WE DISCUSS VANA’DIEL
#10 Naoki Yoshida Part 2

Mr. Yoshida, I hear you have quite the background in playing MMORPGs. What was your first experience with the genre?

That’d be Ultima Online*, which I’d played since beta. Before I started, people were talking about how you defeat deer to obtain materials for sewing a vest, which could be sold for a high price. It made me go, “What on earth are they talking about?” and that intrigue was how it all started. And sure enough, when I started playing, I found myself defeating deer and selling vests. (laughs) For me, earning money in this manner while also making myself stronger was a very new game experience.

It was also an enormous shock when I learned that 3,000 people could play at the same time. Before that, Diablo* was the only online game I knew, so I’d always thought of four players as the maximum.

Considering how the game allows users to place objects on the overworld, I can only imagine that it involved an outrageous amount of data traffic.

It’s actually not that bad. Ultima Online features isometric 2D graphics rather than 3D graphics. The overworld is also designed as a grid with designated patterns for the cells, so the system only thinks about changing between different cells, similar to the meshes of modern standards. It was an ingenious idea that even allowed game masters to rewrite cell information in real time. It’s an incredible design. I believe it’s a quintessential sandbox MMORPG that remains unsurpassed even today.

Assuming you were already a game developer by that time, did you have any interest in creating an MMORPG yourself?

I did, I’d say I wrote my first proposal for an MMORPG after working in the game industry for about three and a half years. Back then, Hudson Soft* believed they would eventually need more than their existing series in order to stay in business, and often held contests for new projects. I wrote three proposals or so around that period, one of them being a space exploration MMORPG. Incidentally, the other proposals were to bring back Dungeon Explorer* as a multiplayer title for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and a multiplayer FPS (first-person shooter).

So you’d been warming up to the idea since the golden age of MMORPGs.

At the time, Hudson Soft had development equipment for the PS2 and knowledge of internet-related specifications, so I felt we could make an MMORPG. With that said, I was a PC user even back then, and I remember writing the proposal while thinking, “If it’s going to be an MMORPG, it should be on PC.”

Were you also a PC gamer when it came to online games, Mr. Matsui?

Yes, I was. However, it was the opposite for me, where it was the lack of online games for the PS2 that inspired me to purchase a PC.

Mr. Yoshida, you mentioned you were hooked on Ultima Online, but what did you think of EverQuest*, which was just as popular?

I played a little bit of EverQuest but thought, “Getting hooked on this would interfere with my everyday life!” and fled to the Dark Age of Camelot* (DAoC) beta test. (laughs) I was actually quite busy with Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! when EverQuest launched, so I was a latecomer to the game. And when I finally got around to playing it, I ended up not sleeping a wink until I reached level 8…

Considering EverQuest's game design back then, reaching level 8 must’ve taken a really long time…

It sure did. (laughs) My coworkers were also so hooked on EverQuest that they never logged out, let alone came to work. If I wanted to get in touch with them, it was quicker to catch them in Norrath (the setting of EverQuest). One of my senior coworkers, who lived across the street from the office, was scheming to hook up the company’s internet to his apartment, which was obviously completely out of line. (laughs)

Those kinds of stories were common during the golden age of online games, weren’t they? (laughs)

When I came to my senses and realized this could be a serious problem, that was when I heard that the beta test for DAoC was about to begin. So instead of aiming to be the best in the world in EverQuest, I shifted gears and set out to achieve that in DAoC.

You were quite famous as a top ranker in DAoC. During this peak of your MMO lifestyle, the FF series announced their emergence into the MMORPG market. What were your thoughts on it back then?

To be honest, it seemed very obvious to me that the game would basically be an FF version of EverQuest. I really agonized over whether or not to play it, but the more I looked into FFXI, the more it reminded me of EverQuest, the game I’d been running away from.

So you believed EverQuest and FFXI would be very similar.

In my opinion, yes. I saw it as using FF to spread the MMORPG genre. However, FFXI wasn’t the first instance of that sort of phenomenon, which has always been common in the game industry. It was in the same vein as, for example, how Wizardry and Ultima are computerized versions of tabletop RPGs (TRPGs), or how Dragon Quest and The Black Onyx are RPGs that were localized into console games.

I see.

With these things in mind, and the fact that I was already aiming to be a world-level ranker in DAoC, I was thinking I could start FFXI a little later. However, I still kept an eye out for information on the game and often theorized on the reasoning behind their implementations. For example, with the “mob-tagging” system where the first party to attack a monster gains possession of it, I imagined it was intended to prevent console players from competing over monsters.

So FFXI was a subject of research for you.

Yes, that's right. As someone who’d played various MMORPGs, I thought it’d be best to let everyone attack the monsters and have the loot distribution based on contribution. The mob-tagging method would just end up with players competing to be the first to attack monsters, and the risk of players using external tools to directly attack monsters’ packets, and I remember thinking it was a bold choice for the development team to make.

At first, I was also hesitant about the mob-tagging problem. But after our team tried playing EverQuest, I felt that vying over loot wouldn’t mesh well with the personalities of Japanese players. Vying over loot means you need to speak up and argue for yourself when there’s a debate, or directly confronting the opposing party for your own benefit. Because Japanese people tend to struggle in those areas, we placed system-side limitations to make it as fair as possible. We also removed all hints of PvP elements that might lead to a hostile environment, such as player-killing and kill-stealing*, for similar reasons.

The concept of thinking ahead of the players to protect them is a very console game-like mindset and I think it’s very good. On the other hand, determining loot distribution based on damage dealt is easy to understand and feels fair even if it doesn’t go your way. It’s not really a matter of which method is better, since both have their pros and cons.

In our case, I feel that we adopted a system that better suited Japanese players, who were new to the MMORPG genre.

Speaking of systems, were there any other parts of FFXI that stood out to you aside from its garbage collection*?

The question of “How should we turn the FF series into an MMORPG where players share the same world?” was answered by using the self-expressive job system from FFIII, and by placing emphasis on the storyline in an MMORPG, which resulted in FFXI. I believe Mr. Hiromichi* made this possible, as the person who brought FFIII into the world. Not just simply creating an MMORPG, but one with an FF-style storyline; it was an innovative idea for MMORPGs, and FFXI is without a doubt the first MMORPG to achieve this.

To tell the truth, the FFXI development team also had people who believed stories were unnecessary in MMOs, so the planning stage of the game didn’t consider a story as one of the main pillars of the game. At the time, most MMORPGs required you to spend most of your time leveling up, so players’ gameplay time and levels were all over the place. On top of that, their story progression would also vary, so the question was how we’d keep everyone on the same page.

So there were opinions like that after all.

However, the FFXI development team at the time had Mr. Kato* and Mr. Kigoshi*, who argued that it was precisely because of those reasons that it would be meaningless for us to create a game without emphasis on story. We were fortunate to have them, since if our development team only had system-oriented people like me, we probably wouldn’t have been able to create the game FFXI is now.

About how many people were involved with FFXI at the time?

That would’ve been anyone that wasn’t working on FFIX and FFX, which were being developed simultaneously. It was a joint effort between the Parasite Eve 2 and Brave Fencer Musashi teams from Osaka, and the Mana and Chrono Cross teams from Tokyo. With the sheer number of people we had, it almost felt like we were destined to make something great.

With a roster like that, anyone assigned to the scenario team would be eager to create an amazing story. (laughs)

I’d think so too! (laughs)

“Power” is essential to game development, by which I mean something like a tremendous enthusiasm or “strength in numbers.” In Japanese we often poke fun at the phrase, “Strength is the true power!” but it’s not exactly wrong. In the past, I asked Mr. Sakaguchi* the candid question, “Would you have commanded everyone to work on FFXI?” to which he laughed wryly and answered, “I would’ve waited till the very last minute, but would’ve gone through with it if necessary.”

That would’ve been a textbook example of “all hands on deck.”

Perhaps that’s how society accomplishes things when they really need to succeed. There may be varying opinions regarding how that style puts ongoing projects on hold or causes development to stagnate, but I’d say that was the culture, or attitude, of how things were run in the game development industry back then.

That’s exactly what it was like to create an MMORPG during the golden era of online games. The “We’re all going to make an MMORPG!” atmosphere was a “greater cause” that individual developers couldn’t turn down in favor of other projects, and it also felt like running away from MMORPG development would make you a coward.

Going back to the topic of stories, FFXIV’s storytelling has also received high praise from around the world. As the director, did you always have an FF-style story in mind for FFXIV?

A story was essential, since there’d be no point in making an FF-style MMORPG without one. Furthermore, seeing as our goal was to create a numbered title to become the “next FFXI,” I personally wanted to challenge ourselves to create an MMORPG with a story focused around one player. There still weren’t any MMORPGs where the players were explicitly told, “You’re the hero of the story!” so I wanted to delve into that concept and have players save the world in a straightforward manner.

I suppose your development experience with Dragon Quest X Online played a large part in that.

I definitely agree. MMORPGs are constrained by how they can’t have player characters speak, but even then, defining them as “your story” will enhance the players’ immersion and game experience.

I see, so that became one of the contributing factors to FFXIV’s great success. By the way, I heard that early on in FFXIV, you held back when it came to making the player character emotionally expressive. Was that another aspect of making the game feel more immersive?

That was because when players are still unfamiliar with a game, depicting their characters with over-the-top gestures runs the risk of the players thinking, “That isn’t me.” More recently, however, since FFXIV’s story has progressed and presumably strengthened the bond between players and their characters, we now depict emotional expressions quite often.

I know what you mean. There’s a considerable number of players who find it jarring when cutscenes force their character to express a certain emotion without their consent.

Delving further into the story aspect, FFXIV features the names of monsters, weapons, and actions which originated from FFXI. Was it the idea of former FFXI developers to include these references?

It’s not something we planned out extensively. That being said, FFXI and FFXIV are the same in that they are both “MMORPGs in the FF series,” and both borrow monster and item names from previous titles, so it’s somewhat inevitable that they’ll feature the same names. Furthermore, the proposal for FFXIV originally began as a successor to FFXI and intentionally includes elements from FFXI. As for weapon names, considering how FFXI incorporates references from various mythologies, it’d be harder to make sure there aren’t any overlaps. (laughs)

The FFXIV staff in charge of lore and items have a great respect for FFXI, so I believe the references come from their playfulness and their strong feelings towards previous titles in the series. Mr. Hayashi* in particular has a long history of developing items for FFXI as well, and he seems to bring over certain names that would evoke the memories of players who have played FFXI. I’ve never given him specific instructions regarding that aspect, but I do ask him to check with me when he’ll be using the name of an item with great importance to the series.

It’s honestly quite a struggle to give names to things in long-standing titles like FFXI and FFXIV.

Job names are especially tough. (laughs wryly) After all, there’s no point if a job is similar to its namesake in name only; its gameplay experience needs to match their pre-established design too. At this point, I’m thinking we have no choice but to come up with brand new jobs that haven’t appeared in the FF series before.

I certainly see why, considering there’s already 22 jobs in FFXI and 20 jobs in FFXIV.

As long as new game elements aren’t being introduced, new jobs are designed to fulfill a battle role that can already be filled by an existing job. That said, we can’t release a superior version of a certain job, and a new job that offers the same experience as an existing one would defeat the purpose of adding a new job. In that sense, it’s very difficult to come up with a new job.

From a system perspective, if the number of jobs is fixed and well-balanced, there’s no need to add more, and adding new jobs would obviously cause a stir. But nevertheless, we always need to add more jobs to keep providing new gameplay experiences.

Back in Chains of Promathia, we were heavily criticized by foreign media for releasing a new expansion without any new jobs. Considering that, we might say it’s a “rule of design” to provide either a new job or playable race as the main feature of a new expansion.