FFXIV: ARR Public Beta Info Thread, A realm neegnye Options

[Crushinator]

New intro video release today (although the first 5 mins or so is crap from a previous trailer).



Sign up here:

http://entry.ffxiv.com/beta/na

Here's the roadmap for the beta:

[Crushinator]

I played the beta quite a bit, its really improved on what I saw in the alpha.

They've essentially dumped most of what was originally in FFXIV 1.0 at this point, save for the Leves (which are still limited BUT there is so much content in the game otherwise that it balances out and isn't a problem now.)

The combat is very fast paced, with an awesome UI with lots of visual cues. If you've played FF12, its similar to that, how it draws an arcing line to highlight which player is attacking which mobs. You also get lines indicating which mobs will link to the ones you pull. It also has an on-screen display of the time remaining to EXP chain, nothing is really hidden from view to the player. Because of how quickly your TP and MP regenerate, you flow quickly from one fight to the next and can easily XP chain over the course of a quest which is nice. Camping and grinding XP isn't necessary compared to FFXI, thank god.

There are mini job-specific quests in your notebook like "kill 9 squirrels" that you can do as you proceed through the normal quests. The regular questing is the main source of XP and money, and is basically in line with any other Post-WOW MMO. It feels very much like Guild Wars 2, which is a good thing. You also have public-quest type things where everyone in the vicinity can jump in and help fight a giant monster or swarm of unique monsters, and gets rewarded for their contribution.

They've implemented the controller options, I played it using a dual shock 3 for a bit but to be honest KB/M is much better for this game. The improvements to the UI have gotten it up to speed to being on par with any modern PC game, and it just feels easier to me to play this type of game with the KB/M. Controller is completely serviceable though, it maps your shortcut keys to holding down the triggers and pushing the face buttons/d-pad.

Graphics are great, and its nice that they added the "missing" races/genders. Remember that they didn't have female highlander humans for no good reason too? Now you have lady galkas, man cats, and all.

The current beta cycle has ended, I'm not sure when the next phase will begin. Hopefully they add the additional starting areas, and all the starting jobs as the limitations of the beta content are starting to show. I'm very excited for the full release though, it's really unprecedented for ANY game to have this much of an improvement from such a terrible retail release.

P.S. Here are the details for the collectors edition below. Good news is, if you already bought the FFXIV 1.0 collectors edition back in the day, you'll get all the bonuses in this one too. All of us who already bought the game (regular or SE) will not need to buy it again to play ARR.