Have some spare time? possibly two hours? Welp. I have taken the time to review every single expansion from Legacy 1.0 and all the way up to Endwalker. If you're interested in what a legacy player has to say, who's been here since day one of 1.0's launch, all the way up to current patches, then please take the time to check out my review of the series called Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reviewed in this two hour breakdown of what I thought and some history thrown in WATCH THE FULL REVIEW: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P4Ml6depkno.html For those who do not wish to sit and watch one video. On the front page of my channel, i have the entire series up individually as well for convenience sake
So the final moments in the game are of players staring at the moon and waiting for the end. Then Bahamut breaks his way out of the moon prison and destroys Eorzea and most everyone in it. Finally after the end of the cutscene, Square Enix pulls the plug and kills the servers. That's a fucking wicked way to end a game.
That interaction almost made me tear up. Like, I get it's just the gallows' humor of a bunch of players waiting for their game to be shut down, but the interaction is so... heartfelt, so sincere, so emotional. It really feels like a couple of friends hanging out, having a beer while the world ends.
@@Noki_Kelevra "Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it Life's a laugh and death's a joke, its true. You'll see its all a show, keep 'em laughing as you go Just remember that the last laugh is on you!"
I mean, anyone who was there knew that was possibly one of the safest places to be all things considering. When you come across the overgrown Goobue in Thanlan, there is a reason for it. Leading up to the shut down we were told that the darkness would unleash beast of darkness at the city gates, and it did. When all else failed there was monsters that spawned in the very cities themselves to the point that was one of the safer areas to just stand and chat. Everywhere else the outer gate zones of cities was a literal battlefront with waves every so often.
That ad at the end made me laugh. I mean imagine you're on your deathbed, you say your goodbyes and you take in your surroundings savoring your last moments on this earth. Everything slowly fades to black and you think "So this is it... It's finally happening." Then after a couple of seconds in the dark, you suddenly get hit with a advertisement for Earth 2.0 coming soon to the Playstation 15 and PC.
Diego Canizo FFXV is great up until the part with the time skip. I think FFXVI should definitely borrow some aspects from XV to keep the series fresh. Especially the general modern aesthetic and the way magic works, where it’s more tactical because it’s dangerous and can harm you and your allies.
Diego Canizo ffxv was actually not that bad despite flaws ik your opinion and frustration but it’s so much bs as it is just lost potential and promises
Can I ask what that was like? If you were on chat with people, what were they saying afterwards? I can only imagine how.... eerie it all must have been afterwards, and even during those last minutes. Thanks for putting this up. Enjoy Stormblood!
I was there nearly 8 years ago, on the Cornelia server. The weeks and days leading up to the server shut down will forever be ingrained in my memory. Random monster hordes attacking the cities, Players rushing to defend, "The Great Goobbue Wall", and finally accepting the inevitable and just sitting on the edge of the map outside of Ul'dah enjoying the view in silent meditation.... To suddenly get hit with that cinematic as the server went blank. WOW! It is/was a very unique time and place in gaming history. I'm glad to have witnessed it first hand, and honoured to have been a part of it if even only in the littlest way. Would I ever go back if there ever was a "Classic" server.. No, I believe what happened during the span of 1.0 through to 1.23b should stay in our collective memories. With videos like this serving as a Time Capsule for all.
@@jackadams3878 you can play 1.0 via some stuff like setting up a server on your computer yourself, but i doubt they would legitimately ever make 1.0 into newgame plus, the map, story, sights, everytime was different, ishgard wasnt snowy, gridania had all 4 (north, east, south and west) and mor dhona would be absolutely different
Not sure if you play it now or know the story (as it has been 3 years) but he basically killed Bahamut's mortal form, but in so doing became super weak and the spirit of Bahamut is as strong as the mortal form, so he made the mage his thrall to revive Bahamut's mortal form
This is without a doubt one of the most epic shutdowns in MMO history, even though it led to a re-release. (And FFXIV:ARR turned out to be one of the best triple-A MMOs in history.) Playing a ghostly, distorted version of "Answers" as zone BGM was just _inspired_, and playing the ARR intro/1.0 outtro cinematic was the perfect bridge from the first version to the second.
It's nuts how much Square Enix cared about rebooting this game. They spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on a one-time CGI cutscene to shut the servers down.
Yes and no. It's also the opening for A Realm Reborn, and they almost definitely knew that it would be. So it had to be a good send off, but it also had to be strong enough to start their reboot.
I wouldn't call that one-time, i see people watching this and other videos of it on a daily basis. 7 years later. It has possibly tens of millions of views alltogether.
Blizzard can't seem to stop fucking up and ruining everything they create. I don't play FF but as a KH fan, I can agree that Square Enix will do everything to help keep the fans. WoW is what could have happened to FF if the devs gave nothing of a fuck about the players and just cared about the money. Hats of to you, Sqaure. Keep the integrity.
Wow: *destroy the wolrd* ->Splits a single zone -> Pisses a lake on other SE: *Destroy the world* -> server is killed in fire, everything is destroyed and deleted, a new game starts.
I’m a shadowbringers player. Picked up the game last month and I’m a good chunk deep in stormblood, I had no idea about the history of this game and when i found out I couldnt fathom what it felt like to be there until I saw this. Thank you for uploading this. I am extremely curious, do your friends in the video still play? Do you still play? It’s been nearly a decade one cant help but wonder what happened to all of them you know?
I remember what it was like on the JP Server, which also hosted the ANZ region. IIRC, it was the only time ever where people actually used the shout command.
@@Mr-Moron It was Bahamut, a primae summoned with ether by those who seem him as their god. He was just the gun that caused the damage in the 7. catastrophy, it was the people who used it.
@@jeremyzak654 accurate, the basic party roulette thing is hell, though most of it can be soloed by the end of Stormblood, and I know people will jump in in the Party Finder if you list first time clearances are available, because people love them extra tomestones (that's how I got through from Second Coil Turn 4 onwards)
This is the perfect way to keep an MMO evergreen IMO. When your engine just can't handle itself anymore, create a huge event that everybody HAS to see (getting the playerbase back) and use that as an opportunity to create what is essentially a sequel (new engine, new mechanics, new everything) set in the same world. Provided you give them something worth playing, they'll fuckin' love it.
"In one fleeting moment... thou must live, die, and know..." This was, and still is, one of the best 'endings' to a Final Fantasy game to date. Imo anyway.
And what a payoff. Like, on that song alone. People speculating for 10 years what the significance of Answers was. "It's the theme of the old servers shutting down and _'A Realm Reborn'_ beginning." "It's the lament of the Allagans." "Guys! Guys! It's the Ascians' backstory! Emet practically says it outright!" "...mommy... ;__;"
It's a pity this was the result of the game sucking so much, because in some ways this is truly eerie and quite beautiful. The sense of impending doom is tangible and made all the stronger by the fact that, in a very real sense, this was the end of the world (of Warcr... I mean, FFXIV). Also, The End of an Era cinematic is still, in my opinion, the greatest piece of CGI ever created. To see it there, in its appropriate context, would have been breathtaking.
Its kinda sad when you really think about it..regardless if its a video game, its still a living, breathing virtual world...and we just witnessed its end.
Omnium Rerum Finem.... All things have an expiration date. But from that world's end came a new world. Is that new world not as beautiful as the one which came before it?
I can't watch that cut scene without tearing up. To have such a game failure become such an amazing story for the developers, for Square, for the characters and story in the game and last but not least for the players. If anyone says Square and Final Fantasy are dead, point em towards the story of Eorzea, Naoki Yoshida... and A Realm Reborn.
For me it's the scene with Thancred, Y'shtola, Yda and Papalymo praying. It really reminded me of the endings of Undertale and Earthbound, where everyone's hopes and prayers rest upon this one single, final act. Where Louisoix sacrifices everything to give the Warriors of Light (read: us) a fresh chance in a new world. That knowing smile at the end, that basically tells us 'yeah, this world is fucked, but let's make something better of the next one', it truly is one of the best (meta-) narratives I've ever seen. It's probably the best MMORPG I've ever played and it's easily the best FF and one of the best JRPGs since the early 2000s. This is not only a work of art, but also a work of love and passion. Yoshi-P, you god damn genius.
Scary when you realize that while all this is happening, a shard world is being completely reduced to dust FFxiv is pretty dark when you step back n take a look
Yeah, I'm kinda surprised that doesn't get mentioned more. As devastating and beautiful as the Calamity was, I can't help but wonder what it was like on the world that truly did end.
This is why Final Fantasy will never die. This is why Square Enix will always be around. A game that was complete crap and received horrible ratings churned out an EndGame so amazing it pulled at the very strings of your soul. Rather than saying "tough luck" like so many other game devs do, Square Enix made FFXIV go out with a bang...and a pretty damn big one too. To add to that, they released FFXIV- A Realm Reborn to fix their mistake and gave us players what we really wanted. Also..that music...my god that music is amazing..fits the EndGame scenario perfectly.
I remember this day well. It was sad to say goodbye to the friends I made :( some of them didn’t return for A Realm Reborn I returned and the 3 friends who returned with me we keep playing to this day! We completed Endwalker Together ❤
They missed their chance with Shadowlands. Imagine how cool it would had been to be completely and utterly destroyed by and Old god and then after a time skip realising most of civilization was wiped out.
I really wish I was into this game back then to have experienced the final days of this game. Lately, meta game narratives have been all the rage with the way Undertale takes its turn towards the end, or how Oneshot is a game that was originally intended to only be played once, but I haven't quite seen such a powerful demonstration of a singular experience for players. From what I've read, when Final Fantasy 14 was kind of a garbage game and everyone was upset with it, Square Enix promised they would fix it. Once they had a working version of the game and they were ready to make that transition, they began working it into the story of the original game. Now these players who were upset with the quality of a broken game were now clinging to it, knowing that the world they were living in was going to be destroyed by this falling moon. Relationships between players grew closer, the community became more involved in this world knowing that time was limited, game masters were doing fun things like spawning monster invasions inside of player cities so that the players would band together and fight. Then, in its final moments, everyone bands together and just stares up at the sky, saying their goodbyes to one another, as a final cut scene plays that was only intended to be seen the one time by the people who stuck with the game until its literal end. Its truly fascinating. Gaming is about a lot of things, but this is a fine example of what builds a community and how a game can make someone feel like they belong in a world they don't want to let go of.
When this happened my dad was playing and called me over to watch the final moments of the original FF14...literally one of the best, of not the best way a company has ever shut down a MMO's server and reset everything...you do need to commend SE for this and I'm so glad that I was here when this happened technically
Watching this ending makes me truly appreciate FFXIV:ARR storyline. I think what the twelve did was the most they could do, after Bahamut repelled their ace in the hole, they used all their power to protect the people of Eorzea which is why the main cast of ARR still lives. It also ties well into the Acasins in the current 2.0 storyline. I have a feeling those guys are the real villains behind Bahamut and Meteor in 1.0
The trouble is that Louiseaux held back when he summoned the 12, summoning their power but not the twelve themselves. Had he gone all-out, the world would have suffered more for the loss of aether, but they may have been able to hold Bahamut where their power - without their will - could not.
So did the world literally end then? Does ARR take place in some alternate universe then? I havent played XIV and Im currently downloading ARR right now, but Im truly curious as to what happened at the end here. Did that old man teleport the heroes somewhere else to save them from the end of the world, or did the world not end?
You're right, but there is a spoiler involved if you want to know the whole truth. If you want to find the answer for yourself... all I can say is to look up.
technically....not :) the longer vid Flames of Truth tells additional >2 mins and how badass the old man was in the end. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1xOOFCltZuc.html
Even if Bahamut would've been contained here, the spell is barely a stopgap measure. It would've bought a little time, a few weeks, a month or two, if that. But eventually, Bahamut would've broken out and redoubdled his efforts to destroy everything.
Thats one way to put a bullet in the head of a game....make it the most beautiful and epic bullet ever created.......this totally beats how Matrix online ended...
@@VisionoftheChief Yes. There was a "Matrix Online" game in...I wanna say alpha or beta, but not near a condition to be shipped out to stores. Essentially, the game ended service with all of the player's avatars being crunched up into a ball. I think there's a video of that event somewhere on RU-vid or other sites.
I wanted to play it so bad, but I was too young to get a job to pay for a subscription before they shut it down. Sucks no one took into account what was wrong with it and tried again later. The concept itself would have made a fun mmo.
I won't deny it...this video to this day brings a tear to my eye...seeing these players looking up at the inevitable doom approaching, nothing but watch in sadness as the world is about to be torn apart.
Experiencing the whole calamity was sad. As the moon got closer to the planet bosses and monsters that weren't supposed to be able to spawn in sanctuaries slowly started to, starting at small outer towns until they spawned all over the main three cities. You'd log on some times and there would be a level 90 boss monster there and it'd just kill you. Imagine being an NPC during those times.. This was the end of the world and every player that played during this time knew and felt the impending doom. It was scary but at the same time amazing.
Sorry for the necro but the ending movie has a more completed version floating around called Flames of Truth! It really has a good ending for the cinematic (despite how cataclysmic the cinematic is) if you havent checked it out :D
I never played the original FFXIV but to know that the warriors of darkness are based on the original warriors of light makes shadowbringers and stormblood hit different.
Never played FFXIV nor know any lore of it... but seeing with his last breath and ounce of soul, that old elf saved his party instead of himself right before the end of the world made me shed a tear. It hit me.
I never played version 1.0 but I do play version 2.0 on the Leviathan server. This was a beautiful way to let the first version die in my opinion. The ghostly distorted version of "Answers" that plays really sets the feeling of an end right until the cinematic starts and ends with the promise of a new beginning. Points to Square Enix for being able to turn it around with A Realm Reborn after all the awful things I heard about version 1. Although I still wish I'd been able to play the first one.
Shame ARR alienated a lot of the FFXIV players. They ditched all of the unique aspects of the game, which is pretty upsetting. FFXIV is a game I'll always remember - and is most likely my final Final Fantasy :P
Kayamaniac Which is why I regret never being able to play, when it was out I was sadly unable to play it. I hear a lot of people talk about the first version with a lot of fondness in their messages, but sadly I was unable to experience all the things. Still wished I'd been able to play it, even more after I started playing ARR.
What are you talking about? Even when your comment was made the sub count was skyrocketing, now it's climbing even faster with over 5 million confirmed active accounts, only a few ppl were "alienated" and those ppl don't matter because far more came in to not only maintain numbers but push them even higher
"only a few ppl were "alienated" Uh, and how would you know? I lost my entire community, and it's the same story from other servers. Not a bad game, but it's not the game a lot of people knew they were buying when it first came out. You have a really shit attitude - the same attitude which is partly to blame for the terrible state of MMORPGs.
I never played 1.0, but I still periodically come back to this video, and I get chills every time I watch it. This is how you shut down an MMO. It kind of reminds me of the end of Planetside, when everything went to shit, but with ten times the emotion. When the day comes that WoW is shut down, I hope Blizzard sends it off with the same bang as Square-Enix.
And this here my dear friends.. is why I am a square-enix fan! Their gameplay is good, their stories are great, and the flash/wow factor is BEYOND AMAZING!
even when (like in this case) the gameplay is... lets say bogged down by issues... the story and the music STILL manage to get across the emotional weight of the moment, and make for an overall good game. When there are no server issues *cough cough* their productions are nothing short of phenomenal.
this comment is 5 years old but man I just recently got into this game and watching that intro cutscene again with the build up the music during 1.0 gameplay... im not gonna lie I teared up from the shear awesomeness of the moment.
the ARR credits hold a list of players. i did not count all the pages, but it contains probably the name of each and every player present at the end :)
Everything will be comingto a head very soon. I will be doing a review very soon covering my time with 1.0, thoughts on the expansions and the conclusion to the ten year arc of Final Fantasy 14. Gonna be a long one, but fun
I think my favorite part about watching this for the first time coming off of finishing Stormblood is that once you've gotten a feel for how Final Fantasy's cutscenes work, you start kind of predicting how it's going to go. Yeah, we're losing, big scary dragon ruining everything, but oh look it's Louisoix! He's gonna sacrifice himself to save everybody! But he doesn't. This animatic is so well done that even though I'm sitting here ten years after ARR, I still forget that we lost this one until we do. You're waiting for that final big moment where the good guys come out on top, and it just.. doesn't happen. And then there's just the menu, and an error code. Haunting. I'm glad I didn't play 1.0. I don't know how I would've reacted if I had actual attachment to these events.
Having only gotten into the game this year I never put much stock into the whole "Dalamud falling gave me ptsd" joke my senior FC members keep making. Now I get it.
I love rewatching this cinematic, but I always keep coming back to this video, because I feel like the ingame version doesn't have the audio quite right with the effects sounding a little more dulled and not fully carrying over the destructive force that you feel at the end of your hairs like in here.
I remember first hearing this game announced and desperately wanting it when it came out. I was too young to get it myself and I still wish I could have been there from the beginning. At least there are heroes like you posting 1.0 content so I can still experience it to some degree. I can't imagine how it must feel for day 1 legacy players to finish Endwalker.
I played 14 during open beta and when it first launched. The mess of a game being relaunch has been quite a journey. I didn’t have time to get back into an MMO until recently but it has been great to see all the work they’ve done since the relaunch.
It's been what? Almost seven years? I still get goosebumps even when just thinking of this. I'm really glad they included it in ARR as a watchable cutscene. Truly the end of an era. Also, Answers was just perfect for this. My favorite song of al times.
The amount of convincing Yoshi P probably had to do.. Scraping the entire game, remaking it pretty much from scratch and a ridiculously amazing yet probably expensive one time cinematic. All resulting in probably the most epic way to end an MMO that we will ever see. But look at FF XIV now, it damn well payed off!
New FFXIV player here, came to pay my respects to the original game players and the end of it all. Just learned today that this is how it ended. This would’ve broke my heart to be there at that time, and now I know what the opening cutscene stands for (as it never made sense until just now). Happy to be a new player in FFXIV ARR.
I always cry so much when I watch this video. Maybe because I played 1.0, maybe because I saw the documentaries of this game picking itself up, and maybe because I've been such a fan of this game for so many years. It's truly come such a long way.
A moment of respect for the Japanese programmers on both version. They laid their version to rest while passing it over to the next developers and never for a moment was it a brush off. They gave an amazing cutscene and the story continued just as amazing as before.
I'm so glad you recorded this moment :) I only came into the game when Realm Reborn launched, so I never got to experience the fall of Dalamud like you did. From this video, it looks like it was a chilling experience!
The music playing in the background with all that reverb while they're waiting for the shutdown.....damn man, what a great way to end the first version.
I didn't play during 1.0 but seeing this as the ARR trailer and later learning this was how 1.0 went out starting the 7th Umbral Era then learning that Mother muionne and the other adventures guild registrars and the people of eorzea cant remember the people who defended them in the days leading up to the calamity is both heartbreaking and bittersweet
When I saw this event happen I was anxious. I told myself that MMO's never end. Once the cutscene at the end started... My heart swelled, and at the end I'm like "Omg... why did it end!!!!???" Then the re-release happened.
After so many years, nearly 10 to be exact, since this day, there's been a lot to talk about. Currently recording a playthrough of Endwalker and will be doing an In Depth Review of Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker on my channel in January. I will be covering my history of 1.0, the good and bad of it, its fall, being a legacy player, the end of eorzea, its rise and my thoughts as a Legacy player being here since the beginning and all the way to the culmination of its story with Endwalker. It's going going to be a long one. Please look forward to it if you are wanting to hear all about it and follow me @gamenchick on twitter.
thank you for this video. I'm a 2.0 player who was recommended the game by a friend who was a 1.0 player. He quit back in 2.0 and I have 21 90s, only 9 jobs left to level that are all 80s. I could almost feel your dispair from the video as it reminded me of the slow death that I watched WoW experience over 7 expansions until i finally couldn't play it anymore.
You were there with my brother and cousin sadly my brother doesn’t play anymore and watching this made me tear up and really miss the gamer he used to be 😢
The thing I find interesting about this cutscene is you watch it and you see how much of what would become "current" FFXIV lore gets woven into it. You see literally watch Louisoix saving the ones we would eventually meet again - the ones we would know to become the Warriors of Darkness. And just seeing how different everyone looks from then to now. It's really interesting and so cool.
thank god somebody was recording this i just bought the game today and decided to catch up on some of the history of this game this is amazing good job wish i could have been there but younger me was just to stupid to know that games don't last forever anymore
I’m so glad this video exists! As a new player to ARR this and the events prior to it like the Great Goobbue Wall are like mythological tales. To see how 1.0 ended is breathtaking and filled with such emotion. I felt that dread, the helplessness watching your world end. Square really did an amazing thing making the shutdown of 1.0 actual lore. FFXIV’s very own legend; whispering of tales long forgotten passed down to those like me who had no idea if it was true or not. Amazing!
