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[Alex]

Visually, Wrath of the Lich King is a more than fair clip above Final Fantasy XI in every category except for armor modeling. Although I would've agreed with the notion for vanilla WoW that it was more of a par deal, depending on what you find appealing in visuals.

Burning Crusade really shot the art direction, texturing, effects and modeling up a lot, and Lich King did it another jump further. They've added a lot of tech to that engine since launch and gotten it to do some insane things. For Cataclysm I think they already went over a bunch of the lighting again and redid the entire water rendering method based off of the pre-alpha footage.

I'm really excited to see the lid blown on some of the environments for it when alpha/beta go up. I don't play anymore but I'm always fascinated how every other patch or so a new slider or dial would show up under config. Really respectable commitment and work... well outside of quad core support.

Square, on the other hand, has sat on their ass, done nothing, and blamed the PS2 since launch. Obviously it will have drawbacks but to act like you cannot improve any of the tech while the other Final Fantasy and general Square-Enix games were mysteriously gaining new methods of rendering and the designers are learning new tricks with art assets? Uh-huh.

I just hope for XIV they don't move on to trying to blame the PS3. If they wish to move beyond their 250-500k niche Square needs to drop the budget into a bigger live team and get updates, content and revisions out faster and in a manner that makes sense to a normal human being.

Speaking of tech, I think before FFXIV hits I'll buy a smaller Solid State Drive to put whatever MMO I'm playing on. I've heard amazing things in reference to MMOs on them.

 

[notworksafe]

Visually, Wrath of the Lich King is a more than fair clip above Final Fantasy XI in every category except for armor modeling. Although I would've agreed with the notion for vanilla WoW that it was more of a par deal, depending on what you find appealing in visuals.

Burning Crusade really shot the art direction, texturing, effects and modeling up a lot, and Lich King did it another jump further. They've added a lot of tech to that engine since launch and gotten it to do some insane things. For Cataclysm I think they already went over a bunch of the lighting again and redid the entire water rendering method based off of the pre-alpha footage.

I'm really excited to see the lid blown on some of the environments for it when alpha/beta go up. I don't play anymore but I'm always fascinated how every other patch or so a new slider or dial would show up under config. Really respectable commitment and work... well outside of quad core support.

Square, on the other hand, has sat on their ass, done nothing, and blamed the PS2 since launch. Obviously it will have drawbacks but to act like you cannot improve any of the tech while the other Final Fantasy and general Square-Enix games were mysteriously gaining new methods of rendering and the designers are learning new tricks with art assets? Uh-huh.

I just hope for XIV they don't move on to trying to blame the PS3. If they wish to move beyond their 250-500k niche Square needs to drop the budget into a bigger live team and get updates, content and revisions out faster and in a manner that makes sense to a normal human being.

Speaking of tech, I think before FFXIV hits I'll buy a smaller Solid State Drive to put whatever MMO I'm playing on. I've heard amazing things in reference to MMOs on them.

Indeed. A recent WoW patch added a whole new graphical setting (Ultra), and it would be nice if XIV would evolve graphically over time as well. I'm hoping that Square won't hold back the PC version because of the PS3 version. Perhaps add some nice touches to the PC version or just keep adding new levels of graphics power and features as the years go on. Blizzard does keep some differences between the PC and Mac versions of WoW (not much graphics-wise but Mac has built in video capture and some other things) but that may be harder to do with PC and PS3 (and 360 if/when XIV makes it over there).

Overall I think that Square should take a look at how Blizzard handles their MMO as a good model to follow. Not gameplay wise (one WoW-style game is enough, thanks), but the stuff around the game. Something like forums with active mods that answer questions daily and keep the players up to date with the thought process behind the decisions they make. Keeping the community well informed and including them directly in a game's dev process is a good way to make people feel involved, and therefore more loyal, to the game they are playing. Not to mention keeping the game open to different addons to improve gameplay (and perhaps taking some of those addons and incorporating them into the game).

 

[Kandinsky]

Stop dreaming PS3 (and 360?) will hold back XIV eventually, such a shame D:

 

[Alex]

Not having an active community is a good thing and a bad thing.

Good thing because MMO communities at large, all of them, are filled with stupids. Anything beyond a specific subject or form in the Official WoW boards will make you want to take an icepick to the eye.

Bad thing because you can STILL get a lot of information sharing and good conversations inbetween the stupids. Communication with developers and information sharing with CMs, especially. It's spurred a lot of great outside communities and did wonderous things for the games balance.

Balance is the main thing I worry about for XIV. FFXI had AWFUL class balance and they NEVER tried to fix it, they make a big sweeping change of nonsense every few years that just breaks it in another way. Maybe it's a bit better now, I dont know, but I played for years and it just sucked ass that they had so many cool things going for it and so many cool classes with great aesthetics and style and a nice concept of functionality but then they would let them rot.

WoW was like this at launch too though (to an extent, I think they just wanted one role for every class to be focused on, which is still goofy to me), just as fucking bad before they broke the MMO cycle of ignoring it's customers entirely and started doing a lot of conversations and more meaningful test realms and even going so far as to participate in more respected fansites (EJ, for all it's harshness, is the single best information depot and math house that's ever come from an MMO).

When I quit WoW last year, every single spec of every single class was raid capable and without much contesting and that was still amazing to me after so many years of built up stigmas that they managed to not only get 30 different talent trees on even footing for PvE, that they managed to change player perception so much.

FF is a Japanese game series though, so us here in North America and Europe and Australia won't be able to yell at people quite so well! But even if we only get a liaison on our behalf, if they started listening more and testing more even just in Japan as a focus and getting more active balancing it'd be such a huge deal. I'm sure they have some great fan communities there and would probably get much better ones if the developers move beyond the bronze age of MMOs and start taking active steps to better the welfare of the game

Unless someone wants to revert to the spiffy skill system of Ultima Online, active class balance in an MMO is really, really important.

 

[notworksafe]

Stop dreaming PS3 (and 360?) will hold back XIV eventually, such a shame D:

It doesn't have to though. I'm hoping that Square will see that the PS3 and a PC player want different things control-wise and feature-wise. Look at games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. They are on both console and PC but the interfaces are very different and suited to the control scheme of the system. Plus the PC versions are able to reach graphics levels not available to console players.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

I find armor design in XI to be my favorite among MMO's, but I was annoyed that I was stuck with a set for a veeery long time.

That aside, I was never impressed by the visuals in XI (specially since I played on PC). WoW is a better looking game.

 

[Teknoman]

It doesn't have to though. I'm hoping that Square will see that the PS3 and a PC player want different things control-wise and feature-wise. Look at games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. They are on both console and PC but the interfaces are very different and suited to the control scheme of the system. Plus the PC versions are able to reach graphics levels not available to console players.

Feature wise sure, but I dont think it'll be that different control wise.

Then again, PC is the target platform this time around. They've already stated the PC version will have higher quality textures than the console versions.

EDIT: Ultra settings on WoW? Any screenshots/video of that? I liked the art style of WoW as well.

 

[B-Dex]

I was going through old posts here and found this little gem:

"Characters will not age, however, you will be able to change your hairstyle"

I hope this is still planned so that we can change our look without having to reroll.

 

[notworksafe]

Ultra settings on WoW? Any screenshots/video of that? I liked the art style of WoW as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1dYlAG_Mus&hd=1

Mostly it's changes to lighting and shadows rather then the models of the characters, but there is an improvement in texture quality as well.

 

[Vhalyar]

I was going through old posts here and found this little gem:

"Characters will not age, however, you will be able to change your hairstyle"

I hope this is still planned so that we can change our look without having to reroll.

I doubt that S-E would skip on features like that, especially since FF14 is more casual-friendly than FF11. The developers also said that there would be some paying features if I recall, so things like full-character re-customization are also to be expected.

 

[Spire]

This thread turned into a fight between people who have only played WoW and people who have only played FFXI. The amount of ignorance about the MMO genre as a whole in here is just fucking staggering.

 

[Kandinsky]

It doesn't have to though. I'm hoping that Square will see that the PS3 and a PC player want different things control-wise and feature-wise. Look at games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. They are on both console and PC but the interfaces are very different and suited to the control scheme of the system. Plus the PC versions are able to reach graphics levels not available to console players.

That works for offline games, or online ones that separates (serverwise) PC from console users.
You see, for SE having lets say 60fps on the PC version is an advantage over PS2 users, same with macros, delivery box and AH slots, plugins/addons, inventory, and so on, so yeah i dont see this changing for XIV.

 

[notworksafe]

That works for offline games, or online ones that separates (serverwise) PC from console users.
You see, for SE having lets say 60fps on the PC version is an advantage over PS2 users, same with macros, delivery box and AH slots, plugins/addons, inventory, and so on, so yeah i dont see this changing for XIV.

I don't think it would be a big deal, really. A PS3 version could have all of these features, even addons. Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 supported mods/addon and keyboard/mouse, couldn't XIV? The rest have nothing to do with a console. The PS3 version could have the same number of inventory, delivery box, and AH slots.

 

[Londa]

I'm getting tired of reading all this comparing WoW to 14 and 11. I don't come in here to read fanboy WoW players dissing on SE MMOs all day long. If you like WoW so much why not discuss it in the proper thread?

Don't expect 14 to be like WoW or rage when it turns out not to be like WoW. Cause from what I see, I think SE has been trying to be the opposite of WoW in general.

 

[Kandinsky]

I don't think it would be a big deal, really. A PS3 version could have all of these features, even addons. Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 supported mods/addon and keyboard/mouse, couldn't XIV? The rest have nothing to do with a console. The PS3 version could have the same number of inventory, delivery box, and AH slots.

I'm just talking about their current excuses (FFXI and PS2), point was PS3 WILL hold back XIV whether you like or not.

 

[LowParry]

I'm getting tired of reading all this comparing WoW to 14 and 11. I don't come in here to read fanboy WoW players dissing on SE MMOs all day long. If you like WoW so much why not discuss it in the proper thread?

Don't expect 14 to be like WoW or rage when it turns out not to be like WoW. Cause from what I see, I think SE has been trying to be the opposite of WoW in general.

Because we have nothing else to talk about until Alpha goes live. By then, there will be pleeeeeenty to talk about and cry (those of us who didn't get in ).

 

[notworksafe]

I'm just talking about their current excuses (FFXI and PS2), point was PS3 WILL hold back XIV whether you like or not.

You may be right, but I'm just posing some ideas. Hopefully there will be an XIV version of Windower for PC players to get their plugin fix.

I'm getting tired of reading all this comparing WoW to 14 and 11. I don't come in here to read fanboy WoW players dissing on SE MMOs all day long.

Not sure what you see as "dissing". Just people making suggestions like (gasp) allowing cross-zone invites, giving some love to PC players with some improved graphics, and introducing sanctioned plugins (which are in other MMOs like WAR, Vanguard, and EQ2 as well). Heck, PC players have been using plugins with FFXI for a while through Windower to improve their experience.

 

[suzu]

I don't think anybody here is saying they want FF14 to be a WoW clone with an Final Fantasy style. There is just some features that WoW and other MMOs have that FF14 could utilize or improve on.

 

[Londa]

Can't really say anything until the final game is released because we don't even know how it will really play yet. Everything is in alpha right now and I don't see why so many people believe alpha=retail version.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

I don't think anybody here is saying they want FF14 to be a WoW clone with an Final Fantasy style. There is just some features that WoW and other MMOs have that FF14 could utilize or improve on.

Sure, but they're talking about it like FFXIV does it all wrong, when the alpha hasn't even begun.

Do you people really expect this brief game manual for the alpha to tell you at all what the final game will be like?

 

[Jinko]

something something something Alpha something something something



Thread never ceases to amuse me. Keep your whining up people, that makes the wait for new info more fun.

And there he is, I knew it would be you who picked me up on the Alpha thing, have a slap on the back.

Firstly I never said it wouldn't change for release.

For those who says that doesn't matter it kind of does to people who never played FF11, hell it matters to me and I did play it.

Being instantly invited to a party if I'm on the other side of the world so I'm less likely to lose my spot is a kind of a big deal, especially if you run half way across the world and get told oh sorry we invited someone else...

 

[SamuraiX-]

And there he is, I knew it would be you who picked me up on the Alpha thing, have a slap on the back.

Firstly I never said it wouldn't change for release.

For those who says that doesn't matter it kind of does to people who never played FF11, hell it matters to me and I did play it.

Being instantly invited to a party if I'm on the other side of the world so I'm less likely to lose my spot is a kind of a big deal, especially if you run half way across the world and get told oh sorry we invited someone else...

Not that I'm siding with Khrno or anything, but if you played FFXI then it should be obvious that a feature that like wouldn't guarantee that you keep a spot in that party if you're travelling from far away. If the party leader finds a better replacement much closer, he would just kick you out anyway.

Honestly, it's not such a big deal. The only thing that annoyed me about it in FFXI was waiting for person to enter the zone and /telling me "invite" while I might have been away from the PC for a few moments. Then I come back and /tell him to ask if he made it yet only to hear that he joined another party because I wasn't responding.

And we still don't know how exactly it's gonna work this time around anyway. SE did say they are implementing a new time of zone system so for all we know the feature may be upgraded better than we think.

 

[Shouta]

Balance is the main thing I worry about for XIV. FFXI had AWFUL class balance and they NEVER tried to fix it, they make a big sweeping change of nonsense every few years that just breaks it in another way. Maybe it's a bit better now, I dont know, but I played for years and it just sucked ass that they had so many cool things going for it and so many cool classes with great aesthetics and style and a nice concept of functionality but then they would let them rot.

Considering you stopped playing ages ago, they've gotten balanced pretty down pretty damn well in FFXI since whenever you stopped playing. Only one class now has real problems and that's because they built themselves into a corner. Either they continue working to find a solution or they totally overpower it.

 

[Square Triangle]

Square has yet to announce anything regarding any prizes for it's tiered members! Double U tee eff SE! Is there a deadline to when beta invites end?

 

[Buggy Loop]

Considering you stopped playing ages ago, they've gotten balanced pretty down pretty damn well in FFXI since whenever you stopped playing. Only one class now has real problems and that's because they built themselves into a corner. Either they continue working to find a solution or they totally overpower it.

Which class would that be now?

 

[Shouta]

BST obviously.

 

[Freyjadour]

Not that I'm siding with Khrno or anything, but if you played FFXI then it should be obvious that a feature that like wouldn't guarantee that you keep a spot in that party if you're travelling from far away. If the party leader finds a better replacement much closer, he would just kick you out anyway.

Honestly, it's not such a big deal. The only thing that annoyed me about it in FFXI was waiting for person to enter the zone and /telling me "invite" while I might have been away from the PC for a few moments. Then I come back and /tell him to ask if he made it yet only to hear that he joined another party because I wasn't responding.

And we still don't know how exactly it's gonna work this time around anyway. SE did say they are implementing a new time of zone system so for all we know the feature may be upgraded better than we think.

One of the things I like about WoW players that I dislike about XI players is the sheer amount of time that XI players waste in parties. In resubbing in the past few months I've moved a TV in this room so I would have something to do in the 30 minutes to an hour that some groups sat around waiting on one person to either get back from AFK, a PL, or what not.

I'm not an impatient person, but I don't have hours to waste. I do think this was less a problem with the game and more a problem with how people played it. The other side is the "been offline 10 seconds, kick them" mentality of randoms in WoW. Something in the middle would be nice.

 

[Kandinsky]

Square has yet to announce anything regarding any prizes for it's tiered members! Double U tee eff SE! Is there a deadline to when beta invites end?

ALPHA invites are done i'd guess. Nobody knows about BETA at this point.

 

[InfiniteNine]

Square has yet to announce anything regarding any prizes for it's tiered members! Double U tee eff SE! Is there a deadline to when beta invites end?

If you go onto the homepage for the Members website you can fill in the application for your postcards

Spoiler

or iPod touch you bastard.

 

[Kandinsky]

BST obviously.

Think it would be ok to make a thread about the alpha when it starts on the ONLINE forums, since that one is closed?

 

[SamuraiX-]

One of the things I like about WoW players that I dislike about XI players is the sheer amount of time that XI players waste in parties. In resubbing in the past few months I've moved a TV in this room so I would have something to do in the 30 minutes to an hour that some groups sat around waiting on one person to either get back from AFK, a PL, or what not.

I'm not an impatient person, but I don't have hours to waste. I do think this was less a problem with the game and more a problem with how people played it. The other side is the "been offline 10 seconds, kick them" mentality of randoms in WoW. Something in the middle would be nice.

I usually wasn't one of those kind of players. I do remember one time where I did something to the extreme of what you mentioned and I felt terrible about it.

I usually never had those kind of problems with people in my party. If they said they would be gone for 10 minutes and 20 minutes had past, we kick them and find someone else. When they come back, I would apologize and they would usually understand. The real problem in FFXI was that after Level 30 and up, partying became a complete bitch because it was then incredibly difficult to get a strong, efficient party going. Then if somebody had to leave, everyone else would leave sometimes because there wasn't any immediate replacement at the time. With FFXIV, I really hope to get started early and find a group of friends I could level with if it's like FFXI partying.

 

[Teknoman]

Think it would be ok to make a thread about the alpha when it starts on the ONLINE forums, since that one is closed?

I support this.

 

[Alex]

I never really had any problems with that kind of sluggishness in the parties in FFXI at all. People were usually quite respectful and speedy. It was just getting into the party for me, even when forming, that was the problem. Especially since I played late at night a lot.

That hopefully won't be a problem in XIV since you don't have such specific classes anymore, everything seems to be strewn about and shared.

onsidering you stopped playing ages ago, they've gotten balanced pretty down pretty damn well in FFXI since whenever you stopped playing.

I stopped in 2005, then came back and climbed back up on a new character and stopped again. This is pretty opposite of the things I've been hearing but you've always been more open minded and tactful concerning these things from the FFXI community, who has always been a bit of a bitch about anything they didn't read in a stickied thread in a class forum, no one ever did their own math.

I kind of hope they have another BST like in XIV, just something like that. Not sticking with BST is one thing I kind of regret. I always wanted to do a BST duo or trio even though it was kind of an obnoxious climb.

This will probably be pretty possible in general now, as they seem to be cutting their new inspirations on accessibility somewhere between Monster Hunter and Warcraft. My only fear is that with the job swapping there will be too much focus on having way more spread than a person may want.

 

[Londa]

Who said the party system will be just like 11? They said 14 will be more solo friendly and doing things in the game wouldn't take as much time as 11, so why are we complaining?

 

[Jinko]

Who said the party system will be just like 11? They said 14 will be more solo friendly and doing things in the game wouldn't take as much time as 11, so why are we complaining?

Depends what SE's idea of solo friendly is, its not like they are the most intuitive or open minded bunch of dev's around.

As much as I am looking forward to XIV I'm not guna let myself forget its SE (FF11 team) behind the wheel, probably why I am so quick to be critical.

 

[Mandoric]

I never really had any problems with that kind of sluggishness in the parties in FFXI at all. People were usually quite respectful and speedy. It was just getting into the party for me, even when forming, that was the problem. Especially since I played late at night a lot.

That hopefully won't be a problem in XIV since you don't have such specific classes anymore, everything seems to be strewn about and shared.



I stopped in 2005, then came back and climbed back up on a new character and stopped again. This is pretty opposite of the things I've been hearing but you've always been more open minded and tactful concerning these things from the FFXI community, who has always been a bit of a bitch about anything they didn't read in a stickied thread in a class forum, no one ever did their own math.

I kind of hope they have another BST like in XIV, just something like that. Not sticking with BST is one thing I kind of regret. I always wanted to do a BST duo or trio even though it was kind of an obnoxious climb.

This will probably be pretty possible in general now, as they seem to be cutting their new inspirations on accessibility somewhere between Monster Hunter and Warcraft. My only fear is that with the job swapping there will be too much focus on having way more spread than a person may want.

It's fortunate in that melee is usually the focus of casuals (me included), and melee variations are just a matter of bashing -different things- in the face. FFXI really suffers from having to copy everything from the Japanese -> being in the habit of copying and just picking the few Americans patient enough to parse and do math, hopefully XIV without the launch gap will avoid that.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Depends what SE's idea of solo friendly is, its not like they are the most intuitive or open minded bunch of dev's around.

As much as I am looking forward to XIV I'm not guna let myself forget its SE (FF11 team) behind the wheel, probably why I am so quick to be critical.

If you hate XI, there's not much reason to think XIV is going to be what you're looking for in an MMO.

 

[Jinko]

If you hate XI, there's not much reason to think XIV is going to be what you're looking for in an MMO.

I don't hate 11, I just think its extremely dated now, as do most I would imagine I still rank its as one of the best MMO's I have played (if for nothing other than storyline), lets not forget that SE seem to have only started to listen to the community in the last few years also.

 

[Chris R]

Depends what SE's idea of solo friendly is, its not like they are the most intuitive or open minded bunch of dev's around.

As much as I am looking forward to XIV I'm not guna let myself forget its SE (FF11 team) behind the wheel, probably why I am so quick to be critical.

Exactly where I'm coming from. And on the whole "zones" thing, I don't really think there is any reason why the game couldn't have no loading/be seamless, ect. WoW and other MMOs have been able to do it for years (and yes, I know this is an Alpha).

 

[Shouta]

I stopped in 2005, then came back and climbed back up on a new character and stopped again. This is pretty opposite of the things I've been hearing but you've always been more open minded and tactful concerning these things from the FFXI community, who has always been a bit of a bitch about anything they didn't read in a stickied thread in a class forum, no one ever did their own math.

FFXI suffers from group think just like any other game. Community tactics dictate which job is in damned and the game suffers a lot from that. Doesn't mean the balance is bad though.

Zones are likely a design choice and I don't see anything wrong with it as long as it's fast moving inbetween them. All MMOs have it to a certain extent, it's just to what extent is the key.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Exactly where I'm coming from. And on the whole "zones" thing, I don't really think there is any reason why the game couldn't have no loading/be seamless, ect. WoW and other MMOs have been able to do it for years (and yes, I know this is an Alpha).

Moving between zones is transitionless in the Alpha version of FFXIV.

 

[Alex]

It's fortunate in that melee is usually the focus of casuals (me included), and melee variations are just a matter of bashing -different things- in the face. FFXI really suffers from having to copy everything from the Japanese -> being in the habit of copying and just picking the few Americans patient enough to parse and do math, hopefully XIV without the launch gap will avoid that.

There was a period where I HATED to play with the Japanese. I mean it wasn't the barrier or the occasionally elitist attitude, we actually had a couple later on who we would have a mini-static with. But a bit earlier on, It was the way they played. Especially their Black Mages back in the day, oh my god, at the ones I played with. So cautious and slow.

I remember in some area, we had like, 3 JP Black Mages in a row who would take it all so carefully. Worried about enmity from the goofy American tank slipping up I guess. I was a BLM for quite awhile back then, and we used to really like dual BLMs when we were doing the heavier armor stuff like Kuftal coz melee would do shit if you went in too early. I think it was doing the Robber crabs back in like 2004?

But yeah, from my experience man, once we got another Westerner Black Mage, it was so much more fun. Double Bursting Ancient magic and shit, taking mobs from 100-0, I think for all of my time in FFXI that was the most fun I had. Just OBLITERATING crabs with way more firepower than required.

I got such a kick of watching a fucking iceberg hit a tiny crab and that HP bar just completely empty

I dont mind playing with the Japanese though, but yeah, that late launch on shared servers sucked. I still remember, first thing I saw when I logged in the day the PC vers came out was a pack of JP guys in full AF. Somewhat lame!

FFXI suffers from group think just like any other game. Community tactics dictate which job is in damned and the game suffers a lot from that. Doesn't mean the balance is bad though.

I disagree with this, at least in personal experience the FFXI community was a giant bitch. People were set and would NOT budge until something huge came along. In any other MMO, UO, DAoC to a lesser extent (not as much play) and latter day WoW there was a lot of creativity and kookiness. Like in WoW, I mean we'd drop raid in progress, respec and try out alternate stuff and new talents and offbeat things constantly on the hard mode things when we wouldnt have the same successes as the bigger guilds. There were also lots of kooky ways to gear yourself per spec and whatnot. Lots of our people wore their own things for their own methods, and I mean we were server first.

In FFXI, especially the further I got. People were really kinda crazy about, in my experience at least, "you do exactly this with exactly this job and no deviation and this guy doesn't have this piece of gear, fuck 'em", whatever. It could easily just be my experience, but I hated the community in that game and I need to work harder earlier on to get into a more lax setting.

I'm boring as hell though, so I'm already set on Lalafell um... healing guy with somewhat ridiculous class title. My only real worry remains that this weapon wheel and class swapping may be a little too frequent for my tastes.... Like I dont care for DPS that much, especially physical DPS. About the only physical DPS I will ever play is Thief/Rogue

 

[Jinko]

Zones are likely a design choice and I don't see anything wrong with it as long as it's fast moving inbetween them. All MMOs have it to a certain extent, it's just to what extent is the key.

I would have thought Zones were forced due to the limiations of the PS2's memory, hardly a choice.

But yeah, from my experience man, once we got another Westerner Black Mage, it was so much more fun. Double Bursting Ancient magic and shit, taking mobs from 100-0, I think for all of my time in FFXI that was the most fun I had. Just OBLITERATING crabs with way more firepower than required.

Brings back good memories of MB'ing Aga spells in the crawlers nest :S

 

[Pai Pai Master]

I dont mind playing with the Japanese though, but yeah, that late launch on shared servers sucked. I still remember, first thing I saw when I logged in the day the PC vers came out was a pack of JP guys in full AF. Somewhat lame!

See, I never really understood that. Was it jealousy that those guys were able to spend that much more time with the game? Coming on to an established server and seeing high level players, I kinda looked up to them and couldn't wait to get there. Seeing the possibilities of high level characters early on got me even more pumped for progressing further. And yes, there were japanese players who tried to stay away from playing with westerners, but there were also very many helpful ones who did what they could to help me and my friends figure it out.

 

[Chris R]

Moving between zones is transitionless in FFXIV.

link to info about this? Do you mean that they are in a sense like WoW "zones"?

 

[Pai Pai Master]

link to info about this? Do you mean that they are in a sense like WoW "zones"?

Never played much of WoW so I can't speak on how it works in that game. But it says right there in the alpha player manual that you can see other PCs across areas and that the transition between areas is seamless.

 

[Alex]

See, I never really understood that. Was it jealousy that those guys were able to spend that much more time with the game? Coming on to an established server and seeing high level players, I kinda looked up to them and couldn't wait to get there. Seeing the possibilities of high level characters early on got me even more pumped for progressing further. And yes, there were japanese players who tried to stay away from playing with westerners, but there were also very many helpful ones who did what they could to help me and my friends figure it out.

Naw, it was more like... One of the really cool things in an MMOs lifetime is to explore a big world with a community and discover it all together. It would've been fun to not see all the crazy shit the moment I logged in. It would've been preferable to see players grow and progress in little packs and and the world shape around yah as you played. Everything was done and setup when we logged in for the first time. Prices, community, economy, whatever really.

Doesn't kill me or nothing. But it is one thing I like in a good MMO with a good world (which FFXI had!) It's also due to all of the info being available and being told exactly where to go to grind and ehh. This one is mission based though, so that wouldnt be a problem anyway.

But yeah fresh world and couple years down the road hyper polished end game are the two parts of the MMO formula I like. The fancier these games get the more important establishing your own world will be though, so I just hope its not like that again anytime in the future.

 

[Chris R]

Never played much of WoW so I can't speak on how it works in that game. But it says right there in the alpha player manual that you can see other PCs across areas and that the transition between areas is seamless.

Ok I went back and reread that section. I guess it seems like you are in a different "zone", but you can see stuff going on in other zones, just not invite people who are in the other zone. Going to have to wait till more info is out, but as of right now it just sounds strange (probably just a bad translation)

 

[notworksafe]

Hoping there's more info soon. I keep checking the alpha site for a testing schedule, but I guess they want to wait til the client is ready for download.

 

[Londa]

I hope soon we get rules in here just like the FFXIII thread. Really tired of people saying its going to be like 11 and how they didn't like most of 11 and WoW is better than 11.