The New Deal
By Ultramar 2 Comments
So basically I got alot of time on my hands, so I think I need to kill some time and make use of my internet. I'll prolly actually start using this blog feature here at GB to possibly review some stuff because I really need to practice my writing skills since I fucked up my fall registration with college and now have to wait for spring semester. Especially since I think I myself am's a terrible's writers I think... but I dunno maybe if I write about stuff I enjoy I'm good at it. We'll see.
Initial Impressions: Final Fantasy XIV Beta
Anyways first order of business!(Note:I think I fucked up that first paragraph format now it's all aligned weird. Oh well I'm learning) I got into the FFXIV open beta! First impressions of that MMO is very solid and different. The narrative is definetly there which I like, and it's tons more interesting than FFXI to me at the get-go. The character creation is pretty cool, it throws alot of info at you at first in my opinion. There's the FFXI equivalent races and since I dont have the knack to memorize they're names I'm going to just call them by their FFXI terms so don't come at me with pitchforks because I got it wrong lol. There's the humans/hume, Elezen, midgetpeople called Lalafell/taru, Roegadyn/galka, Miqoete/mithra. What's interesting is... You pick a race and it just doesn't end there, you have to pick a type of origin of that race. For example: I picked Elezen(Elvaan as I would call them cause of my long stint in playing FFXI), they have two types of Elezens. There's the tree hugging hippis that live in the forest and they're tanned, they're called "Wildwood"; They also have the "Duskwright" which are the more sinister looking, pale, stronger, live in caves types. The difference between them what I know is that the Duskwright(which I picked) have slightly stronger physical attributes whereas I think the Wildwood are more magey or rogue/thief type people... not sure... needs further investigating. After you pick your race you got your standard hair/face/characteristics menus that allow you to customize your character, it's definetly alot more customizable than FFXI ever was. In FFXI you just picked like 9 males or 9 females as a character model and called it day ... Oh and you could change their hair color. The character creator does seem to promise you wont get the same result with players too often, I havn't really seen players that look my duder, but honestly who would of made the guy I made... he came out soooooo pale... it really bothers me but I guess I gotta deal with it. Once you finish up with appearences you pick a sign to be born under using moon and sun rotations, but if you dont like your sign guess what!? THATS RIGHT! You can pick your sign either way! What purpose these guardian signs serve I have no idea, but it seemed very Oblivion style to me that sign business. I believe it may have something to do with some of the gameplay guardian invokes which I can get into later, but not right now cause I dont want to get too off track more so than I'am right now. So we got... Race, appearences, sign, OH! Now you pick a job! Disciples of War, Magic, Land, and Hand. So since I'm a male between the ages of 16-25 I'm with the majority here and want to just bash things heads in so I picked Disciples of War. But guess what! You're not just a Disciple of War(DW)! You got five other jobs to pick! See what I mean that it throws alot at you? I literally spent like... close to an hour making my character because I care ;). So there's Marauder, Archer, Pugilist, Gladiator, and Lancer. I picked Marauder which reminded me of a Warrior from FFXI with a two handed axe. NOW after all this mess I believe you finally get to pick one of three nations you can start out in; Gridania - a foresty, tranquil city which I havn't seen much of, Limsa - pirate ran castle like fortress that seems very industrialed(This is what I picked and I'll talk about my own misadventures in a future post) and Uldah - a desert like... place... here's concept art for it ( http://angryweb.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Uldah_FINAL.png). And now you got your character and ready to go.
After you've made your character in FFXIV you're immediately thrown into a cutscene and arrive into some kind of sticky situation which gives you a real kick in the nads and yelling to you: YES that is your character and in a MMO and guess what? YOU ARE PART OF THE STORY *GASP*! In my playthrough as I said I made a duskwright Elezen from the pirate ran city Limsa! I don't know if the story starts off the same everytime you pick that nation, but I started on a boat(I'M ON A BOAT MUTHA FUCKA) sitting in the bar area on the floor and I hear a mysterious voice, so I follow this voice outside of the boat on deck immediately following danger. After being saved from catlady or Miqoete person, a big Roegaldyn(fatties or galka) begins yelling some jibberish and I help them fight some monsters on deck. These first 10 mins really captivated me about this MMO the cinematics looked beautiful and I run a pretty weak machine. After clearing the deck the storm the dark and stormy night was clashing and out of the deep blue a giant Sea Serpent emerges and hops over the boat and end cutscene. Afterwards the scene shifts to the public hub that I picked and this is where the MMO nature starts to set in, you talk to npc's and they get you started on your journeys.
Now I feel I've rambled on enough that this post is kinda dragging on about the whole FFXIV experience I will probably talk more about it in future blog post with in the near future as I continue my beta misadventures with my friends. I'll discuss more about mechanics story instances. I will say the game is certainly different then the current MMO genre, where everyone seems to kinda copy the World of Warcraft formula and slap together and market it as a original product. I however don't find that particular MMO too interesting. This really seems to focus on narrative and your journey through the world rather than get to the maximium level cap and start doing raids. It's beautiful, it's HD, it's JMMORPG.. Also the music is kinda good... Just sayin'..
Other Stuff
So yeah I'm reading the latest Mass Effect book series and if you guys were to learn anything about me, I'm not a book reader. I have books, novels, but I honestly dont go out of my way to read stuff. But this is Mass Effect we're talking about! I'm interested in anything Mass Effect! You got a coffee mug with the N7 logo on it I'm so going to hunt you down and steal it from you! Anyways, the book... Mass Effect Retribution is definetly a interesting piece of the ME series. Books don't tend to grab me but this book really keeps on me toes and I dont ever get that way with books where I'm itching for more. I kinda want to review the book, if I cant get a decent blurb out about it, I'll probably make a blog post and type something out after I finish reading it and tell you my thoughts and whether I reccomend it to you the Mass Effect fan or just your everyday casual reader. =D
As far as real life stuff goes I dont wanna sound too depressing but I got nothing really going on. I've just been playing games to keep my mind off things and hanging out with friends. So I'll just talk about how I found a new interest in the Nintendo Wii. Since the new Metroid game came out, Metroid: Other M, I can honestly say there's enough games out that I'm interested in to actually justify purchasing that silly silly silly system, but being the broke hobo that I'am; I went to my friends house and beat a couple games on his Wii >_>. I played a whole mess of No More Heroes 1 and 2, and holy crap Suda 51 is great japanese developer. These games have the simplest fucking mechanic and it's just... Lock on, mash A, and wave your Wii mote in the designated direction to perform the kill move and it's extremely satisfying slashing a ebay bought lightsaber downward on a opponent. The humour is purposefully awkward and strange in a Japanese way, and as Ryan Davis from Giantbomb would say, that is a Japanese-ass Japanese game! I myself cant connect with how Japanese games are scripted out, it's way too awkward and what they percieve as comedy I dont find entertaining at all, but this game literally throws that particular thing in a extreme way and it becomes very entertaining.
So yeah, not a bad first real blog post. I'll probably post something maybe weekly? Or Bi-weekly? I dont know depends whats going on..