- Release: August 27th, 2013
- Publisher: Square Enix Co., Ltd.
- Platform: PC, PS3, PS4
- Genre: MMORPG
- Developed using: C++, Lua, C#
- Team: Business Division 5 (200+ people)
- Period: August 2011 – August 2013
- My Role: Battle System Programmer
- Items, Inventory, Currency (Client & Server)
- Gear Sets & Job Change System
- Market, Trading, Retainer System
- Quest Creator Dev Tool
- Hunting System
- Materia Crafting & Melding
- Dyes and Glamour System
A Realm Reborn is a reboot of the original Final Fantasy XIV which released in 2010. The game was completely remade from the ground up in a little over 2 years.
Even though A Realm Reborn was the first project I was assigned to after joining Square Enix, I was given responsibility over one of the most important parts in making an online game – items and currency management. Items are a key part of the game, ranging from weapons and armor, which are the bread and butter of the battle system, to currency and crafting materials, all of which can be traded with other accounts through secure transactions on the market system.
Below are some of the systems I created in the game:
Gear Sets & Job Changing
The Gear Set system allows players to save equipment presets so that they can switch to the many jobs & classes that the game offers and their favorite glamours in a click of a button, instantly.
Retainers & Markets
Retainers are NPCs with fully customizable appearances and equipment, who provide the service of storing excess items that the player owns. They also act as merchants to sell items for you on the market, which other players can purchase using in-game currency. Lastly, they can even be dispatched on Ventures to obtain new materials for you to use.
Quest Creator Dev Tool
The Quest Creator tool allowed our game designers to build a sequence of events and objectives, placing NPCs and spawning enemies wherever needed. The tool automatically registers data to our quest / NPC database and spits out Lua code, which dictates how the quest plays out. This tool was used to create 99% of the quests in the game.
Glamours
The Glamour system allows you to change the appearance of any equipment to look like your favorite piece of clothing while retaining the original stats for combat. A popular and essential feature for fashion enthusiasts.
Materia Crafting & Melding
The Materia system allows you to customize stats on your equipment. Players need to level up the appropriate crafting class in order to meld Materia onto their equipment, but there is also a system that lets you request another player who has the appropriate crafting skills to do the melding for you.
During development, our goal was to make an online game that could last for 10 years. Now, the game has reached that milestone and still going strong, possibly even lasting more than 20 years thanks to our devoted players. With over 30 million registered users, it has become one of the most successful subscription-based MMOs in the market, rivaling even World of Warcraft.
Below is the ending cinematic of the original Final Fantasy XIV where a meteor falls and destroys the realm, reshaping it into A Realm Reborn:
