FFXIV: A Realm Reborn - Anyone excited?

The Game Room
#1

I’ll be honest: with the exception of a few MMOs and Portal, I don’t generally like Western video games. I just can’t get behind grizzled military guy #375 and his crew of gnarly, twisted companions.

I was a real believer in FFXI, even if the game was unfriendly towards duo play, which is the only way I’ll tolerate a multiplayer game.

Then FFXIV was announced and I thought this was The One. The MMO that would capture my heart forever. I followed it from the first, hoping they’d improve all of my quibbles with XI. Boy was I wrong.

Yet Square-Enix stood up and admitted they blew it. I admire that. As I began to follow the second iteration, I felt hopeful that they’d learned their lessons, but fearful that the only people who have taken their polls and offered feedback are the XI grindaholic junkies.

The game just won’t succeed if they can’t make it appeal to casual Western gamers.

I liked XIV well enough, for all of its flaws. I enjoyed the fact that, as a female character, I didn’t have to run around in spankies and a middy top. The world was well-realized, the localization was delicious (as always), great music, visuals, etc.

So yes, I’m excited about A Realm Reborn. Lamely, one of the real winning points for me is the addition of the “missing” genders in the races. I can finally ogle a male miqo’te played by my husband! :wink: A male miqo’te Dragoon in full regalia. Mmmm.

Anyone else looking forward to it? I don’t need to hear about the flaws of the original version. I’m WELL aware of them.

Do you trust Square to pull it off? What will you play? What are you hoping to see?

#2

I really enjoyed FFXI. I may try this one again now that it is supposedly fixed, but man did they screw it up the first time around.

#3

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Hell, no.

This was not even a “We screwed up” moment. The game was creakily ancient and pathetically outdated even had there been no bugs or silly missteps because the fundamental design is outdated, and Squeenix never had a clue how to make a decent online game in the first place. It’s yet another attempt to recapture the magic that FF used to have by completely ignoring the reasons for it and whoring out the details until they finally manage to beat the series to death. (And they’re doing a very good job of it.)

They actually made a worse game than the second-rate Star Wars: the Old Republic. (SWToR had a fantastic story element… but it was a terrible game.)

#4

Well, I’m excited about it. Guess you won’t be joining us, bandit. :stuck_out_tongue:

And I love TOR, and only stopped playing it because I got three characters to level 50 and needed a break.

Out of curiosity, what’s a good MMO to you? I’m not being snarky, I just want to understand your tastes.

#5

It always kinda irked me that they felt the need to put the Final Fantasy name on an MMO. Heck, not just the name - actually giving it one of the coveted numerals. I know the games aren’t really a “series” since they’re all in their own universes, but still, I’d like them to stick with applying them to the single-player JRPGs.

I guess it kinda feels like if they released a game called “Mass Effect 4” and it was a racing game, or “Doom 4” as a RTS.

#6

If they somehow recapture the interesting bits of the FFXI combat system, with a more westernized system for quest tracking/journaling so you’re not nigh-literally forced to use a guide to get anywhere, and make the whole thing more balanced and plausible to solo or duo for all classes, I MIGHT give it a look after the first month is over.

#7

No way, I’m still not done with FFXI

#8

I know this is an old thread but since the beta tests have started and the open beta is coming up, I’d like to hear your opinions. I’m testing it on PS3 and so far not that impressed. Still going to give it more time tho - maybe they’ll make it work. Fingers crossed!

#9

I have friends who are playing it, they seem to like it. It certainly looks good, but again, I’m still not done with FFXI

#10

My biggest issue with the PS3 is the fact that you just cannot target the enemy/NPC you want to when it’s crowded! Trying to participate in Faith events is impossible - there are other players, NPCs and a ton of non-faith monsters roaming about and once you manage to target an actual faith monster to get rewards the chances are they are all wiped already anyway.

Hope they can fix this by maybe giving a higher priority to targetting the correct monsters or allies that need healing according to the role you are playing.

Other than that it’s looking pretty good. I’m still not sure if I’ll subscribe or not.

#11

Whew. I almost voted wrong. I’m somewhat excited for XV, but not XIV-2. It’s nothing against the game itself–I just haven’t found any form of online gaming that I like. I’d even rather play board or card games against a computer.

#12

Eh. FF games are way too “guide dang it” for me. The last one I played (XII?) had, IIRC, four chests that were completely unremarkable in every way. Nobody ever told you anything about these chests. There was, in short, no way to know in-game that if you opened any one or more of these chests, you couldn’t get the most powerful weapon in the game. :smack: That, IMO, is not how things should be done. So screw 'em.

(Also, I’m boycotting them until they put more Burmecians in a game. :D)

#13

Not quite true. I mean, the whole part about opening any of the chests causing you to lose the weapon (Zodiac Spear was its name) was true, but there was another way apparently.

There was an enemy that could drop it. Granted, this enemy had something like a 1% chance of spawning upon entering an area. And then, the enemy had something like a 1% chance of dropping the ZS upon death.

So you still could get it, but it wasn’t worth the 1 in 10,000 chance to get it.

Then again, while the Zodiac Spear was the strongest weapon, it wasn’t the best. Spears are slower than swords. I believe it was the Masamune that was the best weapon overall. It wasn’t all that weaker, but was considerably faster, so for damage over time, nothing topped it. And it was fairly easy to get, IIRC.

Still, having played 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 beforehand, FFXII officially made me decide that I would never play another FF game again (even the ones I missed). When you design a game in such a way that the only way to accomplish everything is to use a strategy guide, there’s something very wrong. Enjoy your kickbacks from Prima, since you’re not getting any more of my money. (Besides, I don’t think there’s ever been a Prima guide that didn’t have mistakes or missing things in it.)

#14

Nope, it was a chest. IIRC, it had a .01% chance of having it, and equipping the item that “increased the chance of finding a rare item in a chest” either dropped the chances to some even more ridiculously low level (like .00000001% or something) or made it literally impossible to get.

ETA: And it’s even worse than four chests, I looked up a guide on it once. Apparently at one point one of the “four chests” is in a large cluster of 10 chests or so, and which of those chests is forbidden to open is random every game.

I think there was a thread way back when where a few of us griped about the tendency for JRPGs to have really stupid lost forever (or effectively lost forever) quests/items/cutscenes that you could only find out via guide or random chance…