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Square Enix Extending Final Fantasy XIV's Free Trial Period

Looks like groaning on the Internet might actually get you somewhere!

News flash: Final Fantasy XIV hasn't fared well on the reviews circuit, and users have been rather vocal about its bugs and various other issues. Bonus news flash: Square Enix is well aware that the game has problems, and due to the backlash, it is extending the MMO's free trial period to 60 days from its original 30. 

This is all according the official FFXIV blog. In a statement, Square Enix said, "we have received a wealth of constructive feedback" and the teams responsible for the game "would like to take this opportunity to express their sincerest gratitude." But "considering the nature of much of the feedback we received, however, and the current state of the game, we have decided to extend the free trial period for all users." 
 

No Caption Provided

== TEASER ==The MMO launched on September 30, meaning the original 30 days is almost at a close. That cut date looms even closer for collector's edition owners who were able to log into the game a week before service began. There's a few catches with this extension, though. First, it only applies to people who have carried out character purchases before October 25. Second, if you've been banned, you will not be eligible for this, you dirty little boy, you.

Of course, there's an incentive for sticking around and playing for the extra 30 days if you so desire. In the post, Square Enix says fixes are coming. The latest "Message from the Director" column dishes out some details for a future patch and today's "Version Update" is addressing some issues. Here's the patch/fix tease in the post, by the way. The team is apparently listening to you, which is pretty swell of them, so I'd thought I would include this.
 

We would like to assure players that the world of Final Fantasy XIV is constantly growing and evolving, and the voices of the community are essential to that process. The development and management teams are carefully considering all player feedback, and working diligently to implement whatever changes and additions will serve to make Eorzea a better home for adventurers. We humbly ask for your continued support to this end.

 
If you've already taken the plunge with FFXIV, will you stay the course? Or were you too worried about the product to check it out in the first place?

74 Comments

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NellyK

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Edited By NellyK

Wow it must be REALLY bad. 

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subyman

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Edited By subyman

  "we have received a wealth of constructive feedback"   
Such as:  Game runs like ass, balance is Fubared, there's not jack-shit to do, and fuck me I wasted 50 bucks. 

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Puck

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Edited By Puck

It's like they are trying to kill the Final Fantasy franchise as fast as possible.   FF13 was barely a game....stripping virtually all decisions from the player and turning a game 'world' into a story, and not a really great one.   Now FF14 appears to just be borderline unplayable, not incorporating any of the basics from successful MMO's.
 
What is causing this?    IMO, it's that Japanese game designers are living in a vacuum.    It's not like FF13 should model Oblivion or Mass Effect 2, but it should acknowledge what those games do.   FF14 should do the same with WOW.

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Faint

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Edited By Faint

more time to play a busted game for free? doesnt sound fun to me.

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EgoCheck616

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Edited By EgoCheck616
@Puck: I agree with the first 2/3 of your post, however I do not believe it is the Japanese game design showing it's true colors. 
 
I think the blame should be placed directly on Square Enix. Why? Because in the past 2-3 years everything Atlus has been publishing has been exactly what we SHOULD be seeing from a place like Square Enix. If they would just nut up then we could have had a Demon's Souls-esque version of Final Fantasy YEARS ago. 
 
They're afraid to step outside of their safety zone because they know it makes millions. There comes a point in every industry when the people making the product become so jaded that they start to believe "# of millions = # of fans". They begin to care less about the art of the product and more about repeating old mistakes. We've already seen this happen numerous times in the FPS genre. This only leaves people outraged when they are given a half-assed product, and I think we're going to see a direct result of that when Final Fantasy XIII Versus comes out. I would even go as far to say that I do not think that game is going to sell nearly as much as they hope it will.
 
Or it will sell because everyone STILL has their heads of their asses and believes Square Enix can still put out titles that are as good as they were in the 90s.  
 

TL;DR - FromSoftware should make the next Final Fantasy.

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Kilnik

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Edited By Kilnik

The game was designed to be played with a controller; there's no drag and drop; no tool tip pop ups... you can't even organize your inventory. The menus are slow as shit - and that's the just a small portion of the UI problems. The game itself is a grindfest, and makes no nevermind about it. It's like they completely ignored any innovations in MMOs or videogames in general over the past decade.

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deactivated-5865c6a5c9438

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Hey, if they fix the broken stuff then why not?

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Aureoloss

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Edited By Aureoloss
@Kilnik said:
" The game was designed to be played with a controller; there's no drag and drop; no tool tip pop ups... you can't even organize your inventory. The menus are slow as shit - and that's the just a small portion of the UI problems. The game itself is a grindfest, and makes no nevermind about it. It's like they completely ignored any innovations in MMOs or videogames in general over the past decade. "
couldn't have said it better myself.
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Pop

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Edited By Pop

I saw some videos of it, the game is garbage, the gameplay is complete crap and I guess there's story there I wouldn't even call it a final fantasy game, I wonder if they like playing their own game.

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AutomaticOwl

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Edited By AutomaticOwl

Keep giving it away for free, it's not worth paying for yet. 

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misfittoy

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Edited By misfittoy
@CRACKYSTUNTYE: 
 
Agreed.  I have the game and it does lack personality.  It doesn't have much fun to do in terms of story or varied quests.  Pretty much the bread and butter of a PvE MMO.
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JackG100

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Edited By JackG100
@Kilnik said:
" The game was designed to be played with a controller; there's no drag and drop; no tool tip pop ups... you can't even organize your inventory. The menus are slow as shit - and that's the just a small portion of the UI problems. The game itself is a grindfest, and makes no nevermind about it. It's like they completely ignored any innovations in MMOs or videogames in general over the past decade. "
Sounds more like they took those "innovations" to heart and made a typical modern PvE-MMO.
Us oldtimers still fondly remember Ultima Online and its vastly superior world-interactions, hell, even SWG was alot better than WoW and other late MMOs. But financially I guess that isn't the case, people want PvE-grindfests, not player to world interactivity.
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cherub09

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Edited By cherub09

The fun parts of this game gets lost by the frustrating parts. I have faith they will get the bugs ironed out by next month's update. The Japanese are honorable people, they said the would have the game live by Sept. 2010, and they had to get it on shelves by then. They probably should have waited until the PS3 launch.
 
/shrug

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AAsama

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Edited By AAsama

Got into this only a few days ago, I have not played the other Final Fantasy Online so i went into this fresh. 
 
There were several things that were very interesting for me, like the mission system and cut-scenes with your dude/cat in them, so this was a very different and thus an intrigueing experience. I can understand why some get frustrated with the menu system(one-click-too-many-syndrome) but i found it easy enough to navigate, it just slows down the pace alot.
 
What really kills the deal for me is the response-lag. I activate a skill, two seconds later it MAY give me some form of feedback on "oh, yeah you totally activated that skill bro. Right on.". Coming directly from WoW(or even LotrO and frikkin Warhammer for that matter) this is VERY game-breaking for me. The combat in Final Fantasy games can be slow, but atleast your selections should happen instantly and thus your overall battle/crafting-Speed should also happen fast, this is how you can become a good player of this game, but executing the right commands fast. I find myself trying to figure out what commands have gotten through to the server and when so that i can execute my next command to not waste any time, this gives me headaches.
 
So yes, tl;dr: They need to fix lag, really badly. Also more quests i suppose, but im pretty new to the game so there may be a boatload of them just around the corner for all i know. 
 
But hey, im into it. Ill stick around atleast until this big December version update, as they call it.

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zombie_bigdaddy

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Edited By zombie_bigdaddy
@liquidsol said:
" This game came out many many months too early.  I bought the collector's edition, and I didn't last long.  It's a broken, broken mess.  The awful UI alone is enough of a reason to be frustrated.  I didn't pay $70 to be a tester for a buggy game, I paid $70 for a finished product.  Normally I don't resort to profanity in posts... but fuck you, Square Enix. "
fuck SQ indeed 
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vibetown

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Edited By vibetown

this is one of the main problems with online gaming/internet connected games, publishers can think they can get away with releasing broke ass titles and then patch it a month after release.

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TheHT

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Edited By TheHT

That's a screenshot from the game? Really?
 
Looks old.

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Addfwyn

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Edited By Addfwyn
@Puck:
Have to disagree with you there, I don't want my Japanese games trying to be western RPGs or western MMOs, because I'd just play western games then.  I'll take a game like FF13 over Oblivion or Mass Effect any day, just because that's the kind of offline RPG I prefer.  Likewise, I'll take an Aion, Lineage, or FFXIV over WoW or EVE as well. 
 
Not saying those games are better, but just that they are what I prefer when it comes to my RPGing.  I think the biggest problem isn't that these games aren't paying attention to western standards (because they aren't going to make a western game as good as western developers anymore than a western dev will make asian games) but that people are expecting something totally different. 
 
I went into FFXIV expecting an expanded and more beautiful FFXI, and that's more or less what I got.  Some huge tech issues getting it to run to begin with, which I'll certainly fault SE for, but once I got it running I was nothing but pleased.  I did NOT go into it expecting a wow clone, or runes of magic, or eve, or anything like that.  I went in expecting a more refined FFXI.   
 
I think a lot of MMO gamers use WoW as kind of a baseline, so inherently dislike anything different to that, and it's true that XIV caters to a wholly different audience than WoW.   
 
Just my two cents there.
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snaptroll

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Edited By snaptroll

So is anyone going to play this? Cause at this point it seems like Square Enix is just dragging the Final Fantasy franchise through the mud as if they're just tired of making Final Fantasy games and want to stop.

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jamBOT

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Edited By jamBOT

Let's not get carried away comparing Mass Effect to Final Fantasy 13. Please. Mass Effect was good. Other than that. Yes, I love J-RPG's too. It really would be nice if Square went back to actually making J-RPG's again. Maybe, after they finish screwing around with all the stupid experiments. They might go back to making J-RPG's. If the company survives that long.

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mithos89

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Edited By mithos89

i was so disappointed with final fantasy 14.  
Sighz...

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Sanitysend

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Edited By Sanitysend

this game needs more menus in my opinion :p

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sins_of_mosin

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Edited By sins_of_mosin

Hell, you could tell the game had issues just from a handful of gameplay videos.