So, I've been hanging around asking questions about the game over the past week and I still can't decide if this is really for me. I can afford it, I would like to play an MMO but I can't tell from the chat whether this is actually worth the time. So, a week in, how is this? Does it work? When it works is it fun? How is this?

It is a good mmo. If you like mmo's you will enjoy the game. It starts pretty straight forward and simple but the challenge and content ramp up nicely the higher level you get, in fact some of the boss fights by low 30's actually require a certain level of basic playskill to win. It has it's own story and plot, and while it is a japanese rpg plot it is still better than anything WoW ever put together. With the recent server upgrades no one I know is having log in issues anymore, the graphics are great, it plays great, fully functional dungeon finder, crafting is better than 90% of other mmo's especially the gathering, it really just comes down to a couple things...

Do you like MMO's? If you don't you wont like the game, you will have to run dungeons, you will have to do some grinding of content at high level, etc etc. If you have a problems with a sub fee you won't like it cause it has one right now. However if you don't mind an actual MMO where you have to group to complete the main plot, don't mind the trinity, but want something a more progressive than... WoW, you could do a lot worse than FF14:RR.

In fact I would say it does many things better than most popular MMO's.

It is actually great but after you beat the main story it is getting hard but also more fun. The only thing that is bad are fates and the fate parties. Yes you level fast with them but you have no clue how to play the game in a party and also have pretty fast under leveled gear which will all kill you and your party in the endgame. Just make sure you do the missions and quests so you always get new stuff^^

Dungeons are a great way to learn this game since they always introduce something new. If you wnat to play some MMO that is not WOW give it a shot.

I really have been enjoying my time but other then connection issues (which are mostly resolved at this point) I have been having a blast.

Fates are the way to go for fast leveling but I've been enjoying my time doing the quests, and playing a variety of classes. Lancer is level 21, Marauder is 15, and Arcanists is 14. While I initially thought about going Dragoon I've been contemplating Scholar or White Mage for better party queues. The duty finder is great but there are so many DPS classes and so few tanks and healers that as a DPS you'll spend 45-60 minutes searching for party. As a tank or healer that time is cut significantly (tanks sometimes are instant, healers are 10 minutes at most).

I think the best part for me, and much like XI, is that rolling another class doesn't mean rolling another toon. ONE TOON TO RULE THEM ALL! Also their plans to roll out content at a steady pace whether good or bad seems pretty ambitious for a game like this. Granted most of it will be fan service but who cares when you get a giant Magitek Armor to ride as a mount.

@zirilius: The wait times have nothing really to do with being more dps than tanks or healers. The problem are fates too many people are just doing fates.. If you go into the level 50 story dungeon where you can farm stuff you need for the end game you wait like 30 seconds as a dps class^^

That's true but some of the issue is that we have N number of servers with X, Y, Z (X=tanks, Y = Healers, Z = DPS) number of people trying to do instances. Across all servers X and Y combined are going almost always going to be Less then Z. Yes there are always two Z's for each X and Y in light parties but Z in most MMO's DPS classes are usually 4-5 times higher than tanks or healers. Which means DPS classes are almost always going to wait longer than for 4 man stuff. At 50 when you start getting the 8 man stuff (I believe DF looks for 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 DPS) the queues become less.

I think a big fix for alleviating queue times is being addressed with grouping off servers into groups like WoW does. The other fix would be to allow Arcanists to queue up as healers.

The game was great before, with the only issue being that it was hard to log in. Now, that issue appears to be greatly alleviated, so I really have no complaints. I'm playing every night and having a blast!

Love the game. Couldn't play it for 5 hours last night because of the 3102 error, which I did not love.

Its a pretty good game, there is 3 different starting stories with 3 diff main chars that kinda guide you through the initial cut scenes etc. Also each class has its own story line with cut scenes. Nice surprise is a lot of the cut scenes are fully voiced, they seem to transition the voice acting to just script but at any rate makes for a nice story based MMO which was lacking in other big mmo's. there is some strife about having to group up for instances in order to progress with the story, but i guess thats the ups and downs of any MMO. all in all its worth the 30 bucks, there is some pretty good early content. story may be a bit odd but its FF, its kinda normal for them. I wouldnt compare this to single player FF games like FFX and FF7 but its a fun romp, and everyone seems pretty happy so far. its hard to grief besides trash talking.

I really wish they'd start selling it online again. Or at least tell us when.

They've said they're looking into it but because of all the server congestion right now it's next to impossible to even create new characters on most servers. Once that character creation starts getting opened up I think you'll see them selling digitally again.

@zirilius: That's the kind of thing that has me worried about buying this.

Does this still have a monthly fee?

of course that is why it is so great. It gets constantly updated (every 2 months) with new content quests and so on and this is only possible if you have a certain amount coming in all the time. So yes it will stay subscription based for a long time.

Bah, then I'm out.

Now that the log in issues have been resolved for the most part and a working queue has been put in place, id recommend the game to anyone and i had sworn never to pay for another mmo. Its probably worth waiting for some "lets play" videos or quicklooks to appear if you are still on the fence though, mmo gaming isnt for everyone but this is amoungst the best i have ever played.

I would only say take them with a grain of salt. Some of the early content would be downright boring to watch... but if you find someone making a video from the perspective of dps in the last fight of Sunken Temple of Qarn... well that might make for a good video. I know I want to do some videos of the more interesting dungeons, Titan particularly would be pretty interesting.

@liquidprince: Don't worry, you wouldn't be in even if you wanted to. Square Enix is making that decision now.

I never understood what was so bad about subscription-based MMOs. Free-to-play games have their own issues.

@hailinel: People just want to put their initial money down on a game and then have that be it. For a casual player that might only want to dip in once or twice every few months it's money that can be better spent elsewhere.

It only affects digital sales. You can still purchase physical copies of the game and get in just fine. Just don't expect to get on a particular server at the moment if you are trying to meet up with some friends. Hopefully that'll change with server transfers coming.

I see the merits in both pay types. The steady stream of content that comes with paid subscriptions is something to be admired. WoW does great with it's content updates and FFXI was also fantastic. If they can even get close to coming out with content once every couple of months or quarter then I'll be a happy camper.

Is it really that difficult to come up with 15 bucks a to play a game when you want to play it? It's not that difficult to cancel and coming back is a breeze.

My biggest issue with Free-to-play games is the pricing structure and pay to win. Pay to win seems to be going away thankfully but you still have a few games where its prevalent. I always find most things to be waaaay too overpriced for what I am willing to pay and games that you can earn currency to purchase the items is always earned too slowly.

I'd rather the content be available to everyone at anytime so subscriptions is where my vote is at.

That's 15 bucks more than you'd spend popping in a regular game or F2P MMO when you wanted to play again. I'm perfectly happy to pay a monthly fee for this game, but I can see why people wouldn't want to and decide to give the game a miss.

How solo/duo-able is this game? I usually only have about 2 hours to play and spending 30 mins of that LFG and organizing won't really work. Is it a game where we can experience most of the content in 1-2 hour chunks without a group?

@traegan said:

The majority of the game can be done solo. The only thing that absolutely requires you to group up are dungeons/raids (several being mandatory), however thanks to the duty finder you don't have to go out looking for a group yourself. Just queue up for the dungeon and do it with some random people.

Keep in mind that for DPS classes those queues can be upwards of an hour + the time to complete the dungeon. Although you are free to do whatever you want while you're waiting for the queue.

Damn straight. I can only think of like... 3 FTP mmo's I actually like and all of them started as subs. Most FTP from the ground up mmo's are derivative as holy hell.

Looks super nice. Wish Giantbomb would give it a fair-shake with a proper quick-look. Not that 'leave to Brad to entertain' bs they pulled on Friday.

Now here's my question. IS this MMO fun to just explore? That's what makes or breaks it for me. I don't wanna play an MMO for just their boring missions/quests. They've gotta make their world compelling.

Also, do they have great bosses? I love me some cool boss battles with unique boss characters.

Don't like that monthly fee but I can manage to play it for a bit I will. IF it's anywhere as fun as RO then I'll love it.

@gnatsol: You're not going to find anything like loot or secrets or something while exploring but I think the visual design of the world is pretty amazing and I have a lot of fun just looking at the world and monsters as I wander around.

As for the bosses, I don't know how they stack up to other MMOs like WoW, but I think they're amazing. There are two mini bosses and a final boss in each dungeon, and almost all of them have some sort of trick to the fight. There are very few where you just run in and beat on the boss.

The bosses start pretty par but get harder as the game goes on. By the time you get to the level 30 dungeons you will be having to deal with bosses that have actual mechanics that can challenge you. By 40 you will be dealing with "dodge this or we wipe" types of challenge which the mechanics aren't necessarily harder.. but there is no longer much room for error. By 50 endgame you will be facing multiple wipes and a learning curve to get your first kill. I am in my mid 40's and have already seen multiple bosses that are just as interesting and complex as anything you would get out of a max level WoW dungeon, in some cases they are actually WoW raid level complex.

Any roaming bosses?

@gnatsol said:

There are quite a few FATE bosses that appear as part of the dynamic events, but Odin is the only one that I can think of that would probably be considered "roaming", since he doesn't always appear in the same spot. King Behemoth may or may not also be one.

You guys wanna buy some goooold?

This is pretty much the game's only major issue right now, everytime i log in i get spammed in zone by gold sellers, its easy enough to block them assuming its not the ones that pretty much have the screen constantly scrolling so you cant copy and paste their name (sticking them on the blacklist) but i feel Square should have a better handle on this.

Grabbed it Saturday for PS3 because I actually came across copies at Bestbuy. I am digging it a lot and am surprised on how functional the control scheme is with the controller.