Final Fantasy XIV news from between the lines

Game is looking good. Hopefully I can get in the beta test or at least they have a free 14 day trial or something to that effect.

New games, especially MMOs are hard to judge based on reviews and videos. It takes personal play time to determine if its fun for you. This isn't normal RPGs or FPS'.

"taking both from more recent design and the classic setup of Final Fantasy XI."

As long as they stay far, faaar, FAAAR! Away from the horribly designed boss encounters that existed in 11, I'll be a happy camper. My interest in this game will die if they think of even adding in a 1hr-long boss fight.



Cause hell no, I ain't supporting another 18+ hr bossfight...

The part about 'instances' seems to confuse me. I've played FFXI and WoW for a while and I think that you can consider all the Dynamis runs an instance. You have mobs that you kill for loot or ancient currency, kill a boss, then get locked out for a period of time. The difference is that WoW took it one step further and allowed you to run this several times a day, and get XP, and get good gear as you are leveling up, and not to optimize your gear once you are level capped.

This proves the point that I think turned a lot of people off of FFXI... it's a difficult game. Nothing was ever made easy in that game. Everything required a good group to accomplish, and even that wasn't a guarantee that you would get it done on your first try.

Even the "boss" as people would think of them would spawn at really strange intervals, with a 3 hour window and several different groups going for them at the same time. For those who play WoW... think of the Lich King encounter... if he popped every day at 21-24hour intervals since his time of death, with 30 minute windows for 3 hours and EVERYONE had a chance to claim him to kill him... then imagine your group wipes and another group claims him and kills him. This was kind of like torture in FFXI, but it was accepted by the community, and I'm not really sure why.

I hope they fix the NM issue by making all the bosses spawned, like they did in Sea. That had some issues, but at least you and a group can farm them anytime, not having to wait 3 hours standing at a screen hoping your macro went off to claim a dragon.

The crafting system could also use a bit of tuning, maybe add an automated feature to craft as many items as you have materials. That would really help.

The end-game though is probably the best in any game I've played. The difficulty forces you to have to come back and back again, as even "bosses" that were in the game for 5 years have items that are still useful. And it's always fun to see someone get Faust'd :P

Word is the beta is a disaster and the game is really bad, everyone complaining that things like you can't play with the mouse and keyboard cause the controls are unplayable.

to each his own
but ffxi is my all time favorite mmo ( fovorite FF game too)
and beta forums are supposed to be filled with complains if not then there was no point to beta test in the 1st place.

This just in- Beta has problems and is not perfect!

More at eleven!

FF11 was not considered the worst FF at all. It was my favorite and many others. Different people have different opinions. Just because we enjoy it doesn't make us fanboys. The controls control like FFXI and it plays out a lot like that game. I don't personally care because I played FFXI for 5 years and love that game to death.

Some people like racing or sports games. I don't. But I don't go around spouting how they're terrible and are considered the worst games out there.