FFXIVstuff, aka monster hunter XIV Options

[Alisha]

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/04/final-fa...new-job-system/

The latest edition of Famitsu Wave recently hit newsstands in Japan, bringing with it a DVD which contains an 8-minute exposé on Square Enix's second stab at the MMO genre, Final Fantasy XIV. The whole video is posted after the break. Fret not -- it sports convenient English subtitles.

Here's some of the more titillating excerpts: The game features a reinvented character progression system which does not include experience points or leveling up. The job system from XI will make an appearance, but in a heavily altered form -- an interview with the game's director, Nobuaki Komoto, revealed that the game will place a focus on the weapons players use, explaining that your armaments will determine "the way you play" and "the way you grow." Sounds reminiscent of Final Fantasy IX. (That's a very good thing.)

In addition, FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka explained that the game takes place in a new region with a more "modern" feel to it -- the mysterious Eorzea which was mentioned in the trailer. The new world features familiar races (albeit with new names), and plays host to a "deep story," which is told through cut-scenes and quests. For more FFXIV info than you can possibly handle, check the video after the jump.


sounds similar to monster hunter no?

Race Scans

Someone translated the text on BG Forums regarding the characters:

"When you make your character, aside from choosing the race, you will also be able to customize their appearance. Head, skin color, hair type etc, there will be multiple factors. Just how exact we will be able to customize their appearance is still unknown, but we mean it in a good way when we say that it seems like it will become a worry to many players."

[Scan_Man]

The max population is indicated by 4 chocobos next to the name. LOL.


I don't know what the max population is. I would think it would be a lot since the game is cross region, and eventually cross platform.


There is no max for a given area. The game is open world like World of Warcraft. This actually is one of my issues with the game that I have not covered. It is also an issue in World of Warcraft in the neutral cities, like the current one, Dalaran. Super laggy, even if you have a decent system. Or you get spill over lag, because you are close by to a high populated area and it starting put that stuff into memory.

It is even worse in FFXIV because the game is more graphical intense, the city is huge, and character models are very detailed. Going to the city is very stressful right now to get things done because your input for controls and mouse are handled by software and server (to prevent botting). Flipping through menus and buying stuff is not fun in a city. They have improved it, but it still is laggy in high population areas; ie city or starting quest area.


So yes. Cities are where people gather. And it is laggy as hell. With it drawing all the models, and people loading into the game there. Right now it is bad because you start the game in a city, with one to choose from.

At launch this will be helped somewhat because there will be at least three main cities to choose from to spread folks out. But still it won't be fully resolved of how you just start in the city on top of everyone else that is starting out. I would of liked to see each race get a starting zone or something.

Crafting is very viable way of progressing through the game. And there are a ton of crafting classes. So there will be a lot of people hanging out in the cities.

Not that it can be helped much in games like this. But there are other ways to reduce the lag other than spreading out the population via multiple starting cities. I would like to see sub versions of the world, like in Aion. Like if there too many people in the area, just go to World 2 or 3. That would work great for this game.

I recommend to folks to have a nice CPU, quad core of at least 3.2 GHz, a minimum of a Geforce 460 GTX, and at least 4 gigs of ram to avoid these issues. Or else you going to be waiting for optimizations.