FF14 has a weird server architecture, at least by my understanding of how this should work. There are 3 data centers which impact overall latency, and each holds 8 worlds. To say that there’s been an uptick of players is an understatement… and the servers are struggling. Queues are present daily (you see your position, but not time estimate). S/E tried to fix this with a near 12 hour patch on Monday, with no real success (nor failure!)

As of this draft, of the 24 worlds, 12 of them will not allow new characters to be rolled – and one data center is completely locked. Side note, I transferred to this data center with less than 24 hours before they locked it…blame me I guess.

My field of work intersects with DC architecture. I know there are a lot of efforts to move out of the mid-00’s data center design, into the PaaS-type of design. This is not easy, as there are often specific lines of code in software that relies on specific OS/HW configurations. The ol’ hook/pull coding nightmare that all the cool kids thought was going to save the planet with their custom code. Upgrading is hard, you can’t break anything, and odds are you can’t fully test the load until you turn on the switch.

Yeah well, we’re still picking up the pieces of those decisions… and we’re going to be in a long tail of migration for a good chunk. Most large enterprises still have legacy code somewhere that they just can’t port over for A/B/C reasons after all. And in the gaming space, this particular code portability is the primary driver for sequels. No need to port if it’s brand new code!

Side note – a few years ago WoW updated their database architecture, which had a pretty darn big impact on skill calculations. They were using a DB structure that dated from Vanilla (well, more like 4 years prior to launch), and it was quite painful to move forward. They did it though! And the overall system load (if you read those reports) was significantly reduced. That requires some serious planning and smart people to deliver.

FF14, from the information that’s published, is talking about OS configuration issues and replacing some equipment with HPC. I do understand why they would not be moving to commercial cloud… that is a really bad idea for an MMO. Commercial (or even semi-private) cloud is absolutely not the silver bullet that some folks may believe – just like a buffet is not the best type of restaurant for all your food needs. Given the on-going supply chain issues, this is going to be a long-term effort to expand given capacity, let alone upgrade the components.

Hats off to S/E for the forthright nature in this issue. Fingers crossed that this is actually something they can actually address before November. Cause if queues exist before launch… well delaying launch is going to be right on the table.

Last week I uninstalled WoW and D3. I tend to keep my desktop icons relevant to the active games that I play, or at least indicators of those that I should be playing. WoW has been on the desktop since beta. Looking back on my posts for WoW, aside from really liking the world/art/music, there hasn’t been a positive post on the state of the game since Legion. Cripes, that was nearly 5 years ago! The whole ABK was just that larger realization.

I figured I’d give FF14 a shot again. The irony here was that I had not played since just before Legion, so just before the mid-pack of Heavensward. Playing 2 MMOs at the same time, in the way that I play them, required just way too much time. Sunk cost in WoW and all… FF14 went on the shelf.

Getting back into FF14 meant a choice – start anew or where I left off. Having completed 2 entire expansions (and ARR is quite long), I figured I could better use that time with an account restore. To do so, I needed to remember my old password. Let’s not shy from the fact that Square-Enix has invested a total of $10.25 in web UX design. Finding anything that makes sense here is an exercise in frustration.

I did finally find the password recovery page, which has security questions. 2 days. That’s how long it took for me to enter the correct answer to the security question. The button for “forgot security answer” doesn’t go anywhere. The answers appear to be case sensitive. And it would appear that I was forced to reset my answers in the past, as this is the only place, across all similar questions, that I put in that specific answer (which came to me while doing something else).

With the account restored, I needed to figure out the rest of the bits and bobs on the account. Back to bad UX design, actually getting another expansion is a 3 step process. First, I need to figure out which one to buy… Endwalker says it includes it all, but you can’t actually access it until the game launches later in the year. Fine, base version of Shadowbringers it is (making sure it is NOT the Steam version, which I don’t think you can buy anywhere but Steam). Buy that, then realize that it isn’t linked to my account. I need to find the game key, then add it to my account. Ok, done. Now to add game time, which is another weird process (since there are 2 levels of accounts, one which supports alts, which are an insane option in this game).

FINALLY, all the bits in place to actually log in!

Did I mention that this meant multiple downloads? I get a quick start download to get the client running, but it’s multiple large Gb downloads after that. I can’t think of any other game or platform that does this. Sure, maybe you’ll get a day 1 patch after you’re pre-loaded the game. But this is not pre-load, and we’re at the tail end of the current expansion. ARGH.

This time, I’m able to log in. Brynhildr is where I set roots long ago. I log in to a barrage of visual spam. Where WoW is a ghost town in almost every area that isn’t the current expansion’s capital, FF14 has people a plenty. The neat part here was that it automatically prompted me to join a “returning players” channel. That was a nice surprise, and woooo, were there things in that chat which were helpful! Still, as much as I liked that character (and time invested) I wasn’t interested in staying there. I logged out and went through the relatively simple (again, horrible UX) process of transferring to another server – Cactuar.

That took about 15 minutes to process, and I was finally off to the races (or perhaps, re-learning the races). If I exclude the time it took for me to restore my account, getting the rest all set up was about 2 hours of work. Perhaps this is a relic of the Playstation UI to help players get in the game. Still, with a few month’s work and a relatively small investment, the UI for the store/account system could be dramatically improved. This feels like the same comment I made way back when. One can hope!

Next steps are all about following the MSQ through the 2 expansions. I don’t think I can get all of that done before Endwalker comes out. Where I could plow through WoW’s content in less than a week to get to end game, it’s more like 40+hrs per expansion here. Let’s see how much fun this ride can deliver.

Way back in the olden days (2015), a conceptual game called 12 Minutes was pitched. The concept was that you’d be stuck in the same 12 minute time loop and need to find a way to break out. The game released on Thursday, and I dove in headfirst.

Time loop as a story mechanic is really hard to get right. You often need some sort of book to keep track of what’s going on. Only a few movies have tried it. Primer has like 40+ timelines on the go at one point. ARQ is a simplified time loop film, and really focuses on the anticipation of the next steps, similar to Edge of Tomorrow (which is almost a video game). Groundhog Day, well… that’s a form of hell if you think about it.

In terms of games with this model… is Mario Bros a time loop game? I mean, you die, and the loop restarts. Most incremental games have actions in one loop impacting the next. It’s so common we don’t think about it anymore. But in the strictest sense, where the purpose of the game is to break the loop, really Outer Wilds is the only one that comes to mind that did this in any way successfully. Like GotY successful.

That’s a heck of a bar to reach for any indie game! I guess that explains all the years of dev work. And the results…

A game that merges interactive fiction and point and click adventure mechanics, with incremental changes on each loop. There’s no “speed run” this game, you need to go through at least a dozen loops before you have enough bits and bobs to get close to the finish line. More than once I thought I was close, then quickly realized that the rabbit hole went even deeper.

The voice acting is solid (hard not to, how did they get these actors?), and there are some QoL aspects that let you speed through dialogue if you’ve heard it already. The graphics are passable, but it’s not like that truly matters in this type of game. Every puzzle has a logical answer, with plenty of breadcrumbs unveiled as the game goes. Even the music here is darn near perfectly placed to convey the emotional tone.

Side track on puzzlers for a minute. Some of them suffer due to size, or ridiculous solutions (Sierra!). 12 Minutes takes place in an apartment, one you can’t leave as it resets the loop. This smaller footprint dramatically reduces frustration as you know the answer is right in front of you, it can’t be anywhere else. And with only a dozen or so items to collect, it’s more about the order of using the items than the items themselves. Like if you do an action in front of an NPC, they will see you, but if you close the door, then you’re good to go. And if you’ve seen text before, it highlights in a different color, so you know what’s new or not. And the dialogue is the real puzzle here, every puzzle is about unlocking a new part of dialogue.

I will say that the only downside here is when you’re focusing on actions near the end of a loop and need to restart. Getting back to that point can feel a bit long, especially when you’re talking about 1 action that takes 2 seconds to perform. It does mean that you have to be considerate of time management and sort of plan out what you’re trying to do before you do it. There was a point where I was stuck in what felt the same loop for an hour, just not quite sure of where to go next. But that’s no different than being stuck in the belly of a whale, trying to tickle it’s “uvula”. 1988 and I am STILL ticked off at that.

I can’t talk about the plot at all. Really, any indication here would spoil the ride. I can say it’s a good ride, bordering on great.

I think the best compliment I can give 12 Minutes is that it’s one of the best examples of interactive fiction to come along in a long time, supported through a time loop mechanic that really delivers. This is the sort of game that can only come from an indie developer, and one I’m sure others will try to copy.

An interesting bit from Stephan Frost, in relation to MMO development. If you recall, he was one of the leads on Wildstar, a spectacular example of MMO failure.

In the conceptual layer, the items described apply to any long-dev cycle of an evolving product, not just games. You’re competing against a finish line that is always moving, mainly because you’re competing against established market forces. Big bang successful launches are ultra rare in existing markets, they instead start small and grow over time. MMO’s are rarely given that luxury, as they are competing against expectations from long-established products. New World has 50 other MMOs to compare against… it’s got to be focused and refined to have a chance. You need a super clean vision and new flawless execution to have a remote change.

Wildstar, to kick that dead horse, had an incoherent vision and launched about 6 months too early. I had a blast in the leveling portion and really liked the crafting system. Hell, it had social housing and tons of cosmetics. It was a solid setting, with a decently solid 1-to-max experience. And then it shifted to the same place WoW has turned, the ultra competitive + fine tuned playerbase. It had no social tools for nearly a year, and all group content was either against a clock or required twitch reflexes to get through. Raids being only 20/40 was an insane choice that only works worse the farther we move away from it.

Could Wildstar have ever succeeded, even with more time in the cooker? I like to think so, as the bones were solid. Had social tools been there from the start, had the “timer” dungeons been an extra tier instead of the wall of quit (WoW ran with this as Mythic+), and had raids been much smaller, perhaps we’d be having a different conversation. People can understand balance issues at launch, but systematic issues are tougher pill to swallow.

Is this due to dev cycles, or poor vision? Maybe they just copied the wrong mechanics and should have pulled from FF14’s bag of tricks. I don’t think we’ll ever truly find out, at least not until there’s a deep dive on the topic with such a purpose.

Which is a right shame, as we’re seeing a larger push for games as a service, MMOs in nearly all respects, and those lessons just don’t seem to be learned. Or perhaps they are simply not being listened to while the bean counters run the show.

An opinion article, fine, but also one that really does a good job highlighting the compounding Blizzard woes of poor pipeline management.

There are multiple factors here, and all of them are compounding on each other. Nearly all of them deal with Blizzard’s management approach.

Content drought

The pace of content for any GaaS is predicated on keeping people engaged. OW has been borderline maintenance mode, in line with the WoW content pipeline approach. Is game development hard? HELL YEAH. Did it get harder with COVID, triple hell yeah. At we 18 months into the COVID model? Yup, and any management team that wasn’t able to adapt (not reach 100% of prior, simply adapt) really shouldn’t be a management team. So while yes, there are delays, no it shouldn’t be an all-stop.

Competition

Valorant is one, no doubt. But Apex, Fortnite and a pile of others still manage to release content on some cadence and take some eyeballs. Gamers are locusts and lemmings. Cool that you had something 3 months ago, but there’s a bright and shiny over here.

Fair to point that Blizzard made a point of keeping track with WoW to launch updates to compete with FF14, Wildstar and other MMOs. The shoe is clearly on the other foot now.

Sequel

Any “live” game keeps eyeballs as long as they know there’s a roadmap. Announcing a sequel, means that you’re pulling people from the current one to the next one. Halo 2 players moved to Halo 3. But those game launch cycles are 1 to 2 years. Overwatch 2 was announced at BlizzCon 2019. It will not launch until 2022, at the earliest.

The serious downside to sequels is that you need an A and B team. Each alternates between dev and support. It was made really clear that this did not exist for OW2, and that they needed resources shared between both. Why not add more people? First, the skills are hard to find, and second, that costs money.

Leadership

There’s no denying that Jeff Kaplan is the reason that Overwatch even exists. The game director leaving mid-stream is never a good sign. And we can’t shy away that this whole lawsuit is going to cause some leadership ripples (for now, this seems to be hitting Diablo 4).

Sponsors

It seems you only need to wait a day to learn about another sponsor dropping OWL. This is a financial consideration after all… HotS was shut down due to funding. OWL cannot survive without sponsors, and if OWL doesn’t exist, then there’s not much coming in terms of funding for future content.

End Result

This is a year and a half of content drought, nothing in the pipeline, leadership woes, serious competition, and diminishing funds. This doesn’t mean that OW2 is dead in the water, but it does provide some serious indications that OW1 is on it’s last legs as an e-sports item. It’ll move into the HotS bucket of maintenance mode.

I really didn’t think that OW would have reached this space this quickly. A fascinating set of circumstances.

More “departures” at Blizzard, and this particular photo is acting as a sort of hit list of easy targets for Activision to take action upon.

I have done some dumb things in my life, of that there’s no question. We all have. I’ve paid my fair share of consequences, enough to understand that while in a leadership position, there are some fundamental values and ethics that we need to share. And for a very long time, money allowed people to get away with almost anything. If you survived the middle trenches, it really didn’t matter what you did from that point forward.

There’s a fundamental concept in physics, that for every action there is a commensurate reaction. This applies to sociology as well, just that the timeframes are different. Sometimes that triggering event seems minor compared to other things, but it’s just a lack of awareness of the pressure on that given topic. Dam failures are not often caused by massive floods, it’s gradually eating away and lack of maintenance.

SUPER TANGENT TIME! I do want to point that the last US President is viewed as the final trigger for sexual harassment deluge. MeToo started in the mid-2000’s but truly picked up in 2017. The trickle turned into a torrent of allegations everywhere, and you can’t shake a stick without hearing/reading about it. The normalcy that he presented in sexual assault/harassment really pushed this thing over the edge. And where this current leads, I have no clue.

So more Blizzard leadership exits, and I’m somewhat sure that this will continue for the months to come. It’s a good message to leaders that there are consequences for actions, but it’s also years late. And for those who actually want to buy Blizzard products, the leadership exists here mean that dev cycles will slow to a crawl, which certainly isn’t helping things. It’s all bad news, with a sliver of justice for those who were abused in the past.

Let’s see how far this toilet will flush.