I've played this game since the 2nd Closed Beta, giving it a try, a chance, to see what everyone seems to love about it, but to quote Tom hanks from "Big", I don't get it.
Now granted, I've played SOOOOOOO many MMO's, pretty much any & everything AAA & quite a few F2P's since Runescape, so I'm more than a wee bit jaded, but aside from the trademark Square FF feel, there is nothing here that hasn't been done a million times elsewhere, better.
It feels, even looks a bit, like Aion 2.0. Maybe I've been spoiled by game like Tera's visual awesomeness but the graphics look dated. No, visuals alone do not a great game make, but it has a decidedly generic Kill x # of y, take this there, talk to Person Zero quest system with very little variety, the opt-in instant-join public group quest mechanic that everyone's using, some cool cutscenes & voice acting, if you're into that sort of thing, & granted, really great music, but that's pretty much it. Yes, I know, the fanboys are lapping it up like fresh cake batter but if you're not wearing those "ZOMGFF11!!!!11!!"-colored glasses, the hype & hoopla, the game is blah.
The worst thing about the game, in my opinion, is the archaic outdated skill system. Where's the customization? I'm used to there being more to it than just 'Hit Level X, get Skill Y, add Attribute point here', especially after games like Aion, Rift, The Secret World, etc, that just let you run wild while tweaking your char. The skill system almost feels like an afterthought, like so much time, effort & money were put into the look & music & style & story that there's no real substance as far as skill customization. Think my highest level char was 21 so maybe that got/gets better later with some more levels but I don't see any incentive to do that.
I think this game is benefiting from 1: no real new AAA competition at the moment & 2: a massive amount of FF fanboys. I love the series, but besides that gorgeous soundtrack & again, that FF "feel", this game doesn't offer me anything that I can't get more of somewhere else. Maybe there are people who are satisfied with this game, but I'm NOT one of them, & neither are the group that I usually play with. I just need more than sparkly RP fluff.
So if you're not a FF fanatic, or your idea of a deep play experience involves more than cute chibi characters, catgirls & cutscenes, you can go ahead & skip this & wait for ArcheAge or Black Desert or go back to whatever you were playing before, unless you're spectacularly bored, there's really not much to see here.
P.S: Feel free to rant & pout & flame all you want but that won't change my opinion, or the fact that while it IS a huge incalculable improvement over its first iteration, & is not, I repeat NOT a terrible game, it's not as special as the Square fans think it is either.
Every problem players are mad about comes down to network problems. As an IT guy all I can say is you cant always know the loads you are going to get till you go live. SE could have done a lot more on this end of things but when it comes to the game... I am more then glad to wait out their very fixable problems. Best MMO I have played since WoW. Give this game a few major updates and this game will be a monster. Im having a blast.
You hit the nail on the head, what it offers is that ff feeling, it was never going to be the next step in mmorgs, in fact it was never pitched as that. Decent game as long as you are not looking for cutting edge which it is not.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Bladestrom You hit the nail on the head, what it offers is that ff feeling, it was never going to be the next step in mmorgs, in fact it was never pitched as that. Decent game as long as you are not looking for cutting edge which it is not.
Exactly. Guess that's why I'm underwhelmed, I gravitate towards games that are offering something that, to me anyway, is new, different, innovative, exciting, etc, so for me there's nothing fantastic there, just the same old, same old. I did have some cool deja vu-ish moments when certain pieces of familiar-sounding music began playing, but for what I'm looking for & have come to expect, although FF14 is much better than the first go-round, I'm not having orgasms & humping the monitor like some of the reviews of it that I've read.
Aside from the signature FF/Square aspects, it's an ok run-of-the-mill MMO. In that way it reminds me a bit of SWTOR, as in, being totally honest, would anyone even be playing it if it didn't have FF in the title?
Thank you for the heads up on the issues. Im a hardcore mmorpg player but just dont have time to waste on login issues such as these. I will wait about 3 weeks to buy the game or until i think these issues are resolved. Just glad i didnt buy the game yet to have been let down in the first week. I hate to say it but i knew this was going to happen simply from looking at a few pics and videos of the SE office. I mean really i saw a couple of small rooms with the super anime hair style president and like 3 other people...HAHA. For anyone to look at the size of the SE office and think they had a handle on the sheer numbers of locust content/ hardcore mmorpgs is beyond me. Did any of you really think a company with that staff size could handle the load? sorry still laughing out loud here...maybe im just too real at times. I cant help but think of a cheesy 90s song by alanis morrisette..."isnt ironic dont you think...." "a young man turns 28 buys a new mmorpg, just to get let down the first week...isnt it ironic dont you think...." hehe
A 5.1 rating by the reviewer and a user rating of 9. Clearly another example of how the reviewer isn't representative of the whole but rather themselves. Gee haven't seen this before....
Love it. I haven't been touched by the issues considering my guild chose to role on masamune(jp) (the unofficial international server) so my impression might be a bit more rosey than most of yours. It hits all the right notes for me and as a legacy player even with one 50 and only part of the endgame emplemented (it's coming very soon) I'm still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to do in this game. From crafting to fishing to leveling other classes I've yet to get to 50. There's months of content here and usually that's a statement most devs will give you but I'm talking hardcore work people.
The thing that get's me most is the horizontal progression without throwing away vertical. I like to level.. I like classes. I like having lots of buttons to press. Especially I like being able to do everything with just one character. Company member need help with a dungeon and they need a tank? Easy fit.. or a dd? again easy.. healer? Oh I have that too. It's amazing. It's not exactly breaking the tab target mold but it sure does break other types of molds that other games have tried without the artificial rope around your hands forcing you to stay at least more or less the same class with different roles. I like it. That's a completely subjective opinion but it is how I view it. Seriously expect to be playing this for a long time into the future.
I guess i just got lucky then lol. I downloaded it, hit the play button, transferred my 1.0 chars and hopped right in and started playing. I have played the past few nights and have only queued once, which took like 2 min to get in, and saw the error 1017 twice back to back the first night and that was it. My only gripe right now is once in game everything takes forever to load. When i zone it takes awhile and when i go into adventurers guild or THM guild it takes a long time for the npc's to load up. Not sure if it's on my end but i'm guessing it's not as i haven't had the problems on other games.
Anyway, haven't really had any headaches with this game other than longer than avg. load times.
I've played this game since the 2nd Closed Beta, giving it a try, a chance, to see what everyone seems to love about it, but to quote Tom hanks from "Big", I don't get it.
Now granted, I've played SOOOOOOO many MMO's, pretty much any & everything AAA & quite a few F2P's since Runescape, so I'm more than a wee bit jaded, but aside from the trademark Square FF feel, there is nothing here that hasn't been done a million times elsewhere, better.
It feels, even looks a bit, like Aion 2.0. Maybe I've been spoiled by game like Tera's visual awesomeness but the graphics look dated. No, visuals alone do not a great game make, but it has a decidedly generic Kill x # of y, take this there, talk to Person Zero quest system with very little variety, the opt-in instant-join public group quest mechanic that everyone's using, some cool cutscenes & voice acting, if you're into that sort of thing, & granted, really great music, but that's pretty much it. Yes, I know, the fanboys are lapping it up like fresh cake batter but if you're not wearing those "ZOMGFF11!!!!11!!"-colored glasses, the hype & hoopla, the game is blah.
The worst thing about the game, in my opinion, is the archaic outdated skill system. Where's the customization? I'm used to there being more to it than just 'Hit Level X, get Skill Y, add Attribute point here', especially after games like Aion, Rift, The Secret World, etc, that just let you run wild while tweaking your char. The skill system almost feels like an afterthought, like so much time, effort & money were put into the look & music & style & story that there's no real substance as far as skill customization. Think my highest level char was 21 so maybe that got/gets better later with some more levels but I don't see any incentive to do that.
I think this game is benefiting from 1: no real new AAA competition at the moment & 2: a massive amount of FF fanboys. I love the series, but besides that gorgeous soundtrack & again, that FF "feel", this game doesn't offer me anything that I can't get more of somewhere else. Maybe there are people who are satisfied with this game, but I'm NOT one of them, & neither are the group that I usually play with. I just need more than sparkly RP fluff.
So if you're not a FF fanatic, or your idea of a deep play experience involves more than cute chibi characters, catgirls & cutscenes, you can go ahead & skip this & wait for ArcheAge or Black Desert or go back to whatever you were playing before, unless you're spectacularly bored, there's really not much to see here.
P.S: Feel free to rant & pout & flame all you want but that won't change my opinion, or the fact that while it IS a huge incalculable improvement over its first iteration, & is not, I repeat NOT a terrible game, it's not as special as the Square fans think it is either.
For DPS classes the stat customization is inferior to what you see in online games such as Path of Exile. This means that FFXIV does have a "min-max" focus. (can't speak about healers and tanks since I haven't played them)
However, the crafting classes in FFXIV is far better than the majority of recent AAA MMORPGs. Needless to say, I spend roughly 80% of my time on crafting and maybe 20% on my dps character.
Originally posted by Nanfoodle Every problem players are mad about comes down to network problems. As an IT guy all I can say is you cant always know the loads you are going to get till you go live. SE could have done a lot more on this end of things but when it comes to the game... I am more then glad to wait out their very fixable problems. Best MMO I have played since WoW. Give this game a few major updates and this game will be a monster. Im having a blast.
I think this is part of the problem though, "liking" a game shouldn't put it above criticism. It shouldn't render the devs saints who are now above a verbal thrashing from their community. It shouldn't even be an emotional driven response at all, it should be an objective assessment of job performance thus far.
You said it yourself they could have done more. I'll raise that to a lot more. Their weekend only beta phases were a waste of time; because they didn't offer a proper amount of it for actual testing, they played the give em just enough so they want more, game with us. Which is brilliant marketing wise, but it severely ruined any chance at a proper testing focus.
They should have done what everyone else does, bring in a large group of core testers that tested the game all week long months at a time on a normal basis, then bring in the masses periodically for weekend stress testing. That's how you prepare for launch day stress related issues. You know where the system is weak, and have ample time to have fixes in place before it happens to paying customers.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
my suggestion to all new players, wait till the server are increased with higher capacity and a queue system set in place. Else u will be as frustrated like me and my friends, been playing how to login without error code since early access day (yes we are CE players) ...I know..WTF
Originally posted by Dagon-Kahn I am appalled at this article. All you did was bitch and QQ.
It is very bad journalism in my view, Robert even writes in it :
"If you are currently playing the game, you unfortunately are all too familiar with errors 90000, 3102, 1017, and the missing queue."
Robert, I have been playing the game for days on NA server and haven't had this problem at all so far. Sure there may be some technical issues at launch with a game (there were with WoW for example), but to get it into your head that you are speaking for the silent majority playing the game and having fun right now in FF is an immature viewpoint. Rage quit on the PC login screen is not the way to review games.
Great game, more so once the current issues are fixed, terrible customer service though which needs improving. Have had an issue redeeming a code since launch, contacted support, 3 days later get an email saying because it has been over 48 hrs for them to respond they have closed the ticket and to open another if the problem still exists. This is totally unexceptable and I hope once the hype dies down the issues and service will improve.
Lets say i join the duty as a dragoon (comes up lancer) but i'm a dragoon. I then switch my weapon and do some blacksmithing while waiting.
The duty finder goes active after 30 mins, due to the amount of time i have i quickly change my weapon and hit commence.
Now you're thinking, Okay you're in the duty... you have your dragoon (lancer) weapon all you have to do now is hit your gear set you saved and on you go.
BUT no, see you can't use the gear set changes in the duty. So you have to manually equip all your amour from the armory chest. Yep. Fanastic.
It gets worse, since you can't change Jobs in the duty, I'm stuck as a lancer as i can't equip my dragoon crystal.
brilliant design.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
I'm an EU player playing on NA server and I gotta say that getting into the game during my playtimes has rarely any issues and if I have any issues it's because my game crashed due to "runtime error" during NA's peak hours (rarely though).
I'm a "returning" player from ver 1.0 so I have free time until SEP 9 and so far I haven't had a trouble, but some people in my Free Company said they had to re-enter their game key.
Also I had 1.0 Collector's Edition, so I've got current CE's items plus Onion Helmet (pretty much useless though). I missed the time window to do pre-order shananigans (pre-order, get the key and then cancel), so much that was mentioned in this article doesn't even concern me at all.
Originally posted by Raxeon sam the launch sint really rough the servers are full but stable the only issues is not everyone can play thats all se will make up for it with free days so you wont lose out on any of your time
Oh, stop splitting hairs.
When people are buying a product (game or otherwise) which they can't use - for days in a row - that's a poor launch. No other way around it.
This apologetic nonsense just doesn't stop.
Player A: "I have these issues with the game..."
Player B: "Can't complain because Beta 1"
Player A: (weeks later): "I'm still having issues with the game..."
Player B: "Can't complain, because Beta 2"
Player A: (weeks later): "I'm still having issues with the game..."
Player B: "Oh my god. It's only Beta 3. Stop complaining!"
Player A: (weeks later) "Well it's now open Beta, and I'm still having issues..."
Player B: "Oh my god stop whining already! It hasn't launched yet!"
Player A: (some time later) "Okay, so now the game has released, and I'm still having these issues.."
Player B: "Oh would you shut up! It's only Early Access! It hasn't officially launched yet!"
Player A: (after launch) "Well, the game has now launched, and I can't even log in"
Player B: "Another entitled, whining crybaby who thinks they're owed something! The game just launched! What do you expect?!"
And on... and on... and on... The only thing that changes is what new excuse you people conjure up to stifle any criticism.
This is what undermines the apologists' stance; the fact that no matter what stage of development or release the game is in, you people will always find a reason why people "aren't allowed to complain or criticize". The fact is, it has nothing to do with what stage of Beta, Early Access, or Launch the game is in. It has everything to do with the apologists and white knights being incapable of accepting anything less than complete praise for their "favorite toy".
You people don't even attempt to be subtle about it... though some of you certainly seem to think you are.
The launch was poor. Period. SE did not do enough testing. They didn't even attempt to do stress testing until Open Beta, which was only a few days long, and then - even in light of issues that were clearly affecting many people - they "stayed the course" and released the game anyway.
I've been in plenty of Betas, and one thing that is a rather standard practice is "focused stress testing". Making sure the hardware/software - especially key features of the game (-cough- Duty Finder -cough-) can handle high amounts of traffic. SE never properly tested this; certainly not on their NA/EU servers.
They blew it on their launch, and their following inaction to address or alleviate it. Example: Choosing to not implement AFK player kicking until after they've expanded the data center. They completely missed the point on that. The need for an AFK-kicking mechanism is intended to alleviate the issues now when they're actually affecting people who've been unable to log in for almost a week... Not later when they (supposedly) no longer will.
And tha'ts not even counting their botched up job of EA codes, etc. That's not including the absolute cluster-f@@k of an account management system, requiring people to use 3 different logins to handle different aspects of the same account.
That's not counting how they just arbitrarily decided to close all tickets without resolution... requiring people to go back and re-open them... something I didn't even learn about 'til last night when I happened to see it mentioned on a thread. I received no email notifying me of it.
And don't even tell me "well you should have read the update from SE", 'cause that's nonsense. I'm their customer, and it's "customer service 101" to contact customers directly to inform them of any issues or changes in anything to do with their account. Even if it's automated.
By even the most lenient standards... this launch has been a mess for SE. I realize the fanboys and SE themselves are trying to spin it as some huge success. But all that proves is just how out of touch both groups are, and how they care more about the number of sales they've made than they do about the awful experience many of those "sales" are for their customers.
Great article Graky you really captured peoples frustrations with the game so far. Keep up the good work and all this writing is just helping you with Grad School
Does the mmorpg.com staff have a vendetta against this game? i also dont see nearly as much moderation on the forums compared to when gw2 launched.
Agree with you , that the most pathetic and stupid review I have ever read on this website
To me , this look like more what some angry teenager would say because he was unable to play since 2-3 day because of all these error .
yes the lauch was REALY BAD but when you get inside the game THAT REALY GOOD
and that just one , if not , the best mmorpg out curently , for oldschool mmorpg players that the only title since many year who go back in the old school roots of the genre and that amazing , the game also got the job and class system where you actualy need to level other class for unlock other class with the option to mix skill from all the class you unlock ( that realy amazing and this give the game SO MUCH more time to hit endgame )
the crafting just like vanguard ( aka the best )
for resume , that a pathetic review you give here and from reading the final fantasy 14 realm reborn in this website , no moderation , in the gw2 forum you say something about the game = auto close , in the one for ff14 they stay open for week.
the jap dont pay you guy ?? huh mmorpg ??
The process of getting into the game, creating a character and being able to actually play is part of the overall experience, just as much as actually playing it. You can't conveniently separate one from the other... no matter how much you want to try and argue otherwise.
It would be irresponsible and dishonest for the reviewer to not mention all these issues, as they're a realistic part of what a player can, and should, expect to experience for now when attempting to play ARR.
MMORPG.com has noted the rough launches and difficulties around other launches as well. They're not just "picking on ARR".
And for crying out loud.... a "Review In Progress" means that there will be additional parts added later. This is "Part 1" of who knows how many.
When they reach a final score for the game, assuming it's a high-scoring game (and it might well be... the game itself is solid... when you can actually play it), that part 1 is going to be nothing more than a "wow... remember how bad that launch was? But look how well everything turned out regardless".
If the game is truly good, and truly holds up over time... its launch will not matter. Of course, except to people who, as usual, can't handle anything negative or critical being said about "their favorite toy".
My friend convinced me to pre-order this game. I was able to play for a few hours during the last beta phase, but have not been able to log in since, getting error 1017. Instead of patiently waiting for them to fix what really shouldn't have been this big of a problem, I have requested a refund and won't be bothering with this game.
It was fun for the short time I got to play it, and looks like a pretty decent game, but I'm not going to pay for a game that I can't even play.
Comments
I've played this game since the 2nd Closed Beta, giving it a try, a chance, to see what everyone seems to love about it, but to quote Tom hanks from "Big", I don't get it.
Now granted, I've played SOOOOOOO many MMO's, pretty much any & everything AAA & quite a few F2P's since Runescape, so I'm more than a wee bit jaded, but aside from the trademark Square FF feel, there is nothing here that hasn't been done a million times elsewhere, better.
It feels, even looks a bit, like Aion 2.0. Maybe I've been spoiled by game like Tera's visual awesomeness but the graphics look dated. No, visuals alone do not a great game make, but it has a decidedly generic Kill x # of y, take this there, talk to Person Zero quest system with very little variety, the opt-in instant-join public group quest mechanic that everyone's using, some cool cutscenes & voice acting, if you're into that sort of thing, & granted, really great music, but that's pretty much it. Yes, I know, the fanboys are lapping it up like fresh cake batter but if you're not wearing those "ZOMGFF11!!!!11!!"-colored glasses, the hype & hoopla, the game is blah.
The worst thing about the game, in my opinion, is the archaic outdated skill system. Where's the customization? I'm used to there being more to it than just 'Hit Level X, get Skill Y, add Attribute point here', especially after games like Aion, Rift, The Secret World, etc, that just let you run wild while tweaking your char. The skill system almost feels like an afterthought, like so much time, effort & money were put into the look & music & style & story that there's no real substance as far as skill customization. Think my highest level char was 21 so maybe that got/gets better later with some more levels but I don't see any incentive to do that.
I think this game is benefiting from 1: no real new AAA competition at the moment & 2: a massive amount of FF fanboys. I love the series, but besides that gorgeous soundtrack & again, that FF "feel", this game doesn't offer me anything that I can't get more of somewhere else. Maybe there are people who are satisfied with this game, but I'm NOT one of them, & neither are the group that I usually play with. I just need more than sparkly RP fluff.
So if you're not a FF fanatic, or your idea of a deep play experience involves more than cute chibi characters, catgirls & cutscenes, you can go ahead & skip this & wait for ArcheAge or Black Desert or go back to whatever you were playing before, unless you're spectacularly bored, there's really not much to see here.
P.S: Feel free to rant & pout & flame all you want but that won't change my opinion, or the fact that while it IS a huge incalculable improvement over its first iteration, & is not, I repeat NOT a terrible game, it's not as special as the Square fans think it is either.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Exactly. Guess that's why I'm underwhelmed, I gravitate towards games that are offering something that, to me anyway, is new, different, innovative, exciting, etc, so for me there's nothing fantastic there, just the same old, same old. I did have some cool deja vu-ish moments when certain pieces of familiar-sounding music began playing, but for what I'm looking for & have come to expect, although FF14 is much better than the first go-round, I'm not having orgasms & humping the monitor like some of the reviews of it that I've read.
Aside from the signature FF/Square aspects, it's an ok run-of-the-mill MMO. In that way it reminds me a bit of SWTOR, as in, being totally honest, would anyone even be playing it if it didn't have FF in the title?
Love it. I haven't been touched by the issues considering my guild chose to role on masamune(jp) (the unofficial international server) so my impression might be a bit more rosey than most of yours. It hits all the right notes for me and as a legacy player even with one 50 and only part of the endgame emplemented (it's coming very soon) I'm still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to do in this game. From crafting to fishing to leveling other classes I've yet to get to 50. There's months of content here and usually that's a statement most devs will give you but I'm talking hardcore work people.
The thing that get's me most is the horizontal progression without throwing away vertical. I like to level.. I like classes. I like having lots of buttons to press. Especially I like being able to do everything with just one character. Company member need help with a dungeon and they need a tank? Easy fit.. or a dd? again easy.. healer? Oh I have that too. It's amazing. It's not exactly breaking the tab target mold but it sure does break other types of molds that other games have tried without the artificial rope around your hands forcing you to stay at least more or less the same class with different roles. I like it. That's a completely subjective opinion but it is how I view it. Seriously expect to be playing this for a long time into the future.
I guess i just got lucky then lol. I downloaded it, hit the play button, transferred my 1.0 chars and hopped right in and started playing. I have played the past few nights and have only queued once, which took like 2 min to get in, and saw the error 1017 twice back to back the first night and that was it. My only gripe right now is once in game everything takes forever to load. When i zone it takes awhile and when i go into adventurers guild or THM guild it takes a long time for the npc's to load up. Not sure if it's on my end but i'm guessing it's not as i haven't had the problems on other games.
Anyway, haven't really had any headaches with this game other than longer than avg. load times.
For DPS classes the stat customization is inferior to what you see in online games such as Path of Exile. This means that FFXIV does have a "min-max" focus. (can't speak about healers and tanks since I haven't played them)
However, the crafting classes in FFXIV is far better than the majority of recent AAA MMORPGs. Needless to say, I spend roughly 80% of my time on crafting and maybe 20% on my dps character.
He told the truth....sometimes the truth hurts....
I think this is part of the problem though, "liking" a game shouldn't put it above criticism. It shouldn't render the devs saints who are now above a verbal thrashing from their community. It shouldn't even be an emotional driven response at all, it should be an objective assessment of job performance thus far.
You said it yourself they could have done more. I'll raise that to a lot more. Their weekend only beta phases were a waste of time; because they didn't offer a proper amount of it for actual testing, they played the give em just enough so they want more, game with us. Which is brilliant marketing wise, but it severely ruined any chance at a proper testing focus.
They should have done what everyone else does, bring in a large group of core testers that tested the game all week long months at a time on a normal basis, then bring in the masses periodically for weekend stress testing. That's how you prepare for launch day stress related issues. You know where the system is weak, and have ample time to have fixes in place before it happens to paying customers.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It is very bad journalism in my view, Robert even writes in it :
"If you are currently playing the game, you unfortunately are all too familiar with errors 90000, 3102, 1017, and the missing queue."
Robert, I have been playing the game for days on NA server and haven't had this problem at all so far. Sure there may be some technical issues at launch with a game (there were with WoW for example), but to get it into your head that you are speaking for the silent majority playing the game and having fun right now in FF is an immature viewpoint. Rage quit on the PC login screen is not the way to review games.
It s very much trinity. That said outside the issues it s having, I have loved every second of it. I really look forward to the future of this title.
the one thing that's annoying me is the Gear Set.
Lets say i join the duty as a dragoon (comes up lancer) but i'm a dragoon. I then switch my weapon and do some blacksmithing while waiting.
The duty finder goes active after 30 mins, due to the amount of time i have i quickly change my weapon and hit commence.
Now you're thinking, Okay you're in the duty... you have your dragoon (lancer) weapon all you have to do now is hit your gear set you saved and on you go.
BUT no, see you can't use the gear set changes in the duty. So you have to manually equip all your amour from the armory chest. Yep. Fanastic.
It gets worse, since you can't change Jobs in the duty, I'm stuck as a lancer as i can't equip my dragoon crystal.
brilliant design.
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
this website is the most retarded....
they rate ff 5.1 and users 9.0
and they make infinite pub of shit neverwinter .
fucking greedy retards.
ban me also : # truth hurts
I'm an EU player playing on NA server and I gotta say that getting into the game during my playtimes has rarely any issues and if I have any issues it's because my game crashed due to "runtime error" during NA's peak hours (rarely though).
I'm a "returning" player from ver 1.0 so I have free time until SEP 9 and so far I haven't had a trouble, but some people in my Free Company said they had to re-enter their game key.
Also I had 1.0 Collector's Edition, so I've got current CE's items plus Onion Helmet (pretty much useless though). I missed the time window to do pre-order shananigans (pre-order, get the key and then cancel), so much that was mentioned in this article doesn't even concern me at all.
Cheers.
Oh, stop splitting hairs.
When people are buying a product (game or otherwise) which they can't use - for days in a row - that's a poor launch. No other way around it.
This apologetic nonsense just doesn't stop.
Player A: "I have these issues with the game..."
Player B: "Can't complain because Beta 1"
Player A: (weeks later): "I'm still having issues with the game..."
Player B: "Can't complain, because Beta 2"
Player A: (weeks later): "I'm still having issues with the game..."
Player B: "Oh my god. It's only Beta 3. Stop complaining!"
Player A: (weeks later) "Well it's now open Beta, and I'm still having issues..."
Player B: "Oh my god stop whining already! It hasn't launched yet!"
Player A: (some time later) "Okay, so now the game has released, and I'm still having these issues.."
Player B: "Oh would you shut up! It's only Early Access! It hasn't officially launched yet!"
Player A: (after launch) "Well, the game has now launched, and I can't even log in"
Player B: "Another entitled, whining crybaby who thinks they're owed something! The game just launched! What do you expect?!"
And on... and on... and on... The only thing that changes is what new excuse you people conjure up to stifle any criticism.
This is what undermines the apologists' stance; the fact that no matter what stage of development or release the game is in, you people will always find a reason why people "aren't allowed to complain or criticize". The fact is, it has nothing to do with what stage of Beta, Early Access, or Launch the game is in. It has everything to do with the apologists and white knights being incapable of accepting anything less than complete praise for their "favorite toy".
You people don't even attempt to be subtle about it... though some of you certainly seem to think you are.
The launch was poor. Period. SE did not do enough testing. They didn't even attempt to do stress testing until Open Beta, which was only a few days long, and then - even in light of issues that were clearly affecting many people - they "stayed the course" and released the game anyway.
I've been in plenty of Betas, and one thing that is a rather standard practice is "focused stress testing". Making sure the hardware/software - especially key features of the game (-cough- Duty Finder -cough-) can handle high amounts of traffic. SE never properly tested this; certainly not on their NA/EU servers.
They blew it on their launch, and their following inaction to address or alleviate it. Example: Choosing to not implement AFK player kicking until after they've expanded the data center. They completely missed the point on that. The need for an AFK-kicking mechanism is intended to alleviate the issues now when they're actually affecting people who've been unable to log in for almost a week... Not later when they (supposedly) no longer will.
And tha'ts not even counting their botched up job of EA codes, etc. That's not including the absolute cluster-f@@k of an account management system, requiring people to use 3 different logins to handle different aspects of the same account.
That's not counting how they just arbitrarily decided to close all tickets without resolution... requiring people to go back and re-open them... something I didn't even learn about 'til last night when I happened to see it mentioned on a thread. I received no email notifying me of it.
And don't even tell me "well you should have read the update from SE", 'cause that's nonsense. I'm their customer, and it's "customer service 101" to contact customers directly to inform them of any issues or changes in anything to do with their account. Even if it's automated.
By even the most lenient standards... this launch has been a mess for SE. I realize the fanboys and SE themselves are trying to spin it as some huge success. But all that proves is just how out of touch both groups are, and how they care more about the number of sales they've made than they do about the awful experience many of those "sales" are for their customers.
The process of getting into the game, creating a character and being able to actually play is part of the overall experience, just as much as actually playing it. You can't conveniently separate one from the other... no matter how much you want to try and argue otherwise.
It would be irresponsible and dishonest for the reviewer to not mention all these issues, as they're a realistic part of what a player can, and should, expect to experience for now when attempting to play ARR.
MMORPG.com has noted the rough launches and difficulties around other launches as well. They're not just "picking on ARR".
And for crying out loud.... a "Review In Progress" means that there will be additional parts added later. This is "Part 1" of who knows how many.
When they reach a final score for the game, assuming it's a high-scoring game (and it might well be... the game itself is solid... when you can actually play it), that part 1 is going to be nothing more than a "wow... remember how bad that launch was? But look how well everything turned out regardless".
If the game is truly good, and truly holds up over time... its launch will not matter. Of course, except to people who, as usual, can't handle anything negative or critical being said about "their favorite toy".
My friend convinced me to pre-order this game. I was able to play for a few hours during the last beta phase, but have not been able to log in since, getting error 1017. Instead of patiently waiting for them to fix what really shouldn't have been this big of a problem, I have requested a refund and won't be bothering with this game.
It was fun for the short time I got to play it, and looks like a pretty decent game, but I'm not going to pay for a game that I can't even play.