[pancakesandsex]

I guess it depends who is the most hardcore about FFXIV out of you guys :lol But it will be good to have someone who's been a long time FFXI player, and plans to play FFXIV...for a long time :P Also, I'm very optimistic about the server performances come retail. Usually Open beta's are hit the hardest, since its basically a "free preview" for most people. FFXIV's OB has probably been the smoothest Ive been in, no joking...I had maybe one crash, and that was due to trying to login while the login server was undergoing maintenance. ohh, just got word...looks like my copy will be shipping on the 21st. Now all I need is for the in-game item codes to work, and everything will be just dandy :lol

I'd hate to see the name wasted on a fly by night is all.

[kiryogi]

I have no idea how to make a LS. I'm new to this FFOnline business. :lol That said I should be getting my CE copy day of I hope. D: Maybe next day. I did express thru bestbuy.

[demonkaze]

So ready for this, can't wait to get started on the 22nd, took a day off as well. Still can't decide Archer or Gladiator for my main, would probably rather do gladiator but it looks like that (and Marauder) are the most popular classes. Would also like to do a mage but not sold on how they work at the moment.

On another note, how do I get the FFXI player item?

[Jinko]

I'm not guna make the LS for retail, Should be someone like Tek or Gromph IMO.

Hopefully they have sorted the issues with giving out pearls and promoting members.

[Darkness]

Is there a digital release for this? My DVD drive is busted.

[Unknown Soldier]

Is there a digital release for this? My DVD drive is busted.

Do you really want to download a 22GB game? Even if you were to saturate a 50mbps Verizon FiOS connection, it would still take you at least a day, and as we all know real-world download speeds rarely approach your speed cap unless you're torrenting from a large swarm and you've set your router, computer, and torrent client's settings correctly. We don't even know how many DVDs it's going to come on. If Squenix cheaps out and uses single-sided, single-layer DVDs, it could be as many as 6. :lol

[Doodlebug]

Are there actual link pearls to give out and carry, or are players simply "invited" by someone capable standing next to them?

[Ronok]

Do you really want to download a 22GB game? Even if you were to saturate a 50mbps Verizon FiOS connection, it would still take you at least a day, and as we all know real-world download speeds rarely approach your speed cap unless you're torrenting from a large swarm and you've set your router, computer, and torrent client's settings correctly. We don't even know how many DVDs it's going to come on. If Squenix cheaps out and uses single-sided, single-layer DVDs, it could be as many as 6. :lol

...It wouldn't take even close to a day.. :-/

[NinjaFusion]

march is a horribly long time away.

sigh.

[Coldsnap]

Gah I'm about to re-pre order for like the 10th time....

[HAttyboy]

- Code from FFXIII Where can I find this code? o.O

[aceface]

Just watched the IGN video on the fatigue system...I can only play about an hour today so it actually sounds good to me...I haven't really been following the reaction but I'm imagining it has been pretty negative. :lol

[Dreamwriter]

- Code from FFXIII Where can I find this code? o.O

If you got one of the very first copies of ffxiii, it came with a code for ffxiii on an extra insert in the case.

Do you really want to download a 22GB game? Even if you were to saturate a 50mbps Verizon FiOS connection, it would still take you at least a day

One megabit = 128k
50 megabits = 6.4 megabytes
1GB at 50mbps = under 3 minutes
22GB at 50mbps = under an hour

Sure, real world situations limit that, but you said if the person saturated his 50mbps connection... Math ftw!

Anyways, I doubt the game is 22GB, as the open beta was like a 5GB download...somehow I doubt the opening video takes up 17GB...

[Luigiv]

The one thing I don't get about this game is why isn't just set in Vana'diel given that the character races are identical to their FFXI counterparts?

[Jinko]

Are there actual link pearls to give out and carry, or are players simply "invited" by someone capable standing next to them?

You don't carry them as inventory anymore its more like they're added to a seperate linkshell list.

You can view up to 10 linkshells all at the same time (not a very smart idea :lol )

As of the beta you still have to be standing next to someone to invite/kick/promote them though, which is one of my biggest problems with it.

[Bento]

Meh, realized it's not that big of an issue really : P

[DrDogg]

Dunno about forcing (I never went beyond level 10 in the beta), but grouping really makes parts of the game a lot better. For example, by yourself you can only do a few Levequests a day, but in a party, that amount is multiplied by the number of people in the party (and you can get better rewards by going for more difficult Leves).

Unless you're a mage class... then partying is all but pointless (going by the OB).

On another note, how do I get the FFXI player item?

You just need to have a FFXI account that is active and not in the 30-day trial period, then link it to your SE ID that you log into FFXIV with. All of this has to be done before you create your character though.

Just watched the IGN video on the fatigue system...I can only play about an hour today so it actually sounds good to me...I haven't really been following the reaction but I'm imagining it has been pretty negative. :lol

I was very upset about this when I first heard about it, but I never hit any fatigue in the OB and only heard of one person on the server getting it. So until I actually hit fatigue, I'm not going to worry about it.

[Torquill]

The one thing I don't get about this game is why isn't just set in Vana'diel given that the character races are identical to their FFXI counterparts?

New FF, new world. Why would that change?

[Kintaro]

Blah. More I think about it, more I should probably level the jobs I don't give a crap about first...

[Rentahamster]

Unless you're a mage class... then partying is all but pointless (going by the OB).

Not so much anymore. Last night I was partying with a group in a rank 40 leve area (not doing rank 40 leves, just screwing around in that area). We had a party of about 7 people ranging in rank from 16-24, fighting mobs that conned green to orange to our party. The conjurer in the party was reporting 300-1000 SP per battle.

[Teknoman]

I'd hate to see the name wasted on a fly by night is all.

I'll make it then, just might take a little longer than usual depending on UPS and all...unless one of the other past SoD leaders hits Lindblum first. Shouta and Kandinsky, you know you want to go to Lindlbum.

[Rentahamster]

Shouta and Kandinsky, you know you want to go to Lindlbum.

Indeed.

:D

[Coldsnap]

Blah. More I think about it, more I should probably level the jobs I don't give a crap about first...

why?

[Sin]

I don't think I have been this excited for a game release in years. I know the game has its shortcomings but my time in FFXI was priceless. I met a lot of great people and we have all met recently to resurrect our old LS, AscendantSky. Can't wait! :D

[mephesta]

Is the font size able to increase? I will be playing on a 50" tv from ~10' back. I know it is not ideal, but it is all I have :( Also, does anyone know if bestbuy is doing in store pre-orders for the CE? I may go do that tomorrow, otherwise it looks like I am stuck with Gamestop.com and overnight shipping.

[Unknown Soldier]

Is the font size able to increase? I will be playing on a 50" tv from ~10' back. I know it is not ideal, but it is all I have :(

You can just lower the resolution. It makes everything in the UI bigger.

One megabit = 128k 50 megabits = 6.4 megabytes 1GB at 50mbps = under 3 minutes 22GB at 50mbps = under an hour Sure, real world situations limit that, but you said if the person saturated his 50mbps connection... Math ftw! Anyways, I doubt the game is 22GB, as the open beta was like a 5GB download...somehow I doubt the opening video takes up 17GB...

Okay, fine! I'm bad at math! Sue me! I didn't actually calculate it out like you did when I said it. Yeah, I know, I should know better when I'm on GAF. :lol

Anyways, the retail game is 22GB after it's installed (how big it is compressed on the discs is still unknown), the relatively content-free OB was only a 5GB download.

[JudgeN]

I am pretty sure I deleted the email SE sent me when I enter my code in member site, am I SOL when comes to get my item for FFXIII?

[Thoraxes]

I am pretty sure I deleted the email SE sent me when I enter my code in member site, am I SOL when comes to get my item for FFXIII?

No, there should be an option to see your codes available on the site.
I'm looking at mine again right now.

[Firehead]

Edit: I just found out that my laptop will not run this game. At all. Seems like a mobility 8600GT just isn't powerful enough for this game. Dammit, just after I finished paying off the CE. I'll have to wait a few weeks before playing; none of the codes expire after a period of time, right? ):

I am pretty sure I deleted the email SE sent me when I enter my code in member site, am I SOL when comes to get my item for FFXIII?

http://member.square-enix.com/na/fea...alcode/ps3.php
Scroll down.

[Phthisis]

I really want to love and play this game (as FFXI was my first MMO and I liked it a lot) but will it require the same absurd timesink to do anything in this game? Because WoW gave me almost instant gratification every day and I don't know if I can do an MMO without that now.

[Dreamwriter]

Anyways, the retail game is 22GB after it's installed (how big it is compressed on the discs is still unknown), the relatively content-free OB was only a 5GB download.

The Open Beta had most of the content of the game, minus the opening video (new quests and things like that, would be on their servers, not something that would take up any space on the retail game). It was around 5GB compressed. If they wanted to make the full game downloadable (as was what was originally asked), they would of course use similar compression. I doubt it'd be much bigger than the OpenBeta at all, definitely not anywhere near 22GB.

I really want to love and play this game (as FFXI was my first MMO and I liked it a lot) but will it require the same absurd timesink to do anything in this game? Because WoW gave me almost instant gratification every day and I don't know if I can do an MMO without that now.

Well, depends on what you want to do. FFXI was only an absurd timesink to level up or farm money - if all you cared about was levelling, then yes FFXI wasn't the game for you. It seems as though Square is trying to give players even more to do this time, and more fun doing each thing, but still discouraging levelling just for the sake of levelling.

[Jinko]

It looks like most of the quests and mission are either soloable or are for small parties, so I doubt much of that stuff will be as time consuming as FF11.

Much of what was a time sink in 11 was having to get a party together, of course end game is something completely different, but WoW can be quite a time sink in that respect aswell.

I just hope end game content will be based around hard Faction leves, suceed and you get a piece of new shiny gear, I can see eventually guild marks being used to buy new weapons/armour.

Anyways, the retail game is 22GB after it's installed (how big it is compressed on the discs is still unknown), the relatively content-free OB was only a 5GB download.

Thats kind of interesting, The beta installed was just under 10 GB's for me, but still that 12 GB's extra we are getting in retail, that alone gives me something to smile about.

[Unknown Soldier]

Okay, as promised earlier in the thread:

A Brief Performance Analysis of FFXIV Open Beta Client and Multi-Threading

This little analysis was inspired by a guy's fantastic OCing performance analysis on his blog. If you haven't read it, I suggest you go there and have a look. It will be very useful if you are planning a computer upgrade in the near future when FFXIV runs like it's constipated on your current machine. :lol

Test machine:
Intel Core i7-950 OCed to 4.01ghz
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
6GB G.Skill "Ripjaws" series 3 x 2GB DD3-1600
eVGA GeForce GTX 470 SC OCed to 760/1520/1850
onboard Realtek ALC889 audio
Windows 7 Pro x64

Settings:
Window Size: 1920x1200 (fullscreen)
Buffer Size: Resolution
Multisampling: 8xQ MSAA
Shadows: Highest
Textures: High
Texture Filtering: Highest
AO: Off
DoF: On

HyperThreading was left on! Core i7-800/900 series have 4 physical cores and 8 virtual ones when HT is enabled!

As a game with a PC/PS3 platform target, we can expect FFXIV to be as pervasively multi-threaded as Squenix can manage, since CELL processor consists of 1 actual general-purpose CPU, the PPE, and 8 special computation cores, the SPEs. (Of which the PS3 can actually use 6 for games, 1 is disabled in hardware initially to increase yields, and 1 is reserved for exclusive use by the hypervisor.) So if we are targeting a console with 7 hardware threads (1 PPE + 6 SPEs), we can expect FFXIV to spawn at least 6-7 hardware threads when it's busy. So does Squenix know how to program multi-threaded game clients? Let's take a look!

Scene 1 - Crystal Solitude



This scene is just me standing alone in front of the city crystal in Limsa Lominsa. There is no one else on screen because it was late at night and beta is almost over. This is a good test of the game's base rendering engine.

And here's how it looked:


So, we can see that when the game is doing nothing but rendering an empty scene, it's using only 4 threads. We can see my CPU is very bored here, it's blasting out 60 fps in this scene and pegging the GPU at 100% usage.

Scene 2 - Unexpected Company



This scene is me standing in front of the LL Adventurer's Guild. Again, it was late at night, so not very many people are on-screen.

And here's the stats:


Still not very interesting, you might be seeing the OS as the 5th thread. Windows 7 is smart enough to park heavy-use threads on loaded cores and do it's own business on an unloaded core if you are loading the CPU heavily, which might be what we are seeing here. Again, the framerate was pegged at 60fps and the GPU was running full-tilt.

Scene 3 - Camp Crystal Lake



This scene is me standing in front of Camp Bearded Rock. There are still a good number of people here, even though it's late at night and in the beta.



Okay, NOW we're seeing something here! I looks like when you're out in the field at least and the game has to show fights and mobs, it's actually spawning at least 6-7 threads! I don't know what these threads are doing or how useful they actually are, but it seems like this game is thread-optimized for a machine which has 7 hardware threads, you know, like a PS3. :lol The game was running around 33fps in this scene but the GPU was still pegged at 100%, suggesting I am heavily GPU-limited at this resolution.

I went out and killed a dodo to check my framerates and I tried to watch the status as well, but obviously it was kind of hard to take a picture of it while fighting. The game did maintain some activity across all 8 virtual cores during the fight.

Analysis:

Now, does this mean you should run out and buy a Core i7 and leave HT on? No, I don't think so. From the blogger's analysis and mine, you can see the game becomes severely GPU-limited anyways once you cross a certain CPU performance threshold. There was no point during my analysis where the GPU usage dropped below 99% while standing still, you can see that in my MSI Afterburner graphs. Obviously when I'm moving and the game is loading, it hitches and hiccups a lot and then GPU usage temporarily drops while the CPU is busy thrashing the hard drive. (I need to get a fucking SSD for this game! :lol)

So I think you can just as happily buy a Core i5-700 series which is the same as Core i7 but with HT disabled in hardware by Intel and get the same level of performance. 8 virtual HT threads still maps to 4 physical cores and you need to be near 100% utilization of all 8 threads, which FFXIV clearly isn't anywhere near, before you get any real benefit from HT's hardware-managed multi-threading versus just letting the operating system manage threads. Most games are like this, actually. HT is great for things like video encoding and other tasks which peg a CPU at 100% on all threads. Games simply don't do this, especially at high resolutions when most people are GPU-limited anyways.

Many games designed for consoles which are heavily multi-threaded rarely stress the CPU to anywhere near 100% on the PC versions. We saw that with GTA4 PC version, and we are seeing it with FFXIV. It's not easy to write multi-threaded game code for a platform with an infinite number of variations like the PC, whereas you have a single hardware target on a true current-gen console like the PS3 or 360. It's not hard to imagine FFXIV using 100% of the CELL processor, but here we can see my CPU is either moderately to very bored depending on the situation and theoretically my old Core 2 Quad Q6600 could have run the game well if it were well-optimized for PCs and could actually peg the CPU at 100% instead of what we see in my analysis and his. In reality my old Q6600 would be getting 12fps where I was comfortably getting 28fps with this Core i7. There's a lot of optimization work which can be done to make FFXIV run better on something less than an OCed Core i7, it's really a question of how fast Squenix can do it because right now it crawls on machines that most people would consider pretty powerful otherwise, and most people aren't going to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their PCs to play this game. (They could buy a PS3 instead with the same money! :lol)

Conclusions:

So there you have it. If you are planning an upgrade to your computer for this game, go cheap. Forget HyperThreading, just get a Core i5-750/760 and just OC the shit out of it. Focus instead on getting at least a GeForce GTX 460 or better if you want to run at 1080p+ resolution, you're going to be GPU-limited at high resolutions. If you are buying a laptop for this game, well...don't. This game demands a powerful CPU and powerful GPU because it's not well-optimized and most laptops short of the $2,500 Alienware laptops will not be up to snuff for this game. If you spend $2,500 for a shitty Alienware laptop, then I pity you.

edit: spelling, make images smaller

[Ricker]

So with all this fatigue stuff and everything,does anyone know the highest level someone managed a class in the open beta?

[Munba]

Thats kind of interesting, The beta installed was just under 10 GB's for me, but still that 12 GB's extra we are getting in retail, that alone gives me something to smile about.

I presume that big missing data are some other areas/regions maybe. Seing the worldmap, there are still 5 regions not in beta (Paghl'tan, O'Gomoro, Gravania, Xephatol and Gyn Abania). I don't think it's 10 GB of items/equip :D

[inthezone]

Is this as hardcore as FFXI or will it be like WOW?

In terms of time consumption I mean. Con you solo for a bit or does it absolutely require you to group after level 5

[Unknown Soldier]

Is this as hardcore as FFXI or will it be like WOW? In terms of time consumption I mean. Con you solo for a bit or does it absolutely require you to group after level 5

You can solo a lot, at least up to level 18. That's as far as I got in beta anyways. Does this mean there won't be timesinks? Hell no! Squenix just moved the timesinks around, now instead of leveling being a timesink, it's crafting and trying to buy or sell anything to other players! :lol

I presume that big missing data are some other areas/regions maybe. Seing the worldmap, there are still 5 regions not in beta (Paghl'tan, O'Gomoro, Gravania, Xephatol and Gyn Abania). I don't think it's 10 GB of items/equip :D

It's 10GB of NEW HAIRSTYLES!! :lol

[NeoForte]

Kinda doubt I can overclock my iMac's i7 safetly though :(

[Azrael]

Has Gamestop announced if they're doing any midnight launches?

[demosthenes]

Is this as hardcore as FFXI or will it be like WOW? In terms of time consumption I mean. Con you solo for a bit or does it absolutely require you to group after level 5

1) Grouping was seen as mandatory in XI after 10-15, not 5.

2) Yes it is much more solo friendly.

[Dorga]

I have to say, I can really relate to all these crazy roller-coaster feelings about this game. Ever since it was announced last year (and in truth, the 2005 e3 Square Enix next-gen "tech demo"), I have been longing for the game. Then all the bullshit from the beta hit, and I was convinced I'd never play the game. ...But I can't resist the draw, regardless of the game's seemingly massive flaws. I will be there come September 30, and no server congestion/fatigue/surplus/anima cooldown/leve cooldown/software mouse/unoptimized engine/clunky UI will stand between me and Eorzea.

[RDreamer]

This game started out the year as my most anticipated game, but now I can't even play it. I really hate that I have to wait it out until March for the PS3 version. The whole fun of the game is in discovering everything with everyone else, and it'll all be done by then for the most part. If my fiance's computer gets fixed by release I may try and buy it, but I doubt it'll run there, and I have a Mac, so that's mostly a no go (don't really want to dual boot, and I doubt it'd run it that well anyway). So weird to see a new FF coming out that I can't have on day one.

[MetatronM]

I have to say, I can really relate to all these crazy roller-coaster feelings about this game. Ever since it was announced last year (and in truth, the 2005 e3 Square Enix next-gen "tech demo"), I have been longing for the game. Then all the bullshit from the beta hit, and I was convinced I'd never play the game. ...But I can't resist the draw, regardless of the game's seemingly massive flaws. I will be there come September 30, and no server congestion/fatigue/surplus/anima cooldown/leve cooldown/software mouse/unoptimized engine/clunky UI will stand between me and Eorzea.

I was hyped at the start of the summer. Canceled my preorder for the CE last week. I'll probably jump in on XIV sometime closer to the PS3 launch.

I just can't afford, in both time and money, to put in my months of XIV while they're still working out the launch blues and huge obvious problems.

[Rentahamster]

This game started out the year as my most anticipated game, but now I can't even play it. I really hate that I have to wait it out until March for the PS3 version. The whole fun of the game is in discovering everything with everyone else, and it'll all be done by then for the most part. If my fiance's computer gets fixed by release I may try and buy it, but I doubt it'll run there, and I have a Mac, so that's mostly a no go (don't really want to dual boot, and I doubt it'd run it that well anyway). So weird to see a new FF coming out that I can't have on day one.

You can build a rig to run this game for less than $500. Even, less, if you cut corners.

[DrDogg]

Not so much anymore. Last night I was partying with a group in a rank 40 leve area (not doing rank 40 leves, just screwing around in that area). We had a party of about 7 people ranging in rank from 16-24, fighting mobs that conned green to orange to our party. The conjurer in the party was reporting 300-1000 SP per battle.

What was the CON doing though? I assume he was attacking the mob more so than healing/buffing right? I don't want to "battle" as a mage class. I didn't like BLM or BLU in FFXI and I don't want their equivalent in FFXIV (in terms of offensive power). If I don't get SP for healing/buffing, there's no reason for me to party.

Is the font size able to increase? I will be playing on a 50" tv from ~10' back. I know it is not ideal, but it is all I have :( Also, does anyone know if bestbuy is doing in store pre-orders for the CE? I may go do that tomorrow, otherwise it looks like I am stuck with Gamestop.com and overnight shipping.

I play on a 73" from about 12' back and had no issues with reading text.

[Rentahamster]

What was the CON doing though? I assume he was attacking the mob more so than healing/buffing right? I don't want to "battle" as a mage class. I didn't like BLM or BLU in FFXI and I don't want their equivalent in FFXIV (in terms of offensive power). If I don't get SP for healing/buffing, there's no reason for me to party.

He's a CON that normally likes to spam lots of offensive spells, but in this case, he was the only mage in the party so he had to be spamming cure bombs about 80% of the time. We were fighting some pretty high level beasties, so we were taking damage like bitches.

My marauder was getting anywhere from 0 - 400 SP each battle, and the higher level you were (which would put you closer to the mob's level), the better SP gains you saw. The level 16s in the party didn't really see much SP gain. Although, it might have been bugged because sometimes they say they saw SP gain proc during the battle, but at the end of the battle, they didn't get the message that totals all their SP gained during the battle.

[Unknown Soldier]

You can build a rig to run this game for less than $500. Even, less, if you cut corners.

Note: you do have to OC this stuff. It won't perform very well at stock. 3.4 to 3.6ghz is pretty easy with just the stock heatsink Intel provides, if you are going to push for 3.8ghz+ I do suggest spending another $40-50 for an aftermarket heatsink. The GTX 460s will happily blow right past 800mhz core and many can hit 900mhz core, at that speed it will depend only on how much AA you use, I don't suggest using too much AA with a 768MB VRAM video card.

[DrDogg]

He's a CON that normally likes to spam lots of offensive spells, but in this case, he was the only mage in the party so he had to be spamming cure bombs about 80% of the time. We were fighting some pretty high level beasties, so we were taking damage like bitches. My marauder was getting anywhere from 0 - 400 SP each battle, and the higher level you were (which would put you closer to the mob's level), the better SP gains you saw. The level 16s in the party didn't really see much SP gain. Although, it might have been bugged because sometimes they say they saw SP gain proc during the battle, but at the end of the battle, they didn't get the message that totals all their SP gained during the battle.

Hmm... maybe SE fixed it then if he wasn't doing much damage. When the retail game hits, if you need a CON or THA in your party, I'll give it a test run to see what's up. Partying was my favorite aspect of XI and I'm sad to see myself reduced to soloing and crafting in XIV, but I refuse to play any melee until I'm ready to be the best tank on the server. :D

[Rentahamster]

Hmm... maybe SE fixed it then if he wasn't doing much damage. When the retail game hits, if you need a CON or THA in your party, I'll give it a test run to see what's up. Partying was my favorite aspect of XI and I'm sad to see myself reduced to soloing and crafting in XIV, but I refuse to play any melee until I'm ready to be the best tank on the server. :D

He actually mentioned out loud at one point, "Wow cure spamming sure is giving me lots of SP".

[nataku]

Tests

And you only had to heavily overclock your CPU!

3.06 stock to 4.01GHz is a massive overclock and far, far beyond the reach of your average FFXIV player out there. Overclocking in general is beyond your average PC user. Did you run those tests at stock, too?

I really hope SE has plans to sit down and seriously optimize the PC version for people that don't have a Cell processor in their PC, because I don't think people will stand for a game that has as many performance issues as this one too far past the free month. Let alone all the other issues the game has. There is too much MMORPG competition on the market now. Die hard SE fans/FFXI players may stick around, I'm sure. I guess that would probably be enough for them.