The final design looks nothing like the icon in the purchase window, but I don’t think that explanation will stop my Lalafell archer from putting an arrow between my eyes. When he does kill me, someone tell my wife that I’ve been living in her attic for the past year. Also that loan I asked her to co-sign was actually a marriage certificate.
Active subscribers to The Old Republic who haven’t yet purchased Rise of the Hutt Cartel are in luck. In an announcement on the official website, Bioware has announced that the expansion will be free for subscribers beginning September 12th. Subscribers who already own the expansion will receive an exclusive title, “The Risen,” as well as 1050 Cartel Coins if they purchased the expansion after August 11th.
(Source: The Old Republic)
Gold farmers often make use of accounts stolen from their previous customers or by breaching security at third party websites and matching lists of usernames and passwords, and as with any big MMO launch, Final Fantasy XIV is already seeing a surge in stolen accounts. In a post on the FFXIV forums, Square has confirmed that a third party source is using a list of stolen accounts from an outside website in order to break into player accounts and use them for gold farming and chat spam.
Currently, we have confirmed that a third party is using account names and passwords, thought to be obtained from security breaches of other companys’ online services, in attempts to gain unauthorized access to Square Enix accounts. If you are using the same account name or password as your Square Enix account on other online services, there is a much greater chance that a security breach at any of the other online services could potentially lead to your Square Enix account being compromised.
Accounts suspected of being stolen will be restricted until the user can verify their ownership.
(Source: FFXIV)
(Editor’s Note: This was originally supposed to be a one part article, but for some reason it was playing hell with the server, so it has been split up)
Now let’s talk about the negatives, starting with everyone’s favorite piece from 1.0: Levequests. Levequests are back and they are just as convoluted as they were in their past iterations. Levequests work by accepting them at an appropriate NPC, who then directs you to another area where you enter a specific location and “initiate” the levequest. This generates monsters that are specific to you and cannot be attacked by anyone else, and at the end you are rewarded bonus experience and gil. Remember the artificial limits I mentioned that were in that other game? They are back. Levequests are limited to six daily, however they roll over and stack for any days you miss or don’t run any. What this means is that the more dedicated players will quickly run out of things to do, since traditional quests are sparse and easily completed.
For now, players are power leveling by completing FATES, the game’s open quest system similar to those found in Guild Wars 2, Rift, Defiance, etc. The FATE system not only awards extremely generous amounts of experience, but they pop up fast enough that they are not only the best form of leveling up, but compared to the sparse story quests and limited levequests, they are the only viable option for a solo player to level up that doesn’t involve sitting around just killing stuff for base experience.
And I’ve already touched on this in the previous, very short impressions piece, but the more I look at it the more I believe that Square Enix hires their designers by going to McDonald’s, finding the people who weren’t qualified to work there, and ignoring them for the homeless person rummaging through the dumpster out back. Now that the server issues are mostly squared away, I can turn my attention to other choices that would qualify under “why didn’t you learn this the first time?” Like the horrible chat interface that forces you type a person’s name in if you want to blacklist their chat, making blocking goldfarmers just about impossible when they are either spamming too fast to writer their names down or, god forbid, their name uses confusing or special characters that can’t be replicated on an American keyboard. Forgetting an easy ignore button in an MMO is something I’d expect from a startup company, not from a game that is built from the remains (and lessons) of one of the worst launches in gaming history.
There are plenty of rookie mistakes that Square continues to make, including the total lack of an AFK kick function resulting in unnecessary server congestion, being unable to leave chat on “shout” and having to select it every time, the fact that you have to log in to multiple different websites to manage various aspects of one account, and the total lack of defense against gold spam.
I did my best to review Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn without thinking about the MMO’s prior release, but I found that the game is just too deeply burned into my brain to not make comparisons. That being said, I think that people who even slightly enjoyed the original MMO will be very happy to see the improvements that Square Enix has made. Those of you who are just coming in for the first time will either be overjoyed or disappointed to know that FFXIV doesn’t deviate from the standard MMO spectrum all that much.
If you put a gun to my head and asked for a numerical score, I’d give it a 9.0 out of 10. Yes it isn’t perfect, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who simply will not like it. I can see myself paying the monthly subscription for this, which is a lot more than I can say for most other MMOs.
For the sake of moving forward, I will dedicate this one paragraph to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, the version launched in 2010, to say that compared to its predecessor, A Realm Reborn is normal. Those of you who played the earlier version will have an idea as to what I’m talking about, but for those who haven’t I will go over some missing “features.” Gone are the long and convoluted systems of menus which often had the player throwing their keyboard at the wall in frustration, because the simple process of checking your inventory was a five minute affair. Menus that inexplicably suffered from copious amounts of input lag. Your only option to level up was grinding mass numbers of creatures, as story quests were few and far in between and you could only take on eight guildleves (side quests) every thirty six hours. Final Fantasy XIV required a browser on hand because the game had a ridiculous tendency to not explain to you a majority of what would otherwise be basic and required information, and even if you managed to suffer through the long grind on battlefields that copied and pasted the same twenty square feet over and over again, you were rewarded with fatigue! Yes, what better way to entice your hardcore power-levelers than to punish them with lower experience rates?
I’d suggest that everyone associated with Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 be fired, but they already were. When FFXIV 1.0 bombed in every market, including some that do not exist on any plane of reality that we know of, Square Enix pretty much cleaned house. So that is the end of any comparison to FFXIV 1.0 in terms of quality, because this is a review on A Realm Reborn standing on its own merits, not on the simple matter of being better than 1.0. So without further ado, let’s dive in to the good, the bad, and the Square Enix.
First let’s start with the good, because this is not only how I fill my paycheck from Corporate McBribeski but because no amount of praise I could ever give a game will ever appease the fans once I actually start criticizing it. A Realm Reborn offers a multiclass system to remove the need for multiple characters, and the system works quite well. Classes are unlocked once you reach level 10 in your starting class and join the appropriate guild (realistically this will be 15 as that is when you unlock airship access and can easily travel between cities). I prefer this system because it not only forces the player to get acquainted with their first class on some level before they can branch out, but it also distinguishes each class as almost a character of its own. Even classes like fisherman and chef, which would normally be relegated to a single window in most other MMOs, feels like something you could conceivably play by itself.
It also means that you can ease into each class on a rather smooth level, as fishing uses a different set of abilities than alchemy, for instance. You start out with the bare minimum of abilities, generally just one or two, and gain more as you level up. Classes can be swapped on the fly just about anywhere, providing you aren’t in combat, with the simple switching of your weapon. Since your class is tied to your weapon, role players probably won’t appreciate that you must have something equipped in your weapon slot at all times, no exceptions, but most of them when put away become rather unnoticeable.
Questing in FFXIV hasn’t changed a whole lot from the norm: Each class has a series of quests that unlock every few levels, and the story quests are where the game really shines. The game picks up where 1.0 left off, with the world being mostly destroyed by Bahamut and civilization picking itself up with the threat of invasion from the Garlean Empire. The story is told through said story quests with rich dialogue, brilliantly executed cutscenes, and an insane amount of lore. If you aren’t paying attention, it is very easy to get lost in exactly what is going on. In usual Final Fantasy fashion, there are plenty of characters that toe the line between totally serious and hilariously exaggerated, and the Garlean Empire sports people who range from bumbling stupidity to menacingly terrifying.
Next I want to talk about the gathering and crafting skills, which have changed a bit while remaining the same at their core. While gathering, the player activates a triangulating skill which reveals otherwise invisible nodes in the area. You click on the node, and you are presented with a list of items that may be obtained from the node, and their individual percentage chance of success. You pick an item from the list and hit, and each hit takes away from the node’s overall health. Once the node drops to zero, you have to find a new node. Fishing, on the other hand, is entirely random. Each area has a set list of fish which is nicely recorded in a fishing log, and involves picking the right bait, throwing your line in, and clicking to reel in when you get a bite.
Crafting skills, on the other hand, are once again a tug of war between finishing the item and boosting its chance of turning out as a “high quality” product. Since each action extracts a certain amount of durability from the process, the goal is to use your other abilities to boost the chances that the item will turn out “high quality” and thus more valuable, while at the same time ensuring you have enough durability left to actually create the item. For instance, you might be cooking a fish and see that you have 20 durability left and 9 points to cook. You can choose to synthesize it and finish the recipe safely with two chances to cook, or you can spend one of those chances on giving the dish an extra 3% chance of being high quality. Ultimately the trade crafts are a game of chance, one that you will likely lose at once or twice before you get the feeling down, but they are enjoyable if heavy on the grind.
I also enjoyed the fact that the game rewards the player for exploring new grounds. Players are rewarded for filling their log books with monsters killed, recipes completed, setting fish records, and more. The tradecraft and guild vendors sell a lot of the materials needed for low level tradescraft recipes, which is good because your tradescraft and fieldcraft products do not match in many areas. Rye, for instance, is required for a very low level culinarian recipe, but is harvested from a level 15 botanist node, according to the wiki. I would also recommend focusing on just one or two classes at a time, otherwise you’ll find yourself stretched very thin and likely sabotage your interest in the game via information overload.
One thing you will never do in Final Fantasy XIV is loot a creature, and I couldn’t be happier. This isn’t to say you don’t receive loot, it’s just fairly rare that you do and it is often just crafting materials. You’re going to get your equipment via questing, levequests, crafting, dungeons, and purchasing from other players. In that respect, Square Enix is going for a more realistic drop system. I don’t know where a Marmot would carry a pointy spear, and since it will never drop one I guess I will never know. I will say that the whole idea of players crafting the equipment comes to a dead stop when you realize that the items gained via dungeons are more powerful.
For the sake of moving forward, I will dedicate this one paragraph to Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, the version launched in 2010, to say that compared to its predecessor, A Realm Reborn is normal. Those of you who played the earlier version will have an idea as to what I’m talking about, but for those who haven’t I will go over some missing “features.” Gone are the long and convoluted systems of menus which often had the player throwing their keyboard at the wall in frustration, because the simple process of checking your inventory was a five minute affair. Menus that inexplicably suffered from copious amounts of input lag. Your only option to level up was grinding mass numbers of creatures, as story quests were few and far in between and you could only take on eight guildleves (side quests) every thirty six hours. Final Fantasy XIV required a browser on hand because the game had a ridiculous tendency to not explain to you a majority of what would otherwise be basic and required information, and even if you managed to suffer through the long grind on battlefields that copied and pasted the same twenty square feet over and over again, you were rewarded with fatigue! Yes, what better way to entice your hardcore power-levelers than to punish them with lower experience rates?
I’d suggest that everyone associated with Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 be fired, but they already were. When FFXIV 1.0 bombed in every market, including some that do not exist on any plane of reality that we know of, Square Enix pretty much cleaned house. So that is the end of any comparison to FFXIV 1.0 in terms of quality, because this is a review on A Realm Reborn standing on its own merits, not on the simple matter of being better than 1.0. So without further ado, let’s dive in to the good, the bad, and the Square Enix.
First let’s start with the good, because this is not only how I fill my paycheck from Corporate McBribeski but because no amount of praise I could ever give a game will ever appease the fans once I actually start criticizing it. A Realm Reborn offers a multiclass system to remove the need for multiple characters, and the system works quite well. Classes are unlocked once you reach level 10 in your starting class and join the appropriate guild (realistically this will be 15 as that is when you unlock airship access and can easily travel between cities). I prefer this system because it not only forces the player to get acquainted with their first class on some level before they can branch out, but it also distinguishes each class as almost a character of its own. Even classes like fisherman and chef, which would normally be relegated to a single window in most other MMOs, feels like something you could conceivably play by itself.
It also means that you can ease into each class on a rather smooth level, as fishing uses a different set of abilities than alchemy, for instance. You start out with the bare minimum of abilities, generally just one or two, and gain more as you level up. Classes can be swapped on the fly just about anywhere, providing you aren’t in combat, with the simple switching of your weapon. Since your class is tied to your weapon, role players probably won’t appreciate that you must have something equipped in your weapon slot at all times, no exceptions, but most of them when put away become rather unnoticeable.
Questing in FFXIV hasn’t changed a whole lot from the norm: Each class has a series of quests that unlock every few levels, and the story quests are where the game really shines. The game picks up where 1.0 left off, with the world being mostly destroyed by Bahamut and civilization picking itself up with the threat of invasion from the Garlean Empire. The story is told through said story quests with rich dialogue, brilliantly executed cutscenes, and an insane amount of lore. If you aren’t paying attention, it is very easy to get lost in exactly what is going on. In usual Final Fantasy fashion, there are plenty of characters that toe the line between totally serious and hilariously exaggerated, and the Garlean Empire sports people who range from bumbling stupidity to menacingly terrifying.
Next I want to talk about the gathering and crafting skills, which have changed a bit while remaining the same at their core. While gathering, the player activates a triangulating skill which reveals otherwise invisible nodes in the area. You click on the node, and you are presented with a list of items that may be obtained from the node, and their individual percentage chance of success. You pick an item from the list and hit, and each hit takes away from the node’s overall health. Once the node drops to zero, you have to find a new node. Fishing, on the other hand, is entirely random. Each area has a set list of fish which is nicely recorded in a fishing log, and involves picking the right bait, throwing your line in, and clicking to reel in when you get a bite.
Crafting skills, on the other hand, are once again a tug of war between finishing the item and boosting its chance of turning out as a “high quality” product. Since each action extracts a certain amount of durability from the process, the goal is to use your other abilities to boost the chances that the item will turn out “high quality” and thus more valuable, while at the same time ensuring you have enough durability left to actually create the item. For instance, you might be cooking a fish and see that you have 20 durability left and 9 points to cook. You can choose to synthesize it and finish the recipe safely with two chances to cook, or you can spend one of those chances on giving the dish an extra 3% chance of being high quality. Ultimately the trade crafts are a game of chance, one that you will likely lose at once or twice before you get the feeling down, but they are enjoyable if heavy on the grind.
I also enjoyed the fact that the game rewards the player for exploring new grounds. Players are rewarded for filling their log books with monsters killed, recipes completed, setting fish records, and more. The tradecraft and guild vendors sell a lot of the materials needed for low level tradescraft recipes, which is good because your tradescraft and fieldcraft products do not match in many areas. Rye, for instance, is required for a very low level culinarian recipe, but is harvested from a level 15 botanist node, according to the wiki. I would also recommend focusing on just one or two classes at a time, otherwise you’ll find yourself stretched very thin and likely sabotage your interest in the game via information overload.
One thing you will never do in Final Fantasy XIV is loot a creature, and I couldn’t be happier. This isn’t to say you don’t receive loot, it’s just fairly rare that you do and it is often just crafting materials. You’re going to get your equipment via questing, levequests, crafting, dungeons, and purchasing from other players. In that respect, Square Enix is going for a more realistic drop system. I don’t know where a Marmot would carry a pointy spear, and since it will never drop one I guess I will never know. I will say that the whole idea of players crafting the equipment comes to a dead stop when you realize that the items gained via dungeons are more powerful.
With systems like Kickstarter, where creators put their hands out in the hopes that someone will shower them in money, there is a guarantee that shady business will inevitably follow. In the case of Elementary, My Dear Holmes, a puzzle game based around the iconic British crime investigator and his loyal sidekick, Kickstarter has shut down the project’s page due to the possibility that fraudulent accounts were used to artificially pump money in and boost the final donation amount. Why boost your pledges? Kickstarter has an all or nothing system, the campaign must reach its goal in the time allotted, otherwise they will receive nothing.
The folks in the Kickstarter comments have gone through a ton of data, noting several hundred fake accounts that had been created around the same time one month prior to the Kickstarter, only to back Holmes as their first project. Accounts created in alphabetical order with random fake names, random fake towns, and random fake pictures as their profile. One account even used the picture of an Allegheny woman who has been missing since 2011.
Ouya also has a promotion called Free The Game, where they will match any Kickstarter pledge that is successfully funded to the tune of at least $50 grand, as well as $100 grand to whoever raises the most money during this promotion. Ouya’s other headline game for the Free The Games campaign is also under scrutiny for artificially inflating their funding, with $114 grand coming from just 167 backers as of this writing (Or $685 per backer average, $30 grand coming from three backers), with a majority of backers not requesting any pledge rewards and a majority having only pledged for that one project. Whether Kickstarter will suspend that campaign in its last day will have to be seen.
I received a press release from Xsyon today mentioning that the sandbox MMO had reached the top 100 titles on Steam Greenlight, and while there is a special place in my heart for the folks at Notorious Games, the placement doesn’t make me want to jump to the “expect Xsyon on Steam soon” headline. You see, if there’s one thing that indie MMOs like to send me, it is the reveal that their title hit the top 100, top 50, and more to promote the idea that their game will be coming to Steam sooner or later. Over several months, and virtually none of them have seen approval. The reality is that Valve’s process of approving Greenlight games has almost nothing to do with their standing on the Greenlight Top X, according to my correspondence with Star Vault, Mortal Online spent the past three or four lists of approved games near the top, and its greenlighting was very often passed over for games further down on the list.
Which isn’t to say that Xsyon won’t be releasing on Steam, if anything it is a good sign that it will be. It is important not to jump to the conclusion that Xsyon is front of the line for approval, because if Steam Greenlight can be imagined as anything, it would be a game of musical chairs, with the winners being the ones who get a seat when the music stops. There’s no guarantee that being in the front of the line will get you a seat.
Still, congratulations to the Notorious Games crew for getting as much attention as they have through Steam, and best of luck with Greenlight.
I received a press release from Xsyon today mentioning that the sandbox MMO had reached the top 100 titles on Steam Greenlight, and while there is a special place in my heart for the folks at Notorious Games, the placement doesn’t make me want to jump to the “expect Xsyon on Steam soon” headline. You see, if there’s one thing that indie MMOs like to send me, it is the reveal that their title hit the top 100, top 50, and more to promote the idea that their game will be coming to Steam sooner or later. Over several months, and virtually none of them have seen approval. The reality is that Valve’s process of approving Greenlight games has almost nothing to do with their standing on the Greenlight Top X, according to my correspondence with Star Vault, Mortal Online spent the past three or four lists of approved games near the top, and its greenlighting was very often passed over for games further down on the list.
Which isn’t to say that Xsyon won’t be releasing on Steam, if anything it is a good sign that it will be. It is important not to jump to the conclusion that Xsyon is front of the line for approval, because if Steam Greenlight can be imagined as anything, it would be a game of musical chairs, with the winners being the ones who get a seat when the music stops. There’s no guarantee that being in the front of the line will get you a seat.
Still, congratulations to the Notorious Games crew for getting as much attention as they have through Steam, and best of luck with Greenlight.
Missing Worlds Media loves to tease us. If you don’t know, The Phoenix Project is one of several spiritual upcoming super hero MMOs inspired by the shuttering of City of Heroes. This month (September), the team at MWM will be launching a Kickstarter to provide their MMO with some real funding. Until then, enjoy a teaser trailer released this past January.
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MMO Fallout 