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Best MMO I've played in years...no..seriously!
echolynfan
Member UncommonPosts: 681
No hyperbole here - this is a VERY polished game with possibly the best crafting system since SWG (it's still early yet but it's overwhelming how much you can do) Problems at launch will fade away as people get into the game - new servers are being added and upgraded as I type this.
You don't have to have 10 alts - you can create one character if you want and just skill up anything and everything! Just switch weapons and you switch combat/crafting profs in a flash...including gear for each. (I have wanted this is a AAA MMO since I've been playing). I did play Darkfall Online which had that kind of setup but the grind was terrible.
Game engine rocks and is smooth and the environment is one of the most beautiful I've seen - weather...lighting you name it. The detail is spectacular across the board - from avatars to animals to landscape to buildings...etc.
One big surprise to me (I'm new to FF) is the story...I find myself really getting into the story. Some cut scenes even have vocals and the voice acting is very well done. Some of the stuff is cutesy but not overdone.
Now...it's still early on but after playing so many MMO's - and I swore up and down after Star Wars The Old Republic that I was NOT going to buy another game at launch - but I'm glad I did) I can safely give this one a BIG thumbs up!
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
Comments
+1
Great game, shows what a bunch of dork's the version 1 developers were. ARR makes me very glad I purchased version 1
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
It's what I wanted to see for year in a game, but could not find. I found it in this, but can't play it. ><
Fix the log in issues. Flip the switch on AFK. Setup a queue, so it caps at like 2k or something. It's so damn hard to log in.
I will stay around to play the game. Just work out the kinks. Like i'm sure they will.
I managed to get onto a Japanese server and play for about 1.5 - 2 hours before the maintenance message popped up. It's clearly way too early for me to give any actual impressions on the game, but right off the bat I can say that it both looks and feels good. Music is pretty good too. I rolled a Thaumaturgist and got to about level 7 and some change. Cutscenes are a little much at times, but at others I enjoyed them (depends on what I found to be interesting). I've been reading the main story quests, and just sort of skimming over the side quests, and the writing is pretty decent thus far. I managed to get into a FATE just before it ended, but didn't really know what was going on (something about a rat attack).
I definitely want to play more. So hopefully maintenance fixes everything and I'll be able to give it a go again tomorrow afternoon.
I played most of the betas for this one. Was let down with 1.0, BUT as each beta progressed I became more and more excited for launch. I have been frustrated by the login issues, but it is a rock solid game. I even upgraded my account to collector. I have always loved FF games and look forward to this one.
One thing (major for me) that does bother me is that they did not opt to voice act more of the cut scenes. Sometimes a cut scene is half done.... appears to me that they dropped the ball or focused efforts elsewhere due to time restraints. It would have been better for me to have NO voice acting than the hodge-podge that is in the game right now. The story I absolutely love!
Seems that you 1.0 players got to keep your Goobbue mounts as someone was dry humping my head with one the other day. Lucky sob's....I WANT A GOOBBUE, nothing humps head like a Goobbue.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
Well to each his own... I expect a much smoother launch, with fewer bugs and stupid problems from a game before I am willing to call it the best MMO in years. But I certainly don't mean to disparage echolnfan, I simply cannot agree with him.
i have to completely agree with you. This game is similar to so many others but it has something in it i cant let go. Immersion, story line, game play, whatever it is i cant stop playing. I was a huge Darkfall player as well but i grinded away for two years till giving up that they would fix it. This is the closest i've come to enjoying an mmo that much. (With that being said my perfect mmo would be closer to darkfall though) Im giving FFXIV 8.5/10, and im very critical. There are no bugs that ive seen so far and ive play in two areas with two classes to 23. It is easily the best looking mmo in the market and it just has this enjoyment about it. Would recommend.
The game is so solid I have to come up with weak sauce complaints about how the maps could have been twice as big and why I can't skip all cut scenes with ESC because I have seen them a bunch of times already (This game is not stopping me from making alts, less the usual, but still alts).
Great game so far
Oh you're right - the launch was messed up but they're fixing the problem very quickly. I've been in games with great launches *cough* SWTOR *cough* which later turned out to be a big FAT TURD!. I'll take a bad launch week over a bad game anyday
And while we're on the subject - does anyone kn ow how much FF ARR costs? I mean...EA/Bioware spent millions on SWTOR and look how that game turned out.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
You can skip cut scenes, double tap ESC
Agreed. It's refreshing to have a game that I look forward to playing when I get home at night. It seems like over the past year or so I've been going through phases where I'll play TSW, GW2, Rift etc. for a few weeks and then get bored and switch to another game. Hopefully this game remains fun after the newness wears off and it becomes easy to login. I feel like part of the appeal with ARR is that it is so difficult to access this game right now. lol There's a sense of mystery to it. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to finish my last few levels needed to unlock my warrior job.
Here's to a good game in a year full of duds.
I stayed logged in for 3 straight days until the server was reset lol
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
I've tried, works on 33% of them, but not all.Agreed. I think that the game is awesome and I am loving the story, but I wish they had either voiced it all or none. I thought my game had glitched out when I was doing a story quest that started out voiced and then midway went away - was irritating sadly. I almost would have preferred no cut-scenes because it reminds me of watching a silent movie, if they weren't going to do voice overs then just have the block of text next the NPC, don't need a cut scene for it.
But really, the above it my only gripe, I am loving the game thus far! Can't wait till login tomorrow night! Haven't played in 3 days due to "error 1017" so I am REALLY looking forward to logging in!
Even with those minor restrictions the game has that old MMO feel...and the world is immersive and alive. For me personally there's the crafting - which will keep me very busy for some time to come. I just can't do dungeons, raids and pvp all the time.
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
Fair enough and to each his own
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.
The game is fun but we'll see how it feels in a few weeks/months.
SWTOR was amazing at first too. Lots of people were going on about it similarly in and out of game. That didn't last all that long.
This game is pretty much the same style (wow clone) of game with even more simplicity (simpler classes, pure idiot mode for xp gains, less content, and so on).
The game is polished, for sure, but that doesn't make it good by any stretch. It's a fun game. It's new. IMO, people are gushing and going overboard with praise for what is basically a stripped down and simplified post WoW clone. If there isn't a boatload of endgame stuff to do people will be gone even faster than with SWTOR.
The crafting system is one of the better parts - as a pure gameplay mechanic - it's a fun system. The stuff you can make is largely junk and in the big picture of endgame it's all junk. If the rest of the game had the same depth as the crafting system, for ex, if leveling was as involved, the game would be all around awesome. But no, leveling is dumber than ever solo ez mode.
There aren't even words to describe how leveling has been turned into the dumbest of the dumb in this game. Fate zergs - xp for doing absolutely nothing - are a joke. The only way leveling and getting xp could be any dumber would be if you just logged in and didn't even have to move around to fates and just got xp on a timer for being logged in. Fate zergs are only slightly removed from that.
I could be wrong. Maybe the average MMORPG player these days is a brainless drone that just wants to do something as utterly mundane and pathetic as zero challenge, zero thought fate zergs. Sure seems like it based on what I see in-game. Solo ez mode questing isn't a whole lot more compelling and never has been. Easy gaming that's one step removed from watching TV isn't very compelling, really. Just add some shiny graphics and it blinds players to the garbage they're enduring, apparently.
I don't even think the instances in this game are all that great either. The boss fights are decent. The trash is boring. Just the fact that it's something marginally more involved than solo idiot mode makes them seems 100x better than they really are.
I'm really interested to see how people feel about this game after a couple of months. Judging any MMORPG with so little exposure is silly - either the blindly positive gushing or my own negative rantings. However, my negative (or objective as I'd prefer to call it) viewpoint comes from a great deal of MMORPG history. Thus far, ALL post WoW clones featuring heavy solo ez-mode and light gameplay have failed (to stay sub-based or retain players). All. So what is it about FFXIV that's gonna break that pattern? I've yet to see anything remarkably different about this game that'll make it endure. The dumber they make them, the faster they fail.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I miss the difficulty level from the phase 3 beta... Class quests could kill and storyline quests were no cakewalk. Gave me a great sense of accomplishment even at lower levels.
Have reached level 30 and unlocked the dragoon job, and so far everything's been a bit TOO easy. I'm hoping things change lvl 35 upwards..
That being said, I'm still having a lot of fun, but more due to the crafting classes than anything else.
I agree OP, it's an extremely solid game and it's a ton of fun to boot. I've been playing mmorpgs since M59 and I can count on one hand how many mmorpgs I flip flopped on a few weeks or months into them. I knew that I loved UO, EQ1, AC1, DAoC, L2 and I played them for years. More recently I knew that TSW was horrible (imo) within 20 played hours, with TOR is took all but 15 minutes to know that i could not stomach the game. I like GW2 and still dabble in it.
XIV is a long term mmorpg for me. It's massively entertaining for me, aside from the server issues which are hopefully being corrected as I write this
I got bored with SWTOR after 20 levels and my wife lost interest even before that. The game was lifeless and the crafting just stupid. There are ALWAYS going to be people who will rush to finish all the content and move onto something else but I don't think that will be the case here. But - it is still early on and things may change but despite certain features (I don't like the Fates thing either...which is why I hated Rift) I believe it will do very well.
Also - the game engine in SWTOR really killed the game for me - it was horrible and unplayable in most areas.
Most MMO's that have done well have both "worked well" ie Wow and have had other things to do besides killing. FF AAR has both and from I read there is housing..or there will be and you'll be able to place a market outside of your house to sell items. Anyone have any info on that?
Currently playing SWTOR and it's MUCH better than it was at launch.