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Just another opinion...
Melieza
Member Posts: 269
I've been reading these forums on and off for a few weeks now, though the closed and open beta, and now that I've played FFXIV for quite a few hours, I've decided to add my opinion to the masses and a response to what I've been seeing people commonly say.
Just like most of you, I've played many many mmorpg's, with FFXI being my first and longest, which I played for four years straight. Others include Lineage 2, Aion, Guild Wars, WoW, Champions Online, and countless free to plays.
First of all, the download and patches. It took me leaving the launcher open for almost two days straight to finish downloading. I started downloading it last Friday night, and didnt get to play until Sunday late afternoon. Was I annoyed? Of course. I was hoping to get an entire weekend in of play time, and I ended up only getting in a bit of Sunday and Monday (if Monday wasn't Labor Day and I didnt have off I would have been even more peeved). But, despite these difficulties, I'm not worried, thankfully for the official release we'll be able to install the game off of CD's and only have a few patches to download, and it most likely wont take as long as it does now. Some people think we should hold this against SE though, that they should have been better prepared. I was in the Champions Online Open Beta, which had a significantly smaller client, and it took me an entire day to download, which also urked me, but at this point I've just come to expect such things.
After I got in, I had a great time making my character. Such an improvement over FFXI. Now anyone who knows anything about Champions Online though, knows that that character creator is rediculous. And it is. Aion's is also detailed, but IMO, in useless ways. I won't go into my opinion on that. Anyways, despite the fact I'm used to detailed customization, I was still satisfied with FFXIVs. You mostly get to customize the face and hairstyle, and just select one of four (maybe five?) different heights. Seeing characters with huge feet, stubby legs, or long arms ruins the immersion for me, and FFXIV (as well as FFXI) are all about immersion, as many have pointed out, so I think there is just the right amount of customization.
Then you select which starting town you would like to begin in, one of three, similar to Bastok, Windurst, and San D'oria of FFXI. Each has its own prologe story cutscene. The ship attack we all know from the benchmark is only one of them. I made a character for each, just to see the cutscenes, and each is amazing. After getting dropped off in town, as many people have said, you are a bit lost at what to do. There is no giant arrow pointing you where to go, no ! saying who has quests, and no tutorial saying how your suppose to progress the game. People have been criticizing for this, but FFXI was the exact same way. I actually forced myself not to look up anything online, and tried to learn everything on my own. The towns are huge and it it took me over an hour just to find out how to leave...the Ul'dah map is decieving. I didn't let this deter me though, eventually I did pick up a few leves and was out doing quests. It didn't take me long to finish all the ones I had, and was left with a feeling of "well now what?". Again, this is a common criticism. But again, I thought back to my FFXI days, and FFXI didn't even have those quests, you were just thrown out to grind.
So, I decided to try out the class change system. I went back to town and after some searching, found NPCs that sold the beginning 'weapons' (if you can call a fishing pole a weapon) for the various classes. When I first equipped a sword and saw the "You are now a Gladiator" message I smiled. No running back to your Mog House to change class, no putting away one set of gear into your Warehouse and taking out another set, just...You are now a Gladiator. I think people don't appreciate this system enough. People complain about the 'lack of ease' of the UI, but they added ease elsewhere. After equipping my skills (because I still had access to some of my Pugalist skills as a Gladiator, which was awesome) I went outside to try out the Gladiator, and after some running around, came across a monster that had a red icon (aka Will Kick Your Ass). So I put away my sword, took out my Pugalist weapon (my first class), and, now that it was just a green icon, beat it up. Which was awesome to me. Later I passed a fishing spot, put away my weapon and took out my pole, and did some fishing. Fishing by the way is much more complex than in FFXI. You have your rod, your bait, get to pick which depth you'd like to fish at, and then if you hook something have to fight with it a bit. You get minimal job EXP if you lose your fish, but a nice chunk of both job and physical EXP if you successfully catch something.
Ultimately, I was having fun exploring (theres many hidden caves that aren't marked on the map), trying new jobs, and beating stuff up. People have said the combat is 'slow', but after I started getting the timing of my skills down, the onslaught was pretty constant. Again, a huge upgrade from FFXI.
Now, about the UI and controls. I was used to keyboard only when playing FFXI, but then became a mouse/keyboard fan during my WoW days. I tried to do mouse/keyboard first and experienced the horrid mouse lag, so went with the WASD IJKL mode, and got used to it fairly quickly. There is a small bit of 'lag' with the menu changes and selecting things but I think that'll be remedied, and when they fix the mouse lag I'll probably give that another shot too. To those of you who think the game is a failure just because keyboard/mouse is not the best setup to play, you obviously haven't played FFXI, because FFXI is the exact same. FFXI also isn't a failure by any means, FFXI was one of the biggest MMOs pre-WoW, and its still going pretty good. I understand if you think SE should have seen that setup as a problem and fixed it, but I guess they didnt. Honestly, its not a big deal to me, from playing FFXI for so long I know that after awhile you actually can get things done faster using the keyboard only.
Regarding the Open Beta, yes, SE left out some large content. To those who think "that was stupid we cant test it!", I honestly don't think SE is having an Open Beta to test the features of the game. They have their own testers and they do a damn good job. Nothing I came across didnt work, the worst I saw was two typos, and with as much text and dialog as there is, I won't hold that against them. Its obvious the Open Beta is just a stress test, and they are getting the feedback they want regarding that. SE is not looking at what you think of the game, they probably dont care. They have a game and if you don't like it you don't have to play, easy as that. They aren't looking to change any major feature of the game just because a group of people don't like it. It was the same with FFXI. The Open Beta is also not for 'trying out the game to see if you'll buy it or not'. No Open Beta is, and if you are going to judge the game based on the Open Beta, especially this limited content Open Beta, I think you're making a mistake. There is tons of information out about the game, and if it seems like something you might enjoy, I encourage you to try it after release.
I will say though, to progress in this game, I can already tell, is not going to be easy, same as FFXI. But the way I see it is like a dancer, or architect, or any type of artist. Is it 'fun' to the dancer to learn choreography, to make mistakes and constantly strive to perfect a performance? Is it 'fun' to a sculptor to work hours on end at a heap of marble? Is it 'fun' to a carpenter to measure, plan, and build a piece of furniture? I think in any of those situations, its not about about the work or effort you put out, its about the end product. The applaude of an audience, an awe inspiring statue, or gorgeous dresser is what makes it worth it. And in FFXIV, your level, gear, crafting a rare item, and the experience of accomplishing something difficult, is what makes all the perhaps 'not so fun' aspects worth it. Its about pride. In FFXI, when you walked around with a World Serpent Slayer title, or a Kirin Osode, you were proud, and people awed and appreciated and respected the effort they knew it took for you to get it and it made them strive harder to one day have the same. Those of you who think thats dumb or silly, or dont understand it, maybe this game isnt for you.
For me personally, that's the kind of game I love the most, and I haven't gotten that feeling from any other game except FFXI until now, and I'm incredibly excited about it.
Comments
Right on. I've played a lot of MMORPGs (EQ being my first), and nothing ever felt so perfect, nor sucked up more years of my life, than FFXI. No matter what the endless complaints I've generated from the Open Beta, I still have absolute faith in the people that made my favorite MMO of all time. I'm extremely excited for launch day.
"He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth." -Goethe
Nice written and fair opinion.Though I do not blame peopel for judging the game on what they are experiencing in open beta...you can only judge a game on what it is currently and not on what could be.Buying games on perceived potential is wha thas lead to many a disappointed and bitter gamer.
I personally will wait till after launch and for some fair and balanced reviews before jumping in because I am not a big FF fan so the world and lor eis not a big enough draw to overlook the games flaws.But I found enoug hin the game itself to liek that if they improve on the UI adn PC controls and lag issues I cna be convinced to give it a go at a later date.
I think it's pretty evident by now that if you liked FFXI you'll probably like FFXIV.
So, viewing FFXIV as an upgrade or sequel you'd probably be happy, as shown by this review.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
A very nice summary. I think you've captured what a large number of us feel who have played open beta and are looking forward to launch in a couple of weeks! Even for those of us who have never played another FF game, imo. And frankly from what I'd heard about it I'm pretty sure FFXI wouldn't have been a game I would have enjoyed much. So I'm very pleased to find out how much I've been enjoying the FFXIV open beta.
Iv never played final fantasy XI (always wanted to but never did). Iv been a WoW player for 5 years (almost right after launch). Iv tried many many MMO's aswell (Warhammer, AOC, EVE, DDO.......You get the idea) but none really captured me like wow did. I think it never captured me because I wansnt done with wow yet I was still having too much fun. Lately I cant play wow for more than 10 minutes without yawning. Iv just plain straight overplayed it. When I saw FFXIV in the works I was very excited. Honoustly im very impressed with the OB. Its fun. Sure its a change of pase but thats what i like about it. Im just so sad to see so many people are complaining about stuff that (hopefully) will be "fixed" at launch. What most people dont realise or take into account is that most (heard a rumor that it was over 90%) of the content, quests even crafting recipes are NOT in the OB.So far iv had lots of fun in the OB so im pretty dam sure the launch is going to be a whole other level of fun
Just my 2c worth.
You are totally right about combat. Once you figure out what you are doing it is pretty fast and furious.
Yes, but at the same time, just because you haven't played FFXI, or didnt like FFXI, doesn't mean you WONT like FFXIV.
Regarding the download, did you open up the ports on your router or not? Because opening the ports made a download that would've taken 26 hours take 4 hours.
No, I didnt do any of the fancy 'work arounds' that I've read about. Although I was at about 60% downloaded, cancelled the download and restarted it on Sunday, and when it reconnected I had tons more connections and was downloading at 500+ kb/s instead of 5-40kb/s and it finished the other 40% very quickly. Im not sure if that was because of something SE did or what.
I see. I'll still post the ports here just in case someone is interested then. It really saved me a lot of time with the downloader.
UDP - 55296 - 55551
TCP - 54992 - 55551
UDP - 443
Exactly, i didnt play any FF game before but like to combat system in FFXIV.At least its better than button smash
I agree but most of the people who complaint about control, combat, crafting, well the gameplay of FFXI will complaint in FXIV. Just go see the FFXI forum and see, there is lots of post about control su..., no tutorial or learning curves, the combat is slow, no pvp etc etc etc.
For me FFXI is one of my best mmo, so i have no doubt about FXIV.
edit: Most of players who whine, didnt know a thing about this genre and they was waiting a modern wow or else mmo.
I don't particularly care for "reviews" where the reviewer makes an excuse for every valid critisim they point out. Or try to add a positive spin to issues that they describe. Just lay out the facts (and opinions) and let us decide. I almost feel like this is a "damage control" review that tries way too hard to be upbeat. And yes, like others said above, if you were a fan of FF XI you'll probably love FF XIV. That single line could have been your entire review.
Sounds like you didn't hear what you wanted to hear and now you're mad!
The OP labeled this post as an Opinion and then very succinctly listed her experience with the game. If you didn't find the hate you were looking for just move along. There are plenty of posts for you to search through to so you can be told what you want to hear. lol