Final Fantasy XIV news

[sj33]

Given SquareEnix have pushed the PS3 version back to January because of problems getting the game up and running on the PS3, I'd be surprised if we saw anything for a while

[Daragon]

It was originally pushed back to March, but the beta stage for PS3 owners is starting this month following news that the application period would have closed on monday.

Hopefully the fact that it's reached beta will mean that the biggest issues have been tackled and the game will be ready alot sooner than planned.

[Irons]

Given that the release is approaching fast it's quite amazing how little we actually know about this game. All the internet can really supply is guess work and wishes.

I mean what do we actually know about this game? the Beta is constrained it doesn't really seem to show off that much at all. I need to get into the open Beta damn it, assuming they have one of course...

[abigsmurf]

It is rather worrying how fast this has been developed.

such a short and closed beta period doesn't give them huge amounts of time to fix issues.

Gotta hope there's still lots of content and nothing is too broken at launch

[Rep]

It's been in development for 4-5years, and is currently quite polished. XIV is the Rapture project no?

[mikewl]

Made a character to give this another test, Rep are you still Rep Beta?

I'll see if your on when I next log on for a linkpearl, on shadowlord I presume?

Strangely mine is now running in windowed mode at native res.

[Rep]

Aye, i'm still Rep Beta, and since I can't think of anything clever, might carry that over to full I'll be on after.

I had that odd Windowed thing too, I set it to 1680x1050 windowed, exited the config, then re-entered and was able to select full screen.

[mikewl]

Cool, i'll be on sometime this evening, got to configure the gamepad as for some reason it wasn't setup by default on this beta stage.

[Rep]

If anyone on Shadowlord needs a pearl, send me a tell in game and i'll get back to you, probably within about 10mins. I'll be hanging around Camp Skull Valley.

[abigsmurf]

Just read you're limited to 8 leves/quests a day and there's no AH.

That's kinda killed my enthusiam a lot. AH contribute hugely to in game communities, they force a gathering place.

[Daragon]

Really, I just assumed AHs contributed hugely to in game lag?

Undoubtedly there will be something to form an alternative in this however, and we can all look forward to that lagging everyone out instead.

[Irons]

About the AH, they haven't ruled it out but they won't have it at launch

Regarding Final Fantasy XIV and the market battle system is something we would like to consider the equilevent to the auction house we had in Final Fantasy XI. Only that you'll also be able to fix your equipment and things like that. It is something we really want people to enjoy. Also after the release of the game we will see how it goes and for example find out what kind of search options players will want and need and improve the situation. We don't really want to introduce the auctionhouse from the beginning because that is going to determine the economy system. So we want to improve it slowly and adjust it accordingly.

AH do tend to be manipulated by a relative few in most MMOs I've been in with a few players setting the prices for items and controlling the market so I'm quite interested to see how this market system will work. I do think you need a better way to search though, from the videos I've seen searching each retainer to look for an item looks like a real pain.

But then perhaps over time certain players will become known for certain items and maybe 6 months down the line if you want a new chest piece you will go to Jim's Armour Emporium or perhaps Pat's protections will be having a weekend sale on chest pieces. Of course it might just be a jumbled mess but the potential is there for something special that AH don't allow I feel, a lot of old school MMO players claim AH kill community anyway. I guess time will time.

The leves, its 8 every 2 days if you play them solo but do they increase exponentially for every member of the party after? get a group of 5 and you suddenly have 40 to do and so on. I guess their reasoning is there's content for casual players that can play for short periods and there's content for more hardcore players, you just have to group up first.

The one complaint I don't understand coming out of Beta is people requesting a WoW style UI, surely anyone with half a brain can tell you can't have a control system like that when you are sharing servers with people who's means of control is game pad? Hell in games like WoW you are at a disadvantage if you are a 'clicker' compared to someone who has efficient hot keys, imagine how big the advantage would be if you had hot keys and the majority had only game pads. It would be game breaking.

It's seems pretty clear there will be bugs and a lot of balancing issues still to work out when the PC version is launched but I'm still very excited to start exploring the world, it's absolutely gorgeous

Plus what happens to the genre if this game fails? endless WoW clones on 1 side and on the other you have Eve.

I think SE deserve to be given a chance just for going their own way with this game, making a group focused game when every one else is falling over themselves to tell people how you can solo their Massively Multiplayer game. Making professions to be a class that you can level up when most games have reduced crafting to such a trivial state that most players will have multiple crafts maxed and the items you can make are very short lived.

[Rep]

Excellent post Irons, the problem with the Auction House in XI, is it made npc's pointless. Most of the time something would be sold on the ah for far less what you could sell to an npc. It just created a system which one player would undercut the next and so on, I'm all for a change.

With regards to the quests, you can join somebody else's and collect the rewards, we've tested this in-house. You can also rank up insanely fast by ramping up the difficulty and invoking a guardians aspect, so some form of cap seemed sensible.

[abigsmurf]

The one complaint I don't understand coming out of Beta is people requesting a WoW style UI, surely anyone with half a brain can tell you can't have a control system like that when you are sharing servers with people who's means of control is game pad? Hell in games like WoW you are at a disadvantage if you are a 'clicker' compared to someone who has efficient hot keys, imagine how big the advantage would be if you had hot keys and the majority had only game pads. It would be game breaking.

I think the problem everyone's having with the UI is that it's server side, so you have to wait for it to load and that actions through the menus take far too many clicks. Selling to vendors or getting rid of items is apparently pretty awful.

[Irons]

I think the problem everyone's having with the UI is that it's server side, so you have to wait for it to load and that actions through the menus take far too many clicks. Selling to vendors or getting rid of items is apparently pretty awful.

They have said they are aware of it though, it even sounds like they know what bugs are causing it. It's obviously unacceptable no matter what control system you are using and it's my biggest concern about the game personally.

I just read a Famitsu interview that they snagged with the 'FFXIV trio' at gamescon and it's interesting to hear how the interview almost seemed surprised at how big a deal the mouse control is in the West and it doesn't seem to be an issue at all in Japan.

Changes between phases two and three of the beta

F: What changed with the beginning of phase three of the beta?
DK: We added a few things, but a couple of big things that changed were the tempo of battle and the feel of the game. Also, for the players outside of Japan, the changes to the mouse controls were probably pretty big.

F: So mouse control was a pretty big deal to users overseas?
PT: I would say about 90% of the feedback we got about things people wanted to see in the game was related to the mouse.
DK: If you look at it globally, there was more feedback about that than anything else.
SS: Outside of Japan, many PC gamers use a mouse as the main controls for all games, from FPS?s to MMORPG?s.
PT: Gamepad and mouse controls are different at the most fundamental of levels. With a gamepad, you have to go through a layered structure command input for control, a mouse needs to be able to get things done with just a click. We have to set the game up to be able to handle both.

F: So there wasn?t much feedback from Japan about all that?
DK: Not really, but we got a lot of feedback about the user interface as a whole, so we?re working around the clock to fix that right now.