World quests coming with Final Fantasy XIV's patch 1.16

@madbassman39

Right, there's still no monthly charge until they think the game is strong enough to stand on its own.

@madbassman39

Still free...but it isn't worth your time. I'd rather pay to play a good game than play a really bad game for free.

Best bet is to forget this game exists until the re-launch. The piece meal patches are for the hard core fans.

@madbassman39

I just bought this last week and I'm enjoying it. true I haven't exactly been playing it non-stop but that has more to do with RL stuff and I haven't been playing ANYTHING non-stop.

low server populations and over the top GFX requirements [Phenom II 3.2g dual core + hd8750] are the only real complaints I have with it. the first problem could be fixed with a server merge and the second one could be easily fixed with more options to turn stuff down/off.

I kinda enjoy the mechanics behind the guild-leves, you just gotta realize that they are intended to spice up grinding (not replace it) as well as the fact that the combat/UI in FFXIV is designed around using a game controller. I'll admit that combat with the keyboard is a bit underwhelming, but if you plug in a gamepad things change considerably.

don't expect wow, don't expect EQ, dont expect WAR, and especially don't expect FFXI. like all of SquEnix's games this is no direct sequel, it's a totally different game.

if you got the spare $50, and aren't so anal-retentive that you can't overlook some flaws in your videogames, I recommend giving this title a shot. despite what nay-sayers declare, I've played (and had fun with) worse titles than this and there is still plenty of fun to have with it.

P.S. yes, I used to criticize this game too!
well, was more criticizing SE than FFXIV but still ... as a former pessimistic critic who didn't know what the fuck he was talking about 'cause he hadn't tried the god damned game yet: I was wrong, it's not a "bad" game.

@Fakeassname

oops, I meant to extrapolate a little bit on that!

the [Phenom II 3.2g dual core + hd8750] bit is my system and it slows to a crawl in town unless I set the GFX to "total shit" due to not having isolated options to reduce the quality on other players character models.

the character models are pretty but it takes about 5 seconds for my system to load up each character (including my own) whenever someone walks withing loading range/changes some of their equipment. if I walk within a cluster of people (like 5) my frame rate drops in half, if I walk into a heavily populated area (like 15 people) my frame rate drops to about 5.

however once those characters are loaded up my system pops back up to running just fine ... having options to turn down the details on just the character models (instead of the entire world as it is right now), or an option to disable other characters detailed models and to simply use a generic model that takes no time to load, would help quite a bit.

@relgoth

combat (and the UI in general) was designed around a simulated combo system and the use of a gamepad.

plug one in and see what it does to your game experience, SE may have bought up EIDOS but they still haven't learned a damn thing about PC game controlls.

well, maybe they have learned a little bit, this UI is head and shoulders above the shit UI in FFXI.

@ImperialPanda

No kidding. This game was released in late September and it's just now getting around to...QUESTS?! lol

@ImperialPanda

oh please, the game is sandbox, the main "quest" in the game is to run around exploring things and leveling up your classes. I wouldn't call it an outstanding success in that regard, but it isn't exactly a failure either.

@Fakeassname

Too close-minded. Theme park and sandbox are broad generalizations. I dunno who made up the terminology but that person probably did not intend for it to become almost sub-genres.

The point of a game is to have stuff to do that is entertaining. In FFXIV, there's little to do besides grind mobs and do levequests.

Compared to, say, Rift, that at least has linear quests, rifts, dungeons, pvp, warfronts, etc.

@ImperialPanda

Rift is a "theme-park"

theme-park = game provided activities.

sand box = the game provides a (usually) open environment that the players can manipulate to some degree, but after that it's up to them what they do in it.

in a theme-park game you kill the dragon 'cause the quest giver said to and he gives you 50k xp + a magical item (and also because you can't take the next quest till the first one is done), in a sand box you kill the dragon 'cause you can make a pair of shoes out of his hide that sell for a lot of money and also 'cause you wanted to ...

each one takes a different kind of mentality and few people are weird enough to have more than one mentality. if you enjoy Rift then I can understand why you wouldn't like FFXIV, but just because FFXIV isn't the same kind of game to what you prefer doesn't make it a bad game, it's just different.

(not saying that FFXIV is a really good sand box, it's just not a bad one either.)

@Vagrant Zero

no, I usually post this much on here, although more often than not I spread the regurgitation around a bit more on different posts.

and FYI all this took something like 20 min worth of work, which would have left plenty of time to play FFXIV if I hadn't needed to clean cat piss out of a lazyboy with a rented steam cleaner.