Info from XiV Forums

Here is how non-disclosure agreement will work in Beta Test phase 3:

• Information will be free to post. Everything is open and you can post freely about any aspect of the beta test and your thoughts on it.

In regards to images and video in Beta Test phase 3:

• You can post images of phase 3 (no images from Alpha, phase 1 or phase 2)
• You cannot post audio or video.

We will be making a more detailed announcement before the start of Beta phase 3, but I wanted to share this general overview now.

Anyway what did you think of the beta now we can speak openly. I only had a few hours with last weekends Beta but used it to try out the game-pad support and it seemed pretty decent especially since it is sometimes nice to sit and kick back with something that can be quite a long play session like a mmo and also its how i and most people ended up playing XI, also the FATE system which his basically what Guild Wars 2 quests ended up being and you end up running into them on your way to most other quests to ease you along and give a bit of a change of pace to other quests your doing. When this weekend starts ill hopefully get around to posting some screenshots too and playing around with everything else and delving into some of the non solo content with grouped dungeon quests.

I personally want to try out some of the crafting and gathering jobs when i get a chance to to see how that has all changed, because it brings out my dark Eve Mining side out of me.

A GiantBomb Company is already in the works so check that out too old and new, and pop to Ultros server if your in the beta to mess with GB peoples and hook up my character will be Maneki kanji, everything will be getting wiped so none of this is permanent.

World Transfer Page also for existing characters.

I didn't have much fun with this MMO through the 2 beta phases I've been in. The quests are inane (might just be MMO fatigue) and I feel the world design is too cluttered and "busy". Also the thing where people start in different cities based on class seems weird to me. I wanted a big freakin' axe but my wife played a conjurer and her friend made a lancer so we were all scattered throughout the world without a clue how to find eachother. With the power of Google we did eventually find out how though.

The community however seems great and we managed to coordinate about 100 random players into standing in line to try activating a broken quest one by one. It kept breaking since 10 people tried activating the instance at the same time and with some great teamwork we managed to make a sweet Line Simulator. Some even called it DMV online. Tumblr posts were made!

Gamepad support seems solid and better implemented than TERAs - which is the only comparison I can think of when it comes to proper MMORPGs which offer gamepad support.

Also the cat people and the little fat things are awesome.

Goddamn. God-fucking-damn. This is my first beta phase so I haven't played XIV since they closed it down last year so everything is all new to me. Let me just say I really liked it before.

Now, holy fucking shit, I spent like 30 minutes to an hour with this when the servers went live a few hours ago and I am in fucking love. I cannot stress that enough. Everything looks, sounds, and feels fucking incredible. Literally no MMO has had me this excited so fast since WoW back in god knows when but something tells me I'll be sticking with this exponentially longer than I ever stuck around with WoW. Hell, I don't think any game period has grabbed me so fast in a long ass time.

I probably won't play too too much this weekend considering I try no to get too deep into betas because of characters wipes and everything, but man. You do not even know.how goddamn excited that short amount of time got me even more pumped for the official release.

So screenys as promised.

Oh yeah also just in case you didn't know, this is totally a beta. Proof!

@m_shini: Maaaaaaan that takes me back to my two years I played FFXI as a Mithra (yes I know the cat ladies are called something else in this one) I hope the beta is still going on for PS3. I want in!

I just decided to try out the Beta and yeah, this is far better than what was released. For some reason the game put me in Gridania even though I originally started in Ul'dah, but I guess that's a beta thing. Going to mess around with it a bit more before deciding what server to transfer my guy to; I'm currently on Gungnir.

EDIT: Yeah dude, they did an amazing job with the new version. Holy crap. The environments look better and more alive and there's actually stuff to do! There was little to nothing to do in 1.0. I'll put a few quick screenshots I decided to take.

Gallery

Is this game fun? Is the combat enjoyable?

man.. i would love to check this out, but i just can't bring myself/afford to pay a monthly fee to play a game.

There will be a open beta close to release so you can try it^^

Also damn just tried to do a story quest which was kind off difficult. 2 fights in a row but I guess I need to level up a bit with level 14 its impossible to win the second fight^^

Hmm... I'm more than willing to give it another shot. The main thing I'm worried about is the quest system.
I didn't get very far when I played FF14 at its original release, but from what I played of it then, there was a limitation in place to where you could only complete 8 (at least I think it was 8) quests per day. Did they change that?
I understand limiting the amount of daily quests per day could reduce the potential for people to play for an unhealthy amount of time each day (some of us have been there with WoW), but for me it ended up turning me away from the game entirely.

That being said though, I friggin' loved how FF14 felt. Since your character's movement had weight to it, it felt more like you were actually controlling a character, and less like you were just playing "game mechanics: the video game" like with every other MMO I've played.

@darji: Well I guess this will be how they finally get me...

I've really been enjoying it, but I think many people will have a problem with how you have to unlock stuff. The pace is slower than WoW (which I really like because I think WoW is too twitchy and spammy), and it can take a few hours to really get started in the world. I've played maybe 5 or 6 hours this phase and haven't unlocked a dungeon yet. I've had plenty to do, but I bet some people will be bothered by not being able to do everything immediately. The writing is really great though, even if the overall story seems like typical save-the-world type stuff. I also like how the quest chains work. They often have several steps so it's not just: Kill ten rats and come back to the quest giver. It's more like: accept quest from NPC, go talk to a different NPC somewhere else, collect rats pelts, deliver pelts to a 3rd NPC somewhere else. Same basic thing in theory, but in practice it feels much more broken up and less "go fetch" than WoW.

The progression for your first class is through quests with no limitation. You also can do leave quests etc but I don't know if they are still limited since I am only doing quest missions that also lead you through different eras and teach you various stuff.

@benny: It's an okay MMO and yeah I would consider it fun. The combat is the usual skill bar with some skills having combo effects, some having global and some having individual cooldowns. With some classes (or probably just the Pugilist class) positioning (like hitting from the flank, or from behind) gives bonus damage/effects. Some enemies have special attacks that do area or cone damage that you can avoid, so combat gets pretty active and you don't just stand there.

You also have combos in the game, but not the "30 hits!" combos. One move can chain into another if you have it unlocked. I forgot the benefit of doing a combo but I think it might have something to do with your Tactic Points. Tactic Points are basically your... action meter. Every move uses up a bit of TP and I think if you combo chain the correct moves together you use little to no TP.

I'm really glad its improved beyond recognition.

As a Legacy member, I understand what a long road it's been for the devs to reach this point.

Although my MMO days are behind me now, I wish the team the best of luck.

@newhaap: Interesting thanks.

Also how did y'all get into the beta? Just signing up via their beta registration page or is there a way to get guaranteed entry to the beta straight away?

This beta is bringing back tons of great memories from when I played FFXI.

I like the combat a lot and the story seems relatively interesting, I just don't think I'm willing to pay a monthly fee for a game any more.

They still have the levequests and you get the ability to do three of them every ten hours, and you can store up to 100 total. There are normal quests too, though, and they aren't time limited in any way. However once you do them they're gone, so when you level up secondary classes you'll have to rely on levequests and the hunter's journal thing.

If you were legacy member and bought the first game you get easier access also there were some sites giving away some keys a while ago as well. But it is still a beta which actually means beta and not demo. If you just want to try it out you should really wait till phase 4 and the open beta because from this point on you also can keep your character progression. In this phase everything gets deleted when the phase is done.

I have to say i am more impressed than i thought i would be after this weekends beta, and i was able to delve into more of just the main quest line stuff with my level 50 character on a legacy server and have to see everything from all the dynamic music(and pretty greatly composed music it is at that) to all the writing and detail that seems to have gone into this very pleasantly surprised, the changes compared to what 1.0 is kind of nuts considering they had to re do the majority of the game and its systems.

I really like how you have managed the inventory, as well as giving you a massive 100 spaces just on your character, any gear you use and equip goes into another separate armory inventory so you don't have to take up all of your inventory just to carry around all your gear, and being someone who has 6 jobs at 50 plus other high end class's even with all that gear i have plenty spare that's without the other extra 200 spaces you can gain from other means.

The combat is familiar to most mmo's but it makes good use of having you use movement and positioning, it is a slightly slower paced feeling combat system when you start as class's don't have a crazy amount of ability's just for the sake of it, but they all have a purpose and aren't just there to fill numbers, and even still you can take ability's from other class's to expand upon your skill set if you do need and the jobs themselves limit what actions you can take from other classes to balance it out.

So far a pretty awesome start, I'll be eagerly await my chance to explore some more of its content as i haven't been able to delve too crazy into it with the group stuff but even the time spent on my own has been great.

I know what quest you are talking about. You just need to take the monster hp down 50% ans stay alive(don't attack the mask guy).

Also does anyone know when the Arcanist will get release? I want to try a summoner.

Hehe, Onion knight Helm. I'll have to check this out on the PS3, got a beta code but last weekend it wouldn't let me sign in, damn Lodestone cancelled my account.

As far as i know Arcanist and scholar 'classes' and the Summoner 'Job' will be released at launch of the game, which is handy since many old players from 1.0 will have most jobs at 50 and there was a lack of mage classes anyway.

I guess they either took away or temporarily disabled Chocobo barding, because I can't equip his armor; it was a pain in the ass to get that armor for my bird. I'm not going to do any story quests for this beta stage, instead I'm just going to go around exploring like I did in 1.0.

Forgive me being stupid, but where are they putting the screenshots?

On your PC? It should be: Documents > My Games > Final Fantasy XIV ARR (Beta version) > Screenshots

That's highly counter-intuitive, since that directory isn't even on the same drive where I installed the game. Well, here's Hibari, who only exists for this beta. When real characters are keep-able, going back to a Hyur Male.

Oh wow. Some of those screenshots look really...pretty. Combine that with the positive feedback and it gives me the impression that Square Enix isn't muckin' around this time.

They've done a great job. If you've played Guild Wars 2 then it has some of those elements (Basically Dynamic Events). If you're higher level than the area and you enter a dynamic event (a blue circle on the map) it'll say something like, "You're 6 levels over the event. Press the Sync button to get credit and contribute" or something. So you can still be overpowered for a zone but get scaled down to take part in an event by clicking on the Sync icon on the screen.

EDIT: A few more screenies.

Top: Thaumaturge/Black Mage

Second: Pugilist/Monk

Third: Marauder/Warrior

Last: Me Dragon Kicking a big desert turtle because... shut up.

The only positive things I have to say about it are it looks really cool (I like the artstyle) and the music is pretty good. Oh, and the UI is maybe one of the best I've seen, especially if you want to use a controller. Looks very sharp and everything is laid out extremely well. Otherwise, it's a pretty bland MMO, at least at the beginning where I played. The move variety seems pretty terrible and the quests aren't really that interesting.

Logged on earlier today and apparently there was a community event to help the devs do stress testing. A bunch of people ran around as Lalafells as a group so naturally I had to take some screenshots :)

Gallery

My old FFXI and Linkshell Buddy organized this!

https://twitter.com/Mcstronghuge

http://denmo-mcstronghuge.tumblr.com/post/53676738441/excalibeard-community-event-march-of-the

For the people who are concerned about the amount of content available or how they'll be leveling, there's a huge amount of content in the game now. Here's what you'll have available to you to level your battle classes:

Main storyline quests (once only; gives a big XP boost to your first class)

Side quests (once each, but there will be enough that you won't be able to do most of them on a single class)

FATEs (infinite)

Guildhests (infinite, but the first time you do them on each class, you get MUCH more XP)

Dungeons (infinite)

Guildleves (infinite, earn a set amount of allowances per day, up to a maximum stored cap of 99)

Hunting log (a separate log per class, can be done while doing all of the above content)

------

That said, as someone who played 1.0 a fair bit (due to friends in the game, mostly) and has been playing ARR since alpha, I'm extremely pleased with how far the game has come. Even the difference between phase 2 and phase 3 is huge, and there's a pretty nice-looking laundry list of things that the dev team has scheduled to be changed at the start of phase 4, and at launch. I'm having a ton of fun in the game, and can't wait for launch.

I've uploaded two galleries of photos from phase 3:

http://imgur.com/a/i98EP

http://imgur.com/a/lxbaX

How does the combat compare to FFXI? I played that on xbox 360 when it was in beta and seem to recall it having an interesting combo system.

@benny: the combos you mean from Xi im thinking were the 'skillchains' and 'magicbursts'

Some weapon skills have other weapon skills that lead into a combo for extra potency or effects, which get highlighted after a weapon skill is executed in the correct way(some require correct positioning to a enemy, e.g doing weapon skill A from behind to make the combo highlight and work), it doesn't produce a crazy graphical effect like in XI though. I didn't get time to mess with the mage classes to see what the connection between different magic spells but some do lower the resistance to certain elements to make the next tier in that spell do more damage etc.

No time for a detailed write-up so I will just post a couple screens.

@m_shini: @insane_shadowblade85: Man, Black Mage and White Mage armor looks so slick.
After trying to read beta forums for the past couple of weeks I got bummed with the community in there. Out of curiosity how do you guys feel about the "drama" between Legacy and non Legacy players? Also are you satisfied with the story stuff related to Legacy characters?


First impression of RR is that it's night and day compared to it's formal 1.0 self.
The combat is decent, noting really stands out just yet. That aside the world itself is doing a great job of drawing me in. Normally when I play a MMO it's for a couple of months at most and it's mostly because of combat and PVP type stuff. The art direction, music, and other mechanics in the game are pretty enjoyable. There are a ton of small things that FFXIV is doing right, making it a lot more fun to play. More than enough to make up for the pretty average combat (as of level 24). I'm excited about crafting and just getting cool gear. Also, for what it's worth I actually read what dudes say when it came to the main story line quests.

@enns: I try to avoid reading the forums over there because it always boils down to either, A) "This game is the best thing around and every other game is inferior because I said so", B) "This game needs to be harder and more like old school MMOs because I've only played FFXI so making it anything other than that is catering to the dumb WOW community", or C) "I don't like having a lot of stuff to do, can you make there be less available quests like version 1.0?" (Yes, I've seen that complaint. I know, crazy, right?)

Since I've barely been reading the forums I have no idea of the drama between Legacy and Non Legacy members, or if it's just a few people acting like dicks. As far as the story stuff is concerned? I'm not sure, my first experience with the beta was the last beta test and I only went through the intro and tutorial. If it's anything like 1.0 then the story will be fine, but so far the NPCs are very talkative. Like, Kojima talkative. They always tell you what needs to be done for a quest and then they'll add a paragraph or two that tells you about the world or area that you're going into.

Ok so as a resident "I have played every mmo since god created the universe" dude.... there is nothing really "BAM!" about the new FF14 that I have seen so far in my couple hours I had with it with the last beta. However there was nothing "BLEH" either, except that I had a strange bug where I would randomly get a black screen (typically after targeting something) and then when my pc recovered itself after 1-2 seconds my FPS would tank until a reboot of the game. Likely a direct X or driver update will fix that, no biggy.

I will say the game was much smoother than it's launch, no lag issues, other than the above no fps problems, the quests were not spectacular but were worlds better than 1.0. It is a real mmo now that actually works and looks great on screen. The armor designs are also vastly better too, before everyone looked basically identical for like 10 levels. Now gear actually has a little personality to it and there are racial armors and such.

The forum legacy v non legacy forum arguments on the beta forums is always really dumb and your guaranteed to see at least one topic like that on the front main page of 'Hot Topics' but being on the actual game on legacy and non legacy servers it hasn't ever been a thing to pop up in conversation so i hopefully isn't something that will be something present in game since the legacy differences don't really matter since you had to pay something like 3 months of subscription while in 1.0 to get a discount on future subscription fee when the game re launched so for ages legacy people will still be out of pocket money wise for awhile before that actually recoups, the legacy characters will be on separate servers as well for at least 6 months for when they will allow transfers to other non legacy servers for legacy characters, if people decide to use those characters anyway.

Regarding story stuff i think the openings for starting out are pretty weak and are all basically the same for an opening cutscene, i did only do main story line quests on my legacy character since i was higher level and went through a bunch of that and they are defining that allot better and having characters that will make appearances in memorable ways and generally the actual text dialog is pretty good, judging from the trailer they shown a bit ago the English Voice acting seemed pretty lame from what i heard, non of which ive heard in the game yet so it might change. Its standard story stuff in general it isn't no crazy bioshock infinite of course but its presented in a good way if you take the time to read it if interested.

I'm really liking the main story quests and the class quests so far. Not as good as a single player game, but presented fairly well for an mmo and actually has pretty decent writing. Also here are some random pics from this weekend's adventures:

Gallery

I really like my Roegy's /sit, lol.

cat girls . . . yuummm

Did I miss first-person-camera in the controls somewhere? I would've taken alot more screen captures if I could do that.

Home key

Is this an MMO ass MMO or could someone who tires of WoW and it's million attempted competitors enjoy FF14ARR?

You have to invest more time then in an WOW or WOW clone game. Also you will need parties even for story missions and at some point there is nothing you can do solo anymore in terms of leveling of doing quests. It is a real mmo not some game you also can finish alone only like WOW for example.

@nadesico33 said:

That's highly counter-intuitive, since that directory isn't even on the same drive where I installed the game. Well, here's Hibari, who only exists for this beta. When real characters are keep-able, going back to a Hyur Male.

Well I see they kept with the standard MMO trope of having the armor on female characters basically be bikinis. Great way to expose the softest part of your body. You know how real cats get really mad if you scratch their belly for too long? They know what's up. Never expose the belly. You are just asking to die. Videogames.