Final Fantasy XIV. 

Why am I playing this game you may be wondering, because final fantasy XIII-2 came out and the first thing that came to mind was "I always wanted to play XIV." If my memory serves me right the game came out with very poor reception, and still has a negative look on it. This is why it's being released as XIV 2.0, which in game lore wise means the end of a world, very interesting. I may have not been there for a the beginning and didn't have the hype that fans had and chopped out from under them, but reading up on and a quick impulse buy from gamestop set me in to see the end and beginning. 

I've been playing the game for a while now, with college and work it's been random amounts of time ranging from maybe an hour to on a weekend sometimes 6 or more. I haven't clocked my hours but I'm not very far in, first of all I chose a Lalafell 

Jahan Shark, Jahan is my stupid default spelling of my name John when playing fantasy games. Anyway, Lalafells are my Lilties of this world and I always like to pick the shortest characters in games because I'm a short dude. 

I read up and chose Besaid as my server, and Ul'dah as my hometown that was on the up and up on population (at the time of the forum posts I was reading) with the poor reception of the game I suppose that's why there is so little people roaming around the towns and such, and anyone in the game now is higher level doin' whatever those people do. I couldn't talk anyone into investing the money to play FFXIV with me so me and my Lalafell were taking this journey by ourselves. 

As far as I can tell, most guides and forums posts about this game are old and outdated, people aren't trying to figure out how to play the game because they're not playing, or have been in the game long enough to figure it out. So explanation for many of the mechanics in the game are explained through The Lodestone website and in game text, without it I'd be completely lost. Quests are scattered about Ul'dah and I've been following this main story quest so far, a few I suppose side quests of "collect the sleep nuts from nutgrabber marmots" which can't be taken seriously, seriously. Also crafting, so much crafting, I figured out how to start crafting things and that's led to many of the hours i've played running around for ore veins and trees for lumber, which wouldn't be to bad if I didn't have to change my equipment everytime I wanted to do a new task, auto equipping my tools for me would be amazing. The class system is wild, you are the class of whatever your primary weapon is, so gladiator is a 1h sword or a skillet would make a cook. You can change class at anytime and they all level separetly, even the skill points you get after a certain level are separate from the other classes. It's put me in a daze as to what I should do, leveling this so I can keep my equipment up to date, or leveling here so I can fight these, or leveling this so I have the materials for that. I suppose if I had many friends who were taking different jobs I wouldn't have to try and play to everything but that's what it is for a lonely mmo player in the ending era of a world.

I'm going to keep playing, mostly for the special mount that you can get at level 30 that can't be attained after the 2.0 wipe, but also because I like this final fantasy, Tactics/Chronicles kind of setting. As far as an mmo, it's an mmo, it's got some different things that make it cool, and some that don't make it cool. In terms of mmos that doesn't mean a whole lot, at this point in time it's playing WoW or finding one you like setting wise, or where all your friends are. In this case it's setting for me, and seeing out to the end to see the era change. People may not like how the game turned out, but I like how they are handling this rerelease in terms of actual games lore. I'm not sure why I'm playing an MMO by myself, broken down it seems kind of sad, but I keep leveling up, eventually I'll have to find some people to help me at some point, but until then it's just another lonely day for this XIV player.

Final Fantasy XIV. 

Why am I playing this game you may be wondering, because final fantasy XIII-2 came out and the first thing that came to mind was "I always wanted to play XIV." If my memory serves me right the game came out with very poor reception, and still has a negative look on it. This is why it's being released as XIV 2.0, which in game lore wise means the end of a world, very interesting. I may have not been there for a the beginning and didn't have the hype that fans had and chopped out from under them, but reading up on and a quick impulse buy from gamestop set me in to see the end and beginning. 

I've been playing the game for a while now, with college and work it's been random amounts of time ranging from maybe an hour to on a weekend sometimes 6 or more. I haven't clocked my hours but I'm not very far in, first of all I chose a Lalafell 

Jahan Shark, Jahan is my stupid default spelling of my name John when playing fantasy games. Anyway, Lalafells are my Lilties of this world and I always like to pick the shortest characters in games because I'm a short dude. 

I read up and chose Besaid as my server, and Ul'dah as my hometown that was on the up and up on population (at the time of the forum posts I was reading) with the poor reception of the game I suppose that's why there is so little people roaming around the towns and such, and anyone in the game now is higher level doin' whatever those people do. I couldn't talk anyone into investing the money to play FFXIV with me so me and my Lalafell were taking this journey by ourselves. 

As far as I can tell, most guides and forums posts about this game are old and outdated, people aren't trying to figure out how to play the game because they're not playing, or have been in the game long enough to figure it out. So explanation for many of the mechanics in the game are explained through The Lodestone website and in game text, without it I'd be completely lost. Quests are scattered about Ul'dah and I've been following this main story quest so far, a few I suppose side quests of "collect the sleep nuts from nutgrabber marmots" which can't be taken seriously, seriously. Also crafting, so much crafting, I figured out how to start crafting things and that's led to many of the hours i've played running around for ore veins and trees for lumber, which wouldn't be to bad if I didn't have to change my equipment everytime I wanted to do a new task, auto equipping my tools for me would be amazing. The class system is wild, you are the class of whatever your primary weapon is, so gladiator is a 1h sword or a skillet would make a cook. You can change class at anytime and they all level separetly, even the skill points you get after a certain level are separate from the other classes. It's put me in a daze as to what I should do, leveling this so I can keep my equipment up to date, or leveling here so I can fight these, or leveling this so I have the materials for that. I suppose if I had many friends who were taking different jobs I wouldn't have to try and play to everything but that's what it is for a lonely mmo player in the ending era of a world.

I'm going to keep playing, mostly for the special mount that you can get at level 30 that can't be attained after the 2.0 wipe, but also because I like this final fantasy, Tactics/Chronicles kind of setting. As far as an mmo, it's an mmo, it's got some different things that make it cool, and some that don't make it cool. In terms of mmos that doesn't mean a whole lot, at this point in time it's playing WoW or finding one you like setting wise, or where all your friends are. In this case it's setting for me, and seeing out to the end to see the era change. People may not like how the game turned out, but I like how they are handling this rerelease in terms of actual games lore. I'm not sure why I'm playing an MMO by myself, broken down it seems kind of sad, but I keep leveling up, eventually I'll have to find some people to help me at some point, but until then it's just another lonely day for this XIV player.

You're not alone man. I went back a few days ago and was surprised by how much of a game it's become (it still has a ways to go though). Man, repairing was such a chore but now I can just have an NPC repair what I have up to 99%. 99%? Why not 100%, you ask? It's a lot better than 75% or doing it yourself. I'm on the Mysidia server by the way and I too am playing by myself. Also, I just got my chocobo mount =D

It is an MMO, but it isn't an mmo that tries to claim to be more than just that, and that's what I love about the FF online games. They present you with a vast world with lots a great lore and little direction. And it does not try to shoehorn offline gameplay into an online world. server merges are coming up and lets hope that makes things fun again.

Also the combat kind of sucks at early level. I think it is a flaw in their revamped class design. At later levels it gets so damn good~

Bought the game at launch, yeah, I was one of those...........needless to say it's sitting on a shelf and I haven't touched it since the first week it came out. A few months ago I received an email stating that the game wasn't going to be free to play anymore, so I cancelled my account.

So what does this 2.0 thing actually entail? As a guy who used to play (stuck with it for about 3 months) I am curious.

From what I understand (reading some of the forum topics) it's supposed to be kind of a reboot of the game. The areas will be...zoned, I think is the word or how to describe it. Basically, areas will look better and, I guess, look more unique. The UI will be better and resemble what other MMO UIs look like (again, I'm just judging what I've seen on photographs and read in threads) and, supposedly, they're using a new engine (or at least a better optimized version of it). The thing about the engine has got me super interested since I'm tired of the game engine chugging when you're in town with a lot of people in it.

I came back to this game back in February of this year and it seems to be becoming a game you can tell people to try out. It still has a long way to go and it definitely needs more content (there are things to do, but not enough to keep you occupied like other MMOs) but the small tweaks and small additions make this game unidentifiable from what was released back in...September was it? I took a 2 week break from this game but I'll dive back in once I get more time. But yeah, I'm still curious on how this 2.0 business will turn out.

Also, for the players who stuck around for the BS they gave them a "Legacy" type of status on their account. Basically, if you qualify (90 days of consecutive subscription time on an account that is currently active. Which ended already) you get a custom Chocobo Mount and a permanent discount on your subscription. There are a few other things I forgot.

EDIT: I forgot to add that they're incorporating the changes to 2.0 into the game's story. Basically there's some world event, similar to the Apocalypse called "The Seventh Umbral Era". So with every patch that they get closer to 2.0 they add more story to some type of Dooms Day event happening. It basically started with a red star in the sky called Dalamund growing a little bigger with each patch. Their Lodestone has reporters from 3 different newspaper companies (one for each city) reporting on the star as it gets bigger and the strange appearance of prophets who've been appearing (in game) and giving out prophecies about the coming end days (actual people within SE are playing these prophets. They really stay in character, but if you acted along with them they'd totally respond.)

I had been sticking with PC gaming for a long time so I've missed out on all Final Fantasy goodness since VII (I know VIII came out for PC but I just haven't bothered to get it), and I was also looking for an MMO I could enjoy, so when FFXIV was announced I was really excited and pre-ordered as soon as I could. I got into the beta and immediately thought "Oh goddammit no, please no, it can't be this bad..."

The way Square handled the horrible launch (they basically admitted failure, rebuilt their team, and let everyone play the game with no subscription fee until they could present a solid plan for the game's future) made me stick around. I'm still hoping that they'll turn it into at least a decent MMO with the 2.0 launch.

If any of you duders are considering trying this game out and find yourself on the Gungnir server, then feel free to add me to your friends list. My character's name is Oster Senra and I'm Master of the linkshell Moon Tree. There are only 5 people in it (including me and no one from this site) so if you all want to play with some fellow GBers then look me up =)

I've taken a bit of a break from it but I plan on going back soon.

@insane_shadowblade85: Is the completely absurd, arbitrary limit on character/class progression still in place? I haven't played since beta and don't remember the exact systems in place, but you could only gain a few hours' fighting worth of xp in any job per week. That was the greatest deterrant for me, aside from the game being utterly broken.

I'd love to get back into XIV and see if they managed to make it into some sort of actual game, but not if they still presume to tell me how to spend my time.

@asmo29a said:

@insane_shadowblade85: Is the completely absurd, arbitrary limit on character/class progression still in place? I haven't played since beta and don't remember the exact systems in place, but you could only gain a few hours' fighting worth of xp in any job per week. That was the greatest deterrant for me, aside from the game being utterly broken.

I'd love to get back into XIV and see if they managed to make it into some sort of actual game, but not if they still presume to tell me how to spend my time.

Do you mean the whole "8 Guildleves every 36 hours" or something? Or the, once you gain too much XP on a class you'll stop gaining your full XP so you should switch to another class? They did away with that a long time ago. Now you have an allowance system in place (I guess temporarily) where you can do up to 99 leves and it refills 4 every 12 hours, and since they've introduced inns in the game you can gain rested XP (There's nothing stopping you from getting your full XP now). There's a lot more to do as well; joining a Grand Company (basically an army for each city. Still hasn't been fully fleshed out yet), fighting bosses like Ifrit and Garuda, there's something called Hamlet Defense that I didn't check out, joining guilds for each of your classes and they've added beast tribe settlements around the world where people form parties to fight and gain crazy XP. Auto attack is also in the game for most classes, so you won't be hitting the 1 key a bunch, as well as a combo system for certain attacks.

They've introduced advance classes some time ago as well. So, a Lancer can become a Dragoon, Conjurer into a White Mage, Thaumaturge into a Black Mage, Pugilist into a Monk, Marauder into a Warrior, Archer into a Bard and a Gladiator into a Paladin. The advance class system, I feel, isn't fully realized yet, but they're on the right track. I believe you have to be level 30 in a class until you can take on quests that will allow you to become the advance class of whatever class you have currently equipped.

They have Chocobos as mounts for those that reach a certain rank in a Grand Company as well as Chocobos you can rent if you don't feel like running some where, and apparently they're going to add the ability to fight with your Chocobo. Not sure if that's while you're on it or if it'll fight along side you when you're on foot.

But yeah, compared to what it was back in the beginning, it's a different game. Still needs a lot of work but they're heading in the right direction if all the 2.0 stuff is to be believed.

I played the game earlier in the year while it was still free. It was certainly rough at the time but I found it enjoyable. I find it really fascinating that SE is putting so much work into fixing and trying to revitalize this broken game. I really do hope it succeeds. I think I'm going to get back into it soon. It may be rough but it is still Final Fantasy. I am sad that I missed the Legacy program and a chance of getting the Gobbue mount.

Does anyone know if this game has a "lost password/username" option that uses your game-key as recovery tool? I bought the collector's edition of this at launch, but for the life of me cannot remember my information. This was back when I literally went through 20-30 accounts a year due to my impulsive ADD nature.

Much oblighed, duders.

@ck1nd said:

Does anyone know if this game has a "lost password/username" option that uses your game-key as recovery tool? I bought the collector's edition of this at launch, but for the life of me cannot remember my information. This was back when I literally went through 20-30 accounts a year due to my impulsive ADD nature.

Much oblighed, duders.

I'm not sure if they have one that uses your game-key, but if you go here and click the "Forgot your ID or Password" button, you should be able to change it or recover it.

@polarbearsigep said:

I played the game earlier in the year while it was still free. It was certainly rough at the time but I found it enjoyable. I find it really fascinating that SE is putting so much work into fixing and trying to revitalize this broken game. I really do hope it succeeds. I think I'm going to get back into it soon. It may be rough but it is still Final Fantasy. I am sad that I missed the Legacy program and a chance of getting the Gobbue mount.

For me, the only good thing about the Gobbue mount is the music. It's so big and you're stuck staring at its ass during trips.

Curious if any of you play with a controller? If so how is it?

@gunninkr said:

Curious if any of you play with a controller? If so how is it?

I don't, but a lot of people do and seem to have no problems with it. The targeting system kind of blows because of how random it is in picking your next target, but other than that I haven't really heard any complaints.

Yeah, this whole relaunch business actually drew my attention back, too. I'll be reinstalling right after work today and start a new character.