Final Fantasy XIV

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I guess that's cool but I think it's cheeky as eff to charge for a game you have a monthly subscription for anyway.

[TheMightyEthan]

That's standard practice for subbed MMOs.  I agree it's stupid though.  Charge me for the game, or charge me for the sub, but not both.

[TCP]

At least it was only $40 isn't Elder Scrolls Online a full $60?

[Mal]

Still... it would be nice if it was $20 for the game and a month of game time. Hell, they might get some people to pull the trigger who would of not done it otherwise. If the person want to stick around then it'll be about $13 for 180 days which seems reasonable. Eye cannot read. $13/month for 180 days. Eh.

Edited September 10, 2013 by MaliciousH

[TheMightyEthan]

What is it?  $15 per month?  I wouldn't have a problem with them saying "new accounts have to buy at least 3 months to start up", so they still get their $45 up front, I just don't like paying for the game itself when they're going to be getting a sub out of it.

[Mr. GOH!]

It feels wrong, true. But the practice is widespread in other subscription industries, except that the purchase fee is couched as an activation fee. Gyms, cable companies, my moviepass service; all have relatively high up-front fees for new users. 

Edited September 10, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[FredEffinChopin]

I'll be honest, after having to report people for spamming me in /tell (from RMT sites) in XI several times every day, I'm all for not letting anybody try shit for free. If I had to guess, I'd say that the most frequent use of those free trials was by RMT who created throwaways to spam with. I know it might sound harsh, but if I'm paying a monthly fee to play a game, I don't feel like I should have to be pulling weeds with my knees in the dirt. I don't care if it's the cost of the game, or some payment up-front... Anything but "Download our game and try it for free!", as it's just a wide open door for people to advertise their shitty site to you.

 

The other side of that argument is that that barrier of entry does exist for XIV, but people are spamming anyway. From what I understand, it seems that they've managed to actually break into legit accounts to accomplish this lately... So yeah. That's an argument. Security aside though, if you're asking people to pay a fee for a game, you should make sure that they have a comfortable experience with it. 

[TheMightyEthan]

I don't think anyone was talking about letting people pay for free, we were just saying that they should either charge a purchase price for the game or charge a subscription fee, but not both.  Let people download the app for free but they can't log in until they subscribe.

[FredEffinChopin]

I understand what you were saying, but the fees in general are being discussed, and I figured I'd explain my support for them.

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, the first sentence just read to me like you were responding to what had been said previously.  My mistake.

[Mr. GOH!]

Have paywalls alone ever been enough to stop goldspam? I'm not a huge MMO player, but I know even Diablo 3 had a shitload of goldspam in multiplayer. 

[FredEffinChopin]

@Ethan

No harm. It felt a bit pointed when I wrote it, I could see it being mistaken for being aimed at someone haha.

 

@GOH

I'm honestly not nearly experienced enough to say for certain. I do know that almost all of the spam I've seen in XIV so far has not been from throwaways (as indicated by the progress, inventory, etc of the character that is presumably aware of the impending banning), which means they've had to resort to jacking accounts to get it done, which in turn leads me to believe that they're not easily able to circumvent the paywall to create new characters. What I don't know is whether that may have been going on in XI in addition to the new trials, or whether that never happened because it just wasn't necessary since they already had a method. So I guess the answer to your question is: I don't know. 

 

I'm a bit concerned about their security though, and amazed at the lengths people will go to to be able to advertise. 

[Mr. GOH!]

Why must they jack accounts? Can't spammers just get copies of the game and create accounts for spamming? I thought that was what happens in Diablo III.

[FredEffinChopin]

I'm not sure about the Diablo spamming. Are you saying they're paying for the game? If so, then consider me stumped. I wouldn't imagine it to be a cost-effective way of advertising, provided that there is a staff present to constantly ban accounts that are engaging in stuff like that. I'm guessing that no matter what is in the way, they will try to find some way around to spam, but I also feel like there have to be ways to filter out the majority of it. While I complained about /tell spam in XI, it was only restricted to that (no shouting, or filling the entire screen, as there were things in place to prevent that), and the characters would vanish within minuted of reporting them. I'd imagine there would not have been free trials, they would have to find a way around that as well. I can't believe they're jacking accounts for it either, though. Here is the official response.

[Mr. GOH!]

You have to pay for Diablo III to play it, as far as I know. And there has been constant goldspam whenever I log into MP.

 

I always thought spam was just something MMO players were used to dealing with.

[FredEffinChopin]

I'm sure it's true to some extent or other. There are things that work to drastically curb it though, as evidenced by the trickle that XI was reduced to even with the free trials. I just don't understand why they wouldn't take what they learned there and carry it over to XIV. Between shouts and /tells, I probably blisted 6 or 7 people yesterday. 

 

Have I mentioned that I'm thoroughly hooked on this game?

[TCP]

Yeah as someone who's never played an MMO, I was a little disappointed about all the spammers in the past few days. You can't even blacklist them from the chat box you have to type their names in manually.

I too am addicted, Fred. Have you gotten to a job yet? How does it work? Do you start off at level 1 again?

[FredEffinChopin]

Yeah, there are some really silly oversights in regards to that. I don't understand why they act like such amateurs in some respects.

 

So here is the breakdown of how the jobs go:

Each job can be earned when a specific combination of two class levels is achieved. Each of the starting classes has 1 "job" that it can transform to @30 (and when the second required class is @15), save for ACN (Arcanist), which actually can branch into two jobs; SCH (scholar) and SMN (summoner).

 

You may have noticed that there is an item slot in the lower right hand corner of your armory screen that you've never had anything equipped in. That is where the job items go. So for example, when I equip my WHM (white mage) soul crystal as CNJ (conjurer), it acts as the modification that turns me into a WHM. I've read that the classes might be better for soloing in some cases, while the more focused jobs are more useful for party roles. However for my particular main at the moment, there doesn't really seem to be any reason to go back to being a CNJ. All the stats seem superior as WHM, and there don't seem to be any abilities unique to CNJ or anything like that. That's just for my particular job though, I can't speak for others yet. 

 

Jobs level alongside the primary class that is used to unlock it. So when I unlocked WHM at CNJ lvl 30, I was already a 30WHM. They level together, so no matter which one you gain experience as, the other will be right there with it. I'm actually curious as to how ACN handles this, since there are two jobs that can result of it. I actually get the feeling that if you unlock both SCH and SMN, you might be leveling two jobs and a class all at once (SMN, SCH, ACN). I plan to experiment with that, but not before I unlock BLM (black mage) and PLD (paladin). 

 

Right now my highest is 40WHM. As of today though, I've got levels in every class, and in several crafts as well. The next highest behind WHM is 21GLA (gladiator, which @30, combined with 15CNJ, enables one to unlock PLD), followed by 19THM (thurmaturge), and 15 ACN. Everything else is 10 or below. Leatherworking is @15.

 

I've found this guide here very useful for several different things.

 

Like I said, if you ever need a healer (or tank, once I unlock PLD), feel free to hit me up. A word of advice, if you ever decide you want to level a bunch of stuff:

The hunting logs for each class hailing from the same town are nearly identical, and at least take you to the same spots when they're not. For that reason, I found it pretty efficient to go to Gridania, unlock LNC (lancer), ARC (archer), and BTN (botany) all at once, and then take them all to 5 in one session outside, then do their lvl 5 quests together, and so on. It saves little bit of time, at the cost of the comfort of learning a single job and becoming comfortable with it. It is a very big sacrifice. I'm banking on the availability of all the extra abilities to come in handy in higher levels. Which brings me to one last thing.

 

There are certain abilities within each class that can be used by any other job. For every 5 levels of a class/job, you can have one additional ability equipped that has been earned on another class, regardless of levels. So for example, having cure on my CNJ means that any class I start out with can be equipped with the cure spell, which is pretty handy in early lvls, even with melee classes.

 

Ok I think I rambled enough.

[TCP]

Thanks for the help! I did it yesterday and got my dragoon status. The jump attack is exactly as cool as I was hoping, just sucks that I can't look like a dragoon till level 45.  Going back to a level 1 marauder wasn't fun but thanks to the hunting log and my chobobo mount, it didn't take too long to level up.

That guide you shared came in handy, I didn't realize that parties shared limit breaks.. oops! Fortunately no one ever got mad at me, I only ever used limit breaks against bosses in dungeons, which might be a good place for a DPS limit break anyways. 

[FMW]

I just bought this.  I think I'll get a lot out of it.  I'll post some experiences here once I have some.

[TCP]

What server are you on? Join Cactuar!

[FMW]

By coincidence, I am on Cactaur

[TCP]

 

Add me to your friends list and don't be afraid to ask me for a hand if you ever need it! 

Edited March 5, 2014 by The Cowboy Poet

[FredEffinChopin]

Same here FMW, my name is Frederic Chopin, feel free to hit me up with any questions, or if you need a healer or tank in some of your dungeon crawling. /welcome

 

@Cowboy

No problem, glad it came in handy. And congratulations on DRG! And yeah, it sounds like you weren't ruining anything by not-knowing how LB works haha. 

[FredEffinChopin]

So this announcement came just in time, as I beat the main story last night, and it seems like the endgame content is kind of sparse. You unlock a harder version of the prime fights (and I believe there may be a harder one yet, but I'm not positive), and there are quests to improve your gear (which you can grind dungeons to obtain the necessary currency for), but that's about it. Oh and some sort of raid. This new stuff should fill things out nicely, at least for a time. As long as nothing has changed since this post, I'm assuming that inventory sorting will arrive in this update, which I need SO desperately. The biggest problem is that I don't see what I see as two even bigger issues being addressed.

 

a) The RMT spam - At minimum they need to give us a quick way of reporting and blocking people. The idea of making people either type in full names in a command or search might have been for the purpose of making sure that people know for certain who they are blisting, but I think at this point they need to give us a little bit of trust, and let us shoot /blist at people like laser. Also, it would be nice if there was a way to report as quickly that also automatically /blists them. I can hold off my filter criticisms if they let me do that. As it stands, I /blist roughly 10 people any day I play, and I report them with the text copied & pasted (in case they do decide to adjust or add new filters). The time is starting to add up. One day I logged in and had to /blist & report 5 people in under 10 minutes, no joke. 2 /tells in my room at inn, 2 shouters as soon as I stepped out, and another tell a few minutes later. I just logged.

 

b) A solution to playing with our friends across servers - This is THE thing to fix, and I see nothing about it. I know Yoshida had said it was coming soon, and "mid-September" was mentioned at some point. I suppose it probably wouldn't require a version update to offer that, but I'm nervous nonetheless. The coming and going of mid-Sept is part of it, and the lack of mention of it at this point is the rest.

 

Seems like a good update though, aside from those possible omissions. I was kind of missing the fact that I didn't have a private space to retire to, even if it is largely useless. I'm really hoping though, that there is something going on like the moghancements in XI, where certain pieces of furniture could activate an effect on your mog house or character. The endgame content will be a huge relief for lots of people, as will the PvP. I'm still a bit concerned about replaying 1-50 with other classes though, as it seems like one almost inevitably has to resort to FATE grinding, which can get pretty boring. Anyway, looking forward to more details.