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| Our "Massive" Hero |
What a beautiful world this is, Hydraelin is amazing both from a technical and artistic point of view, the graphical engine also seems pretty capable as it never really had any problems in keeping the FPS counter at 60, even with a decent number of players fighting in the world events(more on this later).
From what I understood while talking to other players Final Fantasy XIV has three starting areas, U'dah (the city I actually started on) is surrounded by a lot of sand, low level enemies and quests to do. It's not exactly a welcoming place, most people just try to survive.
The second starting area is Gridania, according to reports from other adventurers its a city deep inside a forest called Black Shroud, the yellows and browns from U'dah are replaced by a lot of green, not much is know about Gridania.
The third and final starting place is Limsa Lominsa, it's located near the sea and according to several reports it's the best looking city of the three.
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| A dark and bleak world |
Main Story:
The game, much like its predecessors, has a big and epic main story, it genuinely seems an interesting tale, even if at times it gets lost in the midst of several side-quests, tasks and world events that the game presents to the player constantly. I understand that many of you will just skip the text, but stick with it and you will not regret it.
The only negative aspects I can point out from the get go is that at least the main story quests should be voiced, this would keep more players interested, also, it takes the game around 15 minutes to finally give you control of your character when you create him/her, there's a lot of exposition in the beginning so be ready for it.
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| My minion tells some awesome jokes |
Combat and Questing:
Pretty standard, if you have played other MMO's like World of Warcraft or Everquest you know what to expect from FFXIV, it has a few changes here and there, but the core mechanics are all there.
In regards to questing, the game gives you a lot of options, you can follow the path laid out in front of you by the main story quest, you can go around doing sidequests and killing random mobs, go on hunting trips for a bit of extra experience on the side and even take place in events called Fate that work much like the events from Guild Wars 2, this last one rewards you with experience and some money, how important will these events become while leveling up I still don't know exactly, but I already noticed an increase in their complexity by adding bosses and stuff like that.
While I haven't experienced them, I know group instances are already available and that they are "a lot of fun" according to some players, on the other hand PVP is missing by the time I write this report, having no Player versus Players is kind of a big deal, from what I understand it will be added on later patches.
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| Punching and kicking my way to level 10 |
From what I understand so far you can choose between several jobs(classes) that can be altered at some point while leveling up, the mechanics and how this work is still a bit confusing to me, but I believe that with just one character you can have all the jobs leveled up to the max (in theory at least). I will get back to this topic on future reports as the game so far has not been very clear regarding this matter.
Leveling up on the other hand is simple and easy, above all it's very fluid as you always have something else to do, preventing any sort of unwanted grinding, the quests are pretty much the normal kind, kill, collect, fetch, deliver, etc.
BRB!
BRB!
So these are my first few thoughts and ideas regarding Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, most of this information I acquired through the game (expect a few names), it's not the most intuitive game ever, but everything works well after a bit of looking around, pretty addicted to it right now, going back to the game, expect another update around level 20 or 30, brb!
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