The NDA on Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) has finally been dropped I got a key thanks to Fileplanet's giveaway. I been playing it off and on for the last couple weeks now and wanted to give my impressions of the game. Do note there is some mouse and interface lag but as someone who has been in previous betas I expected stuff like this. That being said I will not be reporting on bugs and excess lag because I expect this to be fixed in the retail release.
Like all MMOs I started off with character creation which was very smooth and fluid for the most part. There are five races, each with two different tribes that have their own visual look. From what I can see in game there is no downside to any tribe or race and they all start with the same stats. Not sure if this will change but for now race is only an aesthetic choice. For the sake of the beta I made a Hyur Midlander.
The number of character options were good but not on par with games like Aion, or Champions Online. Rather a few more than World of Warcraft. You were able to adjust your height, chin, lips, nose, hair (with two tone hair color), eyes, and few extra features like adding tattoos or scars. All these were predetermined not slider based. Rather interesting you were given the ability to choose your character's voice, birthday, and deity of worship. The voice is becoming a more common thing in MMOs with the ability to personalize your own grunts and screams. However, I am not sure what effect the deity and birthday will have on the game, only time will tell.
Finally before finishing character creation you must pick your starting class. Now each class in the game is bound to their weapon meaning that the moment you change weapons your class is changed. Think of class more of a style of combat than a career or way of life like it is seen in other MMOs. What is rather interesting is that Square-Enix decided to make gathering and crafting professions into non-combat classes each with their own way of leveling up. For the beta I started as a Lancer since pole-arms are fun.
The game opens up to possibly the most awesome and worst tutorial ever. Awesome in the way it hits you with a story defining moment worthy of the name Final Fantasy but horrible in its execution of actually teaching you anything. The tutorial consists of walking to a door without being told at all from anything in the game on how to walk (WASD is the basic movement keys) and than being told to kill three monsters with only the bare basics of combat being repeated in the chat window. Even if this is fixed there should be more. At the moment only the initiated of MMO players will be able to play this game. Anyone picking up a game for the first time will likely quit in frustration.
After a short series of quests wrapping up the tutorial you are introduced to the major questing and travel systems in the game. All quests are divided into two major categories, actual story quests, and Guildleves the primary way to advance in rank and level. Guildleves, depending on the type, set you up with a task to complete within thirty minutes. For combat Leves you are given the choice of difficulty and than a big arrow on your mini-map tells you where to go. Upon reaching the location you are greeted with a semi-instanced/phased area (the size is visible on the mini-map) where your marks are located. Completing these gives you a trip back to the area you started it from and some nice loot. Leves are repeatable and scale well for solo and party play. It is also nice to actually have your targets only be seen by you. A great improvement to the classic kill 10 X for Y quest. The downside? Well you can only start eight every 48 hours. You can still join others Guildleves for the experience but not the money or loot. Before I move on I should mention there are also crafting and gathering Guildleves which from what I can tell have no cap on how many you can do.
Storyline Quests are done in a similar fashion but give more meaty story (as the name implies) and more varied objectives. I should point out these are 100% instanced, however, you can bump into people doing the same quest as I came across someone just standing AFK in one instanced section. One of the more hilarious ones was escorting a Lalafell fisher to a lighthouse, the instance size was not that large and the instance area was moving with her.
I know many worry that this game will be like its predecessor, Final Fantasy XI, when it comes to traveling. I am glad to report that is not necessarily the case. I will start off by saying Final Fantasy XIV zones are some of the largest I seen in any MMO with plenty to do and see. Scattered through the area are large crystals called Aetheryte. These serve as the starting locations for Guildleves and you can travel to any Aetheryte you visited in the past at any time for the cost of some Anima. What is Anima...I have no idea the game gave me 100 of it to start and it only took four to travel to each of the Aetheryte I have visited.
Well this is getting rather long in the tooth so I will have to make this a two part adventure. Next time we visit the land of Eoreza we will look at the user interface, combat, progression, crafting and economy.
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