Ultima Online, DAoC, Everquest: Yoshi-P has been an MMO fan from the very beginning
Naoki Yoshida, Director and Producer of Final Fantasy 14, sheds light on his personal journey as an MMO fan in an interview celebrating the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy 11. Spoiler: He didn’t play FF11 at launch. At the time, Dark Age of Camelot was taking over.
Anyone who regularly controls buffed should have stumbled across the name Naoki Yoshida a few times. The Japanese developer, who is affectionately called Yoshi-P by the fans, set the new “A Realm Reborn” direction of Final Fantasy 14 as director and producer after the debacle launch and created one with his team of the most notable success stories in MMO history. functions at the same time Yoshida but also as a producer of Final Fantasy 16 and as the head of Square Enix’s “Creative Business Unit III”, which is also responsible for Final Fantasy 11, for example.
Yoshi-P and his MMO career
Final Fantasy 11? Of the MMO oldie is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year! And the celebrations include a series of interviews with various guests, and in the tenth part was just that Naoki Yoshida guestto talk about his MMO past, for example. We have summarized the most exciting findings for you below:
- Ultima Online from 1997 was the first MMORPG played by Naoki Yoshida, starting in beta. It almost blew his mind that 3,000 players could play in one game at the same time. His online experiences were previously limited to Diablo.
- What was new for him back then was the combination of making money (by knocking down animals and selling loot) and getting stronger with the character. Looking back, however, he is fascinated by how this isometric 2D world with its cellular structure was built. Just that the game masters could rewrite cell information in real time was a brilliant idea. For Yoshi-P, Ultima Online remains the quintessential sandbox MMORPG unmatched by any other game.
- While at Hudson Soft (now part of Konami), Yoshida worked on MMO ideas, including a concept for a space MMORPG with an exploration focus.
- Yoshida spent little time with Everquest at first. In the first session, he didn’t sleep until he reached level 8 (which took some time back then). His colleagues were also completely blown away by Sony Online Entertainment’s MMO and even neglected their work. At times it was easier to catch her in Norrath than in the office. Yoshida feared that he would become addicted to it, which in turn would negatively affect his work and everyday life. So he said goodbye to Everquest and played the Dark Age of Camelot beta instead.
- He then also invested an enormous amount of time in DAoC because Yoshida wanted to be one of the top rankers in the world, which he succeeded in doing. That’s why he initially ignored Final Fantasy 11 at launch, and because FF11 reminded him strongly of Everquest.
- Still, Yoshida kept a close eye on the first Final Fantasy MMO and discussed certain design decisions with colleagues.
- Final Fantasy 11 was developed parallel to Final Fantasy 9 and Final Fantasy 10. Pretty much everyone who wasn’t busy with the single player parts worked on the MMO. This included developers who had previously worked on Parasite Eve 2, Brave Fencer Musashi, or Chrono Cross.
- What Yoshida finds particularly remarkable about FF11 is the desire to tell an FF-esque story in an MMO. This was an innovative idea for the MMORPG genre at the time, and it was implemented like no other online role-playing game at the time. Internally, however, doubters who thought little of the idea had to be convinced.
- With FF14, Naoki Yoshida wanted to go one step further and tell a story that puts the individual player at the center of the action. A concept that is one of the reasons for the success of Final Fantasy 14.
Reference-www.buffed.de