"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[01101010]

This game ... 

FFXI broke my MMORPG cherry and I was hoping for a game by SE that echoed it and improved upon it. Hope is not fully lost, but SE is making it very hard. In some ways they captured the old, but the bad parts of the old. Wish they would have went the other way. I still might give this a look down the road, but this will be off my "must have on release" list - that I seem to have been doing for quite some time now.

[tmp]

I find it cute you guys don't think this game is clownshoes.

I just want to walk a mile in them while it doesn't have (tangible) cost

It's interesting experience because it's not just plain bad, but they really turn cockupuncture into art.

[Ixxit]

Just signed up for the open beta, got my key and downloaded the small initial client.

Currently downloading at 1.2 kbs and uploading at 8.1 kbs. 

Found a 3rd party  link for separate torrent files and instructions on what directories to put them in.  Cancelled - Uninstalled - Pre order cancelled;

I don't have the patience for this type of thing anymore, and from the feedback here and elsewhere, does not  look like I'll be missing much.

[Dtrain]

Yo dawg, I heard you like rails - so we put rails on your rails so you can rail while you get railed.

[Hawkbit]

The art and the setting are amazing.

Everything else, wtf.  I ran for what seemed like 20 minutes to get to the crystal that gives me a quest.  I ran through narrow 'passageways' that were worse than Guild Wars, actually the worst world design I've seen in a game yet.  Someone said it's like chasing sticks with no carrots - that's the most apt description I can give. 

I want to like it because it's pretty and new, but it has no soul.  If I were ever to play this in the future when the problems get hammered out, I would play it on PS3. 

[Dtrain]

And the interface - not just the inconsiderate console-ness of it, but the freakin' lag on everything. The worst for me is when I'm trying to sell to an NPC. Lag over every action, and then when I try to get out of there I have to press escape multiple times to get off the damn NPC as stupid menus keep popping up on 5 second delays.

[tmp]

I like how it is so hard-core it one-ups even Korean MMOs.

These player-based shops that they prefer over having centralized auction house? They have it here, in form of NPC you hire and then put in specialized "trade" area. But so it doesn't get too easy, apparently they won't even allow you to put some text on that "shop" about what may actually be sold by it. So shopping for anything specific consists of checking hundred of slack-jawed NPCs standing around one by one, waiting few secs for each of them to download their precious list of 8 objects they carry, only to find out it's another couple of rat tails and piece of string. 

[Engels]

Wow, between this and APB, you'd think the whole MMO genre was new. In fact, the mistakes being made nowadays are even more basic than the mistakes made back in the early inception of MMOs.

I think we as a gaming culture had better imaginations back then, simply because there wasn't a back history to be jaded about. All we had in MMO land were MUDs and maybe because they were simple text based games we could conceptualize elements of gaming in our heads without the distraction of having to cope with a 3d world. When the 3d eventually came along, we could ease into the development of it from the point of view of a text-based playability element.

For example: A MUD coder would NEVER put newbs in a room to be killed by advanced players FFA. Because it was a text environment, the obvious stupidity of that was just so in your face it wasn't even contemplated. The vendor issue above might have happened, but it would have been loudly complained about and relabeling of the vendors would have occurred in short order.

Not that things were amazing back then, per se, but even the grotesque grindfest that was FFXI seems paradisaical compared to what's being said here.

[tmp]

Wow, between this and APB, you'd think the whole MMO genre was new. In fact, the mistakes being made nowadays are even more basic than the mistakes made back in the early inception of MMOs.

I think they actively sought dumb people to design this one. Most recent example -- their "guildleve" system, effectively system of daily quests, doesn't even tell you how long it's going to take for quests to become available again to you. If they are on cooldown, you just get "Currently there's no quests available for your profession".

Or the crafting system which expects you to either memorize or write down item recipes outside of game and then manually enter required components in crafting window for everything you want to make (that combined with the alt-tab issues if you want to play in fullscreen mode)  even though they do seem to have system to do that automatically, utilized by their crafting dailies. The list goes on.

[statisticalfool]

While APB clearly has the award for "biggest financial disaster of 2010" locked up, I see they're neck and neck on most asinine design.

Shoot for the stars, SOE, shoot for the stars!

[PalmTrees]

I went to the trouble of downloading this even though the few people with a nice word to say about the game prefaced them with plenty of qualifiers. But the lure of the new (and free) was just too strong. Now I'm debating whether I should at least spend just as much time playing it as it took to download it. Just out of some odd sense of balance.

The autorun's mind-boggling stupid. You have to hold down forward, and keep it pressed, then hit autorun. Only then can you let go and have your toon run automatically.

I found myself giving up on the mouse and just using keyboard commands for most things. Tab for targeting then the numpad arrows and enter for navigating/selecting something.

The spell effects on the thaumaturge's starting spells are unimpressive. It's kind of hard to tell I just casted on them. Least visceral combat ever. Compared to my new demon summoning praetorian mastermind in CoX that's knocking people over with a flaming whip at level 1 this game is just bland.

[tmp]

Speaking of the mouse, looks someone made a patch to enable hardware mouse in the game  http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/13698/ffxiv-mouse-lag-fix/

[Mrbloodworth]

That helps a lot.

[Velorath]

The art and the setting are amazing.

Everything else, wtf.  I ran for what seemed like 20 minutes to get to the crystal that gives me a quest.  I ran through narrow 'passageways' that were worse than Guild Wars, actually the worst world design I've seen in a game yet.  Someone said it's like chasing sticks with no carrots - that's the most apt description I can give. 

I want to like it because it's pretty and new, but it has no soul.  If I were ever to play this in the future when the problems get hammered out, I would play it on PS3. 

The story is pretty decent also from what I've seen of it.  Enough so that I managed to grind through 10 ranks of one job to see the next part of the questline.  Crafting is complete shit, but I kind of liked the gathering classes.  It's a shame the crafting UI sucks and that there's no auction house, otherwise this game could have had a good crafting focused economy.

Also, for anyone here still playing the beta, I'd recommend trying the pugilist class.  It at least offers the illusion of fast paced combat.

[Mrbloodworth]

The art and the setting are amazing.

Everything else, wtf.  I ran for what seemed like 20 minutes to get to the crystal that gives me a quest.  I ran through narrow 'passageways' that were worse than Guild Wars, actually the worst world design I've seen in a game yet.  Someone said it's like chasing sticks with no carrots - that's the most apt description I can give. 

I want to like it because it's pretty and new, but it has no soul.  If I were ever to play this in the future when the problems get hammered out, I would play it on PS3. 

The story is pretty decent also from what I've seen of it.  Enough so that I managed to grind through 10 ranks of one job to see the next part of the questline.  Crafting is complete shit, but I kind of liked the gathering classes.  It's a shame the crafting UI sucks and that there's no auction house, otherwise this game could have had a good crafting focused economy.

Also, for anyone here still playing the beta, I'd recommend trying the pugilist class.  It at least offers the illusion of fast paced combat.

I like the combat, seems it would do well with groups, playing as a duo, its not that slow. I could have been tricked though :).

Level 10 in a class, is this why the intro quest just dropped off? level 10 in something in the next part? They could have said something.

[Velorath]

Level 10 in a class, is this why the intro quest just dropped off? level 10 in something in the next part? They could have said something.

Yeah, I only found that out from some message board posts.  Not sure if it has to be a combat class or not.  If not, gathering classes seem to level up fairly quickly once you learn how to do the mini-game.  I like that multiple people can be using a node at the same time.

[tmp]

Level 10 in a class, is this why the intro quest just dropped off? level 10 in something in the next part? They could have said something.

The ending of first quest chain says something to the effect "keep going and once the guilds take notice of you, you're going to have your hands full" but yeah, that's beyond vague.

[Lantyssa]

Wow, between this and APB, you'd think the whole MMO genre was new. In fact, the mistakes being made nowadays are even more basic than the mistakes made back in the early inception of MMOs.

An the funny thing?  FFXI had the best AH in the MMO sphere.

[Margalis]

IIRC XI didn't have an AH when it was first released in Japan.

Edit: SOE?

[Trippy]

Square Online Enix

[schild]

Wired 360 Controller: Check
Gorgeous Game Patched: Check
Fun:

[schild]

Holy hell, what a mess.

[Rasix]

Holy hell, what a mess.

Apt description. I can't tell where I'm supposed to be finding the fun.

[lesion]

I found out all I needed to know from the crepuscular horror disguised as an updater. It reached out to me in my hour of need, its grotesque finger quivering with swampy ooze, and touched me in every bad place.

[schild]

I found out all I needed to know from the crepuscular horror disguised as an updater. It reached out to me in my hour of need, its grotesque finger quivering with swampy ooze, and touched me in every bad place.

Huh, you must've done something. Mine just sat there and made "yo mama" jokes while giving me the stinkeye.

[Reg]

They're just getting even for the years of people complaining about Playonline.

[01101010]

Glad I didn't bother with Open Beta... more out of spite for having to re-register and shit after being in the mix since alpha. But yeah, all your comments are just more of the same.

[tmp]

Few more anecdotes~

Turns out the repeatable quests are on 48-hour cooldown which is entirely server-based, similar to these raid cooldowns in other games. So that means a general experience for new player is, they'll get 1-2 early quests for their profession and then they're supposed to switch to another class i suppose for another 1-2 quests, or grind. Or sit on their ass if they're crafter because they aren't exactly in position to grind through anything as stuff requires large amounts of components generated by multiple gathering/crafting professions other than their own. Ironically enough if you get higher in levels you get access to more of repeatable quests but you have to get there first...

Crafting/gathering damages your gear at rate comparable to what combat does. After two days of playing during which i hit maybe three mobs total everything my character owns is in "heavily damaged" inlcuding the underwear. And no, there's no panties vendor machines

Fishing is pretty fun. If you can figure out how the mini-game works. (it's a game of "hot and cold" where you have 3-4 tries to guess where to put a marker in arc-shaped area and game giving you its equivalent of 'hot' and 'cold' hints. But the overall help text describing how you're supposed to play this mini-game is ... "wave the fishing rod to attract the fish" and no, you can't actually wave the rod while you're fishin )

And from "just wtf" field, apparently picking the face of your character also selects their breast size

[Lantyssa]

All the crafting and gathering mini-games use the same system, they just have different indicators.  The wood chopping seemed to be the most intuitive, but once you learn one you only have to adjust to the different interface.

And knowing that, you realize it gets old quickly.

[01101010]

Fishing wasn't all that bad. I got mine to 18 before blood started running out of my ears. Its on par with combat as in the first few levels are more "GOD DAMN IT" while the end of the area level (every 10 levels) are smooth sailing till the xp dries up then onto the next area for more "GOD DAMN IT." Oddly, I never found an area 3 water section and that was in the harbor town of Limsa Lominsa.

[Hawkbit]

Cap is 20, right?   

[Morfiend]

This game seems like a clusterfuck of bad. From the downloader, to the patcher to the UI, and even the mouse.

[Nija]

This game seems like a clusterfuck of bad. From the downloader, to the patcher to the UI, and even the mouse.

Is anyone actually surprised?

[ghost]

I'm a little surprised.  I expected maybe Aion bad, not APB meets Warhammer bad. 

[Rasix]

This is almost Asheron's Call 2 level bad, but polished.