Final Fantasy XIV

It's been a little quiet on the Final Fantasy XIV front since the new year, but the team behind the game has been hard at work preparing the launch of patch 1.21. And it's going to be quite a massive patch, as outlined in Naoki Yoshida's most recent producer's letter for the fans. Not only does it contain the addition of the long-awaited Job system, but it also includes UI improvements, housing, two new instanced raids, a food and medicine overhaul, and a variety of smaller changes.

While the team had originally aimed for a launch in the second week of February, Yoshida notes that the patch will likely be delayed two weeks due to the sheer amount of content going in. He also discusses what he calls temporary server merges prior to the launch of 2.0 in November; as he puts it, the main concern is allowing players, especially from European regions, to have an ample playerbase to adventure with. It's a bit of unpleasant news for Final Fantasy XIV players, but it's packed in amidst many things to look forward to.

If you think about characters in the online Final Fantasy games compared to the console-based equivalents, you have to come to a kind of demoralizing conclusion: Your character online is pretty weak. In Final Fantasy XI, you can cap out your Black Mage and you'll still never learn Ultima. In Final Fantasy X, by the time you have your Black Mage using Ultima, you've still got most of the endgame ahead of you. Final Fantasy XIV might move the power scale upward, but at this point your character hasn't even actually mastered being a Paladin, much less summoning anything. Final Fantasy VII, by contrast, gave us three different versions of Bahamut to summon just to keep him relevant, and he was still nowhere near the best.

And you know what? It makes the games much more fun to have these barriers in place.

Players have been clamoring for high-end summons in Final Fantasy XI since forever ago, and the fact that it's not even on the visible horizon for Final Fantasy XIV is disheartening to some. But there's something to be said for a play environment where these touchstones of power remain out of reach, certainly for now and possibly forever.

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As Final Fantasy XIV forges ahead with its revived subscription model, Square-Enix is showing signs that it is listening to its customer base in regards to options. The company announced that players can now directly subscribe to the game with a credit or debit card through the account system.

Previously, Final Fantasy XIV utilized a convoluted system that required players to purchase an intermediary currency called Crysta, which was then spent on monthly subscription options. Not only did players find this complex and unnecessary, but there were issues with buying more Crysta than one actually needed.

According to the company, the ability to directly subscribe via credit card was "by far the most popular request received from the community." FFXIV began charging for subscriptions earlier this month after more than a year of free service.

Every so often, there are pieces of information put out that are transparently false, stories so insane you know they simply must be fabricated... like the idea that Final Fantasy XIV would promise the introduction of a new mount and that said mount would be one of the toothy monsters known as a goobbue. It's the sort of thing that could be immediately ignored as being a series of enterprising photoshopped pictures if not for the fact that it's being passed along by the official site.

Yes, apparently, the lumbering beasts that terrorize players in both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV will be added to the stable of mounts alongside chocobos. The preview video itself (embedded just after the break) states that they'll only be available for a limited time before version 2.0; the lore article claims that the very idea seems absurd even in the game world, but there it is. Hopefully players can learn how to obtain the mount soon, with the added caveat that we'll probably have to believe it's a real thing at that point.

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One of the big selling points of Final Fantasy XIV before launch was that there were many classes devoted to doing things other than fighting. The promise was made, more than once (if memory serves), that even non-combat classes would get to take part in the main story, and it was also stated that these classes would still be useful to an adventuring party even if not quite as good as another Disciple of War or Magic.

At this point, of course, we can confidently say that part was a lie. A Botanist is about as useful in combat as an actual botanist in a fistfight. But Naoki Yoshida has gone on record that the former part is a lie as well -- that if you want to take part in the main storyline, you really do need to level a combat class. It wasn't something that was really highlighted, but it was still there, and it's worth unpacking as we look forward to another year of the game's ongoing development. If you came in expecting to only craft and gather, you're no longer going to have your run of the place.

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Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XIV will resume charging subscription fees tomorrow, January 6th, so if you're still subscribed and don't want to pay, you'd better cancel now. And lastly, on a note of complete and utter excess, the gang reports that one gamer (who we imagine spends most of his time swimming in his money like Scrooge McDuck) has spent $16,000 US on an in-game sword for Snail Games' F2P (irony!) title, Age of Wulin. The kicker? The game isn't even out yet. For the full video, just click on past the cut and have a look.

A month ago we reported that Square-Enix is finally ready to transition Final Fantasy XIV to a subscription model. This comes after more than a year of an unlimited free trial for users while the dev team shored up the title following its rocky release. It's important to note that this change happens this week -- specifically on Friday the 6th.

Square-Enix's account system has notified players that "the free trial period for the following service will soon end. Please note that after the end date, you will be billed service fees for your automatically continuous options."

No player will get charged against their will as the company is suspending all accounts on the 5th so that everyone can have a choice whether to subscribe or not. Until the launch of Final Fantasy XIV's 2.0 patch, the game will be available for a discounted rate of $9.99 a month, assuming that you're sticking with just one character (additional characters are $3 apiece). After 2.0, the subscription cost will increase to the standard rate $12.99/month.

As we enter the twilight of 2011, I can say with absolute certainty that my predictions for Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV were wrong, which is fine, since when I made them last year I seem to recall saying to myself that I was predicting more on the basis of "should happen" than "will likely happen." I was overly optimistic about several things, overly pessimistic about a couple of others, and going in a completely different direction from the design team on the rest -- which is fine by me, actually.

That having been said, whether proving that I'm not afraid of failure or that I don't know when to quit, I'm coming back for another round of predictions for this coming year. But there's one major variable in the equation that's horrible to try and account for, and that's Final Fantasy XI. I can easily see the game going one of two ways, and while I think one's a bit more likely, there seem to be more divergent futures for it than for Final Fantasy XIV.

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This has not been a normal year. Not for me, certainly -- I certainly didn't expect back in January that I'd be facing a week without power later in the year -- but not for Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV either. None of us was expecting both games to be shut down for a while in response to a horrible earthquake hitting Japan, for example. But barring something truly bizarre happening over the next week, the year is finally winding down to a close, so we can look back on what's taken place with analytical minds.

Even without the earthquake, though, this hasn't been a usual year for either game. Admittedly, Final Fantasy XIV hasn't had a "usual" year to use as a baseline, but it was certainly a tumultuous one for players and developers. And Final Fantasy XI... well, it's had an unusual year more in terms of what didn't happen. Take a look past the break as I take a look down memory lane.

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According to the latest email blurb from Square-Enix, the 1.20 patch for Final Fantasy XIV contains a "cornucopia of new content, gameplay enhancements, system overhauls, and more adjustments than you can wave a moogle at!"

Flowery language aside, the update does seem rather substantial given that it features a refined party search mechanic as well as the ability to purchase items directly from the market ward's item search. There's a new achievement system too, and it's stuffed with upwards of 300 tasks to complete, many of which lead to exclusive gear and items.

Last but certainly not least, there's an extensive amount of class reform contained in the patch, and you can read the finer details on that at the official FFXIV forums.

[Source: Square-Enix email blast]

A week ago we reported that Square-Enix's Members site, a loyalty program for fans of the studio's games, suffered an unwarranted intrusion and was subsequently taken offline as the company conducted an investigation. It turns out that the best possible outcome of this investigation has occurred, as no personal information was stolen. Subsequently, the company plans to bring its Japanese and North American websites back online by the end of the month.

Square-Enix posted the following notice as an update:

As a result of our continuing investigation, we have now confirmed that the database in which we store personal information was NOT accessed during the recent server intrusion. Therefore, your personal information was NOT compromised by an unknown third party.

Square-Enix is planning to restart the Square Enix Members service by the end of December. Details of the schedule will be announced at a later date.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers and fans, and appreciate your patience.

As I write this, patch 1.20 is not actually live just yet. All I have to go on is a monster list of patch notes and the various previews we've been given thus far. Of course, by the time you're reading this, the patch will have released, and I have no doubt that some people will have played through everything it has to offer a couple of times over. So I'm working at a bit of a disadvantage.

In some ways I'm actually not in that terrible a spot. The last two patches have done great things for Final Fantasy XIV, and the patch notes are long enough that I can at least make some reasonable guesses about how things will play out. So I'm going to do precisely that, with the obvious caveat that I might be punching at the wind. Long story short: I'm confident about this patch; only a few bits irritate me.

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Expected to drop on to the live servers later this week, Final Fantasy XIV's patch 1.20 is bringing with it several large-scale overhauls to combat, leveling, and crafting. In anticipation of the patch release, the patch notes have just recently been posted on the official site; they contain a number of new pieces of information. Among the news is the revelation that players will be able to ascend even further in the ranks of the Grand Companies, and there are new rewards from the vendors as you climb to Sergeant Third Class.

The patch notes also contain the finalized levels and names of the various adjusted actions as well as discussion of the game's new system for allocating bonus points per class. There's also a small preview of the fight against Good King Moggle Mog XII with the video embedded just after the break. If you're looking forward to the patch, it's still not quite here, but having the full list of notes to inspect should help take some of the edge off.

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As the release of Final Fantasy XIV's next major patch approaches, more previews continue to go up for the various improvements it will bring. Two of the major promised features are the improvements to both the market wards and the introduction of a proper player search feature, both of which have been posted to the official site. The market wards will now include several pieces of functionality similar to the Final Fantasy XI auction house, including transaction histories and the option to buy direct from the search screen.

The player search feature, meanwhile, will allow players to flag themselves as looking for a party, indicating preferred classes and activities. Searchers will be able to sort results by a variety of criteria to help identify potential teammates. It should make assembling groups for larger content much simpler than it currently is, which should in turn encourage the community to take part in more challenging content. Neither system might seem like a revolution, but there's no doubt that both improvements will have a definite impact.