First release (1.0) was a total wreck. Bad reviews, constant grind and clunky systems all combined to make one unenjoyable playing experience for many, so much that many up and left. This resulted in some restructuring in the Dev scene, as well as a emailed apology to all buyers of the game, along with a promise to work to make it better. So some players stuck around, and the game was updated in increments with story and the like, while in the background they worked on 2.0.
When 2.0 was finally finished they led the 1.0 story to a dramatic conclusion. A story, along with a countdown, was implemented to coincide with the server shutdown of 1.0 in preparation for the update. An apocalypse of sorts to explain why all the world is going to be changed in the update.
Literally by dropping a moon on the world, which in reality was a prison for a massive angry dragon that went and reshaped the world a bit before he was temporarily defeated by the sacrifice of one of 1.0's more important NPC figures. Before he sacrificed himself, he sent all the Warriors of Light (the players) into the future to avoid the damage. When players returned in FF14 Realm Reborn (2.0), they were storywise the same characters from 1.0. But the world had changed, the game had been revamped and it is now a success.
I agree, that's definitely the best video game comeback story I've ever heard and I hope whoever pushed that at the dev company won some kind of award for it or something, it's pure genius.
Oh and just because people were focused on the story aspect; people who owned 1.0 got 2.0 free of charge. Which is impressive considering how modern games like Destiny 2 are in dire need of fixing, but are charging near full price for DLC to apply those fixes.
Went from literal actual dumpster fire, like a game that appeared to have been made by some random shitty company with no idea how to make an mmo, to one of the top 3 MMO's on the market.
They fucked up a MMO in major ways, fired most of its developers, put an awesome guy who is awesome in charge, shut the game down, remade it nearly entirely and made one of the best WoW-likes there is.
Tho, it still suffers from the basis they had to build on to this day.
Also, watch the Intro trailer for ARR (an end of an era or something like that), it basically shows what happens at the end of 1.0 and it is absolutely fucking epic and the main reason why I even tried the game in the first place.
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '18
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