FFXIV Beta Anyone playing it's free!

[shriva]

Anyone playing FFXIV Beta?

If you buy the actuall game there is no monthly subcription fee.

I just got it as a gift from my hubby.

Comments

[artistic_g4m3r]

I currently play FFXIV and have been playing since Alpha.

The UI was unintuitive and it took too many clicks to get to the window/option you needed,

They've streamlined the UI a TON since the beginning.

there was too much lag,

The Lag is gone

not enough leves (quests) or other content (a story quest only every 10 levels, if I remember correctly).

It's annoying that you can only pick up 8 leves a day, but it generally takes me several hours to complete the 8 I pick up. They've also implemented side-quests (they're not leves, so they don't count toward the 8), and the story quests are at 10, 20, 26, 30, 36, and 42 iirc and each job gets a quest every 10 levels after 20 I believe.

I hated the market wards.

The market wards aren't a pain in the ass anymore. They've added a search function - it tells you the price of the item and what ward it's in. Also the wards no longer have generic names, but are categories (weapons go here, tools for crafts go here, gear in x level range goes here, etc) and you get less tax on a sold item if you put it in the proper ward (I think 2% instead of 5-10%)

[solanyxe]

Thank you for taking the time to address my points.

I probably should have said "They HAVE BEEN working hard to improve it," my bad.

As I said, I read the game notes occasionally (when big patches come out), and it just wasn't enough to convince me yet. (Plus, I still hear players complain about the lack of content and the UI.)
I think it's good that the new lead is seeking and listening to players' input this time. (I somehow can't imagine that happening with the previous team/lead.) They were also quick to restore the services after the earthquake, and to me that's one of the things that gives me hope, because it says they still mean 'srs bsns' with this game. (And yes, I know the servers were taken down to lighten the burden on Japanese powergrid, and that's just an additional bonus in my opinion, just like the donation SE made for the cause.)

Yes, I've heard about the changes to market wards as well, and I still think the whole idea is silly. I understand the original idea behind the decision to have market wards instead of an auction house, but I can't imagine it working out the way it was planned. As far as I'm concerned, it's only an additional annoyance/time sink without much added community-building bonus. It probably hurts more because FFXI had one of the best auction systems in MMOs (probably second only to EVE), and I think they would only need an additional safety valve against artificial inflation.

I admire your loyalty to the franchise, though.

[the_wild_ones]

i find market wards to work just fine, not lagging behind ffxi ah by that much. the only problem i have with it is its instability. every few days, the wards crash, and you need to recall your retainers. if this is fixed (i.e. automated recalling of retainers), i'm 99% satisfied with the system.

[artistic_g4m3r]

I really disliked XI's AH system. I didn't like having to wait however long it was to see if my stuff had sold or not. I didn't like that you couldn't see what the current prices were, just what things had sold for. I didn't like that you could only have... what, 7 things up at a time? I played WoW for 5 years and I preferred their AH system so much more.

I don't really see the retainers as an annoyance, with how it is now it's pretty much an AH, where instead of having the item delivered to you you go fetch it yourself from the vendor. You can mark retainers with your item, the mark is very obvious and it really doesn't take long to search and retrieve things. If anything, prices are going down because of people undercutting each other (since the 20 lowest prices are shown when you do a search). And with how easy gil is to get in this game, I really don't see how RMT can get much of a foothold. I'm a very casual player and I'm sitting on 6mil. The economy has balanced out now that prices are shown with searches.

The lack of content in the game doesn't really bother me at the moment, since I don't have a lot of time to play to begin with - my highest class is r40. Today's patch adds at least 20 NM's and some new gear, so let's see how that turns out. I see potential in this game, and since it's still free to play and I enjoy what's currently here, there's no reason for me not to play.