“Face /me”

You have been given a quest!

One beta weekend.  48 hours. Go as long as you can, level as much as you can.  Four. Hours. Of. Sleep.

I don’t know what inspired me to play as much as I did this beta weekend.  But I don’t think I’ve played an MMO this hard in… well… Maybe that one time in FFXI when we were leveling to 30 for the first time and managed to pull a 24 hour party that started the Rogues of Former Links linkshell on Siren.   …Maybe.  But that’s beside the point!  This weekend was insane!

So who was with me throughout all this madness?  Well my two partners in crime but of course!

Sei’s new lovely Miqo’te: A’shanti Zhef

and my Husband, Akkaddian’s Handsome Miqo’te Male: N’zhim Tia

…and then there was me.

The big picture

Full party?  Almost, but with a THM, MRD, and CNJ… you can accomplish almost anything.  Especially with how easy it is to pull in a fourth DPS.

We managed to conclude each of the Three nation’s accompanying dungeons with no wait times and no wipes along with accomplishing Lord of the Inferno on the first go.  There were a couple of deaths on some boss fights, and some killer endings that none of us managed to get on fraps unfortunately.

All in all, 1-23 on a brand new character in 48 hours was one hell of a ride, but probably the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO in my life.

This game has me.  This game has me for life.

FFXIV: A Noob Reborn

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!! IM SOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCCCCCCCCCCCITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!! FFXIVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV!~~~~~

We’ve all seen this before right? Am I right?  Yeah.  We have.  All of us have some friend or another who is multi-letter freaking out about the fresh release of a game they wouldn’t have even heard of four years ago.   Personally, I like to call them FFXIV: A Noob Reborn.  Let me tell you something right now.  Long winded, excited statements, like I’ve written above are going to be the first thing to grate on many older player’s nerves.   A lot of people are excited about the new changes.  The game really has made a turn around.  But remember, there were many people who walked this path before you.  Its in the lyrics of the theme song after all…

So, the topic of this post is really a compiled list of what to do and what not to do when starting your adventures in Eorzea.  …I bet you can already guess one of them.

Step 1: DO NOT freak out. See? I knew you could guess this one.  Don’t freak out.  Its okay to be excited, but do it in a normal humanly fashion. There’s no need to fangirl scream. (Unless Yoshi P. is involved.)

Step 2: Do NOT pretend like you know everything there is to ever know about FFXIV.  Chances are, you don’t.  If you didn’t play 1.0, don’t act like you did.  This is flag number one to older players who played through the content.  If you’re lying, they’ll spot it in an instant.  Reading or watching older content does not equal experience.

Step 3: If you don’t know something, LOOK IT UP.  Most players who look up something before asking are generally going to have it better off in a Final Fantasy MMO.  Sure, its cool to ask your linkshell questions, but if you think the information might exist on a web page elsewhere, look it up.  Not only will it be easier for you to remember the information, it will make your social life a lot easier as well.

Step 4: Admit to your mistakes.  If you make a mistake in a dungeon, or leveling party, admit to it.  Don’t blame it on the healer, dps, or tank.  Blame only yourself.  Admitting to your mistakes means that you recognize them, and that you’re working on fixing it.  Final Fantasy MMO players recognize when someone is trying, and more often than not even if you aren’t the best player, they’ll take you along to get the skill experience you need so that you can become a better player.

Step 5: Always be polite.  This isn’t World of Warcraft.  Anyone from anywhere in the world can choose to play on your server.  This is why Square Enix implemented the translator feature for chat.  Utilize it.  If the person you’re trying to communicate with doesn’t speak English, be as polite as you can possibly be.  Always use your manners and mind the way you phrase things.  The more polite and kind you are, the more people will want to have you back again and again.  You may not think it makes a difference, but in Final Fantasy MMOs people have been alienated completely for being jerks.  Reputation spreads, be sure that yours is a good one.  If there is a line for something, get in line and wait.  Way back in FFXI days, when new content would release, players would literally stand in a line and wait their turn to do something.  Already I have seen this in the Phase 3 beta for FFXIV.  I know lines can be time consuming and annoying, but always form a line.   It helps everyone in the end, including yourself.

TLDR?

Be mature, be honest, mind your manners, and treat others as you would like to be treated.

Its a simpler recipe for life, its an even more simple formula for playing your favorite MMO.

Thanks for reading.

A Realm Reborn

In the beginning, there was just myself.  No one was really interested.  The night Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 went up for beta registration.  I was there.  Two weeks later I was giving the game a try and as an avid player of Final Fantasy XI, I was supremely disappointed.  This was a game I had high hopes for.  I wanted it to be something.  I wanted it to be something special. While it had potential, as a beta player playing right up until two weeks before launch it was evident that the game was not only no where near release, but the mechanics of the entire game were flat out horrible.  To be honest, all hopes I had for the game came to a close before it even released.

The release of Final Fantasy XIV and its accompanying bad press came and went with little notice to me.  I tried not to pay attention to it, or its flop, due to my supreme disappointment in it.  In fact, I put Final Fantasy XIV so far out of my mind that I returned to any other valuable MMO I could find in the next three years.  Since then, I’ve been through several Final Fantasy XI relapses, I’ve played Aion, TERA, Guild Wars 2, and the Secret World.   Out of those games I think the most anticipation for me was TERA, who’s beta memories drove the same feelings in me that I have today.  But the feels for FFXIV, are much, much stronger now.

When I heard that they were remaking Final Fantasy XIV, and watched the original trailer for the new version of the game, I have to admit,  I laughed.  My first thoughts were a long the lines of, “Yes, Square Enix, throw more of your money at a game you still haven’t made monthly subs off of.”   But you see, then they did.  They did start to make monthly subscriptions off of their players again.  A mysterious man named Yoshida, better known as Yoshi P, had already begun the daunting process of turning the game around.  And so you see, this is when A Realm Reborn had caught my attention once more.

Going into it, I was still skeptical.  Square Enix had betrayed my trust in the Final Fantasy series when they released the original title of Final Fantasy XIV.   It was like getting out of a bad relationship where my not so better half had cheated on me with an infinite number of other people.  Yet, this new guy, this “Yoshi P,”  he seemed to really care.  To really care about making this game worth while.   Better yet, it seemed he had a good grasp of what the players wanted.

Well of course he did, and does to this day!   Why you might ask?  Because this glorious person has taken it upon himself and his team to ASK and bring themselves down to player level to get in touch with us and find out what WE the players wanted out of the game.  The more I read, the more I found out, the more my trust began to grow.  Now my confidence lies rooted in the new team working on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. We may only still be in beta testing, but the few hours I have played has renewed my faith and pledged my loyalty to this MMO.

Its going to be FFXIV:ARR, or nothing.  After years of floating from MMO to MMO it all lies on this one now.  It has enough to keep me, and more than enough to keep me satisfied outside of even the leveling and end game mechanics itself.   Unfortunately, with the game still under NDA I can’t go into my beta experiences except to play that out of all the beta testing I’ve done (FFXI, FFXIV, WoW, TERA, and now FFXIV again), I can say its probably the best game I have ever beta tested in my life.

I thought I’d be good to last the wait between Phase two and three of the beta testing.  Phase two ended roughly at the beginning of May and phase three now starts somewhere in early June.  But, the truth of the matter is, it hasn’t been easy.  Only two games have ever brought me to memorable tears just with their music alone.  FFXI, and now FFXIV:ARR.  Have you ever been so in tune with a game that it just melts your soul?  Call me crazy but Vanadiel and Eorzea feel more like past lives for me than they do past gaming experiences.  The worlds Square Enix creates are so rich in lore and fantasy that it feels like a dream world you’ve left behind.  Like coming out of the Wardrobe after adventures in Narnia.  And when it gets taken away, it leaves a bitter sweet taste in your mouth.  It was wonderful, but you miss it terribly, and look back upon the memories fondly.

In just over two months I’ll finally be home.  The wait is going to be killer.  Now where did I leave that pesky Wardrobe…?