Woah Keen. Woah. I thought you weren’t playing Final Fantasy XIV. I thought you played the beta and had absolutely no desire.  That’s true. I had absolutely no desire to play FFXIV until Graev talked me into it. He decided to pick up a copy and grabbed me a buddy key. I haven’t even logged into the game yet but I’ve decided that I enjoy playing with Graev enough that it’s worth a second try.
I’m not going to steal any of Graev’s thunder, since he’s preparing a post for this week on his thoughts. I’ll just say that he’s put in a fair amount of time and enjoys the game enough to convince me to try it with him. So that’s my plan for this weekend (or the 5 hours left of it).  I’m going to give the game an honest shake for Graev’s sake. Graev and I will both deliver our thoughts on the game this week.
Other than that, nothing much on the gaming front. I’m off to try some FFXIV!
[Update: Here’s a sneak peak of our characters hanging out at the gates of the starting city.]
Has Graev ever disliked a game?
He dislikes most MMO’s but seems to like the ones I don’t. In the past six years we may have liked only one or two of the same MMO’s. Yeah, he dislikes a lot.
That’s why I come to this site. I truly appreciate you guinea pigs…errrrr…authors! seriously thou, I really to enjoy reading ya’lls thoughts.
Doody
It certainly does LOOK nice… How well does your machine handle it? I seem to recall you coming in very low on their benchmark. Just curious to see how the performance of the actual game measures up to their benchmarking system.
looks good
So what do you guys reckon? You both agreed to like the same game now, I suppose. 🙂 I’m gonna check this blog next time and see what are Graev’s insights regarding FF XIV. I’ve been looking forward to play this game sooner.
Buy FF14 Account
god it really does look just like ffxi with updated graphics
From my experiences playing the beta, I can honestly say this was the worst MMO I have ever played. Unintuitive, clunky, a lifeless world, an absolute abortion of a user interface, npc’s that speak in a badly translated pirate language (arr!). Admittedly the story quests were pretty good so when they release all the story quests it might be alright.
Still, if you like retro games, you might enjoy this one. No lessons learned from any other MMO since about the mid 90’s.
The biggest turn off for me though was the diehards. Never run into such rabid fanboys before, continually telling anyone with a negative opinion to go back to WoW (which I dont even play). I guess Final Fantasy fans would think a turd to be a work of art if you put a moogle on top of it. IMO the series has been garbage since FF7 and this latest offering has not changed that opinion.
La La Fail.
@Graham: You don’t play WoW, that’s why you’ve never run into such rabid fanboys before. 😛
I’ve never played any FF game, but I’m waiting for opinions from this blog and a few others before I decide to make a purchase. Also, I did AoC release week and I’ve realized I’m not a tester. I’d rather come into a game after some of the release flaws are ironed out.
lol @ bartlebe
@Barrista: I have played WoW before, just not any more, the hamster wheel gear grind gets old fast.
As for waiting for the release flaws to be ironed out? I’m not sure it will ever happen. The biggest flaw is an actual design choice, not a bug. Their UI is clearly designed with the future PS3 launch in mind and very clearly not with PC gamers in mind.
The initial hype I heard about the game, with a bullish claim from its lead dev that it would be a contender to WoW, was that it was going to try and take some of the casual market. There is absolutely nothing casual about this game, go look up some information on crafting and see what steps are required to make even a simple item.
I never wish failure on any MMO and this one will not die with SE behind it but I think by the start of November, there will be a massive bleed of subs as the target market of casual players have fled (with associated nerdrage). The hardcore will be left behind, content that they have driven out all the WoW idiots from their holy turd of a game.
@Barrista: Give it about a year, I’d say. It will probably be a pretty good game by next summer. You can see where the game will be; they just haven’t put most of it in yet.
I know the feeling. As great a game as Starcraft 2 is in many ways, it just wasn’t my cup of tea, and I was planning to skip dropping the 60 bucks on it. However, I had a bunch of friends who got into it and dragged me in.
Sometimes we just make bad decisions for the sake of friends and family. 🙂
Tarus 4 life! *high fives*
Still not dumping cash on it, I have no desire to play any final fantasy genre.
From what I’ve seen and read this is possibly the worst GAME ever made, not just the worst MMO.
Well I heard that if you play it for more than 15 minutes you just up and DIE. Seriously man, I know a guy who knows a guy it happened to.
Never played Final Fantasy, so im not familiar at all with it, But do all the characters look like 12 year old boys?
For the people lauding the interface, it’s a console focused design, just like FF11 online was. The game sucks unless you play it with a playstation-esque controller. It’s been that way for like 7 years with FF11, it will be that way for however long this one lasts.
Good on you for trying it out. That’s what friends are for, right?
I was actually turned off by the powerful negative reaction to the beta, but recently redid my preorder (not for the collector’s edition though) after a convo with a friend about the FF11 playstyle.
The sum up was that a game where you can be whatever class you want at the moment, and that actually has some mighty Quests that take a long time and involve a lot of work and are actually what anyone sane would call a Quest might be interesting. Certainly different at least, and given all the sameness in most MMOs these days it might be enough to be worth the purchase price.
If not, oh well, byebye $50. I’ve spent more on worse.
I don’t really have a huge urge to try out Final Fantasty but dang, those graphics do look nice 😀
@Wren: Graev’s system is 2 years older than mine (I’ve upgraded since using the benchmark) and handles it just fine. There is a definite issue with shadows and AA. I had everything maxed out and had a problem where it felt like I was moving through molases in-game and in the menus.
Turning AA down to 4 and shadows to “standard” (not high or highest) still looks amazing with zero lag. It runs really well and dang… it’s really beautiful scenery. At times it feels like the characters all look like pale porceline dolls, but the engine is quite amazing. I’ll weigh in more on this in my post.
“I’m going to give the game an honest shake for Graev’s sake.”
You already gave the game an honest shake. What you mean to say is you are going to give it a second look. 🙂
That’s true. A second honest shake where I push past stuff I may not like for the sake of trying to see what others see.
I’ve found a few things that I like which I’ll write about this week.
Hey nice sarcasm there Graev but I’ve sat through enough hours of “gameplay” footage of this to know it does not need me to actually waste time playing it personally to establish what I already know: it is utterly terrible.
Really, beyond a few nice exterior graphics I saw nothing good.
Mark my words, this is a sadistic experiment, not a game!
To paraphrase a Decepticon:
Lalafell, inferior; Midlander Hyur, Superior. 🙂
They’ll always be TaruTaru to me and they’ll always be awesome.
I smell a setup for a keen rant on this game upcoming. Not trolling just pointing out the obvious future.
No rant. You all know how I feel about the game. This time around I’m playing to look for ways to have fun and look for opportunities to explain how they’ve done the class system and how I, as someone actually trying to play it to find the good in it, might perceive such systems.