've liked to see more interviews with people who actually worked on the game, conceived new ideas for how they were gonna improve it, what challenges they had, etc.

I do wonder if SE is just very tight about these things and when they agreed to do this documentary, they imposed very strict limitations on what could be covered, who could be accessed, who said what, etc. It wouldn't surprise me.

And yeah I agree with some previous posters -- a lot of unnecessary B-roll and background music. If your documentary needs those things, then it means you're scared that the viewer is bored. And if you're scared of that, it also means you're scared the actual content of the video is not interesting and perhaps you should question whether the footage and interviews are meaningful or worthwhile to anyone.
 

Hybris

Member
I wonder if those disappointed with the amount of detail have played the game? I personally haven't and I know Danny hasn't. I found the level of detail acceptable for someone that hasn't followed the story or the situation at all, like myself. I thought this was a fantastic doc and I learned a ton about this. I could be wrong but I think Danny was going into this with the perspective of someone that knew nothing of the situation, that could be why some are feeling it was a little light on details.
 

Listonosh

Member
So reading a bunch of your responses, I'm glad I wasn't the only one feeling a bit let down by episode 2. The 1st was amazing, and then for some reason I found myself checking how much time is left on the 2nd. I guess it didn't flow like the first. Going to start 3 now.
 

Valonquar

Member
By the end, FFXIV 1.23 was actually pretty damn playable and enjoyable. I joined fairly late, around the time of the Gobbue promotion, and managed to level all the jobs to 50 in about 5 weeks. Beat Nael and the 2 primals, but didn't bother with the insanity that was relics. Nothing currently in 4.0 comes close to the RNG that was hamlets.
 

Sami+

Member
I really enjoyed it overall as someone who didn't know too much about the game's history beyond "it was really bad because of menus and Yoshi-P made it better".

They REALLY need to do something about the subtitles though.
 

kennyamr

Member
Even though I wanted more documentary time, this was a great piece that reminded me once more how chaotic the beginning of this amazing game was.

Kudos to Yoshi P and everyone that could make A Realm Reborn possible.

PS: Koji Fox is amazing and an inspiration.

FFXIV is one of my all-time favorites and man! Stormblood is just incredible!

-Sora Alexandros.
 

MogCakes

Member
I think the details of ARR's development are being kept a lid on by SE. Yoshi P doesn't say anything specific about it, but does go in depth about 1.0 - maybe for competition reasons the company doesn't want their competitors to see their development process in detail. Feels like there was mich more that could have been elaborated on amd that the documentary wanted to focus on but couldn't.
 

Fraxin

Member
This whole series made me want to start playing XIV. I was never a really a MMO guy but man, does it look like the best FF in years. I know this has been said before, but SE needs to let Yoshi P make a non MMO mainline FF game. I feel like he could bring the mainline series back to that top tier jrpg status.

He seems up for it if the company allowed him or fans asked. He already stated that I the interview and I think I read in some other interview him saying the same thing. Not sure if Square will let him handle a new FF at least as a producer.
 

Marcel

Member
I think the details of ARR's development are being kept a lid on by SE. Yoshi P doesn't say anything specific about it, but does go in depth about 1.0 - maybe for competition reasons the company doesn't want their competitors to see their development process in detail. Feels like there was mich more that could have been elaborated on amd that the documentary wanted to focus on but couldn't.

Correct me if I'm wrong but they also don't mention Yoichi Wada and senior management's very public apology event for damaging the brand. Wada barely being mentioned at all is a big omission considering his role in that messy period of FF's history.
 

ryushe

Member
Haven't watched part 2 or 3 yet, but part 1 was extremely well done, so it's a bummer to hear the later episodes aren't as strong.

That said, I appreciate the time and effort Danny and Co put into these productions. They're a step ahead of pretty much anything I can think of on YouTube that's not a Clemps video.
 
I think the details of ARR's development are being kept a lid on by SE. Yoshi P doesn't say anything specific about it, but does go in depth about 1.0 - maybe for competition reasons the company doesn't want their competitors to see their development process in detail. Feels like there was mich more that could have been elaborated on amd that the documentary wanted to focus on but couldn't.

I guess that's the price for getting the access he did. He gets some juicy bits directly from the people involved, but Square Enix PR gets some control.

I don't think that's good or bad, it just is. Give and take right.
 

Marcel

Member
Haven't watched part 2 or 3 yet, but part 1 was extremely well done, so it's a bummer to hear the later episodes aren't as strong.

That said, I appreciate the time and effort Danny and Co put into these productions. They're a step ahead of pretty much anything I can think of on YouTube that's bit a Clemps video.

toco toco is flatly better than noclip, it isn't even a contest. They even have actually good English subtitle work for a Japan-based Youtube program.
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
I feel like having this be a three-part series that goes from 50 minutes to 36 minutes and finally to 26 minutes is a bit of an awkward setup and gave a false expectation that the second and third parts would be just as content-filled as the first.
 

R0nn

Member
Wow many of you guys seem really down on this documentary, didn't see that coming. I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting throughout. I never played FFXIV though and only heard about the 1.0 shutdown event in passing like a year ago.
 
Wow many of you guys seem really down on this documentary, didn't see that coming. I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting throughout. I never played FFXIV though and only heard about the 1.0 shutdown event in passing like a year ago.

Alot of us saw the remnants of a realm series months ago that although they lacked interviews from the actual devs, went into much more depth about alot if the issues.

This series hands were honestly tied by the pr approval required to get the developers on the thing.
 
Wow many of you guys seem really down on this documentary, didn't see that coming. I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting throughout. I never played FFXIV though and only heard about the 1.0 shutdown event in passing like a year ago.

I think the problem is less that the documentary wasn't up to snuff but more that hearing the dirt is just far more interesting for people. Like we all wanna hear "so why did the game come out shitty" but part 2 was how they fix it. I thought that was super interesting but it's not as juicy. Then you get to part 3 and all there really is to say is "and we've been doing great ever sense". It's the classic dog bites man teachings I learned in journalism.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
I've been really disappointed with this documentary. Maybe I had too high expectations but aside from some interesting sound bites and additional tidbits I don't feel like I learned anything significant new since it was still relatively macro-level.

And hearing from only so few perspectives for what was a project where the entire company steered to get the game done made this feel smaller than it actually was. I was hoping to hear more across the entire Square family, not just the devs of XIV.

After finishing the entire thing, it's definitely disappointing overall. The first part started really strong and captured a good range of thoughts and reflection on 1.0 with interesting stories and cool anecdotes from the team. Then when it came to talking about fixing the game itself, there's a whole bunch of nothing. Very few details which you can't get from just reading a Wikipedia blurb, there weren't any interesting stories during development, and it basically just repeated the "we knew we couldn't fail again so we worked really hard and didn't take anything for granted" line over and over and over.

Why wasn't there more coverage on the post-mortem of 1.0 which YoshiP managed to make an entire GDC talk out of? Why wasn't there more interviews with the people who specifically stayed between 1.0 and 2.0? Like the director of 1.0 who is now the lead game designer? IIRC he wasn't even in the documentary. If they were going to talk about Heavensward and Stormblood, why not talk about the changes behind the scenes and both the positive and negative aspects? The vacation the team took after HW which led to a long break in content? The major revamp of the battle system in SB that drops the last remnants of 1.x class/job stuff? Instead all we got was heavy PR shit about how AWESOME Stormblood is going to be. I'm almost done with Stormblood, I know it's awesome, I already bought it, I'm watching this for insight, not to get marketed to. Anyone watching this is probably already interested in FFXIV and doesn't need an ad. MEH!

6/10

My thoughts as well. Started strong with episode 1, but the lack of perspective(no player interviews? Critics? More team perspectives?) hindered the crux of the documentary and it largely did feel wholly incomplete and seemingly glossed over lots of key info. As mentioned, it too often cited the big picture risk over tangible solutions, but there are major gaps. Pieces of the story missing detail that informed decisions for change. The heart was missing, the 'why?', certainly the brand was at stake and some fans stuck around, but why? Beyond that, outside of UI need and market trends, what was provided here that really informed how 2.0 was derived from a design perspective?

The production effort overall was fine and getting Yoshi and other voices' time is commendable, but it rang a bit too hollow by its end. A nice surface-level affair, but I came away more satisfied with other videos and discussions on the subject. A bit bummed myself as the story is out there, but this didn't quite tell it.
 
Great doc through and through, especially for for their first foreign one. Still very happy with what my Patreon bucks are supporting.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
People that follow FFXIV have probably seen it but this series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9CmxaQ3q8&index=1&list=PLL5QTV3Hk60ag1MsSoox4HT5oBemN23vr
feels more fleshed out despite the lack of development perspective.
Deeper from a user perspective as well.

Also has another called "Remnants of a Realm" that is good as well.

Yea Danny even cites this doc in the opening of episode 1, which clearly informed some of his questions and comments. But that series provided something greatly missing from noclip, actual player perspective. The end user. The entire purpose for the product and brand existing. Very informative despite the lack of interviews.
 
Yoshida talking about the mistakes of the original XIV and the company came off as him throwing shade at FFXIII. Especially when he brings up XV as well as XIV 2.0 being two titles that got things back on track.
 
Top Bottom