Month: August 2013

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will finally release on August 27th for PC and PS3 and attempt to right its initial missteps.

When the game initially released on September 30th, 2010 for the PC, it was met with widespread criticism. Unfortunately, this was not only well-founded but also led to the postponement of the PlayStation 3 Release. Despite its negative reception and the announcement that came in October of 2011 that the game would be completely overhauled, the original version of FFXIV stayed live until November 11th, 2012.

The good news behind all of this is that Square Enix seems to have recognized the shortcomings of FFXIV 1.0,  and set out to right its wrongs. You can read all about that (as well as the game’s character customization) in our first FFXIV: A Real Reborm Preview.

The other good news? FFXIV has finally made it to the PS3!

Now that FFXIV: ARR is nearing its arrival, the beta version is in full swing for both PC and PS3 players. So, without further adieu, it is my great pleasure to continue the weekly breakdown of the most important aspects in this new incarnation of FFXIV.

[ FATE Battles ]

What exactly are FATE battles? Well, if you break it down they are essentially instanced battles with a Final Fantasy twist. Full Active Time Events (or FATEs) are random events that occur throughout the world in designated locations. Once initiated, these battles may be joined by anyone willing to run head first into the fight. Of course, once the FATE is completed you will be rewarded according to your participation. While the same FATE battles will pop up within set areas over time, it is still nice to be able to fight alongside other players. This is a great option for those who haven’t linked up with a party yet and delivers a great sense of teamwork.

These FATE battles also have an important part in the main quest line, and as you begin to level things begin to get a little notorious. Yes, that’s right, notorious monsters and primals will make appearances on the battlefields of FFXIV. Luckily these creatures will are restricted to these instanced battles and therefore ensure they aren’t throwaway moments. I can say from experience that during the main quest line, Ifrit makes an appearance in one such fight and is an important part of the main story line.

All of that is fine and well, but how does the system actually feel? Does it work? After hours of these FATE battles I can stand as a testament to the fact that they actually do what they set out to do. These instances do a wonderful job of creating a sense of teamwork, and when big battles (like Ifrit) do arise they feel refreshing and fun. While it may not be a game-changer or a even a new idea within the MMO world, these FATEs have enough Final Fantasy in them to make them feel distinct.

[ Level Sync ]

FATE battles also feature the Level Sync system, which allows everyone to evenly participate, even in lower level fights. Sounds great, but what exactly is Level Sync? Great question, I’m glad you asked.

The Level Sync system operating with the world of Ezorea allows all party members to be set at a designated level for a set period of time. This system may be used with your own personal party or in conjunction with FATE battles. Essentially, it scales down everyone to an assigned level so that the playing field is even and everything is dealt with in a fair fashion.

Watching this system in action and actually playing through it allows you to understand how this can only help FFXIV ensure there is always something to do. Not that you should ever feel like there’s nothing to do, it is an MMO after all, but when encountering low-level instanced battles this allows you to participate fairly. When entering into these fights you will be allowed to sync, which then lets you join the fight and reap the rewards.

[ Hot Keys – PS3 ]

Okay, so now something special for all the console players out there that will be getting into the realm of Ezorea for the first time. Let’s face it, the User Interface is a big problem in most console based MMOs; the transition from a keyboard to a controller makes this extremely frustrating. FFXIV looks to correct this problem by mapping a set of eight commands to each back trigger, L2 & R2 respectively, and a combination of either the D-pad or the face buttons. Using R1 before hand will allow you to switch between different sets of command layouts, which opens the gates for a massive amount of these combinations.

Console players staring at this UI for the first time may begin to feel a bit overwhelmed. It seems like a lot, but once you get rolling you’d be surprised. As you begin to gain abilities through leveling, you will see these slots filled up. The next thing you know, you’re swapping between potions and abilities like it’s second nature. While gameplay still seems to feel more natural on the PC, it’s clear how much work Square Enix put in to the console version of this title and the user interface is just one great example of this.

[ Wrap Up ]

Now that we have had a little time to go through some important issues within the combat realms of FFXIV and one specifically for the console players, it’s clear that this is shaping up to be a valiant effort by Square Enix. Don’t worry, we’ll be back with another preview of FFXIV: A Realm Reborn soon. Remember to keep checking back here at Exilic for the latest on FFXIV and all your MMO news, reviews and previews. Make sure to let us know your favorite primal or NM and how these battle systems sound to you in the comments below.

Looks like today is the day of Final Fantasy XIV, with news on several topics hitting us like a machine gun. In the past few days we reported about the  Before Meteor: Final Fantasy XIV Original Soundtrack Music Blu-ray  that will be released in Japan this August. Many within the game’s community wondered if it’ll be released in the west, even because the code for the bonus minion included in the package will probably be region locked, making importing less practical.

Today we have a partial answer to that question, as a German Community Manager from Square Enix Europe shed some light on the issue while answering a question from a fan:

Hey, don’t worry. You will be able to purchase the soundtrack and receive the Dalamud Minion in Europe. We’ll soon make an official announcement, so please have a little patience.

The soundtrack on Blu-ray includes 104 tracks for over six hours of music and a MP3 version for each track to be used with one’s portable MP3 players. It will also come with a bonus track that will feature the “The End of an Era” trailer  with the music recorded in 5.1.

The tracklist has spans the whole score used for the original Final Fantasy XIV, including those composed after its release by Masayoshi Soken, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Naoshi Mizuta, in addition to those by Nobuo Uematsu.

Fans that will purchase the Blu-ray will also get a code to download a special “Dalamud minion” for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Details on on release date and pricing for the European market aren’t yet available.

Below you can see a rendering of the minion and the box art of the soundtrack. Of course, since it will be released in Europe, a North American release is also most probable.

          

The third phase of Final Fantasy XIV’s beta is here, and with it, the NDA is summarily gone. Images from phase 3 can be posted; video and audio cannot. This is the fast track to finally being back in the game for real, to play your old characters once again, to enjoy the game again.

Am I excited? Of course I am because I haven’t been able to play yet. I’m writing this from the past, and by the time you read this, I will be awash in Eorzea.

There was also a major industry event this week, one that’s known officially as the Electronic Entertainment Expo and known more colloquially to everyone in the world as E3. Final Fantasy XIV was there making an impression, revealing jobs at long last, and generally carrying on as if it owned the place. So let’s talk a little bit about what we saw from E3 if you can tear yourself away from the beta client for, like, five minutes.

The new trailer for the game was released, and it was… well, odd. For starters, the voice acting sounded very stiff on the whole. You can point to a couple of rough moments in Final Fantasy X, but by and large Square-Enix has been good about getting solid talent and good direction in games; perhaps I’ve been spoiled recently. I’m also not a fan of Cid’s new look, seeing as how he appears to be sporting a big old failure beard.

But we also saw more of Gaius (who’s shaping up to be a bigger bad with Darnus out of the picture), other high-ranking Imperials, and some gorgeous work all around. A large chunk of the trailer, if not all of it, was in-game footage rather than pre-rendered, something I always like to see. And of course, it reminds veteran players that while we’re no longer staring down a moon, things have not exactly improved over the last five years in the game world.

Trailers are just pretty pictures, though, and what FFXIV needed to do was win hearts and minds. PAX East was a dry run for this, I think, a chance for people who had scarcely heard of the game beyond “the launch didn’t go well” to sit up and take notice. And in that regard, the game did pretty darn well. People were forming crowds, eagerly trying to find out about the game, and it’s been getting more overall coverage than it has in a long while.

Not that Naoki Yoshida was just preaching to the unconverted. We also got a look at Summoner, Arcanist, and Scholar, which was always going to be a rough collection of jobs and classes.

Summoners, I think, are the hardest class to implement in an MMO, period, because there have always been two roles for the class to fill and neither one works in a shared environment. Either summons consist of hugely damaging area blasts that simply ruin everything around them or they involve discarding your allies for a uniquely powerful companion. (Or wasting a bunch of MP on a stupid toy in Final Fantasy XII, but the mechanics in that game had problems anyhow.) Final Fantasy XI wound up turning them into buffing machines with unusable pets, which wasn’t really an ideal solution, but it was about all that could be done in the game’s engine.

Scholars, on the other hand, are barely present in the series. They show up in a grand total of three games in the main series, and one of those is only in the epilogue. It’s hard to say much firm about them beyond the fact that they’re presented as Red Mages with slightly more magic and slightly less battle acumen. The one thing they have in common with Summoners is that there is a lot of vagueness to their defined talents.

Obviously we don’t know all of the details yet, but I think we can safely speculate. Summoners focus more on the pet aspect of the class while Scholars focus more on the utility side of things, with the latter probably working in a healing role and the former acting as support and damage. This is, to my mind, a really great way to use the job system in the first place.

Something I’ve discussed on multiple occasions is the need for specialization, the idea that two characters at the same level with the same gear should be able to play differently. Part of that is simply a matter of letting players focus on the aspects of a given class that they find most interesting. Giving multiple jobs to focus on different abilities replicates some of that feel, letting you back up your class choice with some endgame utility based on what you already like to do.

Also, I’m glad that we don’t have another class with staves. Seriously, there are lots of weapons out there.

Beyond that, a lot of the information revealed over the convention is already known to fans, although the fact that the game will be coming to the PlayStation 4 is a welcome revelation. It’s also the sort of forward thinking that didn’t really exist with Final Fantasy XI, but since that was in the days when having an MMO on a console seemed even more ridiculous, I think we can agree that it was an understandable oversight.

Now we’re moving into the real meat of the relaunch. Yoshida has placed his cards on the table, people have seen that the game is out there, and the next two beta phases are going to show how well or how poorly everything comes together. So let’s get to it.

As of the 17th of July, Final Fantasy XIV’s The Lodestone beta version is scheduled to be shut down. It will be wiped and reinstated at some unknown point in the future. If you have anything you wish to save on the site, I recommend you go in and and save it to a document as soon as possible. Upon the launch of the beta, Square Enix had shared the plans to wipe the beta version once the testing was done. As it stands it probably won’t be re-opened until phase four of the actual game’s beta.

In conjunction with The Lodestone being unavailable, Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn’s beta phase 3 is ending today at 5am eastern time. Expect the game to be unplayable for at least two weeks, but up to a month. All Legacy characters will revert to the pre-phase 3 save data that Square Enix had, other characters will be wiped. Any progress made once phase four begins should be carried over into the live version. Legacy character server transfer requests will be processed before phase four begins as well.

All of this is leading up to the full launch on August 27th. While fans will be annoyed at their inability to play the game during the downtime, they can rest assured that Square Enix will be putting their best efforts into finishing all the necessary adjustments in time for launch. So if you are reading this before 5am est, please enjoy what’s left of the Final Fantasy XIV phase three beta and be patient with Square Enix while they improve the quality of the game for us to enjoy.

For more updates on this and more gaming news, reviews, guides, and culture please check my team out on Facebook. We will link all our GameSkinny articles there. You can also follow theFinal Fantasy XIV Twitter for updates on the beta specifically.

The Clock Ticks Down

As I type this, there are just a few short hours until part 2 of phase 3 for the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta opens up. This weekend will be the first time, since the original servers shut down late last year, that we’ll be able to play our 1.0 characters. This means that players will get to see more of the mid-level or end game content since they won’t have to focus as much on leveling. This will also be the first hands-on look at the jobs (advanced classes) since shut down; although only characters transferred from 1.0 servers will have access to jobs.

High Hopes and Deep Thought

I have high hopes for this weekend, I’ve dusted off my main account just for this section of the beta. Up to this point, it didn’t matter which account I was using because the experience would be the same. However, from this point on, I can use my old characters. So, I can play through my level 45 Dragoon to decide whether I want to finish that character or start over from scratch to experience the game the way it was meant to be experienced. These next few beta segments will be a very important time for me as I have a huge decision to make regarding the path I take.

“In this day and age, it’s all about the communication between players. They are our best marketing asset. They’re the ones who are going to tell other players, “You should play this game.” You’re going to listen to your friend, rather than listen to a big corporation”.- Naoki Yoshida

I’ve been following all things Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn religiously.

@SquareEnixUSA posted a particularly interesting interview USgamer did with director Naoki Yoshida on Twitter. Yoshida’s first response in the interview addressed my biggest concern so far in the beta: voice overs in cut scenes. Well guess what? It has been confirmed that we will have voice-overs in FFXIV: ARR cut scenes at launch! Voice-overs, however, are just the tip of the iceberg; USgamer wanted to know what A Realm Reborn would be like from an MMO novice’s perspective.
A Realm Reborn isn’t just an MMO, it’s a Final Fantasy!

Yoshida starts out by comparing A Realm Reborn to previous console games, stating how the battle system is similar to that of the most recent Final Fantasy titles.

I must admit the battle system does feel similar to Final Fantasy Type-0 (a Japan only release), which had no turn-based aspect to the combat at all. You had to move out of the way of attacks and find openings for your own; XIV plays a lot like that. He also commented that the graphics and voice acting will feel like those newer Final Fantasy titles as well.
Player based marketing?

When asked how they planned on pulling in new players, Yoshida said it will be done by Final Fantasy fans. Fans will see that ARR is a good game, and tell their friends. To be honest, I’ve been telling people it’s a good game since the NDA was removed, so I’m already proving Yoshida right. I like this approach; focusing on creating a game that’s so good that it will have the Beta testers telling their friends, “hey man, you should try out this game!” It really puts the fans in control of their own destiny with an MMO; using the voice of the fans to bring in new players.
What? No Grind?

On the topic of “grinding”, Yoshida was pretty straight forward about not wanting leveling to take a whole lot of time. His reasoning was that the real game doesn’t start until 50. Similar to companies like Bioware, with their MMO SWTOR, the Final Fantasy: A Realm Reborn staff has already prepared end game content in advance so the game won’t die out because people hit level cap with nothing to do.

Yoshida also mentioned how they had a schedule set up, so they can continue to bring out new content regularly. There will be no want for content in the near future once the game is released, because Yoshida’s team is all on top of that!
And much more!

Yoshida spent time talking about the Armory System, the necessity of alts (alternate characters), and inventory. There is also an in depth  response about why Yoshida decided a clean slate was needed instead of modifying over time. The interview is a real eye opener, so if you have the time read the whole thing over on USgamer.

As of today, Final Fantasy XIV is offering world transfers for version 1.0 characters. This is to make sure that all regions have plenty of population on their worlds. This is a good move to keep regions like Europe and America playing with people in their similar time zone.

If you are already on a named server you will be automatically transferred to a server with the same name. If you want to go to a different world for a different region you must apply for a transfer. To guarantee you choose the correct world for your region there is a table of world regions for you to check out. Be aware players are free to transfer their characters to any region.

Version 1.0			FFXIV: ARR
World Name	Location		World Name	Location
Ridill	Japan	>>>	Ridill	Japan
Masamune	Japan	>>>	Masamune	Japan
Durandal	Japan	>>>	Durandal	Japan
Aegis	Japan	>>>	Aegis	Japan
Gungnir	Japan	>>>	Gungnir	Japan
Sargatanas	Japan	>>>	Sargatanas	North America/Europe
Balmung	Japan	>>>	Balmung	North America/Europe
Hyperion	Japan	>>>	Hyperion	North America/Europe
Excalibur	Japan	>>>	Excalibur	North America/Europe
Ragnarok	Japan	>>>	Ragnarok	North America/Europe

Your friends list as well as any items you possess will be transferred with you, and you will be able to keep your name as long as someone on that server doesn’t already have it. Characters with conflicting names will be many so don’t fret, the guidelines for choosing who keeps their names are clearly defined by this priority.

1. Characters that qualify for Legacy status.
2. Characters whose subscriptions ended after September 30, 2012.
3. Characters that were created first.

The application period for transfers will be from PDT, June 21 (Friday) to 07:59 PDT, July 15 (Monday), 2013. The transfers will take effect at the beginning of phase 4 of the beta, so you might wanna get ahead of the pack and request your transfers now.

Naoki Yoshida is dedicated to making Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn everything the fans expected from 1.0 and more. He gave tons of info on the upcoming ARR last week’s Letter from the Producer stream, which is now on Youtube in its two hour long glory.

If you don’t have the time to check out the whole video, here are some points of interest it covers in convenient and super compressed bullet point format!

*Coeurl mount incoming
*Increased drop rates in comparison to 1.0
*Ability to “need” gear implemented, will be limited per week per piece of content
*”Full Active Time Events” — world events, or just easier named mob killing? Yoshida describes it himself: “For example, an NM pops. A notification of this is sent to all players in the zone, who then converge on the NM. Parties are automatically formed, and a battle begins. The NM is defeated, rewards are doled out, and the players go their separate ways.”
*Materia balancing, possible materia system simplification
*Main attributes for all classes being adjusted, monk being reworked
*Housing is going to be expensive to the point where players will have to buy one together. (Check out 0:45:55 of the video for a look at housing and an in-depth explanantion of the housing system.)
*Voice acting language can be changed based on preference
*Viera race possibly coming in a future expansion
*Expect a global alpha test soon!
*Marriage system being implemented, same-sex marriage under deliberation

The above points are, of course, not all. You’ll have to check out the video or the post on the official forums covering all of the questions and answers thrown around.

Yoshida claims they are still behind schedule — over two months behind schedule, in fact. While the alpha is coming soon, the beta testing phase won’t begin until January or February 2013.

The more information on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, the better it looks. Yoshida says he wants his game to be able to compete with the big MMOs today like RIFT and Guild Wars 2. Will it be able to? With the significant improvements coming with ARR, it just may be possible.

A little under a year ago, I wrote a column about how Final Fantasy XIV needs to generate a wow factor. It needs to surprise people, have something unique and special to offer. There was a lot of stuff that felt distressingly rote, and that wasn’t good.

So what’s changed since then? Well… not a huge amount, honestly. There are several features in the beta that feel like rehashes of things we’ve seen in other games, like FATEs and quests and instanced dungeons and so forth. Yet the game is clearly generating a wow factor, something that I’m happy about.

This week, I want to throw that previous article out completely. Just kick it to the curb. As I’ve been playing the beta weekends and seeing what the game has to offer, I’ve realized that there was something I was completely failing to embrace and consider. It’s the power of the buffet.

If you’ve never been to a buffet, congratulations on not being fat. But beyond that, you’ve never had the experience of dropping a fixed amount of money for as much food as you can toss on your plate at any one time. And you’ve never understood why a good buffet place is wonderful in a way that a regular restaurant isn’t, even though regular restaurants actually serve you a plate of distinct food instead of trusting you to shuffle over to steam trays and spoon in whatever you want.

The thing is, normal restaurants rely upon serving you something unique. The management isn’t rolling out the Double-Wide Super Southwestern Nacho Burger just for the heck of it; it’s because this is the only place you can get a Double-Wide Super whatever. Hopefully these unique offerings are actually good, since a restaurant can’t live on selling Bleach-Infused Chicken with Broken Glass Breading, but the core is serving you something new.

By contrast, the buffet doesn’t care if you’ve had it before. The core is variety and combination. You’ve had french fries, you’ve had pizza, you’ve had mashed potatoes. You can’t usually get all of them together. Yes, all the meals are familiar, but you can combine them however you want, and that is also valid.

I mentioned back when talking about the early beta phases that the questing in Final Fantasy XIV is fairly standard. It’s nothing bracingly unique, familiar to anyone who’s played an MMO in the past several years, without any particular novelty. You click on things and kill things and talk to NPCs, and aside from incorporating minor bits of brilliance like not making you fight over clickables, it’s pretty straightforward.

The key is that it’s supposed to be that way. The goal isn’t to create a totally new model of questing; it’s to create a series of quests that work very well in a game where you don’t have to bother if you don’t want to.

After about level 10, you really can do anything you want in the game. Even before then you have a huge amount of options, with nothing forcing you to keep questing instead of filling out your hunting log or whatever, but once you’ve unlocked levequests and other classes, the game pretty much just lets you off the rails. Don’t care about the story? Cool, here’s plenty of other stuff to do, and you can come back to it whenever you want.

Dynamic events exists. They’re not the biggest thing in the world, but they’re there, they work, and you can just jump in when you want to. If you don’t want to, you don’t lose anything by opting out. See something you want to do when you’re overleveled? You can jump over, sync down to the appropriate level, and go to town.

Want story-heavy stuff? That’s in place. Want to go your own way? That’s in place, too. Most of the limitations in place simply prevent any one model from being too functional rather than force you to do one thing or another in order to advance. You can easily tool around with different classes and make it to 50 as a crafter without ever having to worry about FATEs if you would rather just make things and sell them.

This, more than anything, is what made me fall in love with FFXIV in the first place. Yes, the launch version of the game was a mess, but the fact that you could easily find yourself on a lengthy personal quest to put together a new spear was profoundly worthy. And none of that has been removed or diminished in the new version. There are challenging multi-stage battles against bosses, there are dungeons for people who like those, and there’s stuff and stuff and stuff all over.

And you don’t have to pick. It’s all under the same roof. You can find yourself choosing to level something completely different on two different nights while playing the same game with the same character. That’s a bracing idea, and it comes back to us from other games — some departed, some still right here.

In other words, I was right that FFXIV wasn’t focusing on unique aspects, but I was wrong in thinking that the remixed version was somehow less valuable than novelty. Most of the games we remember aren’t the first ones to try ideas, just the first ones to try them with polish and panache. If creativity is a matter of combining ideas in interesting ways, I feel it’s best to point to this buffet of ideas in Eorzea and marvel.

That having been said, I still want more options for customizing my class. Come on, people.