Latest information for FFXIV

I was very surprised when FFXIV was announced.

I wasn't expecting a numbered entry at E3 or was I expecting it to be another MMO

"Insert pants changing joke here"



The trailer which was shown was amazing, I know most of it was CGI but FFXI was my first MMO and it brought back some very happy memories but also some bad ones about the game mechanics.

Thankfully Square Enix gave a tiny bit of information about the game away at an interview after the trailer was shown. Particularly they've said that they are taking note of how World of Warcraft and Age of Conan has done things. Which really excited me.

If they were to outright copy some parts of both those games as well as keeping some things from FFXI I think it could be a winner.

World of Warcraft is popular for a reason. My thoughts on it is due to its structure.

• Go to Town A
• Accept Quest B
• Kill X amount of Monsters
• Return to Town A

Final Fantasy XI suffered majorly due to its lack of quests, the game was a grind-fest for the most part where the quests were used to carry the story along. A few years ago this would be accepted but with todays standard I think S-E have to beef it up.

So this is a portion I think S-E can take from WoW.

If the game was quest driven with the option of grinding it would suit everyone.

Another thing part of FFXI that really made the game suffer in my opinion was the amount of loading between areas. I think this has to be addressed for a lot of MMO' s. For me at least I find it very hard to feel like I'm in a world when I get to the edge of a zone and then I'm made sit around for a few seconds while the area loads. Blizzard did a great job with WoW that the only loading was into instances, everything else was open.

So this is another point that I think S-E should use from WoW.

Ditch the loading screens for an open world, technologically its not impossible.

At first I was a bit baffled to think which parts of Age of Conan could they take on board but then it dawned on me. One of the more boring classes was melee in FFXI. The best thing that Age of Conan brought to the MMO table was its melee system, the use of arrows



Choosing the direction of your attacks

This could breath a new lease of life into melee so this would be the only thing I think I'd take from AoC.

End-Game content is something I'm undecided about. WoW has its system which works but I'm not a fan of raiding the same dungeon hundreds of times for Armor that has no use until the next expansion is released. I'm not familar with AoC's end-game content so I can't really speculate.

One of the best things that FFXI had going for it was the ability to play every class and have a subclass. It made the game longer, you could experience everything with one character and I felt that my monthly subscription was justified.

To sum up, this is what my view of the game will be once its released.

• Quest driven leveling system with in-depth Final Fantasy style story
• In-depth melee system with a few tweaks to other classes
• Ability to play each class
  
• Open world - no loading between areas
• The ability to jump!

If S-E bring those things to the table for FFXIV I think I'll be one happy gamer