Nilore Vagan

Okay, so, I was wrong about one or two things
You CAN hold more than one leve at a time, you just can’t activate them more than once at a time (Which kinda makes sense, considering how they work).

You definitely cannot do more than 8 leves per 48 hours, though. But this is your own -personal- leves… you can still group up and do other people’s leves with them. I’m not fond of this system, though. Grouping is all well and good, but I like to solo a lot when I can’t be bothered to bash my head against the social wall of trying to find a group (Groups may be easy to find now, but who knows how hard it’ll be later?), and being limited to 8 leves per 48 hours means I can only play the game once every two days.

What fun!

When your leves are on cooldown, you can do… gathering, and crafting.

Word has it that there will be more ‘actual’ quests to do when the game is released, along with a supposed fix on the UI to decrease input lag (At the moment, the UI is controlled by the server, making just about everything incredibly laggy… I’m hearing a lot that it’ll be moved to client on final release, which will probably fix this issue). Rumor also says that gear will be buy-able from NPCs on final build, since right now they’re forcing players to craft in order to test the crafting system.

I kinda hope that they do a trial version when they release the final build, so that I can try THAT out and see how THAT plays.

I can’t really call this a review, since I didn’t play it a whole lot, but this is my first impression with playing FFXIV.

Let’s ignore the broken website that I had to poke and prod for 4 days to get a beta key. Let’s ignore that the installer itself crashed because I had a slightly outdated video driver. Let’s ignore that the installer is so broken that you have to download the patches manually with a torrent client. Let’s ignore the fact that all the races are identical in every way to the FFXI races, with different names of course. And let’s ignore that it really isn’t Final Fantasy in any way whatsoever, aside from the chocobos and the fanfare that plays when you complete a quest (No Final Fantasy classes here. Black Mage? Monk? That’s soooo 2005. Can we interest you in the “Pugilist”?).

Looking at the game as if there was no Final Fantasy franchise to back it up, and without any expectations of improvement from FFXI, I have to go out a little and say…

It sucks.

Here’s why(And I’ll do my best to pick out things that are core game mechanics, and not things that will likely be fixed in the final release):

The beginning: You start with an intro depending on what city you picked, which is meant to introduce you to things like talking to people and combat. However, after the opening cutscene, it plops you down on the street, with no word of tutorial whatsoever. After fumbling around with the interface, I found the journal, which gave me a very cryptic “You found yourself in the city of [City Name]. All that’s left is to talk to the person, and start your adventure.” Or something similar to that. I remember the part about talking to someone was in broken English and wasn’t even a complete thought. It gave the impression of “Go talk to that one guy,” as it gave no name or anything. Turns out, I didn’t have to talk to ANYBODY, as after wandering the streets for a bit, it started another cutscene.

After it introduced combat in a very limited fashion (Giving short descriptions on what’s what in the tiny chat box in the corner), you’re allowed to beat the snot out of the demonstration monster, and then the game continues.

After this, you’re again plopped onto a street (this time in the real game world, non-instanced) and allowed to do whatever you want. Again, it gives no sense of direction on where to go or what to do. Talking to nearby NPCs, though, started me on the right way, by taking me to the Adventurer’s Guild for my first quest.

At first, the quest system seemed kind of neat. Start the quest, and it spawns the monsters you’re to target throughout the map. Hunt them down, kill them, then you teleport back to the camp to claim your reward. This seemed like a really smooth way to do it… at first. Then I realized that I had to run back to down in order to pick up any more quests.

The play flow turned into this: Go to town, pick up quest card, go to camp, start quest, kill stuff, teleport to camp, finish quest, run back to down, pick up new quest, repeat. This problem is alleviated by the idea of being able to hold multiple quest cards, but I’m not sure if you can even do that, since it actually wants you to turn in a quest card in order to even receive one. (I feel like I’m doing something wrong here, though, to be honest. It’s hard to tell when it doesn’t really explain anything)

After doing a couple quests, I overheard someone mentioning an 8-quest-per-48-hour-limit. I haven’t done enough quests to hit this supposed limit (since I honestly can’t bother myself to run back and forth THAT MUCH), so I don’t know if that’s actually true or not. if it is, that’s… just bad.

I decided that, after gaining some levels, it was time to look at getting new gear. Looking around the market place a bit, I realized that the “Armor” merchant does not sell armor; he sells things to make armor with (Same goes for the weapons merchant, who sells things to make weapons with). It was then that I realized that FFXIV pushes, or forces, the crafting system. Completely and totally. It seems that if you want new gear, you either make it, or you get someone else to make it for you. It also seems that the repair system requires you to be able to craft as well, rather than having an NPC repair gear for you, as other MMOs have done in the past.

I also noticed random “You have received X of [Item]” messages in my chat log, even though I never actually obtained those items, and they never appeared in my inventory. I can only assume that when someone picks up an item, the message gets broadcast to anyone nearby. I’m assuming this will be fixed, though.

If there’s one improvement over FFXI, it’s that you can ACTUALLY PUT THIS GAME INTO WINDOW MODE. YOU CAN MINIMIZE IT. Whereas, FFXI forcefully disconnected you if it ever was not the focus.

Also kind of good: They tried to come up with a system that seems like it lets you do whatever you want. You can gain skill in different weapons as you use them. The thing is, they handled it poorly. They tried to use a classless system, with classes. The IDEA is that as you use different weapons or skills, you gain skill in them and therefor become better at them (and be able to use better weapons of that group, and be able to use better skills of that group, etc). Instead what happens is, your class changes depending on what you have equipped, and that class gains levels.

Personally, a better system would be to have, if you insist on there being classes, would be to allow the player to equip/use whatever he wants, his skill growing with that equipment, and his class changing depending on what his best equip is. So, you can be a swordsman who whips out a bow and arrow without suddenly changing professions… you’re just a swordsman who also uses a bow and arrow. The wonkiness in the FFXIV class system comes from the fact that every skill set also has a respective class, even mining and blacksmithing… whereas, you’d expect Mining/Blacksmithing to be sub skillsets that don’t effect what class you are.

This is probably a game I won’t buy. The systems are just… too clunky.

Okay, well…

That letter, even though it said “We have matched files that could affect your SSI”, was -supposed- to warn me that they just wanted to ask me some basic questions to make sure I still qualify. You know, “Have you worked any time in the last three years,” “Did you move?” and other things like that.

I’m still making my 450 a month.

The other day, I got a letter saying to expect a call from Social Security tomorrow. All the letter said was that it concerned my eligibility for SSI.

I hope it’s nothing huge and that I can keep my SSI payments…

Source

Basically, we have a guy who’d played Lineage II for an unreal amount of time over the past five years. 20,000 hours of gameplay, the video says. That’s more than two years’ worth of 24-7 gameplay. Now that I think about it, that’s about twelve hours a day for the past five years. Holy crap.

To put that much time into a game alone is pretty sad, but to then sue the game company who made the game you OBVIOUSLY enjoy so much is just plain stupid. Nay, it’s RETARDED. If I were NCSoft, I would do him a favor and ban his account, since he obviously doesn’t want to play anymore. Then send him an email along the lines of “We received your complaint that you were spending too much time on our game. This has been remedied. Thank you.”

His claim is that they didn’t warn him ahead of time that the game was so addictive. I dunno about Lineage II, since I only played the beta way back in the day, but most MMOs starting with about FFXI started warning people to take frequent breaks from the game. In fact, every time you logged into FFXI, it would make you agree in an EULA-type fashion that you wouldn’t forget about your work, school, family, and friends, and that you would attend to those things first, or something like that.

Even if Lineage II doesn’t do anything like that, though, it’s your own damn fault for spending so much time on it. This is JUST LIKE the guys who tried to sue McDonald’s for making them fat. That was their own god-damn fault for eating there in the first place. There are healthier alternatives for the same price, if not cheaper (SUBWAY, ANYONE?), if you absolutely can not or do not know how to cook for yourself. (Offnote: Seriously. a foot long sub from Subway was $6.66 last time I bought one. The biggest sandwich from Burger King comes in a 10 dollar combo meal, I think it was something like $8 for just the sandwich. There’s also Chick-Fil-A, if you have one in your area; that’s about the same cost on a per-sandwich basis, though their sandwiches are a little smaller.)

IF THE JUDGE AGREES WITH THIS LAZY BASTARD … THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR HOW ANGRY I WILL BE.

I went to Burger King last night, and they had a nutritional table set up. Conveniently, they had it set up in a location that most people don’t go to until after they order (by the drinks).

Almost 30 grams of saturated fat in a double whopper.

I think I’ll eat at Chik-Fil-A from now on.

Someone finally answered me as to why Reach is apparently the most innovative FPS ever. And provided me with this link.

Hm…

Custom Skulls
Pretty much can change most things in mid-game or prior to the game (if I read that correctly?)

This can be fun to play with, and adds a bit of replay value to, say, the campaign mode. You could make your own nightmare mode. I’ll give them this one.

Gaming Divisions
Seems like some kind of fancy scoreboard

Maybe the way they did it is new, but the core function itself hardly seems innovative.

Seamless orbital transitions
The ability to blast into space and fight … in space

Not sure how this one would work… would need a video or something. The writer here just says how cool it is without saying how exactly it works.

The engine
Uses a whole new engine

Guh. You can’t claim this as “something no other FPS has ever done.” This one’s just stupid.

Programmable AI
Ability to tweak the enemy and ally AIs to your liking

Again, I’ll give them this one. It can make certain aspects of the game more challenging, or you could really make it do whatever you wanted.

Okay, so that’s… 2 things that pertain to the customize ability of the gameplay, which could admittedly add to the fun factor of the game. One kinda-maybe thing that I’d be able to decide on if I had more information… and two “Buh, this is stupid” things that I get the feeling they threw in there so they’d have 5 things.

Blizzard has left me with a strange little problem.

I like their games. I honestly do. But I don’t like the direction their business has been going as of late. I can’t claim to know what their motivation is, whether it’s their own decision, or if Activision or Vivindi has a part to play in it. All I can say is that I’m not fond of the direction they’re going. I’m not fond of trying to turn World of Warcraft into a goddamn Facebook game. I’m not fond of forcing people to use their real names in video games. Even in its current state, where only friends can see your real name, the RealID system is… something I’m not fond of.

But, let’s put that all aside.

I got my hands on a Starcraft 2 guest pass, and I played the campaign mode. I noticed a “play as guest” button that let me play the entire campaign mode, legally and free of charge, at the expense of not being able to earn achievements. I was fine with that… I just wanted to play the game. It was a bonus that I got to play the campaign mode for free without having to pirate it. (Is it pirating it if it’s free, anyway?)

I have some mixed feelings about it.

Even though it’s a lot of fun to play, and the campaign mode has some fun levels in it… I can’t help but feel like Blizz didn’t give the game their all. I mean, as far as mechanics goes, it’s no different from Starcraft 1. It plays exactly the same. The only real changes that were made were the graphics, and some new buildings/units. Of course, the campaign mode also has the ability to earn permanent upgrades to your units, but the core game play is still the same. This leaves me with a “It took them eight years to build this?”

I know that they changed their plans around when World of Warcraft turned out to be a huge success. For those of you who don’t know, Starcraft 2 started production I think two years prior to WoW’s release… and when WoW turned into a big hit, they changed their plans accordingly, putting resources and effort into WoW instead of SC2. But, I’m getting off track again…

The game uses the same music and even the same voices (though, they’ve been redone so you can understand them better) as SC1, adding to the feel of ‘having not put as much effort on the game as they could have.’

Basically, it’s a polished SC1 with a more advanced campaign mode. In that respect, it’s probably really good for people who played and liked SC1, as it’s really just an upgrade to it. I’m not gonna lie, I liked playing SC2, but it’s almost identical to SC1.

I didn’t get into the multiplayer, since I was just playing on a guest pass, and by principle, I’m still not going to fork over any more money to Blizzard; so I can’t say much about that.

So, like I said … mixed feelings. It’s fun, but it doesn’t seem like they put a whole lot of effort into it.

I really like Blizzard’s games, but I don’t want to buy anything of theirs, cuz I don’t want to support the direction they’ve been going. That’s a weird thing, right there…

Well, I did it…
I got rid of that old, bulky pressboard desk, and got a new, specialized desk.

What’s the deal with canned soup?
They tell you to add a full can of water, but the stuff is super watery even with only half a can.

I’ve found that it comes out to about right if you add maybe 1/3rd can of milk. Maybe just a little bit more. Somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2.

What would that be? 4/10ths, about? … 2/5ths.

Whats the deal with fractions?