Is anybody else playing the FFXIV Beta?

I’ve been playing a bit of FF14 and I’m not too impressed. The interface is primarily designed for a gamepad and the result is extremely tedious. I have not yet found a key that opens the menu. Instead, I have to mouse over to a little icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. If you want to use something (such as an elevator) you have to mouse towards a speech bubble icon with an exclamation mark inside it, which simply opens the menu like the menu key already does, and then has you point on the action you wish to perform (use elevator). I have no idea why they couldn’t let me use the elevator simply by pressing the action button. Actually, I have no idea why they couldn’t just let me press a key to use the elevator.

NPCs have no information under/above their name. There’s no indication of what they do and the only way to find out is to talk to them. There’s also no quest markers above their heads, nor on the map for that matter. This isn’t them catering to the "core" gamer, it’s just poor design.

The battles seem rather dull to me and entering battles is pretty cumbersome. I can’t quite explain why it seems to tedious, though. There’s no actual Attack attack. You can’t just left or right click to attack something. This doesn’t sound all too cumbersome in writing, but in practice it bothers me a lot for some reason. I guess the only way to find out if it bothers you (the reader!) too is to go play yourself.

As of now, there’s absolutely no way to skip the introduction. That’s fine the first playthrough, but I had to create a second character on a different server to play with Skanker (he wasn’t awake when the download finished) and so I was forced to sit through it again. I couldn’t just leave it run until it was all over though, since it requires every now and then that you walk around a tiny bit and talk to an NPC. My problem with the intro and subsequent quest doesn’t simply end with my inability to skip it on a second playthrough, though. No, I also dislike that this game forces you to play through a cinematic storyline that’s not really all that interesting or immersive given the limitation of the genre. In my two/three hours spent with the game I’ve gone about doing a few quests that all begin and end with cinematics occupied by characters I have no reason to care about talking about corruption in a guild I have no reason to care about. My reaction to the story could simply be because I’ve never played an MMO with such an emphasis on story before, though. It did take me by surprise.

I can’t think of much else to complain about right now. The game is really pretty, at least. Really, really pretty.

I’m not in the beta, but I was considering picking it up on release.

That said, I picked up FF11 on release, played for the included month, and never played again…mind you, the subscription fee back then was atrocious (US$30 a MONTH). I’m hoping FF14 is more in line with other MMOs at the $15/month price point.

Either way, the fact is that both World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Star Wars: The Old Republic are coming out this year, two MMOs heavily focused on story, with the best western developers in the field behind them. Whatever your feelings about WoW, game design is not a flaw that it has – it’s been polished to perfection over the last 6 years, and Cataclysm is bring that polish back to the starting levels, which should attract even more players. And TOR is a KOTOR MMO. By BioWare. BIOWARE.

I don’t know where i’m going with this…except that the FF14 box will probably end up like my FF11 box; that is, sitting on my PC games shelf untouched.

From what I’ve seen of FFXIV, it does look pretty. Still, graphics don’t mean a thing if it can’t perform. I’ve been playing FFXI since 2006, and probably will still keep playing it til the servers close. I ‘may’ give FFXIV a go, but tbh I don’t think I will. With Star Wars: The Old Republic coming (most probably next year sometime), I’ll more than likely be playing that instead.

I wasn’t going to play the beta, but my bandwidth allowance was suddenly bumped up to 200GB per month and I had to use it on something. I’m not really a fan of MMOs at all. I’d much rather play Monster Hunter online.

Found this article on another forum about FFXIV… take a look

Square Enix to allow one hour of full XP per day with Final Fantasy XIV (http://www.gamegrep.com/news/36275-square_enix_to_allow_one_hour_of_full_xp_per_day_w ith_final_fantasy_xiv/)

Square Enix have recently announced that in their upcoming MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, players are only allowed one hour of XP per day.

Any time over that will reduce the amount of XP gained until you hit 0. If you break the 4 hour mark, it takes a full two days to be able to earn XP again.

Tell us about the “fatigue” and “dormancy” systems please.

We wanted to introduce a system to reward players who don’t have a lot of time to play. Maybe it looks as though we are placing long playing users at a disadvantage, but the idea is really to let play for short periods be viable.

Won’t that cause some concern amongst players who play for longer?

We want these players to try different classes. If you change class the fatigue doesn’t affect you, so you could try non-combat classes as well. You actually have more play choices now as you can make more characters.

That to me, shows how ‘broken’ the game design is. They’re telling players more or less how to play, which isn’t what a MMORPG or Hell… that isn’t what any game is supposed to. You play how you want to play.

Discuss.

Yeah, it’s pretty silly. I haven’t heard anybody say a good thing about it anywhere, except for a few apologists who seem to be die-hard fans for no reason. If a person is paying by the month to play the game, there shouldn’t be any restrictions on how they can spend their time in the game.

People suspect they’re trying to slow down progress while they flesh out the end-game content.

Yeah, it’s pretty silly. I haven’t heard anybody say a good thing about it anywhere, except for a few apologists who seem to be die-hard fans for no reason. If a person is paying by the month to play the game, there shouldn’t be any restrictions on how they can spend their time in the game.

People suspect they’re trying to slow down progress while they flesh out the end-game content.

Then why don’t they just delay the release a little longer? There aren’t gonna be that many people lining up to buy the game day 1. And word of mouth certainly isn’t gonna help them. If anything, it’ll hurt them.

Okay, that does it; SQUARE HAS LOST THEIR FREAKIN’ MINDS!!!

Because Smarty, SE want FFXIV to beat a number of other highly-anticipated MMOs to release (such as The Old Republic, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and a few others – ok, that last one is just an expansion pack for an existing title but you know ;)).

Obviously Squenix are very insecure about how well their game will perform and are trying to curry enough favour with players before the ‘big guns’ come out and lure everyone away from FFXIV. Or maybe I’m just cynical.

Or maybe… just maybe Enkidoh… you’re right. Sides… how well can the world of FFXIV stand against the Imperialistic might of the Sith Empire?

Even if they do beat everyone else to the market, I think it would hurt them more than it would help them.

They will never get any of the WoW subscribers so they might as well just forget beating Cataclysm. But if they want to beat the Old Republic, they better not bring out an unfinished game. The PS3 version will come out in March. It would be best if they launched the PC version at that time as well. Unless they genuinely think it’s ready for launch. Word of mouth is what’s gonna kill them, if they launch it unfinished.

The Collector’s Edition of FFXIV on PC is released on 22nd of September this year (apparently) with the normal version for PC on September 30th. Then, for PS3 owners, March next year. How FFXIV stands atm, while it may get high initial sales etc… I wonder how many will keep their subscription after the first month or so.

Even when (it’s a question of WHEN not IF) FFXIV is released on the Xbox 360, I won’t be getting this. The latest installments of the FF series since FFX that is, haven’t impressed me at all (except FFXI Online), and I seriously doubt FFXIV will. I may get it… but in all honesty, I have other games to spend $$$ on instead.