Quick Look: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

@bam_boozilled: Just play 6, it and 4 are pretty much the only good ones.

Final Fantasy XIV-II: The Mulligan

Might be for me too. Working on another class and still going strong. I know some people will just say "lol another MMO", but for whatever reason it's been great fun. And like you said this has to win some kind of comeback award or something, because what they've done with this game is fantastic.

@gaftra said:

No idea about the physical copies, but I'd be extremely surprised if that was true.

SE temporarily stopped selling the digital versions due to the extremely high number of players (far over their expectations) who were trying to play the game, swamping the login servers and generally overcongesting everything to the point where it took everyone a while to get in.

That issue's been basically 100% resolved since they added more servers last week, and they'll be adding many more tomorrow. If you're concerned about those particular issues, they're a thing of the past now.

@seikenfreak: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff I would've liked to show. As it is I was probably a little frenetic in bouncing around between things as it is, alas.

That sure looks like an MMO.

Vinny melting down at the little guard is amazing.

Guarding chestnuts...

Yeah, but they still aren't selling digital downloads

Where was this? I am still stunned it was not in at launch.

Edit: And I can't imagine not playing this game without a controller. Even on PC. That's how I play and it's fantastic. Very easy to place the controller down for a second to type too.

Crafting system is a lot of fun. Again it may not seem like it for the first 15 levels or so but once you understand how it works and how to maximize the return its great. The best analogy I've heard used to describe it is that it's like playing a card game with yourself. And just like all the other classes in the game, crafting can use some skills from the different crafting classes so the more of them you level the wider assortment of skills you can use.

Gathering classes have the same shared skill stuff but the act of gathering itself is pretty dull. Not to mention crafting can gain monstrous amounts of XP and it thus it keeps things moving along and is fun to level, where as Gathering has just been a brutal grind for me. My assumption is that they did this to kind of de-insentivise people from playing these? The market is already flooded with materials even with a system that is supposedly so dull. Ive got my Miner up to 47 at this point.

Once you unlock Grand Companies then you can build up "Seals", the currency for them, to purchase items, your Company Chocobo mount, and other misc items. You can also spend seals to raise your Grand Company rank. There are Supply and Provisioning sort of "dailies" for Crafters and Gatherers to turn in and receive XP and seals (turning in High Quality versions yield something like a 200%+ XP bonus and bonus seals.) There are Grand Company Guildleves for the combat classes.

Once you've obtained your Company Chocobo and reached level 30, you can do a quest that allows your chocobo to fight along side you in battle. The chocobo has different skill paths (tank, healer, fighter) that you can spend skill points unlocking as it levels up. You can also use Grand Company seals to purchase armor for your chocobo.

I can't say from personal experience but I've heard that the story missions/dungeons really ramp up in difficulty around level 30 and everything prior to that is designed to ease people in that are new to MMOs.

Sooo much stuff to talk about and do I could go on and on. Weee

Great quick look and love having Rorie run it-- he's really informative and fun to listen to.

Honestly I hope he stops following the chat during live shows, it's boring for people like me who watch the show after the fact or avoid the chat during the live show. Would much rather he gets involved in the conversation and plays some games!

@rockyraccoon37: Thank you!

Game still isn't for sale =/

It's hard to show off an MMO in a Quick Look, since there's so much to talk about so don't sweat it.

@rorie: Awesome job on this QL. As someone who also plays a lot of MMOs this was extremely informative, hope to see you on more of the big MMO QLs coming up!

Very boring mmo, got to lvl 50, finished my bard quests, did some dungeons and I couldn't stay hooked. Everything felt bland, stale, nothing innovative. After 3 weeks from launch I just threw my account for sale, at least I made 100 bucks from this game (Funnest part of my Whole FF14 ARR experience)

Nope, not for me.

@originalyellow: Thanks! We'll see if there's time for all of them.

@rorie:

I don't think a Quick Look has ever been started better than with the words "Matt, get naked!".

... Also get on your knees.

I have never played MMO. The UI looks crowded !

What's the story, Matthew Rorie?

Welllllllll....need a little time to wake up, wake up.

Gilgamesh - Voshi Nova - Playing all the time. ^_^

Was the word "denouement"?

MMO's turned out boring for me with Guild Wars 2. It's the same old grindfest that requires way too much time for so little reward. You walk around, complete quests, level up, craft things that are never for your level unless you're pretty good at keeping your crafting up to date and so on.

Can we get another WoW-like revolution of MMO's, please? Something that will turn out to a massive must play?

I'd rather play FFXI, before they changed it.

Nice QL, Rorie! Always nice to get more personalities in the content.

Nice to see Rorie in a Quick Look. I'm not a huge mmo fan but I'll look into this game on PS4.

Vinny's fascination for these childlike creatures was also kinda funny.^^

@rorie you make a great point that an MMO coming out in 2013 should have already implemented all the lessons learned by everything that came before it - no excuses for that.

At this point in my life I've realized these aren't for me anymore (was super psyched for Guild Wars 2, played it for a week and never came back), but it's still fun to watch.

Anyone have any GOLD4SALE?

I will add that I am using the controller. I preferred using the controller for FF11 on PC and so I have moved into FF14 on PC using the controller, keyboard and mouse. IMO this is the best way to play it. Best of both worlds.

My biggest issue with the UI is not being able to resize the quest dialog. When running at 1080p its next to impossible to read from outside of 5 ft.

Overall I'm really impressed with the reboot and as someone who played 1.0 it's a great change of pace. Great quick look and it's not complaining if it's true. I had to switch my PC environment back to my desk cause it wasn't working sitting on my office futon.

Rorie. You're being a little ridiculous about hating the Crafting system.

The Reason you change your class to a "Miner" is because you actually become a Miner...

There are miner quest and Artifact gear. and you can mine some of the rarest materials in the game at a high level, they even get there own Relic and storyline quests. As a weaver and a Leather Worker you can create Special armor for your crafting class and all the Crafters in the game, but you will need the help of Gatherer classes to make those items. The crafting system takes a much more immerse and worthwhile experience rather than racing your flying mount from glowy spot to glowy spot, or clicking the item you want and hitting "Go"

you create high quality items by crafting an items with high quality materials that are rarer and dropped from mobs.

and in this quick look you said "I don't like the Loot system" "I don't like the Crafting System" "I don't like this, I don't Like that" and you really don't Know how to use any of them.

To say: "Why can't i do it Like Wow?!" Is just ignorant.

You really need to put more thought into the games you play.

If vinny wasnt in this quick look it would be unbearable! lol

- I still love you guys <3

Gooo chestnut gwuards! awwwwww

I loved the control scheme of FFXI on PC. For the 3 or 4 years I played that game it was solely with a keyboard, I never even touched the mouse. So comfortable to play.

I knew that data was going to transfer over, but I didn't know the PS4 upgrade would be a freebee! Do you have a link to that by any chance?

@keres: That's good to know since I was genuinely interested in playing. The Gamestop thing seemed strange and I was pretty off put to the idea of playing. Look forward to watching this when I get home and probably caving to purchase!

Of 2 minutes of watching the video was low res as fuck for like 90% of the time. Come the fuck on guys.

I really enjoyed the beginning of the game. I never play MMOs but I really got sucked in during the open beta. Not so much because you're doing super interesting things, more that the world is very engrossing and enjoyable to be in. WoW hardly looks bad, but I find the aesthetics to be very bland and uninteresting. FFXIV has quintessential FF finesse going for its world.

"I've never been a big pet person." -- Matthew Rorie

PS3 is a fucking atrocious. Be warned. BE WARNED. Once you get higher up and get into zones with a lot more people the PS3 will fucking kill itself. Doing Fates in Dragonhead, NT, and MD you will be hating that you're on a PS3. Not only that but targeting is a piece of shit if you're a healer. Maybe once the PS4 version will come out the framerate won't be terrible but for now just be warned. It's playable in dungeons but outside in Fates trying to heal specific people is just dumb.

Also this Quick Look was kind of painful. End game right now is fine, as most people can't even get to Bahamut. Most people have trouble even doing HM Ifrit.

The two main issues I have with the game personally is that a) badge grinding and b) chain farming xp parties are gone because of the way most places are set up. There isn't a good super high level area for when you get around to level 50. And FATE grinding is an "effective" way to level. Or at least it was until the wave of regular players swamped the higher level areas. Making FATES last all of 15 seconds. This second issue is just me wanting the game to be more like 11, which I find fundamentally to be the best MMO made to date.

@keres: Actually its still not resolved completely as the Duty Servers are still not big enough to handle everyone on one of the clusters. Other day I formed a FULL party and took 50 minutes to reserve our instance. They're fixing it soon with another big patch day but still. Not resolved completely.

Also to anyone playing on Malboro I am 'Yadilie Ginwa'. If you need a WHM for anything hit me up on there. I play A LOT when I'm not working.

@akujin: Well, when I get to that stuff I'll be able to comment on it; all I know is that starting out as a miner is super boring to the point where I don't even really want to pursue it anymore. I know that a lot of MMOs get super hardcore on their crafting stuff, but it just feels like a chore for me, kinda like maxing out fishing used to be in WoW. I'll stick with it and see if it gets better, but it's not really to my taste in the early game.

What's the story Matt Rorie, in Balamory?

Is it just me, or does this game have really great animations (for an mmo, at least)

@rorie: It seems that the NA/EU servers are hosted in Montreal, Canada. At least this seems to be the most common speculation currently... Although this is not confirmed by SE.

Regarding the game itself, I uninstalled it after a few days... Nothing wrong with the game itself, probably more a case of MMO-fatigue...

Sorry if someone already mentioned it, but all the emotes actually do have animations. Some are ONLY face animations, and the face animation sticks around for a bit and is independent of the character animation, so you can dance and have a really sad face going if you want.

Also the emote quests never end. Even at max level, be prepared to emote at NPCs. Really weird.

@harlechquinn: Hmm, I dunno why the server time would be GMT in that case. I also wish there was a ping meter, as I can tell that things don't happen until a good 300-400ms after I'm hitting buttons sometimes.

This game is legit. I wouldn't say it's a great game by any means, but I've certainly enjoyed my time with it thus far. I do wish they had a proper friend/account system though. Maybe they'll address this someday? /shrug

"No pet puppies 0/5" Review by Matt Rorie