Any guess as to how much story is in FF14 is pure speculation.
Right now you can finish your 48 hours worth of Regional guild leve's in 2 hours or less. I can't imagine that it is going to be possible to advance your character without grinding. Even the casual player will probably be somewhat effected by this, especially on weekends.
The guild leve timers are set higher for beta. The amount of story is speculation, but its educated speculation since FFXI story line was well over 40hrs before the first expansion. Trust me, grind won't be an issue. Even if it is, so what, guild leves and questing in general is exactly the same grind.
I guessed you missed the part about completeing guild leve's in 2 hrs or chose to ignore it.
Why do I have to state "in my opinion" for everything I say. Just by saying something that is subjective the "IMO" is implied. Also, I don't like any form of grind, quest or mobs and I don't distinguish between the two. If all a game has, content wise, is nothing but a WoW copy then I may as well be playing WoW.
That is the impression I get from SWTOR. It doesn't help that the SW IP is prefect for a non-faction based PvP game, yet BioWear and EA turn it into a faction game. SW is also the prefect IP for an action orientated combat system, but instead of giving you an action orientated combat system they give you the illusion of one. The same thing about being "epic". Sorry, taking out 5 guys at once isn't "epic" if its not hard and if every other class/person in the game can as well. The entire game feels like a ball of lies.
About the "grind" in FFXIV: 90% of the game isn't in this includes story line (the bulk of the game), 100s of craftable items, guild leves, the ability to do the same guild leve 4 times in a 24hr period, etc. The game will not be a huge grind unless you want to be completely self-sufficent, or you are like me and can't stand the illusion of not grinding. The saving grace that will stop that is if the time investment for leveling is minor. It appears to be so with questing.
Any guess as to how much story is in FF14 is pure speculation.
Right now you can finish your 48 hours worth of Regional guild leve's in 2 hours or less. I can't imagine that it is going to be possible to advance your character without grinding. Even the casual player will probably be somewhat effected by this, especially on weekends.
The guild leve timers are set higher for beta. The amount of story is speculation, but its educated speculation since FFXI story line was well over 40hrs before the first expansion. Trust me, grind won't be an issue. Even if it is, so what, guild leves and questing in general is exactly the same grind.
FFXI was all grinding. You just got into groups and killed rabbits...or at least I did that until lvl 20 something when I decided it was not fun and quit. I don't know if maybe you are missing what grinding actually is, or you just disillusioned yourself to it, but it's definitely in every MMO.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
Any guess as to how much story is in FF14 is pure speculation. Right now you can finish your 48 hours worth of Regional guild leve's in 2 hours or less. I can't imagine that it is going to be possible to advance your character without grinding. Even the casual player will probably be somewhat effected by this, especially on weekends.
The guild leve timers are set higher for beta. The amount of story is speculation, but its educated speculation since FFXI story line was well over 40hrs before the first expansion. Trust me, grind won't be an issue. Even if it is, so what, guild leves and questing in general is exactly the same grind.
I guessed you missed the part about completeing guild leve's in 2 hrs or chose to ignore it.
Oh, you still think the only guild leves that will be in at launch are the ones present in OB.
Originally posted by Burnthebed
Originally posted by xpiher
Originally posted by Atlan99
Originally posted by xpiher
Originally posted by Burnthebed
Originally posted by xpiher
Originally posted by Burnthebed
Originally posted by xpiher
Originally posted by pmcubed
Why do I have to state "in my opinion" for everything I say. Just by saying something that is subjective the "IMO" is implied. Also, I don't like any form of grind, quest or mobs and I don't distinguish between the two. If all a game has, content wise, is nothing but a WoW copy then I may as well be playing WoW. That is the impression I get from SWTOR. It doesn't help that the SW IP is prefect for a non-faction based PvP game, yet BioWear and EA turn it into a faction game. SW is also the prefect IP for an action orientated combat system, but instead of giving you an action orientated combat system they give you the illusion of one. The same thing about being "epic". Sorry, taking out 5 guys at once isn't "epic" if its not hard and if every other class/person in the game can as well. The entire game feels like a ball of lies. About the "grind" in FFXIV: 90% of the game isn't in this includes story line (the bulk of the game), 100s of craftable items, guild leves, the ability to do the same guild leve 4 times in a 24hr period, etc. The game will not be a huge grind unless you want to be completely self-sufficent, or you are like me and can't stand the illusion of not grinding. The saving grace that will stop that is if the time investment for leveling is minor. It appears to be so with questing.
Any guess as to how much story is in FF14 is pure speculation. Right now you can finish your 48 hours worth of Regional guild leve's in 2 hours or less. I can't imagine that it is going to be possible to advance your character without grinding. Even the casual player will probably be somewhat effected by this, especially on weekends.
The guild leve timers are set higher for beta. The amount of story is speculation, but its educated speculation since FFXI story line was well over 40hrs before the first expansion. Trust me, grind won't be an issue. Even if it is, so what, guild leves and questing in general is exactly the same grind.
FFXI was all grinding. You just got into groups and killed rabbits...or at least I did that until lvl 20 something when I decided it was not fun and quit. I don't know if maybe you are missing what grinding actually is, or you just disillusioned yourself to it, but it's definitely in every MMO.
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
What proof do you have of this? Do you know exactly what the details? Or are you speculating?
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
That's still grinding mobs (and nodes/crafting) all day. I'm hoping they give more variety in the way to complete leves and storyline quests.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
That's still grinding mobs (and nodes/crafting) all day. I'm hoping they give more variety in the way to complete leves and storyline quests.
This guys seems to think that grinding leves isn't grinding... I can't figure him out.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
That's still grinding mobs (and nodes/crafting) all day. I'm hoping they give more variety in the way to complete leves and storyline quests.
This guys seems to think that grinding leves isn't grinding... I can't figure him out.
Too many side arugments. OK, if you don't like leveling in PvE mmos, which is just a grind of various degress, then why play PvE mmos. That has been my point the entire time with regards to grind. If you are questiing, you are grinding, if you are kill mobs, you are grinding, if you are farming mobs for rare loot/gold you are grinding. Grind is all PvE mmos typically have. I hate it, I normally don't play PvE/Themepark MMOs for this very reason. However, FFXI, LOTR, and a few other MMOS have has good story lines which made the grind nothing more, for me, than the grind you do in a single player RPG with the added benifit of a communinty. The grind served a purpose. To me, a game like WoW is worse than a game like FFXI because all WoW gives you is "masked" grind.
When most people complain about "grind" they are talking about areas in a game where "quest", which is nothing more than the same grind with fake story progression, dries up and they are forced to fight mobs which causes them to level slower.
FFXIV is suppose to get you to cap, both in job and character, quicker through the leve system. This makes the grind more tolerable. Then there are the mini-instances were mobs only spawn for you, making rare item farming less time intensive as well. And then there is mob scaleability which increases chance for rare loot, which also reduces the grind if you are good at the game.
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
What proof do you have of this? Do you know exactly what the details? Or are you speculating?
It "is" still speculation, but this information is what's listed in the game manual:
"...the list of guildleves made available by the Adventurers’ Guild will change once every two hours (Earth time). Until that list is updated, players may not accept the same levequest twice, nor may they return an incomplete levequest having accepted it.
Failed levequests may be reattempted immediately upon renewal of the guildleve list."
That said, there's no proof that this will be the way things are at launch. While in beta there are plenty of reasons to set the 'leves to a much longer reset timer to promote diversity in general character development (leveling a gathering class, crafting class, and adventuring class all at once and testing them all out), I don't see as much of a reason to continue this into launch. When people hit the EXP cap for a specific class, they'll be taking up other classes even without that extra nudge from their levequests being on cooldown. Still, even if the levequests were to remain on a 48 hour CD I don't really see an imminent issue- with faction levequests, gathering levequests, adventuring levequests, and crafting levequests, plus the main storyline, plus just grouping for the fun of it and running around blasting things to smithereens...
*Shrugs* Still, it would be nice if we get a cooldown of twenty-four hours or less.
Do you play Go? (Weiqi, Baduk, iGo) ------------------------------------------
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
That's still grinding mobs (and nodes/crafting) all day. I'm hoping they give more variety in the way to complete leves and storyline quests.
This guys seems to think that grinding leves isn't grinding... I can't figure him out.
Too many side arugments. OK, if you don't like leveling in PvE mmos, which is just a grind of various degress, then why play PvE mmos. That has been my point the entire time with regards to grind. If you are questiing, you are grinding, if you are kill mobs, you are grinding, if you are farming mobs for rare loot/gold you are grinding. Grind is all PvE mmos typically have. I hate it, I normally don't play PvE/Themepark MMOs for this very reason. However, FFXI, LOTR, and a few other MMOS have has good story lines which made the grind nothing more, for me, than the grind you do in a single player RPG with the added benifit of a communinty. The grind served a purpose. To me, a game like WoW is worse than a game like FFXI because all WoW gives you is "masked" grind.
When most people complain about "grind" they are talking about areas in a game where "quest", which is nothing more than the same grind with fake story progression, dries up and they are forced to fight mobs which causes them to level slower.
FFXIV is suppose to get you to cap, both in job and character, quicker through the leve system. This makes the grind more tolerable. Then there are the mini-instances were mobs only spawn for you, making rare item farming less time intensive as well. And then there is mob scaleability which increases chance for rare loot, which also reduces the grind if you are good at the game.
Wow, I actually agree with you 100%. I just didn't understand what you were saying before because you never fully fleshed out your arguement like that. All games have a grind of some sort, even fps games like modern warfare and the like. I'm hopeful that ffxiv will add more leve's and stuff to get away from people just having to go out and grind mobs.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
Sadly, i have to agree with the OP. I mean I really want to love FFXIV but it's NOT FFXI. UI, questing, crafting, economy system, even basic grinding are horrible. I love playing as a magic caster but they way how combat works in FFXIV, it makes it almost impossible to enjoy the game. Specially, the cursor (floating hand) is NOT working very well at all. How a magic caster has to click twice on a target for an AOE spell is kind of pointless. I died so many times because the cursor was NOT responsive, I couldn't click on the "Center" of the target to cast AOE spells. Doesn't matter how beautiful the graphic is, it CAN NOT save the game.
I am glad I got to play during OB, so I still have time to cancel my CE. Wasn't anyone complaint to Square during CB??? WOW will continue to rule MMO world.......
This game, like FFXI, never had a chance to take World of Warcraft down. Pretty much the only thing capable of killing WoW is a WoW-clone with a plotline from some other long-standing IP (Star Wars comes to mind, though that IP is probably losing a lot of its juice after three generations), or some Pokemon MMO that has mass appeal to the same audience in the 'under 120 crowd' (that isn't a reference to age obviously).
As has been discussed (to death at this point) in the thread, 75% of the problems in FFXIV stem from not having an AH or equivalent system implemented, unique design choices that we all agree we can live with barring all else (menu hell), and the low level of responsiveness in the UI that just multiplies that issue while adding ten more.
For the first issue: if you'll remember, an Auction House was not implemented in Final Fantasy XI until a month after the game's launch, so I wouldn't be surprised if, like that game, they're simply waiting a bit to see how the economy will go before implementing it (they've actually stated this pretty well themselves). Until then it might be annoying, but you could always just go through each market instance and yell the item you want and how much you're willing to spend if you don't find it right away on your own. Your character might only be in the instance for two seconds, but after you get a PM you could ask the player which instance they're in and voila. You won't have to deal with it for long in any case.
As for the UI issues (lack of responsiveness), that seems to be the biggest problem, and the reason so many people are rage-quitting even before launch. Once things get optimized, which granted might not be in the next two weeks (it could take as long as the AH getting put into the game), the game will be perfectly playable. Please don't forget that the default key F11 works much better than Tab for targeting (it says 'Select PC' or something in the menu, but it selects ANYTHING directly in front of you by radius, so closer things get selected first), so switching those two around might benefit you as well.
Hotkeys for menus like inventory probably won't be added, but if that really makes you not even want to play the game (barring the other issues), you're probably nit-picky enough that the game wouldn't have been a good fit for you regardless. Unlike WoW, this game isn't being made to please everyone all the time.
There will be, without a doubt, a lot more guildleves to choose from and complete, and I'm pretty sure the reset timer will be less than what it is, so as long as things get optimized I suggest not giving up on this game just yet. Waiting a month after launch wouldn't be a bad idea at all though.
~Lysander Daringer
Do you play Go? (Weiqi, Baduk, iGo) ------------------------------------------
Because you spelled your topic wrong and it is evident that this thread is generally just a hater thread, you have economy section for beta? Really?! Let me explain to you why they are trying the bazaar system again, it's because they plan to create a diverse economy. With a centralized AH the price of items stays pretty standard; lets say item x is y amount in city Z, well in city A. x is still y. In this game they want to make it to where when you go to LL the price of X is going to be vastly different than it is in Y; it's a way of creating unique economies for each city state.. When you come back with less biased opinions towards a game (obviously your just hating cause you never planned to play the game anyways, instead you planned to play SWTOR). I'm sorry but your argument is fallacious, half of it is based off stuff that we can't even judge ourselves. And the leveling IS NOT bad, I have not hit surplus cap yet and I've been playing non stop since OB started... The leveling is not bad, but this is where a statement can be completely subjective. You gain several levels with leves, and like in FFXI grinding is encouraged. You forget to realize that you have only played low level content, grouping from level 1-20 was idiotic almost in FFXI, because you gained so much more experience soloing. FFXIV is no different in this regard, the mobs are so easy to kill that you can hardly ever get a hit in at low levels, the members of my LS who have hit 20+ are telling me that the mobs become increasingly harder and to level without grouping is idiotic. Yes there are still mobs that you can solo, but in general from what I've seen and heard the harder mobs are more worth ones time. The only thing I can agree on is that the software mouse is the worst creation of all time and should be wiped off the face of this earth; I play on a controller so this does not affect me. The beta is only half the game, the rest of it is not going to be revealed to the public till release.
This game is not standard; it's not WoW. Everyone always asks for a game that isn't a WoW clone, a game comes out that strives to be different, and everyone shoots it down. Also the utter lack of understanding about how SE works infuriates me, everyone assumes that SE works like every other company but they don't. They are a business, they plan to make money, but first and foremost they want to make a product. The OB is but a trial of the product, they do NOT want to reveal everything the game has, so a majority of the PVE content is missing in OB. Not to mention the plethora SE undoubtedly has in store for this game coming through patches and expansions. If they follow their previous track record with FFXI, I believe this game will not fail to meet and exceed expectations. There is plenty to do till their next update, which will undoubtedly come during the first or second month after release.
I honestly haven't had a too much trouble from the mouse control (especially after I found a patch that enables the hardware mouse). However, the game was clearly designed with a controller in mind, so I'm going to be playing with a borrowed 360 controller, which I think will make the UI more useable.
As for the bazaar system, I'm actually happy to hear that they're implementing a bazaar-type system. It's more like window shopping, which I prefer. I was browsing people's stores yesterday and bought like 30k worth of items from one person, simply because they had what I was looking for. Sellers can do really well with this system if they manage their inventories and pricing well.
Comments
I guessed you missed the part about completeing guild leve's in 2 hrs or chose to ignore it.
FFXI was all grinding. You just got into groups and killed rabbits...or at least I did that until lvl 20 something when I decided it was not fun and quit. I don't know if maybe you are missing what grinding actually is, or you just disillusioned yourself to it, but it's definitely in every MMO.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
11 was a grind. SE is making 14 less of a grind through their guild leve system. The guild leves that exist now are only a fraction of the ones that will be present at launch. Not only that, you'll be able to repeat them more often at launch. The OB has the leves set to a longer timer.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
What proof do you have of this? Do you know exactly what the details? Or are you speculating?
That's still grinding mobs (and nodes/crafting) all day. I'm hoping they give more variety in the way to complete leves and storyline quests.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
This guys seems to think that grinding leves isn't grinding... I can't figure him out.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
Too many side arugments. OK, if you don't like leveling in PvE mmos, which is just a grind of various degress, then why play PvE mmos. That has been my point the entire time with regards to grind. If you are questiing, you are grinding, if you are kill mobs, you are grinding, if you are farming mobs for rare loot/gold you are grinding. Grind is all PvE mmos typically have. I hate it, I normally don't play PvE/Themepark MMOs for this very reason. However, FFXI, LOTR, and a few other MMOS have has good story lines which made the grind nothing more, for me, than the grind you do in a single player RPG with the added benifit of a communinty. The grind served a purpose. To me, a game like WoW is worse than a game like FFXI because all WoW gives you is "masked" grind.
When most people complain about "grind" they are talking about areas in a game where "quest", which is nothing more than the same grind with fake story progression, dries up and they are forced to fight mobs which causes them to level slower.
FFXIV is suppose to get you to cap, both in job and character, quicker through the leve system. This makes the grind more tolerable. Then there are the mini-instances were mobs only spawn for you, making rare item farming less time intensive as well. And then there is mob scaleability which increases chance for rare loot, which also reduces the grind if you are good at the game.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
It "is" still speculation, but this information is what's listed in the game manual:
"...the list of guildleves made available by the Adventurers’ Guild will change once every two hours (Earth time). Until that list is updated, players may not accept the same levequest twice, nor may they return an incomplete levequest having accepted it.
Failed levequests may be reattempted immediately upon renewal of the guildleve list."
That said, there's no proof that this will be the way things are at launch. While in beta there are plenty of reasons to set the 'leves to a much longer reset timer to promote diversity in general character development (leveling a gathering class, crafting class, and adventuring class all at once and testing them all out), I don't see as much of a reason to continue this into launch. When people hit the EXP cap for a specific class, they'll be taking up other classes even without that extra nudge from their levequests being on cooldown. Still, even if the levequests were to remain on a 48 hour CD I don't really see an imminent issue- with faction levequests, gathering levequests, adventuring levequests, and crafting levequests, plus the main storyline, plus just grouping for the fun of it and running around blasting things to smithereens...
*Shrugs* Still, it would be nice if we get a cooldown of twenty-four hours or less.
Do you play Go? (Weiqi, Baduk, iGo)
------------------------------------------
Wow, I actually agree with you 100%. I just didn't understand what you were saying before because you never fully fleshed out your arguement like that. All games have a grind of some sort, even fps games like modern warfare and the like. I'm hopeful that ffxiv will add more leve's and stuff to get away from people just having to go out and grind mobs.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
This game, like FFXI, never had a chance to take World of Warcraft down. Pretty much the only thing capable of killing WoW is a WoW-clone with a plotline from some other long-standing IP (Star Wars comes to mind, though that IP is probably losing a lot of its juice after three generations), or some Pokemon MMO that has mass appeal to the same audience in the 'under 120 crowd' (that isn't a reference to age obviously).
As has been discussed (to death at this point) in the thread, 75% of the problems in FFXIV stem from not having an AH or equivalent system implemented, unique design choices that we all agree we can live with barring all else (menu hell), and the low level of responsiveness in the UI that just multiplies that issue while adding ten more.
For the first issue: if you'll remember, an Auction House was not implemented in Final Fantasy XI until a month after the game's launch, so I wouldn't be surprised if, like that game, they're simply waiting a bit to see how the economy will go before implementing it (they've actually stated this pretty well themselves). Until then it might be annoying, but you could always just go through each market instance and yell the item you want and how much you're willing to spend if you don't find it right away on your own. Your character might only be in the instance for two seconds, but after you get a PM you could ask the player which instance they're in and voila. You won't have to deal with it for long in any case.
As for the UI issues (lack of responsiveness), that seems to be the biggest problem, and the reason so many people are rage-quitting even before launch. Once things get optimized, which granted might not be in the next two weeks (it could take as long as the AH getting put into the game), the game will be perfectly playable. Please don't forget that the default key F11 works much better than Tab for targeting (it says 'Select PC' or something in the menu, but it selects ANYTHING directly in front of you by radius, so closer things get selected first), so switching those two around might benefit you as well.
Hotkeys for menus like inventory probably won't be added, but if that really makes you not even want to play the game (barring the other issues), you're probably nit-picky enough that the game wouldn't have been a good fit for you regardless. Unlike WoW, this game isn't being made to please everyone all the time.
There will be, without a doubt, a lot more guildleves to choose from and complete, and I'm pretty sure the reset timer will be less than what it is, so as long as things get optimized I suggest not giving up on this game just yet. Waiting a month after launch wouldn't be a bad idea at all though.
~Lysander Daringer
Do you play Go? (Weiqi, Baduk, iGo)
------------------------------------------
Because you spelled your topic wrong and it is evident that this thread is generally just a hater thread, you have economy section for beta? Really?! Let me explain to you why they are trying the bazaar system again, it's because they plan to create a diverse economy. With a centralized AH the price of items stays pretty standard; lets say item x is y amount in city Z, well in city A. x is still y. In this game they want to make it to where when you go to LL the price of X is going to be vastly different than it is in Y; it's a way of creating unique economies for each city state.. When you come back with less biased opinions towards a game (obviously your just hating cause you never planned to play the game anyways, instead you planned to play SWTOR). I'm sorry but your argument is fallacious, half of it is based off stuff that we can't even judge ourselves. And the leveling IS NOT bad, I have not hit surplus cap yet and I've been playing non stop since OB started... The leveling is not bad, but this is where a statement can be completely subjective. You gain several levels with leves, and like in FFXI grinding is encouraged. You forget to realize that you have only played low level content, grouping from level 1-20 was idiotic almost in FFXI, because you gained so much more experience soloing. FFXIV is no different in this regard, the mobs are so easy to kill that you can hardly ever get a hit in at low levels, the members of my LS who have hit 20+ are telling me that the mobs become increasingly harder and to level without grouping is idiotic. Yes there are still mobs that you can solo, but in general from what I've seen and heard the harder mobs are more worth ones time. The only thing I can agree on is that the software mouse is the worst creation of all time and should be wiped off the face of this earth; I play on a controller so this does not affect me. The beta is only half the game, the rest of it is not going to be revealed to the public till release.
This game is not standard; it's not WoW. Everyone always asks for a game that isn't a WoW clone, a game comes out that strives to be different, and everyone shoots it down. Also the utter lack of understanding about how SE works infuriates me, everyone assumes that SE works like every other company but they don't. They are a business, they plan to make money, but first and foremost they want to make a product. The OB is but a trial of the product, they do NOT want to reveal everything the game has, so a majority of the PVE content is missing in OB. Not to mention the plethora SE undoubtedly has in store for this game coming through patches and expansions. If they follow their previous track record with FFXI, I believe this game will not fail to meet and exceed expectations. There is plenty to do till their next update, which will undoubtedly come during the first or second month after release.
I honestly haven't had a too much trouble from the mouse control (especially after I found a patch that enables the hardware mouse). However, the game was clearly designed with a controller in mind, so I'm going to be playing with a borrowed 360 controller, which I think will make the UI more useable.
As for the bazaar system, I'm actually happy to hear that they're implementing a bazaar-type system. It's more like window shopping, which I prefer. I was browsing people's stores yesterday and bought like 30k worth of items from one person, simply because they had what I was looking for. Sellers can do really well with this system if they manage their inventories and pricing well.