LOL yall make me laugh ... nothing to do at 50, and the game is easy???? "A Relic Reborn" to get your relic weapon... oh and then once you do all the hard mode primal fights and countless other things you need to complete your relic, Dragon's Coil opens up... 5 tiers of fucking hard as shit...... get your AF+2 just to get it replaced by Allagan armor from Dragon's Coil......
I love when people hit 50 stop leveling and look around like "what the shit do i do now?"
So i will help you out.
1. Start "A Relic Reborn"
2. Grind Praetorium or CM for tomes of Philosophy
3. Get some Darklight gear from Mor Dhona.
3. Continue work on "A Relic Reborn". Kill the Chimera, and gain access to Amdapor Keep
4. Run Amdapor keep to build more tomes of philosophy and also Mythology be sure to cap your 300 for the week as you will need these later.
5. Continue "A relic Reborn" and fight Hydra!
6. Buy more Darklight and some AF+2 some parts are only 485 myth tomes!
7. Beat Ifrit Hard Mode for your relic
8. Beat Garuda Hard Mode for your relic
9 Beat Titan Hard Mode for your relic ( you will need full DL for this, or you're fucked)
10. Unlock your relic and thus unlock the true end game... Dragons Coil here you come.
AND by the time you finish all this jazz, 2.1 will launch the 24 man dungeon "Crystal Tower" will open its doors, you will get player and FC housing, PVP will make its appearance in Wolves Den. and last but not least, my personal favorite.... More Primals, i think Ramuh and Leviathan shall show up, and will be harder then titan.....
SO there you go people, now quit bitchin bout no end game.
What if people aren't interested in that stuff? What if Hard Primal fights and Relic weapons aren't what they play the game for?
Not everyone plays MMORPGs for the same reasons. Not everyone wants the same things or experiences out of them.
There's a lot of people who will immediately throw out challenges/suggestions similar to yours the moment they see someone talking about "not enough content". And they do so without ever asking first if the person they're addressing is even interested in all that stuff in the first place.
LOL yall make me laugh ... nothing to do at 50, and the game is easy???? "A Relic Reborn" to get your relic weapon... oh and then once you do all the hard mode primal fights and countless other things you need to complete your relic, Dragon's Coil opens up... 5 tiers of fucking hard as shit...... get your AF+2 just to get it replaced by Allagan armor from Dragon's Coil......
I love when people hit 50 stop leveling and look around like "what the shit do i do now?"
So i will help you out.
1. Start "A Relic Reborn"
2. Grind Praetorium or CM for tomes of Philosophy
3. Get some Darklight gear from Mor Dhona.
3. Continue work on "A Relic Reborn". Kill the Chimera, and gain access to Amdapor Keep
4. Run Amdapor keep to build more tomes of philosophy and also Mythology be sure to cap your 300 for the week as you will need these later.
5. Continue "A relic Reborn" and fight Hydra!
6. Buy more Darklight and some AF+2 some parts are only 485 myth tomes!
7. Beat Ifrit Hard Mode for your relic
8. Beat Garuda Hard Mode for your relic
9 Beat Titan Hard Mode for your relic ( you will need full DL for this, or you're fucked)
10. Unlock your relic and thus unlock the true end game... Dragons Coil here you come.
AND by the time you finish all this jazz, 2.1 will launch the 24 man dungeon "Crystal Tower" will open its doors, you will get player and FC housing, PVP will make its appearance in Wolves Den. and last but not least, my personal favorite.... More Primals, i think Ramuh and Leviathan shall show up, and will be harder then titan.....
SO there you go people, now quit bitchin bout no end game.
What if people aren't interested in that stuff? What if Hard Primal fights and Relic weapons aren't what they play the game for?
Not everyone plays MMORPGs for the same reasons. Not everyone wants the same things or experiences out of them.
There's a lot of people who will immediately throw out challenges/suggestions similar to yours the moment they see someone talking about "not enough content". And they do so without ever asking first if the person they're addressing is even interested in all that stuff in the first place.
What if they dont like it? what a question, quit and find a new game. seriously, why bitching all the time, go find a new game then if u dont like it... Every game is different in its way and attracts a different kind of gamers. there are enough players , including me, who do look exactly for that kind of eng-game content. and that is why I am playing it. If i knew there was nothing like this available, why the f*** would I buy the game, and then later on realise, oh snap, this is not my game, lets bitch on mmorpg about it, why did i waste money on it? your own damn fault.
The ability lag, ugg i rarely bother to move anymore, why interrupt an action.
The review could have been summed up with.
Best MMO in years.
There are so many ways to level, so much to do, dungeons every step of the way, even has lots of stuff to grind, and i gotta have my grind. Lets not forget the most important factor here, it just launched. It's going to be a sweet ride. Finally an mmo to call home after all these years.
My faith is my shield! - Turalyon 2022
Your legend ends here and now! - (Battles Won Long Ago)
When i play an MMO i look for certain core features that need to be good for me to enjoy it.
- Combat. Lets be honest here, the combat in this game is lacking. Its static and evolves purely around standard rotations. And when you compare it to games which use similar systems it lacks aswell. The combat isnt as good, balanced and responsive as in WOW or Rift or even SWTOR.
- Abbility to build up your character. When i play an MMO one of the things my friends and I enjoy doing is theorycrafting around builds + gear combinations. They basicly removed one of the key elements of an MMO...a talenttree. I have two friends who literally stated: "No talenttree means i whont play it". And to be honest, i dont blame them.
If you watched the GW2 MLG tournament last weekend you wouldve noticed that every engineer (the class i play in GW2) ran a different build. Thats they way it should be. On my engineer i have literally 7-8 different good builds to work with. Each being good in different situations vs different types of NPCs or players.
I want options when playing the class i enjoy the most not "well you can alway play another class". I look for customizability not autopilot casualized crap.
If the rest of the game was perfect (which no game is) that 8.5 would be justified. But its really generic, not that immersive due to the lack of voiceacting/standard animations of mobs /NPCs, unresponsive at times (with my high end PC + vibre net), lacks some really important features (like right click report for goldsellers), etc etc
I would give it a 6.5. and thats a bit too generous probably.
I think this review is part of the trend to give pretty much every single big (MMO) game a high grade. If i check metacitric i see websites like USgamer who give out 5-6 perfect scores per month. Is MMORPG.com the next in the long line of a...kissers that gives grades that are too high to keep publishers and the crowd of rabbid fanboys happy??
If at first you dont succeed, copy as much from WoW as you can the next time.......
Except that they DIDN'T copy from WoW. As a former FFXI player who returns often, i see plenty of the old FFXI in this game, even in the poor chat system that was carried over from 11. You might think it's a clone because it has quests, well FFXI had quests, it's just that they were so obscure and offered so little reward that no did them except to unlock a quest for a job or a job skill. The Fates are much like the Campaigns in FFXI in a later expansion, these years before Rift or most other games were even toying much with the idea of using the concept.
The mobs are nearly carbon copies of the mobs in 11, the spells aren't WoW based spells, they're Final Fantasy based in and rooted solidly in FF lore. And Final Fantasy XI is a year older than WoW, if anything, WoW borrowed from Final Fantasy, and not just eleven.
FF7 had materia that you could embed in weapons, long before WoW ever came on the scene with their gems. Yes, later Square Enix did include stuff in FF11 that was partially inspired by WoW's instances, but it took some people 40 or more tries to kill the first 3 bosses in the Chains of Promethia expansion, something you rarely see happen in WoW currently.
I really hate it when people come into FF14, see the action bars and declare, "It's a WoW clone" without stating anything to back up their claims, because it's not a WoW clone.
Even the crafting system, the majority of the recipes, the requirement to use crystals, is taken directly from Final Fantasy XI. And when did WoW ever require anyone to use crystals to craft anything? And the gathering, while I may not have had a job just for gathering, I had to go out and gather the same way I do in 14.
As for running out of quests after you hit 50 the first time, the majority of the original Legacy players and many of the newer players have come from FFXI, we're happy to have those quests, yes, but even without them the game is still nowhere near as grindy as 11 was, where it took years to reach 50 and then later on 75, before they added benefits to make leveling faster. Those who love Final Fantasy, the veteran FFXI players, want old school, we just don't want the grind that the old school FFXI had.
As for the subscription service, Square Enix would be stupid to give up their cash cow. Final Fantasy XI is their most successful franchise ever, and even now with declining numbers of players and server mergers, they still have kept it on a subscription plan. Why? In part because their core fans will pay for the experience. I know I have and I've gone back to it more than once to revisit that feel, the way that some of you love to revisit WoW for the same reason. Because it was the mmo that made me fall in love with mmos.
As for the story, most Final Fantasy fans play for the story. If you're not a final fantasy fan and never enjoyed the Final Fantasy games, then this game is likely not for you either, because it will be story heavy. Even FFXI had at times 20 minutes of cutscene after a fight, and while we all joked about how long they were, we all loved the cutscenes too.
As for those who want pvp, well, pvp has never been Square Enix's or Final Fantasy's core objective. It's more like a bit of a side show really, because even tho pvp was later made available in FFXi, no one wanted to pvp. Square Enix's main fan base are not pvp'ers, so if you're looking for a lot of intense pvp, this game is probably not for you.
Overall, in spite of the grind after your first 50, which i don't really mind because it's nowhere as grindy as 11 was, where it took me years to reach level cap, and I stopped at 96 the last time, when level cap is 99. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the atmosphere, and Square Enix isn't interested in being the biggest mmo, they're much more interested in taking care of their core, dedicated audience. And they do have a dedicated audience, they couldn't have kept FFXI afloat this long if they didn't. If you're not among those, well, that's fine, everyone has different tastes.
As for what everyone keeps calling anime style to the characters, I don't see it. The first time I tried WoW, and I played it actively for years, enough to have 11 toons over 80, I hated what I thought were the ugly, cartoony graphics and I missed the more realistic, imo, graphics from FFXI. In fact, that first time I never made it past the trial of WoW, I hated the look so much, and only came back about a year later.
So for those who aren't happy with FFXIV:ARR, that's fine, but please understand, there are those of us who are plenty happy with it, including me and many of my friends from Final Fantasy XI who are playing it across several servers. We love the game and we're going to keep playing it for a good while yet.
People need to keep in mind too, that while WoW was about rushing to the endgame, Final Fantasy mmos are about the journey just as much as getting to endgame and I and my friends love that journey.
P.S. And yes I know Square Enix's customer service sucks. All Final Fantasy XI players, present and former, know this sadly lol.
Longevity a 10? I couldn't even make it past the first month. You grind CM 52 times and then go do a couple other dungeons. A patch isn't coming for another two months.
Oh, and there's really nothing else to do at the moment.
Square Enix has kept FFXI alive for 11 years with less than a million players for a large part of that time. I know for a fact that many of my FFXI friends are now playing FF14, so longevity, yes, because the hardcore Final Fantasy fans will stick with it, while the rest of you fade away, crying, 'WoW clone! WoW clone!" never having played FFXI to have a true and honest comparison to 14 and WoW.
As for grinding, I'm hoping they'll fix that, but tbh, Final Fantasy XI and other old school players are used to grinding, even if the rest of the newer mmo players aren't. One of the biggest complaints longtime FFXI players have had against WoW, in fact, is that it's too easy to level in WoW.
Maybe part of why I love it is because it is a bit grindy, things don't come easy in this game, that makes them all the more satisfying when you do achieve your goal, for me at least. I know beating those majorly 3 first bosses in CoP in FFXI well, nothing in WoW that I ever ran across ever approached the toughness of those fights, or the satisfaction I felt when i beat the bosses with my linkshell aka guildies.
So keep in mind when you complain about grindy, some people enjoy grindy still and miss it. SE wasn't trying to make a new mmo or reinvent the wheel, they were trying to appeal to old school players, many of whom have been playing with SE and FFXi for years. And if a few EQ and other old school players want to join in because they miss the grind, well, we'll welcome them with open arms.
But quite obviously, this game isn't for you if you don't like to grind at all. I should mention tho, after getting 11 toons to 80 and higher in WoW, what is the real difference between grinding mob kills and fates and grinding quests? They're both grinding either way you look at it. It took me 11 toons in WoW to realize this, I was sooo sick of the same quests, over and over and over again, just like I was sooo sick of killing the same mobs hour upon hour in FFXI.
At least in FF14 you get good experience i f you grind Fates, the same couldn't always be said about FFXI.
And the longevity of FFXI shows they put their attention in what they do best, making old school mmos. And those of us who miss the old school mmos, are plenty happy with it.
On the subject of Alts that someone else brought up: II don't believe that's true. If it was, people would have done that in FFXI, but truth was, if people found out you had an alt in FFXI, which I did and leveled too btw, they gave you a look that said, "Are you crazy?" It takes a lot of attention and time and effort to level up a toon in the GC, in the class quests, why level an alt and go to that extra work, when you don't have to. The main use for alts in FFXI, where storage space was scarce, was to store extra equpment. People rarely touched them to level, ever. I was the rarity among my friends because I did level an alt character.
Also consider, SE is likely to add more factions to build reputation with in future expansions and patches, so that adds yet another grind to do twice. They did this n FFXI multiple times.
I agree with some points, but longevity is not a 10 in this game, I don't see this being a long term MMO for most. And just getting more and more classes is not really what I call depth to a game.
Same with the is visuals, 10 ?? ugh please, not that the game is ugly by any means, but it surely is not a 10.
I will say tho, that this game is better then most MMO's that have come out in the last few years. And there is some really great ideas in the game.
I agree with some points, but longevity is not a 10 in this game, I don't see this being a long term MMO for most. And just getting more and more classes is not really what I call depth to a game.
Do you mean popular, with a lot of subscribers or do you mean longevity? Because SE is a privately owned company, even if they have only around 500k subscribers, which is around what they have for FFXI, they will still be fine. It's because they are privately owned that they've been able to keep FFXi as P2P, because they don't have shareholders breathing down there necks if things go wrong. Even the guy who took over the reins has said if 14 keeps only 500k subscribers, they'll consider the overhaul a success.
Please don't confuse longevity with immensely popular, which I fear you are. Not all mmos and mmo makers judge a mmo successful by Blizzard's standards. If SE did that, they would have shut down FFXI years ago, which they didn't.
As for running out of quests, I think you fail to understand how old schoo mmo players leveled, especially those from FFXI. We didn't quest, quests did not normally give experience, and rarely did they give you any useful items, much less gear. We leveled in FFXI by standing in one spot for 5-6-7 sometimes 8 hours while a thief pulled the same mobs as they respawned to the group. For all those hours, we killed the same mobs, over and over and over again. And heaven forbid the puller accidently pulled an add, two mobs, unless you had someone who could sleep the extra mob, meant a complete and total wipe. Total wipes meant experience loss, sometimes the loss of levels.
So do I feel sorry for you when you complain you ran out of quests? No I don't, because I had to level without quests for years. There are other options, it's time you learned to be a bit inventive, like the FFXI players got to be. Example: A Summoner Burn Party in FFXI. Look it up. It's called being constructive with your time, instead of waiting for someone to take your hand and show you how to level outside of quests. And honestly, I get sick of grinding quests just as much as anything else if I do them long enough, so sometimes I like to do something else besides quest in an mmo.
So forigve me if I'm not upset at having Fates that actually give decent experience, without me having to grind to the extent that I did in FFXI. I don't mind running out of quests as much as some do, quests are a grind too tho most people miss that fact. A grind is a grind is a grind, period. All that really matters is tha tI enjoy the game, and I do.
I'm meeting old FFXI for the first time, we're chatting and sharing tales, talking as we group and well I almost never ran into that kind of friendliness, or the willingness to forgive mistakes, like that in WoW. I remember one time someone in SW in WoW asked for buffs, everyone started in on him, "How dare you ask for buffs."
In a FF game, someone asks for a buff and they get it. You run past someone and see they need help and a heal, you stop and heal. The social makeup of the FFXI players has for the most migrated over into FF14, and I'm loving it. People help each other, not expecting any reward. You can't beat that, imo. So yes, I'm enjoying FF14, and I'm sticking with it and my friends from FFXI that I'm playing with, do also.
Whether you all realize it or not, when you joined FFXIV: ARR you joined pretty much an already established social comunity since many players even in 1.0 migrated from FFX, even some entire linkshells made the move (aka guilds in FFXI)I. You are the newcomers, the invaders so to speak and we already set the standards in FFXI and later in FFXIV long before most of you probably showed any real interest in the game at all.
You can't join an already established gaming community and expect it to be just WoW's or your favorite mmo's community. I'm sorry, but you just cannot. That would be like a FFXI player joining WoW and demanding everyone stand in a safe corner and kill the same mobs repeatedly for hours just to level.
I do feel the 8.4 score is fair, because even I can see some flaws in the game, flaws I hope they fix or resolve in the near future. But I do think people need to get a bit realistic, you bought an mmo that the producer has advertised was to be like an old school mmo, and now you're unhappy because it's turned out to be like an old school mmo. Can't please everyone all the time, obviously lol.
"The gameplay is the biggest detector" yet gets an 8.4...Gets 10 for aesthetics yet issues some negatives (albeit one it's a personal preference). It is a fact: The world is littered with barriers. The almighty 10 is a sacred score that should express perfection. This reviewer failed here. They gave high scores in categories that they exposed major flaws in. Yes, 7 is a high score especially when the reviewer's first statement was that "gameplay was the "biggest detector". Let that sink in. GAMEplay was the BIGGEST detector...for a game. Gets a 7. You might argue that the 7 is fair because though it is the biggest detractor "this game is omg so awesome so it's a 4 star restaurant in a sea of 5 stars"...except..no. The combat lag should be enough to earn scorn from the community. The duty finder issues should only lessen our trust in Square's competence. The 2.5 (pre-upgrading) GCD is a debatable concept and skepticism is justified. The FATE system grindfest deserves the scrutiny it has received. Yet a 7. Yes. I could have written a better review. This one stinks of bias.
Firstly I'd say that it does what it says on the tin. They resurrected xiv as a wow clone ( I know, terrible expression), and that's more or less what it is.
The job classes are another way of adding skills to your character, giving limited variation to the particular role your are playing - whm, blm, smn etc etc. Not as flexible as Rift, which must take the honours here, but better than some other games.
Stats - potential to give some variation in performance - However, it doesn't work that way. People calculate, list preferential stat build for each class and it soon becomes "if you don't have this build & stats you're not optimum/penalizing yourself....." well worn ground and nothing new here.
So, for those who enjoy the dungeon/raid gear treadmill, its an ideal game. End instances are limited at the moment - but of course they are, it's a new launch. It's to be expected. More will be added, that's how it goes.
For those looking for something different - well......the different crafting skills can offer a diversion, and it's real strength - the story line. Additionally each class/job gets something to talk about every 5 levels, but these are a shadow of the main story which is one of the main strengths of the game, if not the standout feature. - but this strength can also be a weakness.
You finish the main story and it is very well done - then what? The book seems to have shut, put it down and read something else.
SE recognize this and have attempted to continue with the "but they have returned and are stronger" theme. No matter how it's couched it can feel like an addendum, something put on the end, an epilogue if you like. They even had the title screens at the end of the main story - like film credits whilst the audience departs. Was this a wise move, serving to reinforce the impression that it was finished?
Some people will happily manage the transition from a very strong story driven game to a rinse and repeat gear grind. Others may feel that they have completed the most enjoyable part and wait for the next main story line to be introduced before re-subbing.
And - whilst on the subject of the story lines, whether main or class. Of course the difficulty escalates as these progress. But this cannot continue. Increasing difficulties, like any escalating challenge, will see player drop offs. Taken to it's ultimate conclusion, the difficulty would escalate until only a handful of players could succeed with these.
That's ok. For the top level players, there should be top level challenges. But a word of caution. Like in any game there is a spread of players. If the story line introduces what become insurmountable blocks to some players, they will simply leave.
So, have the higher level difficulties. Make these a real challenge - but possibly divorced from the story, which should continue to promote it's main strength - a great piece of story telling, accessible to all players.
The game will have drop off after people finish the current main story. It will be down to SE to introduce a new story line in the near future as involving as the first to re-engage these players. Having the players run the same instances "but harder" as part of the story feels like exactly what it is - you've finished the current story, but we can't really acknowledge that.
I'd rate this game 9.1/10, The occasional server lag drops it, Sorry but this is the nicest looking mmo out. Secondly, end-game is pack with stuff to do. This is only a month in and people are having trouble with conquering content. I completed the relic quest and it was the first time in a long time i felt i had acquired something and felt great about it. It wasn't instant gratifaction like 90% of the other mmo's out.
If your having trouble finding something to do, well that's your own fault. SE has laid a golden platter out all you have to do is pick.
So much hate on this thread, What? are these people scared TESO may not be their perfect game? I can tell you now some money will be crossed hands to get them a good rating so don't worry about that you fanboys. I say haters because "ability" lag doesn't exist lol, like i said earlier there is some server lag but it's not constant. Seem too many people want it like wow, or completly different, which isn't true either (look at Darkfall!!) So what is it you guys want exactly? Trust me you'll be waiting awhile for that perfect game...
Anyone who takes any of this with a grain of salt, listen to this, Pick the game up! You won't be dissapointed. If you're a final fantasy 11/14 1.0 player you'll love it. If you're a MMO player looking for something fresh this game is for you.
I think the score is a little low. Not -real- low...but some. I think the Value score throws it off; 3 month content patches is a very good pace, particularly for adding in raids/instances/etc. Any faster and people won't all have time to necessarily enjoy the new content, and any slower and you're in WoW territory. At half the price of any other competing game, there is simply no way that a 7 for value is fair unless you're comparing it to the supposed 'free' and completely overlooking what you need in a 'free' game to match up to what this game is giving you.
I really don't get it. What is so special about this game? I found it boring in the extreme with very little that is new and a quest system straight out of the fed-ex playbook. Maybe it's just me but looking at the thread asking if people are going to sub it obviously isn't, with the poll there standing at about 50/50.
As for the review. well reviews are simply the thoughts of one individual but when it gives a perfect 10 and then proceeds to point out failings as it does with the character models I have to question it. If the models are sub-par to the reviewer then that category shouldn't be given a perfect score should it? For me the game as a whole is no more than a 5 for effort but everyone to their own I suppose.
Gameplay detracts from the game? How can you give an overall 8.4 if gameplay is the most important part of any game? If I were your boss I would fire you after this review!!
Since when is Vanguard a Themepark???? It's open world with some instances. Themeparks by definition are not and you are limited by their predefined and constrained areas. There were instances like many games from what I remember, but still, you can wander the world if you want to and do whatever you want, in whatever order you want.
"I only wish the environments were more open and allowed for more in-depth exploration."
Can someone shed some light on this for me? Can I go explore the world or not? The reviewer is saying you can explore the countryside, then said that he wishes it was more open world, on page 2 of the review as well.
I'm confused. How is it "less" open world.. or how is it limited? I wish I could try before you buy.
to say after this long time. well this was real well done MMORPG a lot of things I loved, prolly most was how small numbers on damage and health were brought back, well to say it has quite lot of innovation in it, also to anyone that questions it but SE is actively banhammering bots and gold sellers, been since problems arose, they even keep working quite much on autoblock chat funktions (this can be seen how newer gold seller bots day by day change the address of their site by format of typing (common ones when I left game were C=www , @=www, C=G+0+ld etc similaritiesbecause automated scripts were constantly updated to prevent problem))
as to say one could even notice how spamm methods changed and how quite few original spammers actually just dropped out ...there were like 10+ when spamming started on release ...there were only 3 by December left
Comments
What if people aren't interested in that stuff? What if Hard Primal fights and Relic weapons aren't what they play the game for?
Not everyone plays MMORPGs for the same reasons. Not everyone wants the same things or experiences out of them.
There's a lot of people who will immediately throw out challenges/suggestions similar to yours the moment they see someone talking about "not enough content". And they do so without ever asking first if the person they're addressing is even interested in all that stuff in the first place.
By the way, you put #3 in there twice
What if they dont like it? what a question, quit and find a new game. seriously, why bitching all the time, go find a new game then if u dont like it... Every game is different in its way and attracts a different kind of gamers. there are enough players , including me, who do look exactly for that kind of eng-game content. and that is why I am playing it. If i knew there was nothing like this available, why the f*** would I buy the game, and then later on realise, oh snap, this is not my game, lets bitch on mmorpg about it, why did i waste money on it? your own damn fault.
8.4, better than 5.1
The ability lag, ugg i rarely bother to move anymore, why interrupt an action.
The review could have been summed up with.
Best MMO in years.
There are so many ways to level, so much to do, dungeons every step of the way, even has lots of stuff to grind, and i gotta have my grind. Lets not forget the most important factor here, it just launched. It's going to be a sweet ride. Finally an mmo to call home after all these years.
When i play an MMO i look for certain core features that need to be good for me to enjoy it.
- Combat. Lets be honest here, the combat in this game is lacking. Its static and evolves purely around standard rotations. And when you compare it to games which use similar systems it lacks aswell. The combat isnt as good, balanced and responsive as in WOW or Rift or even SWTOR.
- Abbility to build up your character. When i play an MMO one of the things my friends and I enjoy doing is theorycrafting around builds + gear combinations. They basicly removed one of the key elements of an MMO...a talenttree. I have two friends who literally stated: "No talenttree means i whont play it". And to be honest, i dont blame them.
If you watched the GW2 MLG tournament last weekend you wouldve noticed that every engineer (the class i play in GW2) ran a different build. Thats they way it should be. On my engineer i have literally 7-8 different good builds to work with. Each being good in different situations vs different types of NPCs or players.
I want options when playing the class i enjoy the most not "well you can alway play another class". I look for customizability not autopilot casualized crap.
If the rest of the game was perfect (which no game is) that 8.5 would be justified. But its really generic, not that immersive due to the lack of voiceacting/standard animations of mobs /NPCs, unresponsive at times (with my high end PC + vibre net), lacks some really important features (like right click report for goldsellers), etc etc
I would give it a 6.5. and thats a bit too generous probably.
I think this review is part of the trend to give pretty much every single big (MMO) game a high grade. If i check metacitric i see websites like USgamer who give out 5-6 perfect scores per month. Is MMORPG.com the next in the long line of a...kissers that gives grades that are too high to keep publishers and the crowd of rabbid fanboys happy??
Except that they DIDN'T copy from WoW. As a former FFXI player who returns often, i see plenty of the old FFXI in this game, even in the poor chat system that was carried over from 11. You might think it's a clone because it has quests, well FFXI had quests, it's just that they were so obscure and offered so little reward that no did them except to unlock a quest for a job or a job skill. The Fates are much like the Campaigns in FFXI in a later expansion, these years before Rift or most other games were even toying much with the idea of using the concept.
The mobs are nearly carbon copies of the mobs in 11, the spells aren't WoW based spells, they're Final Fantasy based in and rooted solidly in FF lore. And Final Fantasy XI is a year older than WoW, if anything, WoW borrowed from Final Fantasy, and not just eleven.
FF7 had materia that you could embed in weapons, long before WoW ever came on the scene with their gems. Yes, later Square Enix did include stuff in FF11 that was partially inspired by WoW's instances, but it took some people 40 or more tries to kill the first 3 bosses in the Chains of Promethia expansion, something you rarely see happen in WoW currently.
I really hate it when people come into FF14, see the action bars and declare, "It's a WoW clone" without stating anything to back up their claims, because it's not a WoW clone.
Even the crafting system, the majority of the recipes, the requirement to use crystals, is taken directly from Final Fantasy XI. And when did WoW ever require anyone to use crystals to craft anything? And the gathering, while I may not have had a job just for gathering, I had to go out and gather the same way I do in 14.
As for running out of quests after you hit 50 the first time, the majority of the original Legacy players and many of the newer players have come from FFXI, we're happy to have those quests, yes, but even without them the game is still nowhere near as grindy as 11 was, where it took years to reach 50 and then later on 75, before they added benefits to make leveling faster. Those who love Final Fantasy, the veteran FFXI players, want old school, we just don't want the grind that the old school FFXI had.
As for the subscription service, Square Enix would be stupid to give up their cash cow. Final Fantasy XI is their most successful franchise ever, and even now with declining numbers of players and server mergers, they still have kept it on a subscription plan. Why? In part because their core fans will pay for the experience. I know I have and I've gone back to it more than once to revisit that feel, the way that some of you love to revisit WoW for the same reason. Because it was the mmo that made me fall in love with mmos.
As for the story, most Final Fantasy fans play for the story. If you're not a final fantasy fan and never enjoyed the Final Fantasy games, then this game is likely not for you either, because it will be story heavy. Even FFXI had at times 20 minutes of cutscene after a fight, and while we all joked about how long they were, we all loved the cutscenes too.
As for those who want pvp, well, pvp has never been Square Enix's or Final Fantasy's core objective. It's more like a bit of a side show really, because even tho pvp was later made available in FFXi, no one wanted to pvp. Square Enix's main fan base are not pvp'ers, so if you're looking for a lot of intense pvp, this game is probably not for you.
Overall, in spite of the grind after your first 50, which i don't really mind because it's nowhere as grindy as 11 was, where it took me years to reach level cap, and I stopped at 96 the last time, when level cap is 99. I enjoy the game, I enjoy the atmosphere, and Square Enix isn't interested in being the biggest mmo, they're much more interested in taking care of their core, dedicated audience. And they do have a dedicated audience, they couldn't have kept FFXI afloat this long if they didn't. If you're not among those, well, that's fine, everyone has different tastes.
As for what everyone keeps calling anime style to the characters, I don't see it. The first time I tried WoW, and I played it actively for years, enough to have 11 toons over 80, I hated what I thought were the ugly, cartoony graphics and I missed the more realistic, imo, graphics from FFXI. In fact, that first time I never made it past the trial of WoW, I hated the look so much, and only came back about a year later.
So for those who aren't happy with FFXIV:ARR, that's fine, but please understand, there are those of us who are plenty happy with it, including me and many of my friends from Final Fantasy XI who are playing it across several servers. We love the game and we're going to keep playing it for a good while yet.
People need to keep in mind too, that while WoW was about rushing to the endgame, Final Fantasy mmos are about the journey just as much as getting to endgame and I and my friends love that journey.
P.S. And yes I know Square Enix's customer service sucks. All Final Fantasy XI players, present and former, know this sadly lol.Square Enix has kept FFXI alive for 11 years with less than a million players for a large part of that time. I know for a fact that many of my FFXI friends are now playing FF14, so longevity, yes, because the hardcore Final Fantasy fans will stick with it, while the rest of you fade away, crying, 'WoW clone! WoW clone!" never having played FFXI to have a true and honest comparison to 14 and WoW.
As for grinding, I'm hoping they'll fix that, but tbh, Final Fantasy XI and other old school players are used to grinding, even if the rest of the newer mmo players aren't. One of the biggest complaints longtime FFXI players have had against WoW, in fact, is that it's too easy to level in WoW.
Maybe part of why I love it is because it is a bit grindy, things don't come easy in this game, that makes them all the more satisfying when you do achieve your goal, for me at least. I know beating those majorly 3 first bosses in CoP in FFXI well, nothing in WoW that I ever ran across ever approached the toughness of those fights, or the satisfaction I felt when i beat the bosses with my linkshell aka guildies.
So keep in mind when you complain about grindy, some people enjoy grindy still and miss it. SE wasn't trying to make a new mmo or reinvent the wheel, they were trying to appeal to old school players, many of whom have been playing with SE and FFXi for years. And if a few EQ and other old school players want to join in because they miss the grind, well, we'll welcome them with open arms.
But quite obviously, this game isn't for you if you don't like to grind at all. I should mention tho, after getting 11 toons to 80 and higher in WoW, what is the real difference between grinding mob kills and fates and grinding quests? They're both grinding either way you look at it. It took me 11 toons in WoW to realize this, I was sooo sick of the same quests, over and over and over again, just like I was sooo sick of killing the same mobs hour upon hour in FFXI.
At least in FF14 you get good experience i f you grind Fates, the same couldn't always be said about FFXI.
And the longevity of FFXI shows they put their attention in what they do best, making old school mmos. And those of us who miss the old school mmos, are plenty happy with it.
On the subject of Alts that someone else brought up: II don't believe that's true. If it was, people would have done that in FFXI, but truth was, if people found out you had an alt in FFXI, which I did and leveled too btw, they gave you a look that said, "Are you crazy?" It takes a lot of attention and time and effort to level up a toon in the GC, in the class quests, why level an alt and go to that extra work, when you don't have to. The main use for alts in FFXI, where storage space was scarce, was to store extra equpment. People rarely touched them to level, ever. I was the rarity among my friends because I did level an alt character.
Also consider, SE is likely to add more factions to build reputation with in future expansions and patches, so that adds yet another grind to do twice. They did this n FFXI multiple times.
I agree with some points, but longevity is not a 10 in this game, I don't see this being a long term MMO for most. And just getting more and more classes is not really what I call depth to a game.
Same with the is visuals, 10 ?? ugh please, not that the game is ugly by any means, but it surely is not a 10.
I will say tho, that this game is better then most MMO's that have come out in the last few years. And there is some really great ideas in the game.
Do you mean popular, with a lot of subscribers or do you mean longevity? Because SE is a privately owned company, even if they have only around 500k subscribers, which is around what they have for FFXI, they will still be fine. It's because they are privately owned that they've been able to keep FFXi as P2P, because they don't have shareholders breathing down there necks if things go wrong. Even the guy who took over the reins has said if 14 keeps only 500k subscribers, they'll consider the overhaul a success.
Please don't confuse longevity with immensely popular, which I fear you are. Not all mmos and mmo makers judge a mmo successful by Blizzard's standards. If SE did that, they would have shut down FFXI years ago, which they didn't.
As for running out of quests, I think you fail to understand how old schoo mmo players leveled, especially those from FFXI. We didn't quest, quests did not normally give experience, and rarely did they give you any useful items, much less gear. We leveled in FFXI by standing in one spot for 5-6-7 sometimes 8 hours while a thief pulled the same mobs as they respawned to the group. For all those hours, we killed the same mobs, over and over and over again. And heaven forbid the puller accidently pulled an add, two mobs, unless you had someone who could sleep the extra mob, meant a complete and total wipe. Total wipes meant experience loss, sometimes the loss of levels.
So do I feel sorry for you when you complain you ran out of quests? No I don't, because I had to level without quests for years. There are other options, it's time you learned to be a bit inventive, like the FFXI players got to be. Example: A Summoner Burn Party in FFXI. Look it up. It's called being constructive with your time, instead of waiting for someone to take your hand and show you how to level outside of quests. And honestly, I get sick of grinding quests just as much as anything else if I do them long enough, so sometimes I like to do something else besides quest in an mmo.
So forigve me if I'm not upset at having Fates that actually give decent experience, without me having to grind to the extent that I did in FFXI. I don't mind running out of quests as much as some do, quests are a grind too tho most people miss that fact. A grind is a grind is a grind, period. All that really matters is tha tI enjoy the game, and I do.
I'm meeting old FFXI for the first time, we're chatting and sharing tales, talking as we group and well I almost never ran into that kind of friendliness, or the willingness to forgive mistakes, like that in WoW. I remember one time someone in SW in WoW asked for buffs, everyone started in on him, "How dare you ask for buffs."
In a FF game, someone asks for a buff and they get it. You run past someone and see they need help and a heal, you stop and heal. The social makeup of the FFXI players has for the most migrated over into FF14, and I'm loving it. People help each other, not expecting any reward. You can't beat that, imo. So yes, I'm enjoying FF14, and I'm sticking with it and my friends from FFXI that I'm playing with, do also.
Whether you all realize it or not, when you joined FFXIV: ARR you joined pretty much an already established social comunity since many players even in 1.0 migrated from FFX, even some entire linkshells made the move (aka guilds in FFXI)I. You are the newcomers, the invaders so to speak and we already set the standards in FFXI and later in FFXIV long before most of you probably showed any real interest in the game at all.
You can't join an already established gaming community and expect it to be just WoW's or your favorite mmo's community. I'm sorry, but you just cannot. That would be like a FFXI player joining WoW and demanding everyone stand in a safe corner and kill the same mobs repeatedly for hours just to level.
I do feel the 8.4 score is fair, because even I can see some flaws in the game, flaws I hope they fix or resolve in the near future. But I do think people need to get a bit realistic, you bought an mmo that the producer has advertised was to be like an old school mmo, and now you're unhappy because it's turned out to be like an old school mmo. Can't please everyone all the time, obviously lol.
Firstly I'd say that it does what it says on the tin. They resurrected xiv as a wow clone ( I know, terrible expression), and that's more or less what it is.
Dungeon->get gear->Harder dungeon, Raid (repeat, repeat, repeat)->better gear.
The job classes are another way of adding skills to your character, giving limited variation to the particular role your are playing - whm, blm, smn etc etc. Not as flexible as Rift, which must take the honours here, but better than some other games.
Stats - potential to give some variation in performance - However, it doesn't work that way. People calculate, list preferential stat build for each class and it soon becomes "if you don't have this build & stats you're not optimum/penalizing yourself....." well worn ground and nothing new here.
So, for those who enjoy the dungeon/raid gear treadmill, its an ideal game. End instances are limited at the moment - but of course they are, it's a new launch. It's to be expected. More will be added, that's how it goes.
For those looking for something different - well......the different crafting skills can offer a diversion, and it's real strength - the story line. Additionally each class/job gets something to talk about every 5 levels, but these are a shadow of the main story which is one of the main strengths of the game, if not the standout feature. - but this strength can also be a weakness.
You finish the main story and it is very well done - then what? The book seems to have shut, put it down and read something else.
SE recognize this and have attempted to continue with the "but they have returned and are stronger" theme. No matter how it's couched it can feel like an addendum, something put on the end, an epilogue if you like. They even had the title screens at the end of the main story - like film credits whilst the audience departs. Was this a wise move, serving to reinforce the impression that it was finished?
Some people will happily manage the transition from a very strong story driven game to a rinse and repeat gear grind. Others may feel that they have completed the most enjoyable part and wait for the next main story line to be introduced before re-subbing.
And - whilst on the subject of the story lines, whether main or class. Of course the difficulty escalates as these progress. But this cannot continue. Increasing difficulties, like any escalating challenge, will see player drop offs. Taken to it's ultimate conclusion, the difficulty would escalate until only a handful of players could succeed with these.
That's ok. For the top level players, there should be top level challenges. But a word of caution. Like in any game there is a spread of players. If the story line introduces what become insurmountable blocks to some players, they will simply leave.
So, have the higher level difficulties. Make these a real challenge - but possibly divorced from the story, which should continue to promote it's main strength - a great piece of story telling, accessible to all players.
The game will have drop off after people finish the current main story. It will be down to SE to introduce a new story line in the near future as involving as the first to re-engage these players. Having the players run the same instances "but harder" as part of the story feels like exactly what it is - you've finished the current story, but we can't really acknowledge that.
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I'd rate this game 9.1/10, The occasional server lag drops it, Sorry but this is the nicest looking mmo out. Secondly, end-game is pack with stuff to do. This is only a month in and people are having trouble with conquering content. I completed the relic quest and it was the first time in a long time i felt i had acquired something and felt great about it. It wasn't instant gratifaction like 90% of the other mmo's out.
If your having trouble finding something to do, well that's your own fault. SE has laid a golden platter out all you have to do is pick.
So much hate on this thread, What? are these people scared TESO may not be their perfect game? I can tell you now some money will be crossed hands to get them a good rating so don't worry about that you fanboys. I say haters because "ability" lag doesn't exist lol, like i said earlier there is some server lag but it's not constant. Seem too many people want it like wow, or completly different, which isn't true either (look at Darkfall!!) So what is it you guys want exactly? Trust me you'll be waiting awhile for that perfect game...
Anyone who takes any of this with a grain of salt, listen to this, Pick the game up! You won't be dissapointed. If you're a final fantasy 11/14 1.0 player you'll love it. If you're a MMO player looking for something fresh this game is for you.
I agree 100%.
I really don't get it. What is so special about this game? I found it boring in the extreme with very little that is new and a quest system straight out of the fed-ex playbook. Maybe it's just me but looking at the thread asking if people are going to sub it obviously isn't, with the poll there standing at about 50/50.
As for the review. well reviews are simply the thoughts of one individual but when it gives a perfect 10 and then proceeds to point out failings as it does with the character models I have to question it. If the models are sub-par to the reviewer then that category shouldn't be given a perfect score should it? For me the game as a whole is no more than a 5 for effort but everyone to their own I suppose.
"I only wish the environments were more open and allowed for more in-depth exploration."
Can someone shed some light on this for me? Can I go explore the world or not? The reviewer is saying you can explore the countryside, then said that he wishes it was more open world, on page 2 of the review as well.
I'm confused. How is it "less" open world.. or how is it limited? I wish I could try before you buy.
to say after this long time. well this was real well done MMORPG a lot of things I loved, prolly most was how small numbers on damage and health were brought back, well to say it has quite lot of innovation in it, also to anyone that questions it but SE is actively banhammering bots and gold sellers, been since problems arose, they even keep working quite much on autoblock chat funktions (this can be seen how newer gold seller bots day by day change the address of their site by format of typing (common ones when I left game were C=www , @=www, C=G+0+ld etc similarities because automated scripts were constantly updated to prevent problem))
as to say one could even notice how spamm methods changed and how quite few original spammers actually just dropped out ...there were like 10+ when spamming started on release ...there were only 3 by December left