Project Rapture

[Akaela]

Project Rapture, is the code name for the next MMO being developed by Square-Enix. This is rather big news for the MMO world as despite its many downfalls Final Fantasy Online was the titan of the MMO world before the freak of nature known as WoW came out. The game is old and still boasts 500,000 active players. Ignoring wow those are good numbers, good enough that theres currently 3 expansion packs in development.

Nothing is known is about the new MMO asides the fact that its being developed with Square's own self made tools known as Crystal Tool. This software is being used to develope Final Fantasy 13 as well, so if anything, Rapture will at least be pretty.

I'm curious to see if Square will learn form past mistakes with they're new MMO. A new UI, and giving each hardware platform something better then a PS2 port would be a good start. Only time will tell.

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Crunshii/shedding-light-to-rapture-se-mmo-sequel-to-ff11-94430.phtml

[Akaela]

The Cell processor mentioned in the article is the IBM developed CPU for the PS3...it just so happens that the 360 uses a different version of the same CPU. If your wondering, the PS3's CPU is very very powerful, however the PS3 has a rather lackluster GPU. The 360 while having a less powerful version of the Cell has a much better GPU. In the end the systems are nearly equal in computing power.

Lesson?

[Landro]

Very cool to see. Now let's hope they don't turn it into another FFXI, which I LOVED my first 2 years playing. But, after the first expansion they made it feel like another job and toned it toward those people that put game before life, sort of where WoW is heading. Plus give the good v. evil choice. PVP action. Get rid of the 3 hour wait for one group only to go kill the exact same mob over and over for 4 hours to get one level.....Basically 7 hours of play....one level. Crafting was terrible, success was based on facing the appropriate direction and took a month to rank it a couple levels...


I have no doubt it will have the best graphics of any MMO when it's releases, FFXI had that when it was released.

[Morning]

I feel better now. It was almost a full day since I had seen Landro post negatively about WoW.

[Landro]

I feel better now. It was almost a full day since I had seen Landro post negatively about WoW.

Wasn't really being negative about it. Just saying what ends up happening to MMO's once they are around too long they become more work then fun. EQ, EQII, FFXI. Honestly Guild Wars is the only one that is still just pick up and kill and level, over just run this one thing 500000 times to get one item lol.

[Palehorse]

There something about games with that anime look to them that I just can't get excited about. It's a problem with me, not the games, don't get me wrong. If WoW were to change up their look to that style, I'd drop it immediately.

500,000 players is a good base by industry standards. It's 150,000 players that make break-even point for an MMO (this is according to game developers on discussion panels about game life cycles).

For a lot of game site writers, anything that sells less than Warcraft is a failure which is pretty sad for those writers :). Age of Conan is being made fun of in a lot of circles but the bottom line is that it's a successful title by industry standards. Warhammer is successful. EQ 1 and UO are still going strong.

Maybe one day my aversion to anime-stlyed games will pass, can only hope so :)

[Jerith|Tony]

Maybe one day my aversion to anime-stlyed games will pass, can only hope so :)

Mine won't. You are much more generous than I by suggesting the problem might be with yourself. ;)

[Solostaran]

Yup. The problem is definitely with the asian-import games and their lack of artistic innovation. Pair that with the fact that MMOs that have appeal in asia focus on mundane tasks (read an article about it a while back), and you've got way too many boring games that all look alike.

[Akaela]

I never felt that FFXI had an anime look, but then again I've also played games like Albatross 18, Maple Story, FlyFF ect and those are very anime looking.

Anyways Square is supposed to make an announcement at E3 this year. Project Rapture is supposed to coexist with, not replace FFXI. I have no Earthly idea what that means.

Rapture players may have access to all of the FFXI world and content/servers. Given the cross platform/cultural nature of FFXI that would make sense to me. An extended game world, Rapture players would have a new "game" to play with access to all of the old content, players of FFXI could still interact with friends who are playing the new game, they just wouldn't have access to the new "game". *Shrugs* this is all just my own personal speculation, theres no saying what plans Square has, they're about as chatty about they're new content as Blizzard is.