Final Fantasy XIV beta gets new servers and a roleplaying home

Just give me a hardware mouse and I'll be happy.

Both my fiancee and I got into open beta. The graphics do look pretty if your system can run them. We both have 2.3GHz AMD's, and my machine (w/ATI 4800 card) seems to run fine on the default settings. Hers (w/a more powerful Nvidia GF 9600) crashes almost all the time, even on the lowest settings, latest drivers, etc.

I've not been able to explore the game much yet, but it does concern me that a fairly standard computer setup is unable to run this game at this point given that release is just weeks away. I do hope they are getting crash reports from their beta client at the very least.

Forgive me if I make little sense, but it's way past my bedtime...

The graphics settings need a lot of tweaking to get right. I had to set some things manually in the Nvidia control panel to get a reasonable framerate (force vsync with triple buffering, force threaded optimization, increase max prerendered frames). I'm using 2x 285 GTX in SLI, not overclocked, 1680x1050 resolution HIGH textures, getting between 20-50 fps depending on what I'm doing. Out in the field it can drop real low. Lowest I seen is during Gridania opening cutscene ~15fps average. Can get higher fps by dropping settings, but it don't look as pretty. Going to continue to tweak it since I've been spoiled by SLI and anything below 60fps looks laggy to me. (And also hoping SE does some optimization before retail release.)

The controls and UI aren't nearly as bad as I expected. Took me about a half hour to get used to using the controller, having had to tweak the mappings a few times. Target selecting is pretty easy, just aim at who you want and press "confirm." Having spent several years in FFXI, it's become an intuitive reflex, but I can see how those unfamiliar with it could find it difficult. I liked the menus in XI better, if only because they weren't as intrusive on the screen.

The one thing they NEED to add is some tutorials or explanation on various mechanics, especially using battle regiments. I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. Just keep mashing the button to attack, right? And the log fills up with "You cannot perform that action." And then somehow I press the wrong button and it tells me I failed the regiment. I've seen enough videos and read enough articles to know that there's a really good system in there, if only I can figure it out. And I know I could, given enough experimentation, but that experimentation should not be necessary, in my opinion.

And Lalafell need more hairstyles. Seriously, 4 styles, while everyone else has 7+? SE, I am disappoint.

Ugh, well this is a canceled preorder and another mmo to toss in the "do not play" bin.

I got to spend a few hours playing tonight. All in all it's a really pretty game. UI is similar to FFXI. I mainly use the NUM pad so this doesn't bother me very much. Combat is good, cutscenes are pretty. My biggest complaint is just that it takes too long to figure out what is going on. I've played several MMO's, including FFXI, but even getting to the first Guildleve for two of the three starting areas was difficult to figure out. They place a marker on your map to show you where to go, however, when you bring up the map, it's a map of the city and doesn't indicate which exit you should take to get to the area. In Ul'dah it did tell me to go out of a specific gate to get there... But guess what? The gate isn't listed on the map!!

I really enjoyed FFXI, and I'm sure there's a great game here, I just don't think I'm up for spending as much time to learn it as it's going to require. As I get older time to play is harder and harder to come by and I hate wasting it on walking around looking for something when I could be out doing something exciting.

I miss the F8 key...

pretty graphics does not = a good game, and graphics is the ONLY thing this game has going for it. everything else is dire.

What is the deal with Square Enix and their absolute refusal to allow costomizable key mapping in their freaking games? I spent more than 8 hours downloading their beta client. I lasted all of 30 minutes in the game after the frustrated discovery that I couldn't map one damn single key the way I prefer it. Is it laziness or pure spite?

This is a sad, pathetically designed game; reminds me of the Vanguard beta; already uninstalled and looking at other coming games. Taking a console game and calling it an MMO is what SE has done here. There is a reason many games today have certain MMO 101 features, like talking with a vendor, that should not require a convoluted UI to do. PS3 players will love this game probably; but this old school keyboard/mouse dude did not.