Final Fantasy 14: Diverging Paths

So this blog has been pretty dead, but I guess it is my own blog so might as well make a post. An archive of the adventures our guild took within FF14. We went into this game, Rho, Aaro, Cody/Rei Menu/10 billion other names, and myself looking to see what we could make of it. Rho wasn't fully convinced on FF14 and no idea what Cody wanted, but off on our adventure we went. My personal main drive was Cody's constant complaint that I had "Big Fish, Small pond" Syndrome and I couldn't play these bigger MMOs because of it. I was out to prove it incorrect.

Only screenshot of us running together

As we progressed through our nub levels racing towards 50, it was Cody that reached it first. I was too busy with work and Rho and Aaro quickly took a liking to crafting and was busy crafting away. This was where for first split began, Cody decided he wanted to get his relic weapon asap and left off for the biggest FC on our server, ODAM, smashing his head on Chimera. I originally planned to never craft as I end up focus on merchanting in every game I play to become super rich, I wanted to divert that time and attention to progression. I guess you just can't take a merchanting soul out of a player.

My gold saw to commemorate Carpentry being my first

It started with carpentry as I wanted to craft my own relic weapon as Rho started with Blacksmith for the same reason. Quickly we realized how much money was to be made in this and we couldn't stop crafting. Meanwhile Cody was still working towards Relic weapon, I believe during this phase he was stuck on the first major roadblock, Titan.

The days when pre-relic weapon sold so well

The next few weeks were followed with Rho and I mastering the rest of our crafts as we expanded our money as much as possible. Crafting was fun because of the mass money we were just rolling around with. I was loved by many for selling everything for cheaper than everyone else and hated by all crafters (especially when I broke the Leatherworking cartel). Then came the biggest push for gil ever, crafting the final end game items i70 gear.

This where where Cody came back into the frey, being in the largest FC meant he could get us tome mats, items you had for farm from end game dungeons. While we were busy rafting, we couldn't run the dungeons ourselves needing us to buy these mats. Us being the only crafters doing this, we were able to turn 270k into 2 mil, extreme amounts of gold at that time. We knew clear well that only gold buyers were affording our prices but we had the monopoly on our server, so we looked the other way.


Everything was perfect, we had lots of money, fully geared ourselves and ready to finally try for end game content. This was when everything went downhill. Squeenix decided they wanted to get rid of gold sellers so they did a sweeping ban on everyone over a certain gil threshold. Obviously that applied to us raking in large money. Luckily I was just under the bar, but Rho was far richer and got hit by the ban wave. This would lead to the week long wait on the fate of Rho's character.

A month into the game, all of us that had joined with the intention of playing together, but somehow our paths had all taken us in different directions, whether it be by choice or the fates of the devs. Roll another month and now I am the last man standing. As I reflect, I ended up getting what I wanted for better or worse. With Rho out of the picture, I was clearly top crafter on the server and most likely the most known player on the server. The final step left is to beat the so called unbeatable final boss of FF14 to hang up my bow.

~Pearz

From the depths of despair rises the dragon?

So for any others of you that attempted to play Forsaken World yesterday, you were in for a big surprise. Basically signing up early and the beta keys do not guarantee you into the first phase of CB.

So this has lost the meaning of "CB":

CB originally meant not everyone could play. Hence the "closed" part of it. Elite testers would get selected to post about bugs and such for the game while everyone else waits patiently for an OB to play.

Beta keys were handed out as events so the most diehard fans could get a chance to play it a bit.

With time most games lost this meaning Now CB for games are handed out in the billions and anyone that wants to join a game can easily get one. This is nearly no different from OB except games can now drop OB forever to avoid some liability. (though this is a whole different can of worms)

Now you come to FW, which totally lost the meaning of beta keys. Having a limited number of participants for CB is the original purpose but WHY MAKE USELESS KEYS? You enter a beta key that does nothing except give false hope to players thinking they can play come CB. I mean I was shocked to find I couldn't play yesterday and they beta key meant nothing. This has strayed so far from the original purpose of CBs and Keys. I mean I wouldn't be pissed if they didn't mislead me to believe I could play, mainly the lack of clarification was what hit hard. I was sad for a FULL HOUR staring at other people QQ on forums. So much spam in 1 hour, was pretty funny.

But this morning I came across something that made me happy. Pretty sure no one remembers but roll back 3 months, when I was still anticipating Soul Master I came across another game worth playing, Loong. Apparently the CB started yesterday, can't wait to try it today. (for those that don't know "Loong" sounds exactly like dragon in Chinese hence why game is hugely based on dragons and blog title)

For now Rho is in game and I can't yet and this is news from it:

It has 1 amazing feature like Megaten, no classes, instead your class is more based on skill tree. The jump in the game is real (~yay!)

There is stat points!?!??!?!!? I don't get it but every new age MMO has removed stat points. Why must we simplify things??? I love stat points.

The Quest autowalk system suppose to be really good. Color code the things so you can tell which are NPCs and which are mobs.

This is all what Rho says and I haven't tried it yet, either way, psyched to try this later tonight.

Other note: I rushed to beat Super Robot Taisen Og Saga: Endless Frontier on my DS (wanted to finish before FW came out which I failed to do but had plenty of time when I couldn't play FW)

Really long and fun game. Gotta be really good on the timing of attacks, the random encounters seemed less of a grind this way. Only thing was this game took a long time to play due to large amount of talking and billions of boss fights that each eat like 30 mins. Either way, loved the game though it was filled with fanservice, sigh, heavy Japanese culture game.

Vindictus patch came out early yesterday with introduction of their 3rd character, Evie. Normally I would be jumping for Joy but this is the crappier version of her. She is still mage only at this point. It isn't until later she is able to be a scythe user with a teleport for a dodge. Played her a bit to know I prefer Fiona over a have baked mage D:

Don't know why I keep posting about FF14 even though I didn't even try the beta, but since all eyes are watching and waiting for it to crash and burn, here:

That is their server stats for players logging in per day. Chunked off 18% of their player base in 20 days and during this time period they even extended the free trial period too. ~tsk tsk

~Pearz

New MMOs this week

Vindictus OB = Oct 13 (tommorow)

Dynasty warrior online CB = Oct 14th

We(Rho, Aaro and me) will be playing both when it comes out. Vind we willget boat 3 for another area to try out. Dynasty warriors doesn't seem like anything special, maybe it will wow and amaze me but I strongly doubt it.

For future stuff looking forward to:

Forsaken World = CB Oct 27th

Argo Online = CB Dec 28

Iris Online = Fall 2010 (I hope soon)

Also been playing the new FF game for DS, The 4 heroes of light. Must say it is pretty difficult that I'm not used to. Gotta talk to like all the NPCs to learn where to go, and I pretty much had to die to every boss to learn their element to counter it on 2nd try. Pretty fun game XD

So delayed on animes, haven't even watched 1 eps of all the new season lineup yet. All I know is World God only knows is off the list. I hate the voices and the anime seemed to make the overall story shittier.

Final Funny note: FF14 sure getting alot of rage. I wonder how people can really believe a content patch will come weeks from official release. You look at any MMO, that initial content it comes with makes up at least 50% if not more of the content the game ever has before it dies. Most games barely add anything after initial, hard to believe Sqnix will be much different. After all, You don't build half a bridge then open it up saying the rest will be coming very soon, that wouldn't float for anyone and FF is no exception.

~Pearz

FF14

Taken from here

Funny since you watch fighting the rat at start would take sat least 30 secs. He didn't even mention grind. Not to mention Gamespot usually gives like high scores to everything since they get like paid off to do so. Makes me think I should have attempted to try it to review it myself, owelz.

Kinda goes inline with Finella's Hard VS Tedious post.

Just found this review humorous, rare to see Gamespot bash so hard.

~Pearz

For those that want to Register for FF14 OB

But are to lazy to go out to look. The critical bug seems to be fixed and they will announce when Open beta will resume later. For now if you want to register first:

1) Go to this page. Tells you details on how to register a Square Enix account. This is page for NA region, their is link at top for Europe. Helps to read this XD

2) You can download the client here.

3) I'm not at this point yet, but you need a "key" to actually get into Open beta (I always assumed keys = closed beta, think they lack the concept of what OPEN beta means)

Enjoy

~Pearz

Sooo.........

1) FF14 Open beta has been closed due to a "Critical Bug" on first day. This bolds well for official release in less then a month. Still don't know if I can run it but I don't see much hope for this.

2) Logged on tonight to do Gorluxors tower in Allods. We downed the first boss Nogram, but failed 2nd one. I think our raid could have finished. We just needed to reorganize our raid and have everyone ready for him. Some organization all we were missing for beating him.

3) Mainly HONing with Rho again. Kinda out of my anime phase again. Comes and goes where I watch a couple series at once. Probably Finish Kannagi and that will be end. Been over a week and haven't finished a 14 eps series.

4) As of now, the most anticipated MMO I want to try is probably Iris Online or Guild Wars 2 (Blade and soul if that ever comes), Iris being most.

A> Anime-ish = pure win

B> seems to have decent customization

C> Run by Gpotato that I actually think does amazing job as a gaming company, would try their games just cause they host it.

5) Mirai Nikki came out with a new chapter (55), guess they might prolong the manga alot longer. Seemed almost certain it was going to end soon but they just opened it up to be much longer if they want which doesn't seem like a good idea D:

6) And for anyone this effects, good idea to update some of your programs. Apprently a critical Windows .dll vunerability was found recently. Could effect some programs you use (for me it was Utorrent) and put your computer at risk.

~Pearz