Final Fantasy XIV closed beta keys were a coveted item for a while, as fans sent in beta applications in the hopes of seeing the game’s ups and downs firsthand.
Square Enix promised to grant that wish for everyone very soon with open beta, announcing that it would begin in early September. It looks like things are ready a bit earlier than anticipated, as the latest news from FFXIV has an open beta start date of August 31st. For those of you without access to the official beta forums, fansite FFXIVCore has everything summarized nicely.
When the news broke yesterday regarding the fatigue system in Final Fantasy XIV, it made virtually no one happy. Even the system’s defenders generally had an attitude of “it’s not all that bad,” and most players were up in arms over the very idea. But a day can make a lot of difference, and as it turns out, we didn’t quite have the clear picture of the fatigue system that we thought we did. The official translation from Square-Enix covers most of the same ground, but adds several important facts.
The two most salient points are the fact that the limiting factors are not time-based but value-based, and the fact that the “cooldown” on fatigue sets in as soon as a player starts doing something that won’t grant skill or experience points. There’s no word on whether or not this will be the case during time spent logged off, but it means that the much-loathed figures about how much time would be productive are not altogether correct. Take a look at the official translation, which should provide a much-needed balm for several angry Final Fantasy XIV fans.
If you’re all about living the life of a pirate, then odds are good you don’t mind being restricted to Limsa Lominsa in the Final Fantasy XIV beta. But if you’ve done the sea serpent tango more than once, Ul’dah and Gridania are no doubt sounding pretty good. So it’s a good thing that MMOSite is reporting that the next phase of beta will start in September and will include the two heretofore unseen cities as playable areas. Considering the recent hands-on experience with the starter cities, we think it’s well within the realm of possibility.
Of course, one of the major components to making each of the starting cities and subsequent areas stand out is the worldbuilding efforts of the development team. The most recent Making of Eorzea documentary covers precisely this, and not coincidentally, it can be viewed past the cut. With a discussion of the scenery and the visual culture of the game’s landscape, the video is something every Final Fantasy XIV player can enjoy, and it shows that the vibrancy of the world has been a big priority during development.
The start of a new phase of Final Fantasy XIV testing is always good news for the game’s fans, but this particular phase has brought with it even better news. Those of you not in the beta can now regale us non-beta testers with tales of your adventures, as Square-Enix has officially announced that most everything may be spoken about freely. This coincides nicely with a long list of changes that have come in the most recent build, including several system updates and balance tweaks to the engine.
The team at FFXIVCore immediately set to remedy one of the major omissions from Square’s PR — namely, the experience of crafting. This step-by-step diary of working as a crafter should answer many questions about how much depth the crafting and gathering classes possess… even though it raises several more. As always, it isn’t the same as getting to play around in the Final Fantasy XIV beta yourself, but it’s the next best thing to being there.
After only being able to spend five minutes or so with Final Fantasy XIV at E3, I anxiously awaited a chance to sit down with the beta version in the comfort of my own home. I’ve been playing the beta for a few weeks now, and can now exclusively offer you impressions from the Final Fantasy XIV beta so far.
If you’re one of the lucky souls in Final Fantasy XIV’s recently expanded beta testing, you might well be a new arrival. And even though the beta build isn’t the final release of the game, there’s still a lot of different things to do. So where do you begin? Thankfully, there’s a new guide available from Famitsu (translated by FFXIVCore) that should give a fair picture of where players can start. It covers everything from sights in the city to the options available for retainers.
There are plenty of contentious issues in the MMO field, but one of the biggest at the moment is microtransactions. Controversy over the C-Store, the $25 “sparkle pony” and subsequent imitators, and the general balance in the burgeoning free-to-play field have made the players of nearly every game form an opinion. But those who detest the practice can take heart — according to Hiromichi Tanaka, Final Fantasy XIV will not be including any sort of in-game store. That’s from a recent interview from JPgames.de, translated by the FFXIVCore fansite community.
According to Tanaka, Square-Enix isn’t necessarily opposed to the idea if the demand is present, but absolutely does not want in-game power to correspond to real-world money. He also confirmed that players will be allowed to pick their server at launch, unlike the server roulette present at Final Fantasy XI’s launch. If the interview isn’t enough to tide you over, the game’s beta has been given a brief writeup from Famitsu (translated from the Japanese), and there’s an excellent gallery of screenshots available here. There are just over two months until the launch of Final Fantasy XIV, and they look to be an exciting ride.
We learned quite a bit about the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV during E3, but there’s still quite a bit left still to learn before its release later this year. One of the more obvious questions is what, exactly, players will be squaring off against on the field of battle; in a series partly defined by its memorable recurring adversaries, it’s reasonable to wonder what will return and what won’t.
Most of the newly revealed monsters have a storied history in the series as a whole, and several are direct exports from Final Fantasy XI, including the deceptively fearsome Goobbue making a triumphant return. Funguar also return, although looking very different from Vana’diel’s odd mushroom-frog hybrids. Each of the monsters has a brief write-up describing its size, behavior, and habitat, so Final Fantasy XIV fans would be well served by taking a look at what they’re going to have to deal with during their journeys.
It’s a big day for Final Fantasy XI players the world over, as the much-discussed June version update has finally gone live. And with that comes a heretofore unprecedented change, as the level cap jumps once again for the first time in years past the old limit of 75. Unfortunately for those who had been hoping to avoid the process of the Limit Break quests, the patch notes confirm that players will have to undertake a new quest to reach the new cap of 80. Of course, there needs to be something to slow down the rush to all the new content, right?
And there’s quite a bit of that going around with this update — even neglecting the raise in level cap, there are new Wings of the Goddess quests, the Walk of Echoes, newly uncapped zones, and new options in Moblin Maze Mongers. Not to mention that Visions of Abyssea goes live with the update, complete with a small update on the official site about the Empyrean Weapons. So if you haven’t started patching your copy of Final Fantasy XI, now would be the ideal time — the patch is large, and there’s a lot to be done.
A season for sweltering days, starry nights, and the annual moogle-staged production of a timeless tale of star-crossed lovers that without the assistance of altruistic adventurers like you is doomed to end in disaster and disarray.
With the much-awaited level cap increase rapidly approaching, the development team is putting the finishing touches on a new set of weapon skills that promise to be formidable additions to players’ arsenals of abilities.
Today, we’re pleased to be able to offer a video sneak preview of the fourteen visually striking new skills that will be joining the fray with the upcoming version update.
While we knew that the level cap was going to be raised soon in Final Fantasy XI, we hadn’t heard much in terms of official details from Square-Enix. The silence has been broken, and while the official announcement neither confirms nor denies that the world’s most insanely fit old man will be coming around for more limit breaking, it does offer a few interesting data points regarding the increase. This first round of increases will expand characters to level 80, complete with new equipment and newly relevant areas to suit those at the maximum level.
On the negative side, certain main job abilities are confirmed to be unavailable with the concurrent jump in subjob level. The White Mage “Afflatus” skills and a Ninja’s Yonin and Innin abilities will be locked away from use by main jobs. A Ranger’s Shadowbind and a Scholar’s Accession and Manifestation skills will also be usable, but in a weakened state. Other than these limitations, however, it’s full speed ahead for the expanded caps in Final Fantasy XI — and we can only hope that the silence on a new limit break might mean there isn’t one.
The funny thing about Final Fantasy XIV is that even though it’s going to be notably different from its predecessor, most of the previews we’ve seen have focused on points of similarity to Final Fantasy XI. But the most recent new release of information should help silence some of the comparisons — it’s a video of character generation. While accompanied by something of a silly spy motif, the focus is clearly on creating a character — and even just with a single Mito’qe, the creator clearly has a great deal of power.
Some of the hairstyles on display will be recognizable to veterans of Final Fantasy XI, some will not — but the comparisons end there. Characters have a number of different values to adjust, ranging from the obvious (hair styles) to the subtle (you can have separately colored highlights for your hair, if you wish). The YouTube video is embedded after the cut, and it should be an entertaining seven minutes for anyone anticipating Final Fantasy XIV.
Mark the date: June 21st. If you’re a Final Fantasy XI player, that’s your currently planned patch day, and it promises to be quite a patch day at that. After all, it’s the first time the level cap has been raised in almost forever, and the level raise brings with it more story, the uncapping of several Chains of Promathia areas, and more. It also brings with it the first of three add-on scenarios centering on Abyssea — and to help whet your appetite, the trailer for the first add-on has just been released by Square-Enix.
While there are no huge revelations regarding the storyline of the add-on, it would appear that there’s a good reason why the pictures we’ve received for the scenario have so closely resembled existing zones. Could it be that, much like the recently added Voidwalker Notorious Monsters, the first scenario will involve Abyssea coming to the adventurers rather than vice versa? We’ll find out in a little under two weeks, with everything due to come together at that point. Final Fantasy XI players can also take the opportunity now to pre-purchase the scenario, with the content automatically unlocking during the June version update.
With the highly anticipated June version update just around the corner, the last thing that Final Fantasy XI players want is something to distract them from the promise of wonderful things in the near future. But it’s hard to ignore something as significant as a security breach, and that appears to be what has happened to the game. According to an official statement from Square-Enix, an external attack on their servers resulted in a potential compromise of some of the game’s account information, although the statement was quick to point out that no payment information was violated.
That alone would be bad, but the actions taken by Square-Enix to inform players have been a bit haphazard, including prolonged outages of the North American customer service department. Many players have had their passwords reset, in some cases resulting in their accounts being outright locked with no way to regain access. Players are encouraged to check their email and ensure that they can still log in to the game as before, and to contact customer service if they’re unable to log in to Final Fantasy XI or the PlayOnline service.
