Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Don't let this game pass you by
Aazenius
Member Posts: 13
First let me say, you don't know me, I don't know you, but I'm assuming you are a gamer or have interest in MMO's or you wouldn't be here. You owe to yourself to read this with an open mind.
If you're like me, you have (or had) NO interest in ever playing a Final Fantasy game, let alone this one. The next big game for me was going to be Wildstar. (But for you it could be ESO or even EQ Next). Somehow I got into Phase 2 Beta for Final Fantasy 14 ARR. I played it on the weekends to pass the time, but honestly I didn't allow myself to become attached.
Each time I played, I thought about how beautiful the game is, but the combat was nothing special - in fact it felt very old school. It reminded me of WoW and EQ. I'd play to level 10 and then make a new character. Rince and repeat. Phase 2 ended, and I went back to GW2 and WoW.
I continued to gobble up info on Wildstar. Weeks passed. Then Phase 3 began. I didn't even play the first 3 weekends of Phase 3 because (first they never emailed me to let me know it had started, and second I wasn't going to play the game in release anyways.) So on the 4th week of Phase 3, my wife and I logged into the game and played, mainly because it was something different to do. This time new classes were available and we each chose one we hadn't played before.
Unfortunately this meant we started in different starting areas. So for the first 10 levels we solo'd... right around level 10 or so I started up a story quest. I was treated to a neat cut scene and then combat began. I died. I ran back, healed up and started again. I died again. This happened a few times until I logged out in disgust. "Why would they make the game so hard?" "This was supposed to be a SOLO quest!" (btw, I found out I was doing that fight wrong - later on I beat it quite easliy)
I quit the game, logged into WoW and stared at my screen. I was done with Final Fantasy. Or so I thought.I couldn't bring myself to play WoW (I had quit that game so many times before, only to come back when I was bored). I went downstairs and sat down.
Something weird happened. I couldn't stop thinking about Final Fantasy 14 ARR. There was something about the game that made me want to go back, try again. So, after a few minutes I went upstairs, logged back into the game (much to my wife's surprise) and made a new character. I told her I wanted to group with her this time, one way or another we would play classes that started in the same area. So we both made new characters. I'll spare all the details that don't matter.
But I will tell you this, We had so much fun I pre-ordered the game for both of us.
This game has so much personality. The people of this world are alive and full of character. The story draws you in and makes you care about what is going on. The four dungeons I was able to play through were amazing. They looked beautiful. The monsters weren't just tank and spank, but required you to use strategy. The scenery is breathtaking. You have to see the sun rise and set to understand, it looks so real. The game is challenging, the combat - yes it's old school at first, but becomes quite interesting at higher levels. The fact that one character can play all the classes is so cool!
I am excited to see the 8 player dungeon-raids, to see the 24 man raids, to quest for my Relic Weapon... and to see the rest of the beautiful world that Yoshi-P and the rest of his team have created.
This brings me to my main point. You don't want to miss out on what may be one of the best MMO's in gaming history. I am not alone in saying this. Read the forums - people that have played this have gone from skeptics to full blown fanboys. Why? If you can get into the Open Beta, I would do so. You won't regret it.
Comments
If it's anything like FFXI then it will be a while. It's still going after all these years.
Don't get me wrong, but they're two different games. Same thing could be said about 1.0 before it came out, and look how that turned out. I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I got fooled too many times by overhyped mmos.
If you don't like story driven mmos, I wouldn't bother. Don't get me wrong, FFXIV: ARR is amazing. But it's not a game where you click on an NPC, accept a quest, and go off to kill 10 rats. You need a different approach with this one. The quests are very well written, and it's fun reading them. Although I wouldn't compare it to SWTOR, because SWTOR quests were generic and boring in my opinion, so I'm not surprised you didn't enjoy them.
I know what you are saying, I've stopped playing and buying MMOs because of being fooled by the hype and the general burnout/copy cat game play.
FFXI was a time sink but fun and worth my time. The time I spent leveling in groups back in the classic non-sync days and camping NMs like Leaping Lizzy and Valkurm Emperor was all time consuming but some how fun and rewarding. Some people called it a grind, chore or work but it was fun to me and worth it. I don't know if FFXIV will have that same feeling but I'm going to give it a shot.
If you don't like story driven MMOs, then I don't think FF14ARR is the game for you. However, you could try it over the open beta event and see if you like it.
<InvalidTag type="text/javascript" src="http://www.gamebreaker.tv/cce/e.js"></script><div class="cce_pane" content-slug="which-world-of-warcraft-villain-are-you" ctype="quiz" d="http://www.gamebreaker.tv"></div>;
Tab tab tab 12345 click click 12345 every couple seconds all day long & once in a while in party u get to do a limit break.
The engine used in this game is the best thing about it unfortunately (sad other devs wont get it)
hallo ~_~
Being totally candid about combat....it is my one gripe.
Honestly I think with the adjustments and patches/content updates that came later the 1.23 combat was much better. Just my opinion.
I believe they tried too hard to make it more modern and ended up with a halfway-between that neither benefited from the modern style or the old school style.
That being said...Im still playing because it's not so broken as to be un-fixable. And so many of the other games systems drew me in. Whether or not that will keep me playing later on remains to be seen, however.
Indeed, you don't know me and I like to keep it that way. Certainly when you try to sell ARR to me
I have played FFXIV and the beta of ARR. I agree that ARR is a huge improvement compared to FFXIV but still, the game is shallow. It looks okay (can't deny that at all), but the guild levies are still the major part of the game, which is why I didn't like FFXIV in the first place.
I was hoping that with ARR SE would go back to the old FFXI feeling, making a game that had real depth in every aspect, but once again they failed at that. SE has made ARR yet an other grind for dailies (guild levies), and that's not what I'm looking for in a MMORPG. I would like my MMORPG to be more open and less bound to be leveled that way.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
stopped reading at that point.
Combat: Totally agree
Quests: Really!? All you're doing is trading one hub for another. Even in 1.23 the majority of your experience points came from Soloing leves out in the open world. But what's the difference between NPCs giving you quests to go do and you qeueing up for a leve AT A LEVE HUB until you hit the level of the next hub and then move to there? That argument is totally invalid. Hell at least in ARR there are parts of the game that you HAVE to be in a party to complete them...in 1.23 you literally never had to talk to a single other soul to hit the level cap.
You had the Primal Fights (2) which were level capped GC quests and then the endgame story missions. Everything else could be soloed.
Crafting: Also totally agree
LOL, I did the exact same thing
Its a shame too because I truly love Final Fantasy
1. I think most people will agree is a serious nit-pick. Very few people's main concern is a loading screen....
2. Meh, PvE Focused game. Simply not your deal. Plenty of others with it....but honestly what about a final fantasy game made you think that PvP would be a big focus? Im curious because i've seen several people post the same thing.
And I never really expected this game to be PvP-centric really but it would just be nice to have the option.
Yes there are griefers out there but really there are so many types of "griefing". Griefers are gonna grief, regardless of the outlet whether it be PvP or general chat.
To me, if a game doesn't have the option to attack someone if you want to do so, then it just gives prissy little elitist b*****s the feeling that they can act however they like because there is no consequence.
Plus I just love PvP
Im actually glad there is no forced PvP in the game, because it will fall into an endless nerf and flavor of the month class cycles screweing up PVE content.
Which is why I think the arena PvP with seperate skill sets is a very smart way to go, one will not affect the other. If you choose to do some PvP just queu up.
Holy crap. Someone replied to a question without instantly getting defensive and flaming because they assume the person asking a question is flaming......amazing.
I can definitely see your point with the open world PvP. I know in ffxi there were some people I would have enjoyed beating into the ground lol. However I also know that the tradeoff for that is that anyone at any time could choose to gank my ass for no apparent reason. Interrupting my gameplay with having to travel back to where im going (potentially multiple times) does not, in my mind at least, sound like fun lol.
As you mentioned though..to each their own, and I'm not sure if you read the PvP thread already or not (Though i'm assuming you have) but that's a pretty good indication of what we know so far. Nothing open world that I read about though.
Edit: Also keep in mind that the producer was a huge PvP player. Take that for what it is. Not gonna say its going to be the best PvP ever, or even good, because we simply won't know until the next beta phase....but it's worth something.
I did the same exact thing as the OP.
I saw that there was beta sign ups on one of the many gaming sites I frequent, at first I chuckled about it and ignored it. After a few days, I saw it again and decided "Ah, what the hell". Signed up and didn't think about it after that. Now, I'm an MMO drifter, I just play a few F2Ps to pass the time before going to work or just for something to do, So I didn't really have a home MMO at the time of signing up. Fast forward a few weeks later and I get accepted, I laughed about it and loaded it up. Waited until Beta weekend started for phase 2 and decided it was a quaint little game, but nothing I was to excited about. Played a Lancer, but it was nothing that hooked me in.
When Phase 2 ended I kept the client on my desktop. I thought about deleting it, but when I read about Phase 3 and the areas opening up, I decided to stay around. Phase 3 started and I actually found myself a little excited about this. This time I started up a Gladiator, and that was it for me. I was hooked. The story drew me in, since the cut scenes where actually in the game now (last time it just moved you forward, so you had no idea what was going on, they didn't want to spoil it for you) and I actually cared about my character and others I interacted with. My class quest was just as neat as well, and as soon as the first Phase 3 test was over, I wanted more.
Now I'm like OP. I pre-ordered and now I'm willing to drop money down for a sub, which I haven't done for awhile. I had so much fun in this, the dungeons felt great and fluid, the game play to me felt great, and the game overall just looked beautiful. I don't know if I'll be sticking around with the game, but I would love to make it a new MMO home like EQ was for me when I played that for years on end.
Now I don't agree with OP on this being the best MMO to launch, or the best game ever. In his mind and mine it will be, maybe few others as well. Hopefully there is a trial down the road for people to try this out, but this game seems to be better than what 1.0 was.
There is going to be PvP arena based and certain areas in world map where there is 24 hour PvP. Granted its not everywhere but Yoshi-P has stated that the PvP zone(s) are going to be huge. Also it gives me faith that he has been focused in on PvP since he took over V.1 ... It also made me breathe a bit easier when I did a bit of research and came to find that he is an Avid PvP er in a few online MMOS and is actually at the top of two different PvP leaderboards.
"on front line, we are planning to implement it on patch 2.2 or 2.3 we’re talking which one it’s going to be on, it has higher probability of it being on 2.3 but once you go in, depending on your grand company the starting point changes so, you’re going to take over forts against other players. there are parts where crafters also comes to play. the frontline zones will be open for PVP 24hrs "
This is the most interesting bit
"First of all, we are going to introduce one part of the PVP we're planning to make, Coliseum. This is going to be 4 vs. 4 or 8 vs. 8. With this next beta phase, 4, we're going to test that out - so you'll be able to find out what happens when different classes or jobs fight against each other within FF14.
This Coliseum will be introduced with patch 2.0, straight away after launch. Six months after launch, we're planning to also introduce another PVP called Frontline. This is more like a RvR - Realm versus Realm. This uses whole zones - it's a large-scale PVP.
Player-on-player battles are in the works, but some modes won't make launch. With this PVP system, there's going to be different character systems compared to the PVE version. If you win a battle in PVP, you'll earn points, and when you collect these points you can exchange for certain abilities or skills or equipment dedicated to the PVP system. As such, you can level up your character in a sense within the PVP system.
If you want to focus on PVE, that's absolutely fine, but if you do get a chance to try out PVP, please do so - you'll get to think about what kind of skills you want to use, what kind of gear you want to use - make sure you have good enough gear to stand up in PVP.
There's lots of excitement in the PVP - it's not just about hitting each other and things like that. If you haven't done PVP before, just give it a try and I hope you enjoy it. If you don't like the idea of hitting another player, then don't worry - you can concentrate on the PVE and try to become the Warrior of Light.
That being said, if you want to meet me in game, you have to come into the Coliseum or the Frontline - that's where I'll be! [laughs] That's my thing."
Not saying its going to be amazing but I am keeping an open mind.
Just wanted to point out that main reason this is primarily a PvE game is that is what the JP audience seems to prefer (based on previous experience and many of the changes made to games being versioned for Japan most recent being Archage that I read about).
The fact that there is separate PvE and PvP gear and skill sets may actually have me doing some PvP. Oh and I am glad it is not open world PvP every where had enough of that with griefers, besides I play EvE for that.