FFXIV:ARR ß phase 3...

Now, seeing as there was somewhat of an NDA on showing stuff off, I didn't really get much for screen shots, however there are a ton out there in the Reddit forums for it. I am going to state some stuff here about what I experienced in the short 2 days that I got to play this past weekend (and I believe I'll be getting in on the following weekend as well if this phase of testing continues).

First and foremost: WHOLY FARK! This... this is what I expected the game to be like when I was first wanting to experience it. They have stepped away from making the PC version feel like a console port what with it's horrid menu system. They finally made the menus pretty much non-existent (before, if you've read through my blog before, you may have noted my distaste that everything you wanted to do, you had to pull up the menu to even interact with something in front of you). The gathering "minigame" is done away with from what I was able to experience. The crafting system is much better as well, still feels like an actual "task" to complete a craft as you get higher in the levels of the crafts.

Let's step into some finer details that I'm sure they won't mind me disclosing, as these are what has convinced me to actually wish to purchase the game, and work more to get paid enough to pay for the MRC of this game.

I will state, that even the Beta community was freaking awesome. I realize that this was a closed beta, and most of the people in it were people that were previous (v1.0) players, and people that really wanted to see the game work, but the community ... my gosh, it's what I remembered for community when playing EQ1 back all those years ago... and FFXI before the expansions started making the game more "casual" (the expansions that started raising the level cap, seemed to make the community turn to shiot, and I stopped playing quickly thereafter). While this was a Beta, and bugs were to be expected, one bug in a certain quest, wherein only one person could initiate and do the quest at a time, made it a big mess... until people started doing the only reasonable thing ... form a freaking LINE in the world, and just wait their turn. Rather than have everyone standing around the NPC that would trigger the quest (which, sometimes wouldn't work from what I heard), and everyone trying to spam to get into the quest instance, people respected the fact that waiting in a line would be better than randomly possibly not getting in, and causing someone else to possibly get kicked out of the scene, or whatever nonsense was going on with it (I didn't do that quest, I left the area to pick up another class somewhere but witnessed the line on the way by). Everyone in /shout chat was awesome as well, even talking about some "good old" times in FFXI :)

The graphics... well, they've gotten improved a fair bit... no more is the blinding lens flare and glow effect that was present before (pictures found in previous post). Dynamic lighting is freaking great. Stand between two light sources? Get two shadows! The environments feel so much better also, with some skills causing parts of the environment to "float" around or be kicked around depending on where the skill lands (standing on a dirt path, and use a skill on a mob in the grass? see leaves spurt around from the slash / spell around the mob... mob walks to the dirt path to you, use the same skill, and dust comes up instead!)

Sounds... they actually put a freaking slider for you, to allow you to adjust WHERE you want your sound localization to be originated from. Basically allowing you to place the location of where your speakers are getting their "input" from. Anywhere from the character's current position, to where the camera is I believe was the further setting. I left it as default, which was a little behind the character. I realize that the next thing is present in many single player games, but I've rarely seen it in MMO's .... walk on grass, hear the crunch of it, walk on train tracks, hear the metal under your feet... change to the carpet in town? yep, soft "fluff" sounds. The music also... (I will say, I'm not much of a music listener... BUT...) the blends that they have between areas, was very smooth. Almost like they actually had "bubbles" around spots that had their own ambiance music.

Quests… Alright, time to gripe ... maybe ... They followed the "bandwagon" of "get your quest HERE (!)" exclamation point over the heads. They made it pretty easy also to find quests on the maps ... they show up on the maps as !'s ... Now, I will say that they didn't go the "fairy poop" trail like Neverwinter Online did, which was refreshing. The did however, mark the map with a DIM circle on the map if it was a "kill stuff" quest, which, admittedly for me, was hard to see (map was dusty / tea stain brown, circles were a very translucent red, which almost blended in). Any colour-blind individuals may have issues with that. I couldn't find a way in the Beta to change it's settings.

Grinding? Well, I will admit, there wasn't really much need for grinding, however I do see where it would come in to play when you start leveling a second class from the same town. The quests are a main source of EXP, which is fine... but once you get into your second class, unless that second class is from a different town, you'll be having to just grind mobs outside town until you level up. If you wish to grind, the best thing to do is to kill mobs that are your level or higher, and do the kills fast. If you keep popping down stuff your level or higher, you can get into exp chains (linked kills as they are called), where you'll get more exp per kill as you're going on. This isn't a whole lot at first of course (1-2% I think on the first "chained" kill, 3-4% more on the next, etc), but it does add up, especially in the later levels where the kills will start granting more exp per kill. It isn't the FFXI standard of 100 exp per even-leveled kill.

Partying? Well, the parties I did join were impromptu ones, when a "fate" popped up and someone figured it'd be much easier in a party lineup for healing (completely understandable). The parties were easy to join and set up from what I experienced. You can have up to 8 people I believe is what I saw in the keybinds (F1-F8 for targeting party members), which is cool, massive, but cool. Reading on Reddit, some people were trying grind parties, wherein they found that if they tried to set up camp (ALA FFXI style with one person going to pull, while the rest sat ready to ambush the mob pulled), the puller would attempt to pull, and they'd get multiple mobs...equal to the number of party members! (of course, that's if that many mobs were available to "link" with) This made it where, while partied up, it didn't make the quests super easy if everyone were doing quests. I'm not certain how well this will work later on when it may be necessary / best to be grouped for killing, especially when on a second, third, fourth, or further job.

Multiple job system? This is not as you may be used to for FFXI, but it is acceptable to me at least. See, each class has skills/spells that are usable by themselves, while some may have multiple classes able to use them. At the lower levels, you can choose 1 skill additional from another class that has the skill unlocked, eventually getting more "slots" from other classes available. The key factor here though, is that once you've gotten to level 10, and completed your starting class's level 10 quest, you are allowed to "join other guilds", which basically allows you to change class from then on as long as you go to that class's guild and talk to them for the starting quest. Yes, you're stuck with your initial choice for 10 levels, but it flies by honestly (pretty fast at least currently, but who knows if exp may change eventually). The main "problem" for some may be that if you say ... pick Thaumaturge (DD spell caster, think BLM, but not) as your first class, and wish to go Conjurer next (also DD, but has heal and protection spells eventually as well) ... well, you've got to travel to a different starter town.

Traveling? Yes, there are chocobos available. You can use them once you hit level 10, and there's a couple restrictions and methods of use. At least from what I saw in my small amount of time in, the rented chocobos come in two varieties. The first (and cheapest) is taking a chocobo for a small fee depending on how long the ride is from where you're renting from. This trip is self-guided, meaning you have to do nothing but click that yes you want to go to some destination and agree to the fee. The trick to that method however, is that you have to visit the main town, and the outposts and talk to the "chocoporter"s, you can't go somewhere you've not been (their in game reasoning is that they don't want you to get out somewhere that you've never been to, and not know the way back yourself). The second option for rented chocobos is a 10 minute rental, but only from a town (not an outpost). You have full control of the chocobo, and can go where you please. You CAN get damaged and draw agro while on chocobos, and from the in game description, the first (guided) choco rental will give you the money back if it doesn't make it there LOL. The trip between the starting towns is roughly 8 to 9 minutes by chocobo, so well within that 10 minute time-frame. The cost of that second option was a mere 80 gil (I had almost 4k by level 11 on first class, with minimal purchases).

Let's see, what else to say... over-all, I'd say this is an awesome game they've finally pieced together. Oh…Streaming ... my system's not the best beast for streaming, but I cranked up xsplit (notoriously bad for eating FPS for some games), and cracked local recording on... I didn't "feel" it at medium graphics settings... I got absorbed, turned off xsplit, and later turned up the settings to maximum. Without xsplit running, I was still running awesome FPS wise. I will state, that they had a built in option to have borderless windowed mode, which was great as one of my scenes in xsplit was just capturing my left monitor region, so it was able to see the game no problem.

All said and done, I've even gone so far as to look around for an el-cheapo copy of the game... managed to find one for like $23, including the discount from using a supporting link from another streamer I watch (TenShotsTV). I've not looked at how much the MRC / Subscription will be... but I'd be glad even to pay $15 a month for this honestly ... the environments ... the play controls ... the sheer awesomeness ... oh, not to mention, that PS3 users are bunched up with the PC players seamlessly.