Final Fantasy Fourteen

Many moons ago I dabbled with Final Fantasy XI (the MMO) on the 360 and PC but never managed to get far with it. I have remained fan of FF (which I've dabbled with since VII, though VIII was what sold me on the series) and this week saw the release (in collectors edition at least - regular edition next week) of the spiritual successor to XI, Final Fantasy XIV. Unlike XI, which always showed its console origins and age, I have high hopes for XIV.

My picked up my copy yesterday (actually it arrived on Tuesday, but the courier missed me by 10 minutes so I had to collect it) and installed it as soon as I was home. That was a painless process, but things took a downturn soon after. As expected with MMOs there were some tweaks to the software since the dvds were pressed and so it needed to download. Two downloads in fact, one of about 40 meg and the other of 400. The fist zipped though at the rate of knots. The second got to 16% ... then stalled. At first I thought it was my ISP - Square-Enix are using P2P to share the patches - but a quick check online revealed it to be a common problem due to lack of seeds. After an hour or so of trying to download via the patcher I eventually hunted down a mirror and downloaded the missing files in 15 minutes. Another 10 minutes later and the game was ready to roll.

Or so I thought.

I'd already made a Square-Enix account and assumed that'd be what was needed for logging into the game. It eventually transpired that there's a difference between a "Square-Enix" account (used by the game) and a "Squar-Enix Members" account (which an insert in the game asked people to put codes into and which was what I already had). Once that was sorted (which look a while as the penny didn't drop right off, instead I thought I was misstyping something) I was able to setup my "service account" (game subscription).

A big difference between FFXIV (and XI I if I recall) and most other MMOs is the number of character slots; the basic service account doesn't appear to have any but instead you can add up to 8 to your account as "options." More characters = higher cost. This is an interesting model, making an 8-character account a quite expensive proposition (but a 1 character one a relative bargain in MMO fee terms). The game comes with teh first 30 days free so you're not billed for options and so I decided to go for 4 character slots (so I could see each of the three starting cities and a selection of the character types). If I carry on playing that number may well drop. In FFXIV having restricted character slots isn't quite the issue it is in other games as all characters are "all classes" - my understanding is that the system reacts to what you're doing rather than forcing it. If you pick up a sword you're one of the fighter classes. If you have a wand you're a mage. If you opt for a pick axe you're a miner.

There are five races, each with two sub-races so there's a lot of basic choice. Add to that 18 classes (in four broad themes) and there's a lot of flexibility.

The races:

Hyum (Humans): Midlanders (normal) and Highlanders (pseudo-barbarians, available as male only).

Miqo'te (cat girls): Seekers of the sun (diurnal) and Keepers of the Moon (Nocturnal). Similar to Mithra in FFXI.

Lalafell (hobbits): Plainsfold (hobbits), Dunesfolk (arabian hobbits). Similar to Tarutaru in FFXI.

Elezen (Elves): Wildwood (wood elves), Duskwight (night elves?). Similar to Elvaan in FFXI.

Roegadyn (giants): Sea Wolves (corsairs), Hellsguard (mountain folk). Similar to Galka in FFXI.

The Professions:

Disciples of war: Archer, gladiator, lancer, marauder, pugilist

Disciples of magic: Conjurer,  Thaumaturge

Disciples of the land: Botanist, fisher, miner,

Disciples of the hand: Alchemist, armourer, blacksmith, carpenter, culinarian, goldsmith, tanner, weaver,

Race is the first thing you select, with control over body size, facial details and host of other factors. It's more detailed that WOW but a little clunky at times and some of the options didn't seem to do anything. Control over the character image seemed limited (well, non existent) so seeing some of the effects was a challenge. You also pick your birthday, guardian deity, initial profession, starting city and selected a first and last name. I presume the use of two names allows for duplicates (e.g. two Andromaches) provided the last names were different. I ended up creating two characters - a Miquo-te thaumaturge, Elmindreda, and a Hyur armourer, Andromache. Others will follow tonight.

So, ready to play at last ...

It was quite late at this point so I didn't get to play much. I did the intro for Limsa  Lominsa (an island city) which was equal parts cut-scene and "what the hell does this do" (which is the events portrayed in the Benchmark cutscene for anyone who'se run it). A brief look at the city followed but sleep called and I gave up before any serious exploration was done.

So, initial impressions? The Benchmarking software said my rig was probably too low to run the game well but with everything bottomed it seemed to tick over okay (though possibly it may have issues with more people/complex locales but Limsa Lominsa performed better that Dala does in Wrath ...). Running in 1024x720 the graphics were reasonable (though I'm used to wow in 1440x900) and I'll experiment with increasing settings.  For those who have seen Aion, the character and environment details are comparible but the animation on FFXIV seems much better. I imagine the gaming running on the recommended spec (I7, GTX 460 though I don't know that many people who have gaming rigs of such power) it'll look gorgeous. Things did seem a little sluggish, but I don't know if that's lag (no idea where the servers are), congestion or my kit. It did result in a few oddities - empty locales that suddenly had the inhabitants (NPCs and PCs) pop into existence. Will have to see how it goes.

Compared to other recent MMOS the manual for FFXIV is minimalist - 10 pages of world/character background and the rest install notes whose clarity (regarding accounts at least) leaves a little to be desired. There's nothing much in the way of a tutorial in-game either, so I imagine there'll be a measure of feeling my way. I can imagine that being off-putting to casual players (assuming they get past the account setup and patch downloading). For all the in-game graphical polish, the game software itself does seem a little lacking - the configuration utility (which helpfully defaults to Japanese) reminds me of windows 3.1 software. Despite two pages in the manual, some of the options aren't clear (and there are some notable ommisions, selecting sound outputs for example: I seem to be stuck with speakers rather than my preferred headphones). Certainly it lacks the polish of other MMOs.

In game things seemed to work more smoothly than FFXI, with easy WASD movement and mouselook. It's a little different to WOW and LOTRO, but not horribly. However, there do appear to be some console hangups - emotes have to be selected from a menu unlike other games where that was an option (with slash commands used more often) and a gamepad seems to be suggested for playing.

My biggest in-game bugbear is the UI. There's zero explanation in the manual and no in-game tutorial so I can see a lot of "what does this do" clicking in the immediate future ...

All in all: There's potential, but I can see a lot of rough edges that may prove offputting.

Things that make you go hmm: The Collectors Edition comes complete with a security token (the consrtuction of which seems identical to that of the WOW Authenticator) but no explanation of how to link it to your account. This lack of information and/or vagueness seems symptomatic of the Square-Enix MMO experience, which doesn't fill me with confidence.

ADDENDUM: It appears there's a part of the FFXIV Website called the "Lodestone" that deals with the basics of the game. It seems fairlt comprehensive, but isn't exactly the most accessible place when playing and should have been in the manual.