Graham

The major issue I have with F2P is that the future development of the game is tied to the exploitation of people who are addicted and spend too much money in the cash shop, in much the same way that a casino operates. Especially true in games like Atlantica, where you buy boxes that could contain great loot, or more likely contain garbage. Didnt get what you want? Try again, maybe you will be lucky next time?

Its leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth knowing that my relatively free time in the game is paid for by others who cannot control their spending habits. I've heard of people losing their houses through their addictions to these so called free to play games.

The majority of you pro F2P gamers may be happy with the model, it works for them as indeed it works for me, or it would if there were any F2P games worth playing. Only F2P game I can think of with any quality is LOTRO, the rest are nauseating asian grindfests or failed western subscription games. Simple fact is that for the most part, F2P games are just not good enough to hold a subscription.

So if, like Beau, you are one of those gamers who hop from game to game, rarely if ever reaching the end game (where the real cash exploitation begins in F2P) then I daresay you love F2P. Enjoy your game time in the knowledge it is funded by the desperation and misery of gaming addicts.

Developers are just not putting enough horsebirds into games these days. Thats the problem.

Shall be watching this launch with interest. I'm not sure I recall an MMO launching before with such polarised views from the general MMO crowd. Views so polarised that both sides regard the other sides as aliens almost.

Most MMO launches have a certain element of fanboys (and girls!) that have adopted the title as the new holy grail and shall defend it to the death. Yet not so many launch with the level of vitriol spewed in its direction by such a dedicated group of haters. No smoke without a fire I reckon.

Yet for all the hate, this title will do alright once all the first month ragequitters are done. A loyal fanbase and a game that really has not evolved since FF XI particularly will appeal to this core of fans. It just wont appeal to anyone else and it seems like a massive missed opportunity to me.

As for Massively itself, well I am not alone in thinking its the number one site for MMO news and generally one of the worst for its opinion pieces. The staff are obviously dedicated but it really does seem they all come from the "kittens and bunnies" side of the MMO crowd. I dont ever recall anything other than the mildest of criticism but I can understand why its this way.

Had to do a check on the calendar and make sure I had not gone through some kind of time warp to end up on April 1st.

A Michael Jackson MMO?? Really??

Will players get to stalk kids, then pay off their parents to keep quiet? Will you play through multiple courtroom instances, the outcome determined by how much money you have generated?

This guy may have contributed hugely to music over the years but the rest of his life is certainly not something to be celebrated. Death should not make someone a saint if they lived their life as he did.

In a land of moogles, far away,
A reverent hush...the fanbois pray,
At the altar of Squeenix, their prayers are heard,
Then flushed away, a forgotten turd.

From outside the temple, angry voices ring out,
"This game isn't ready!", the loudest does shout,
"It's still just a beta!", the chant rises from within,
Hammer blows strike the door, compounding their sin.

Yet software mouse driven and 300 clicks later,
The menu befuddles the tired, angry haters,
Spinning in circles, the group wheels away,
Leaving the fanbois to chant and to pray.

Honestly, I think its rather like comparing two bland restaurants that serve reasonable meals for reasonable prices. Not bad but nothing to inspire you to go again.

Dont get me wrong, both games have their positives. For LOTRO, its the main storyline quests and Moria (if you play through it with a small group, not too much fun solo). For EQ2, some rather fun dungeons and a certain dash of nostalgia for old EQ players.

Negatives though, hmm where to start. For LOTRO, the main negative for me was the latest expansion. After the huge amount of content released in Moria, Siege of Mirkwood was a massive disappointment to say the least. Too much time spent on skirmishes (which are entertaining for a couple hours or so) and not enough time spent on actual game content.

For EQ2, bland class design, coma inducing combat (higher level combat generally consists of spamming 10 abilities which all do pretty much the same thing, over and over again) and the mid level content (20+) is far too fragmented. The game badly needs a Cataclysm style overhaul for its midgame.

Still, I havent seen much past level 70 or so in EQ2 so thats the choice for me. A bland meal will do until something more delicious comes along.

Interesting read so far. I suppose I consider myself a FF fan, though I do feel the series has gone sharply downhill since FF7. I played FFXI for a few years and really enjoyed the game, only quit in the end because I couldnt find a decent group of people to play with.

I've played my way through pretty much every big release since Everquest so I think I have a pretty decent idea of what works and what does not. I've seen a few comments that FFXIV is a throwback to the early days of MMO's. Not sure how accurate that is though really, I dont recall ever being particularly confused in either Everquest or FFXI and that was generally without the aid of the plethora of MMO sites that now exist to ruin every facet of a game with too much information :)

So I decided to try out this game without reading any guides first other than the beta manual provided, so I could get an accurate view of the newbie experience of the average player. Character creation was meh but thats no big deal, I dont feel any need to be a special unique little flower, its just a game. First impression in game right away, this is supposed to be a PC game and the mouse/keyboard controls are abominably bad. Right there is thousands of cancelled subscriptions.

No problem I think and plug in my gamepad. Restart, config the gamepad as best I can given the limited tool provided. Back in I go, ok....lets target this guy next to me to talk to. Umm no, not that guy over here, no....not his 4 friends....doh!! Many lines of dialogue later, I venture forth to try out combat. Combat sort of feels like wading through treacle and not just from server lag.

A few fun experiences and a lot of mind boggling bad experiences later, I was done. It felt like every so often I was handed a tasty cake but then I was punched in the nuts repeatedly for hours till I could find the next one. I was starting to get the hang of the game but I felt like I had to fight the game and its UI in order to have any fun. Also way too much website research needed for what should be intuitive.

I know you FF fans are longing for this game to be great. We have all been there before, fighting the corner of a game we want to work. I cant help but feel your blind faith is sadly misplaced though, if this game is not overhauled in a huge way before its PS3 release (after they get all the PC suckers to beta test it whilst paying them), then it is going to bomb hard. Just bad, bad game design with no lessons learned from many other MMO companies failures. Games and their audience have moved on since the "good ol days" but it seem SE have not.

It just feels like this game was designed by people who have been locked in a cupboard for the last 10 years. I am not saying they should steal Warcrafts UI but good gawd, its like they have learnt absolutely nothing about accessibility since they coded FF XI.

The UI is honestly an abomination against game design, its that bad. Even taking into account the limited beta and many promises that things will be much better before release (deja vu anyone?), this game is really not ready for release.

The worst thing is, I know they will produce fantastic story missions along the way, the game will have some great areas to explore, eventually the combat will be tweaked and be rather fun. Yet if I have to bang my head against a wall of poor UI design and unnecessary timesinks then I'm not wasting my money. Pre-order cancelled? Yup.

Still, the FF die-hards are happy. All those "idiots" who play WoW will be kept away from their game because of the "hardcore" UI and gamplay *rolls eyes*

I can handle "hardcore" gameplay. I dont mind mana being a resource, though it seems an unfair penalty on casters vs melee classes. I dont mind that the game is so limited in its current state, this is a beta so I can handle huge areas of the game being inaccesible.

What I cannot handle is the UI. This is releasing on the PC first, it is (allegedly) trying to capture some of the PC MMO market but releasing a UI that even on a console would be considered unwieldy is unforgivable. The amount of menus required to go through just to complete the most basic of tasks is something I would expect in an alpha test, not a game that is going to launch soon.

If I had to review this game in one word, quite simply.......

meh

Bhagpuss pretty much summed up my opinion of the beta so far above so I wont bother regurgitating what he said.

As for the main problem with this game so far. All I need to say is on the beta forum, most of the threads in feedback are about 5-10 pages long. User interface issues - nearly 100 pages.

Admittedly, only about 10 pages of that are legitimate concerns and the other 90 pages are rabid fanboys shouting everyone down with the battle cry of "Its just a beta!".

I have been in many betas and I have yet to see a miracle patch, though I have heard many tales of this mythical beast. If this client goes into open beta (in its admittedly restricted state), this game will do reasonably well as there are a lot of Final Fantasy fans who will play it anyway but the average gamer will play it briefly and boggle in disgust at the unbelievably retro menu system. I honestly dont think they could have the made the UI any more counter intuitive if they had tried. These average gamers will tell their friends to avoid this game.

For the hardcore fans, this will be a good thing apparently. They associate anyone who dislikes the game to be a Warcraft player and it seems, anyone who plays Warcraft is a stupid child who lives in their moms basement *rolls eyes*

I am somewhere in between an average gamer and a Final Fantasy fan so I know the game will come good eventually but before release? I seriously doubt it.