More information on Final Fantasy XIV's retainers

With the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV's release date and some details on the pricing structure, one of the concepts we've been introduced to is that of the retainers. Any veteran of Final Fantasy XI is all too familiar with the "mule" characters that would dot cities; they were all but required for serious players, used for additional storage, and parked as a never-closing bazaar whilst the player wasn't active. Rather than forcing players to pay for a second character, Square-Enix is apparently letting the practice be fully realized by the game in the form of your retainer.

A new translated article helps explain a little more about what a retainer's role will be. Adventurers will be allowed to choose one retainer for free, with the selection process running similar to Final Fantasy XI's adventuring fellow. Your retainer can be called at various points through use of a special item, and allows you to set up a storefront that will run while you're offline. A retainer will also provide extra storage, serving as combination mobile bank and assistant. Take a look at the full article for more details, as well as more shots of the beta client for Final Fantasy XIV in action.

Reader Comments (11)

I feel like this is a really positive move for the MMO scene. I haven't played a single MMO before where I didn't feel like I was playing at a handicap for not making a mule account. Addressing this issue through an in-game mechanic is a pretty brilliant move on S/E's part.

Likewise, the idea that you can play all the content and all the classes with a single character is extremely attractive for people like me that choose to make a single main account and don't want to be bothered with dozens of alts to clutter friendlists and guilds.

I hope more games will follow this example.

-SirNiko

Sadly I doubt they will, its been 8yrs now since SE started this trend with FFXI, playing all jobs/classes on one character and nobody has followed yet. Sure there have been a few that tried a similar system {names escape me atm}, but they were not as good.

There are also quite a few other features I wish other MMOs would use, for instance the aggro mechanics in FFXI, developers please do something other than just proximity only for aggro. FFXI has Sight and Sound, Low HP, Casting Magic, Smell, True Sight & Sound...etc and there are new ones yet to be revealed in FFXIV. Even a possible food-chain system for monsters has been mentioned.

Anyway, I can't wait for FFXIV...just spent another $900 on new parts for my PC, these last few months and I'm ready to go minus the GTX 480, which I'm awaiting a significant price-drop on before I commit to it!

Yes, I always hate making an Alt just to play a new class and have to go collect all mission items, keys, etc. All over again.

XI and XIV do it the right way in my opinion.

This sounds like a good move for SE. Sure it was only a couple bucks, but having to to buy an extra character just for the inventory space was annoying. And in FFXI you needed that space if you played more than one or two jobs.

@Khalus

I loved FFXI's aggro system...until a high level Elemental aggroed my party while I was casting a spell. :p In many ways, FFXI has a lot more depth than any newer game. It's sad that the overall game design was so masochistic. Hopefully FFXIV turns out good, and opens up the game to casual players.

I am really getting excited about this game. I think I will buy a PS3 just to be able to play this as long as servers are setup like they were in FFXI (PC and Console together).

Only thing I am worried about is the combat. I loved FFXI so much but over the years I have gotten used to faster combat. Not that I don't like slow meaningful combat I just have to wait and try it out.

The servers will be setup the same way as FFXI in that PC and PS3 players will be able to play together. As for the combat system, recent videos and beta information have shown that the combat speed has been adjusted greatly from the Alpha stage (Which was already faster than FFXI).

I thought this feature was going to be similar to PSU's storefront system.
I'm rather disappointed to say that... this is actually inferior to PSU's storefront system. That storefront system was freaking awesome, and it was FAR SUPERIOR to the consignment houses and bazaar system available in other MMOs.

If somebody is in the beta, please, pass along my comments.

Right now there's no reason to believe this feature won't be the like the storefront system.

Paying for a mule in XI was always a pretty ghetto way of dealing with a game design problem, it makes me worry that XIV is going to have the same inventory space issues built into the game that XI does. The retainer does sound like an improvement but does it also mean that every single player is going to set up a bazaar 24/7? I don't want to see these new cities over flowing with mules standing still for months at a time, and a bazaar is only worth it if people can actually find your stuff... if everybody has one, how is anybody going to find what they want? They still haven't said much about the "AH" system, pretending they don't have one like they don't have "classes" or "exp", but from what we know right now it sounds like a system with obvious flaws....

In FFXIV characters start with 80 Inv slots opposed to 30 like in FFXI, then upgraded later on through quests, and I dunno about extra storage options since there are no Mog Houses this time. Also the Retainers can only be placed in marketplace specific areas in each city, so they won't be all over and anywhere causing lag and longer than normal load times for players, unless you go to that specified area!

I would like to see a similar AH as in FFXI again, that is player influenced, especially since I bet the crafting will once again play a huge role. When 10 of your starting classes are designated for Harvesting and Crafting that means their should be quite the robust crafting system once again!

OKay that's just pure awesome!

My mule I always imagined was a long distance friend, a hume in Bastok who would sell things for me while I was out adventuring. Now that you can call them and interact with them is so great. I love the off line shops too!

More information on Final Fantasy XIV's retainers

Reader Comments (11)

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 10:42AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 10:55AM Khalus said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 10:50AM Tizmah said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 11:16AM Wisdomandlore said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 11:12AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 12:08PM Mevan said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 12:06PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 12:20PM Betel said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 6:07PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 9:07PM Khalus said

Posted: Jul 5th 2010 9:29PM Cendres said

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