The Hot Girlfriend
You know that hot girl (or boy) that you've always wanted to get with, but either couldn't work up the courage to hit on or she (or he) always seemed to be involved with someone else? But, finally, the stars align, you're at a party, she (or he) isn't with anybody, and you manage to get your suave on. You're all excited for the first couple of weeks because you finally hooked up with the girl (or boy) of your dreams (or dirty fantasies, anyway). But, after those first few weeks, you start grinding your teeth every time you're with her (or him). It's nothing big, but the way she (or he) says she (or he) loves roller-coasters, but refuses your offer of a day at the amusement park drives you nuts. Or maybe how she (or he) takes you to a steak house and then complains that they don't have anything vegetarian on the menu that makes you want to scream.
You know the hot girl (or boy) like that? Final Fantasy XIV is that teeth-grinding date. Let me give you a few examples.
The Armory System
Every other RPG I've ever played has you pick one class to play. A few will let you multi-class, but still limit how far you can go before you hit some limit. Classes in FF XIV fall under their Armory System. The simple version is that your class is whatever arm you have equipped in your hand. If you're carrying a wand, you're a Conjurer. If you switch to a spear you're now a Lancer. If you kill something with the spear, you earn points toward your Lancer rank and also experience points toward your overall level. Crafts are also each their own class too, so you become a Blacksmith when you equip your hammer. It sounds (and is) brilliant.
Now, the teeth-grinding part is this: You can equip over a dozen pieces of gear, all of which have stats, all of which can effect your performance in a given class. So, not only do you have to switch arms, but, if you want to use any gear that gives bonuses to that class, you have to switch it out manually. Unless you want to write a macro to do it for you. So you damage your spear and switch to Carpenter to repair it. You may also want to switch your armor, gloves, pants, boots, rings(4), bracelets(2), hat, and off-hand item. And, if you decide to write a macro, you'll have to edit it every time you get a new piece of gear. Does your jaw hurt yet?
Levequests
FF XIV calls their quests "Levequests" because you are given leave by the Adventurer's Guild to go and quest for something. For crafters, the quests are to go and make, say, a few pairs of gloves, for somebody. For combat classes, they are of the kill [x] rats variety. When you get to the location, the rats (or whatever) will spawn as mobs only you can target, which is nice, sometimes in the middle of a spawn-point for some other mobs which, if you aggro them along with your quest object, will get you kilt. Which can be the source of some teeth-grinding if you don't pull carefully.
But the real teeth-grinding is this: You are limited to 8 kill [x] and 8 craft [x] quests every 36 hours. There are three main cities in Eorzea. Each city has an Adventurer's Guild, which is the only place you can pick up quests. If you are lucky, they will offer 4 quests at your level. Generally, you'll only have three. Which means having to visit all three cities to get the 8 quests you are allowed every day and a half,in addition to having to travel to a different camp to complete each group of quests. Which leads into the next topic, right after you put your dentist on speed-dial.
Travel
As I noted above, you will probably want to travel between the different cities fairly regularly. You will also be traveling out from the cities to various camps to actually run quests. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to walk. It will take you about half an hour to walk from one city to another. You'll be walking almost ten minutes to get from the city to a camp intended for characters rank 10 or over. The other way to get where you want to go is to teleport. You can teleport to any camp or city you have previously visited as long as you aligned yourself with the Aetherstone there.
The teeth-grinding part is that it costs you a resource called Anima to teleport. In a game that requires you to either just go out and grind mobs for no reason or travel to all three cities to get enough quests to fill up your rather short quest list, you can get yourself to the point where you can't teleport at all in just a few days of playing a few hours each day. Why does your forehead have keyboard-shaped dents in it?
Payment
But the real reason I won't be playing FF XIV after they quit extending the free play period is the payment system. Square Enix gives you a couple of payment options for FF XIV. The first is to set up an account with an organization from the UK called ClickandBuy (no, really, they spell it like that). When I installed FF XIV I had to set up a payment account and went through CnB's mildly arduous registration process. The next day, I get an e-mail from them informing me that my account is locked. They didn't say why. I tried calling their toll-free number, but found that they were only open from 9-5 on the East Coast. I sent their customer service an e-mail asking them to tell me what they could have gone ahead and told me in the original message, namely, why my account was locked less than a week after it was created. The response was to ask me to scan my driver license and send it to them, making sure the attachment was not over 1MB in size. Not having easy access to a scanner and being a good bit more than annoyed at this point, I asked why, for the purpose of charging me $12 a month, CnB needed more than my name, address, and various numbers from my credit card. Their response was to indicate they need my driver license for security reasons. No, seriously: "In order to activate your ClickandBuy account, it is necessary to provide the requested document. Please note that otherwise your ClickandBuy account cannot be unblocked for security reasons." At which point I decided that being treated like an adult was more important than, evidently, opening a bank account in Britain.
The second payment option is to purchase Square Enix's pseudo-currency, Crysta. The only way to do that is to purchase something called an Ultimate Game Card. You buy UGCs from a place called playspan. Playspan, which looks like a play ground for gold farmers and password phishing. Playspan which reinforces the idea that Square Enix isn't really interested in anyone over 14 playing their game.
So Final Fantasy XIV is really hot and clearly brilliant, but you might want to invest in a chunk of hard, tooth-resistant plastic to chew on if you're going to play.
You know the hot girl (or boy) like that? Final Fantasy XIV is that teeth-grinding date. Let me give you a few examples.
The Armory System
Every other RPG I've ever played has you pick one class to play. A few will let you multi-class, but still limit how far you can go before you hit some limit. Classes in FF XIV fall under their Armory System. The simple version is that your class is whatever arm you have equipped in your hand. If you're carrying a wand, you're a Conjurer. If you switch to a spear you're now a Lancer. If you kill something with the spear, you earn points toward your Lancer rank and also experience points toward your overall level. Crafts are also each their own class too, so you become a Blacksmith when you equip your hammer. It sounds (and is) brilliant.
Now, the teeth-grinding part is this: You can equip over a dozen pieces of gear, all of which have stats, all of which can effect your performance in a given class. So, not only do you have to switch arms, but, if you want to use any gear that gives bonuses to that class, you have to switch it out manually. Unless you want to write a macro to do it for you. So you damage your spear and switch to Carpenter to repair it. You may also want to switch your armor, gloves, pants, boots, rings(4), bracelets(2), hat, and off-hand item. And, if you decide to write a macro, you'll have to edit it every time you get a new piece of gear. Does your jaw hurt yet?
Levequests
FF XIV calls their quests "Levequests" because you are given leave by the Adventurer's Guild to go and quest for something. For crafters, the quests are to go and make, say, a few pairs of gloves, for somebody. For combat classes, they are of the kill [x] rats variety. When you get to the location, the rats (or whatever) will spawn as mobs only you can target, which is nice, sometimes in the middle of a spawn-point for some other mobs which, if you aggro them along with your quest object, will get you kilt. Which can be the source of some teeth-grinding if you don't pull carefully.
But the real teeth-grinding is this: You are limited to 8 kill [x] and 8 craft [x] quests every 36 hours. There are three main cities in Eorzea. Each city has an Adventurer's Guild, which is the only place you can pick up quests. If you are lucky, they will offer 4 quests at your level. Generally, you'll only have three. Which means having to visit all three cities to get the 8 quests you are allowed every day and a half,in addition to having to travel to a different camp to complete each group of quests. Which leads into the next topic, right after you put your dentist on speed-dial.
Travel
As I noted above, you will probably want to travel between the different cities fairly regularly. You will also be traveling out from the cities to various camps to actually run quests. There are two ways you can do this. The first is to walk. It will take you about half an hour to walk from one city to another. You'll be walking almost ten minutes to get from the city to a camp intended for characters rank 10 or over. The other way to get where you want to go is to teleport. You can teleport to any camp or city you have previously visited as long as you aligned yourself with the Aetherstone there.
The teeth-grinding part is that it costs you a resource called Anima to teleport. In a game that requires you to either just go out and grind mobs for no reason or travel to all three cities to get enough quests to fill up your rather short quest list, you can get yourself to the point where you can't teleport at all in just a few days of playing a few hours each day. Why does your forehead have keyboard-shaped dents in it?
Payment
But the real reason I won't be playing FF XIV after they quit extending the free play period is the payment system. Square Enix gives you a couple of payment options for FF XIV. The first is to set up an account with an organization from the UK called ClickandBuy (no, really, they spell it like that). When I installed FF XIV I had to set up a payment account and went through CnB's mildly arduous registration process. The next day, I get an e-mail from them informing me that my account is locked. They didn't say why. I tried calling their toll-free number, but found that they were only open from 9-5 on the East Coast. I sent their customer service an e-mail asking them to tell me what they could have gone ahead and told me in the original message, namely, why my account was locked less than a week after it was created. The response was to ask me to scan my driver license and send it to them, making sure the attachment was not over 1MB in size. Not having easy access to a scanner and being a good bit more than annoyed at this point, I asked why, for the purpose of charging me $12 a month, CnB needed more than my name, address, and various numbers from my credit card. Their response was to indicate they need my driver license for security reasons. No, seriously: "In order to activate your ClickandBuy account, it is necessary to provide the requested document. Please note that otherwise your ClickandBuy account cannot be unblocked for security reasons." At which point I decided that being treated like an adult was more important than, evidently, opening a bank account in Britain.
The second payment option is to purchase Square Enix's pseudo-currency, Crysta. The only way to do that is to purchase something called an Ultimate Game Card. You buy UGCs from a place called playspan. Playspan, which looks like a play ground for gold farmers and password phishing. Playspan which reinforces the idea that Square Enix isn't really interested in anyone over 14 playing their game.
So Final Fantasy XIV is really hot and clearly brilliant, but you might want to invest in a chunk of hard, tooth-resistant plastic to chew on if you're going to play.