Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Final Fantasy XIV Producer Naoki Yoshida took the helm of the troubled MMOG last year and the game has made several improvements under his guidance. With the upcoming launch of the 2.0 update, Final Fantasy XIV will for the first time charge subscriptions. But Yoshida's update left some players scratching their head and wondering if the game would still be the same given that Square Enix is developing a new graphics engine for the title.

Speaking with Gamasutra, Yoshida addressed the changes to put to rest some concerns about the game changing too much explaining, "FFXIV will always be FFXIV and nothing else." Yoshida also reflected on the design decisions that he made when he assumed control of the project last year and talked about the decision to develop the new engine.

"Why build something from the ground up when it already exists? Well, the current engine we are using is good for showing ‘passive graphics’ in offline games, but the most important thing an MMO needs is an ‘active graphics’ capable of showing many, many different characters on the screen simultaneously.

Source: Gamasutra