Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Alkorin_sl said:

The treadmill nature of the quests is a bit unfortunate, but that's also kinda the way most of the non-MMO FFs were. When I play a Final Fantasy game, I want two things:

1. Good combat,
2. Good story.

It seems like both of these things will flesh out well in this game. So, I guess time will tell, but I'm probably going to play it.

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I'm curious about this. In the first 20 levels I felt my biggest complaints were the treadmill questing, the lack of a story that really immerses you, and the horribly boring combat (numberous issues). If this was a title without such a huge name attached to it I would dismiss it immediately. Combat seems to be the largest complaint/area of feedback right now so I do hope they fix it. There are some definite issues with GCD. Also, I've read that cut scenes have been removed for Beta so that obviously will add to the level of immersion. I do hope that they address these things and the Devs seem very responsive, but I wouldn't go on a limb and say "this game is going to do awesome", because in it's current form it wouldn't outside the rabid FF fans.

I can only hope that the company that made such incredible storylines such as the zilart missions and chains of promathia epic awesomeness missions can pull something great off story-wise.

So I've had a few people express interest in running FFXIV junkies. If you haven't emailed me yet ([email protected]/* <![CDATA[ */!function(t,e,r,n,c,a,p){try{t=document.currentScript||function(){for(t=document.getElementsByTagName('script'),e=t.length;e--if(t[e].getAttribute('data-cfhash'))return t[e]}();if(t&&(c=t.previousSibling)){p=t.parentNode;if(a=c.getAttribute('data-cfemail')){for(e='',r='0x'+a.substr(0,2)|0,n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)e+='%'+('0'+('0x'+a.substr(n,2)^r).toString(16)).slice(-2);p.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(decodeURIComponent(e)),c)}p.removeChild(t)}}catch(u){}}()/* ]]> */) please do so. I think I'll have a site up and running sometime this week/weekend.

I hate to say it but I started to play the beta this weekend and although I only got to level 4, it was good shit. I only play FF11(I think I got one class 50 and one 25) and played FF14beta(which was terrible) so I was a huge skeptic going in but ARR is solid. Nothing ground breaking but then again who cares, at this point, I am just looking for an MMO to hold my interest.

So if you are on the fence or were going to avoid this like the plague because of the old beta, it is worth giving it a shot. Now if I keep playing for the sub after the free month is up, is another matter.

The question I'm asking myself is do I just play this on the PS3 when it launches or use this as an excuse to buy myself a desktop.

Game really felt like a MMO to me... maybe it was the pace and the type of quests you do early on that gave that feel. I use "feel" loosely due to the fact that an MMO feel would refer to prior to anything in the last 3-5 years.

The graphics are stunning. Maybe the best i've seen to date but if nothing else to par with the best.
The music is incredible. Probably the best i've heard.

I did a few FATE's pretty cool. Nothing knew here.

I thought what tradeskilling I was exposed to was very well laid out.
I liked the Marketboard lay out though I haven't used it but it was easy to use what you could use.

Overall, everything is done very well. Again, what has been released to this point. If I was to layout a game that I would have wanted to progress to post-EQ era, this feels like the best next step that I have played. Sure, I enjoyed the early days of WoW, I was big into EQ, and I went through a PvP phase and WAR/GW2 did some things well but ultimately, at this point, FFXIV feels like an updated "old school" MMO.

We'll see if my opinion changes in future phases.

So I am wondering how leveling speed is in this. I REALLY hope this isn't like WoW, etc, where you can grind to max level in a few weeks of heavy playing. I hope it takes months and months if you only grind.

Slow leveling is one of the things I loved the most in FFXI. After about a year and a half of heavy playing, I never even hit 75 with a job. I had a level 57, and like a mid 40's and a handful of 20-35's. I'm sure I could have gone faster, but with the subjob quest, awesome hard job unlock quests, alt classes, flight licenses, chocobo licenses, bag increase quests, genkai (level cap) quests, AF armor quests, city rank missions, farming, conquest, crafting, fishing, etc, and just so many secrets and mysteries with the world, there was ALWAYS stuff to do, and always a sense of accomplishment and big enough carrots. It was an MMO about the journey, not necessarily about the destination. The only other MMO that remotely had this feeling was EQ. Hell, I never even got to the endgame of FFXI, so endgame didn't matter to me, and I still got like 2 years of amazing entertainment from the game. The game could have literally had zero endgame, and it still kept me for years.

All the games like WoW now days, you level up in a few weeks to max, and then all there is to do is grind rep, run the same 5 mans over and over, and raid. If FF14 implements even half of those things from FFXI, this game will be my next MMO sink for a few years, and be an hit. The only alternative to WoW. Man this needs to release like now. I would kill for a beta invite at this point. Thankfully I think I will be able to get into phase 3 with an old account I ended up trading a few used games for.

It's fast still. In 1.0 my friend hit 50 in a week or two.. don't expect FFXI slowness, although I would love it if they changed it to that.

If it turns out to actually be good, awesome. My only concern is Square Enix and their habit of releasing content without raid fights. For example, every expansion of FF11, and FF14 vanilla... Lol. Pay $50 for the game and $15/m for 6-12 months until you can fight a boss. It'd be like getting a guild in EQ all keyed for Vex Thal only to zone in and fight 10,000 mobs with no loot bosses anywhere to be found.

Wich class will be (or lead to) the petclass? Read something about a summoner but not sure if that class will have summons that are "permanent".

Fenz_sl said:

Wich class will be (or lead to) the petclass? Read something about a summoner but not sure if that class will have summons that are "permanent".

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Arcanist -> Summoner

FFXI's leveling pace wasn't even that slow once people actually figured out what the hell to actually level on (ie: not try to grind IT++ mobs). Not to mention that you are required to level multiple classes to be effective; it doesn't really make sense for the leveling pace to be that slow. That's not to say, however, that there shouldn't be a good amount of non-leveling content to do while working your way to cap.

ixian_sl said:

FFXI's leveling pace wasn't even that slow once people actually figured out what the hell to actually level on (ie: not try to grind IT++ mobs). Not to mention that you are required to level multiple classes to be effective; it doesn't really make sense for the leveling pace to be that slow. That's not to say, however, that there shouldn't be a good amount of non-leveling content to do while working your way to cap.

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This is true, if you had a set group of all excellent players, and were able to get good uncontested camps with an amazing puller chain pulling, you could level fairly fast. I don't know, it just seemed much longer to me, because not having a set group, and trying to get groups together to help you do things like unlock a job you want to be, or if I remember right you needed like an 18 player raid to do the level 55-60 level unlock, etc. For a non set-group person, it was a slow process, but it wasn't like I was just LFG all the time either. If our guild had a set time to meet up to help someone unlock a job, or run one of those beastman coin battle things, or anything like that, there still was tons of solo or pug stuff to do in-between with your time. I could always progress towards some goal, and many progressions were required, like airship passes, level caps, etc, you couldn't just grind to max level super fast, and skip those other things. It was a cumulative leveling thing, not just xp.

Maybe it's rose-tinted glasses, and I do remember all the bad pugs too, where after an hour of LFG, I ended up leaving with less XP than I started with. Or spending time trying to find someone to raise me, or get a group to regroup, or run from a train, etc. But that stuff was worse at lower level, and as I got higher level, met new friends to group with, and had things like Raise II always available and stuff, I actually felt like I was moving from a piece of shit onion knight in the world, to an actual hero. Most games don't have that sense of accomplishment or attachment to your character really in my experience. At least not nearly to the level FFXI (Or EQ) did. Also I never did play Chains of Prometheus, I think that added a lot of midlevel content and some mentoring stuff to grind xp at old spots. Unsure if it changed any pacing, but I did love the whole vanilla/RotZ FFXI pacing.

Keep in mind I was one of the first NA players to level 75 (WHM). I went through periods of 2-3 days without even getting a tell asking if I would join a party. All the high levels were JP players and didn't want shit to do with me. Somehow I hit 75.. but this was months before most people hit 75. That job took a long time to level.

My second and third job were faster, but you're out of your mind if you don't think levelling in FFXI was slow. I had a static party on my warrior from level 30-75 and it took us about 3 weeks of constant levelling every night until the wee hours of the morning. We even ran BRD/SMN for heals/buffs, BLM, WAR, NIN tank, and usually another melee. This was before burn parties existed. Took awhile no matter how you sliced it. And I thought 3-4 weeks was fast back then

Tide27_sl said:

Most likely you are using the wrong name / pwd combo. Hear me out, I had the same problem.

I would log into the SQEnix site and the pwd would work, and I registered the code...if you click active accounts, youll see that it does indeed say you are registered to beta.

Now I would try to download the beta and it kept saying the name / pwd combo was wrong...but I just checked it a few mins ago and it was fine.

The problem was the second time you log in, its a different log in name its asking for.

For example...

I would log into the site with UserID:[email protected]/* <![CDATA[ */!function(t,e,r,n,c,a,p){try{t=document.currentScript||function(){for(t=document.getElementsByTagName('script'),e=t.length;e--if(t[e].getAttribute('data-cfhash'))return t[e]}();if(t&&(c=t.previousSibling)){p=t.parentNode;if(a=c.getAttribute('data-cfemail')){for(e='',r='0x'+a.substr(0,2)|0,n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)e+='%'+('0'+('0x'+a.substr(n,2)^r).toString(16)).slice(-2);p.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(decodeURIComponent(e)),c)}p.removeChild(t)}}catch(u){}}()/* ]]> */and PWD: XYZ. Now when you log onto that, you will see that you have a different registered name on the log in screen.

That is the name you need to log in with. It wasnt[email protected]/* <![CDATA[ */!function(t,e,r,n,c,a,p){try{t=document.currentScript||function(){for(t=document.getElementsByTagName('script'),e=t.length;e--if(t[e].getAttribute('data-cfhash'))return t[e]}();if(t&&(c=t.previousSibling)){p=t.parentNode;if(a=c.getAttribute('data-cfemail')){for(e='',r='0x'+a.substr(0,2)|0,n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)e+='%'+('0'+('0x'+a.substr(n,2)^r).toString(16)).slice(-2);p.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(decodeURIComponent(e)),c)}p.removeChild(t)}}catch(u){}}()/* ]]> */, the name it was looking for was Tide27, and then the same pwd.

Hope that helps you get in. I had a horrible time trying to figure that one out.

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Wow, that was it...what a horrible horrible system. How was I ever supposed to know that...?