Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Nija_sl said:

Are beta keys transferable? If so, the next person who asks in this thread gets mine.

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If they're are i'm in.

Very interested in trying this game if anyone else is feeling generous!

When is open beta supposed to be? Want to try it out.

I ain't got no xboxes Lindz but I do have a beta account

Noodleface_sl said:

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

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The person I was responding to was hoping it'd take months and months if you grind. I am not trying to shit on any memories here, just trying to remind people that a lot of that slow pace stemmed from a lack of knowledge among the community or in your case, a lack of community in general since most JPs hated NAs. :b

I played over the beta weekend and came away unimpressed. I was falling asleep in my chair for the first 30-45 minutes just running around town doing the fetch quests. Really? Fetch quests as soon as you log in? I don't want to visit every npc in town as soon as I log into a MMO the first time. I want to kill shit not pick vegatables. The in game map is terrible also. Graphics are ok but you can tell the entire game is going to be limited to what the PS3 can do. The game is far better than the original game but if this is all SquareEnix can come up with they are in big trouble. If this game didn't have the FF name attached to it I wouldn't give it the time of day. Probaby the only thing I found decent was the music. I know it's "beta" but I don't see how it's going to change all that much from now till release. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I'm sure the diehard FF fanboys will eat this shit up though. Instead of just shit in a box this one will have some corn included.

I lived in Japan for 8 years. 1992-2000 and played many many Japanese games. In recent years it seems that Japanese game creators have been on cruise control while the rest of the game industry has far surpassed them. I can't count on one hand that many good Japanese made games that I actually enjoyed in the past few years. I guess you gotta give SE a little credit for the do-over though.

Of course this is just my opinion and you might love it!

While I had some positive memories of FF11, leveling sure the hell wasnt one of them. Im really trying to think of an MMO that I played that had a more boring leveling approach.

You literally would have to get over 100+ levels to be 75/37 anything and you were killing the same exact mobs endlessly for days in the same exact locations. Other than a few missions here or there, you basically sat in one spot for days on end grinding. What worked back then , will not work now...it just wont hold peoples interest.

Now while its been many years since I played, if I remember correctly the progression went something similar to this..

1-10 newb zone
10-15 Dhamals
15-20 Crabs
20-25 Crabs / Worms
25-35 Mushrooms
35-45 Bats / Crawlers
45-55 Crawlers
55-65 More crawlers
65-75 Crabs again

I hope we never go back to that type of leveling.

And how much 11 has changed since then, as you can do 30-99 in a single day now.

As for 14, next test shedule is up;

Thank you for your participation in the beta test for FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn.
The testing schedule is detailed below.

- Dates and Times:
April 19, 2013 (Friday), 9:00 a.m. to April 21, 2013 (Sunday), 9:00 a.m. (GMT)

You forget lizards, and wasps, and elementals. And all the time spent in Yuhtunga I could never forget the little mandragora's and opo opo's, and how could you forget pugils. I must have killed thousands of those in my day. Or the night time undead in Valkurm dunes. Those were as epic as the spectre trains in Oasis in EQ. Also you cant forget the weird gasmask goblins, orcs, quadav, yagudo birds, marlboros, those giant guys in the snow place north of Juno, etc. And then all the different ones in areas, like the antlion men, the panthers, spectre things, and when you went inside castles and dungeons there were all sorts of weird creatures. There was a lot more variety than just that.

I do agree though, group grinding wont work in now days environment, at least not in an MMO that wants a decent amount of subscribers. But you can still have a lighter version of it, and all the side stuff for progression like level cap unlocks and epic job unlocks, AF armor, etc, and give people other stuff to work on, where it's not just ignore absolutely everything and race to max level and raid. That's the worst formula ever, thanks to WoW.

ramp_sl said:

And how much 11 has changed since then, as you can do 30-99 in a single day now.

As for 14, next test shedule is up;

Thank you for your participation in the beta test for FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn.
The testing schedule is detailed below.

- Dates and Times:
April 19, 2013 (Friday), 9:00 a.m. to April 21, 2013 (Sunday), 9:00 a.m. (GMT)

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Sweet. Is this considered another part of phase 2 still, or is this phase 3? I might be able to get in if its phase 3, due to an old account I picked up.

Fell asleep at the wheel. Had to be the most boring intro of any MMO I've played in recent history. A lot of cringeworthy dialogue you're forced to sit through. Optimization is...not good to say the least.

Weaponsfree_sl said:

Fell asleep at the wheel. Had to be the most boring intro of any MMO I've played in recent history. A lot of cringeworthy dialogue you're forced to sit through. Optimization is...not good to say the least.

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Well if you are done with your beta key, I'll gladly take it

I think there was another class that didn't get mentioned, Marauder > Warrior, unless its magically gone now lol. My impressions have been great so far, best thing for me is seeing the open world a lot bigger and wide open now instead of a bunch of caves leading to narrow pathways like in 1.0 (gridania/shroud area). Digging the combat so far but admittedly I'm not that hard to please. Just happy to have an FFXI replacement and possibly some of the future jobs that I would kill to play in an MMO again. If they add Blue Mage, I will be complete

Stave_sl said:

I do agree though, group grinding wont work in now days environment, at least not in an MMO that wants a decent amount of subscribers. But you can still have a lighter version of it, and all the side stuff for progression like level cap unlocks and epic job unlocks, AF armor, etc, and give people other stuff to work on, where it's not just ignore absolutely everything and race to max level and raid. That's the worst formula ever, thanks to WoW.

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You'll still have group grinding as an option, it'll just be in the form of running dungeons instead of plopping your ass down at a camp for hours on end (bonus: this means no one can intrude on your camp, though admittedly that was sometimes fun if you were in a strong group capable of pushing others out -- less so if they were stubborn). The producer has even said that chain running dungeons will be the fastest way to level, which is good because I get a bit nauseous when I think about doing non-storyline quests.

I own ff xiv(got it first month) how do I apply for realm reborn phase 3?