Real Housewives Rage Didn't Even Hold a Candle...

If you thought the rage over the Live Letter was bad, this invoked something worse.

Errors 3102/90000:

During the Open Beta (Phase 4!), a lot of the servers were undergoing a tremendous amount of traffic. I would like to think that SE was horribly underestimating the amount of people willing to give FFXIV another chance, especially those who had gone through the earlier beta phases. Also, the story of FFXIV itself is quite interesting, I mean let's be real here, they shut down the first iteration of this game. A live MMO was shut down and rebuilt from the ground up in order to surpass and exceed the abysmal quality of its previous existence. Who DOES that? Well, nobody did, until Square Enix went along and decided "Ya know what? We need to fix this."

The NA/EU servers were put through the wringer. I didn't manage to wake up in time to make my character thinking that I would have plenty of time later to do it, but I quickly learned that it was a mistake. Within minutes of my logging in, I was locked from creating a character on the server of my choice. I'm not gonna lie, I was quite pissed, since I had ended up being essentially locked out most of the day thereafter. I mucked around playing on another server until I would be notified via SE's twitter, but the thing about it was that it "shut off" in the evening and resumed in the morning. Meanwhile the player base is anxious for updates because suddenly Errors 3102 and 90000 happened. There was already frustrations running at an all-time high over being locked out of populated servers, and now this. I knew immediately what this would turn into:

People were disconnecting from the server, but not fully. The server still counted these disconnects as still being on the server so essentially once you were kicked out from one of these errors, one's avatar still was flagged as being online, stuck in limbo, and locked out from being able to be logged in again. People began to lose their collective shitballs, and well, the Train to Server-Wreck City began gaining steam as more and more people became affected by it.

Two distinct crowds once again made their appearance known.

"Why Won't SE RESPOND?!"/"Stop Being Such Entitled Crybabies, DIS IS BETA."

I completely get the reasonings behind why any of these crowds of collective opinions get their logic, but isn't anyone else besides me getting tired of running into this merry-go-round? Both camps have their points, but let's be real here. One side does tend to act a bit entitled at their worst, while on the other hand, the attitude on the worser side told the rest of us to suck it up, we're there to test the game and endure the bugs. I'm sure most of those latter responses were happily click clacking away in the game though, dodging the errors that kept affecting more and more people as the day progressed.

A thread on the beta forums had begun a while ago by the official staff, asking anyone who was affected by these errors to post their character and server name, and nothing else.  This thread began to pile on and on as the day progressed, and eventually I knew that the servers would have to come down at some point.

Meanwhile back at Mystery Bug Camp 3k, the frustration at SE's lack of response grew and grew. And like I had pointed out on previous posts, the MMO audience of 2003 doesn't exist, as they kept making their frustration increasingly known on the beta forums. Most of the banter between these camps once again turned into another episode of FXIV Beta Forum Wars. This episode, Battle at Facepalm Valley indeed kept up to its location's namesake.

I can't defend the entitled worser aspects of the camp that demands satisfaction at every turn. It's sadlarious to see a chunk of the player base make themselves clearly known by how epically whiny they are, and how loud they tend to get on the forums. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that maybe it's the residual effects from such rampant behavior on other MMO's but most of these people were so predictable it was easy to tune them out from those who had valid posts and concerns. Despite those valid concerns and posts, most didn't get the attention they needed, as they were constantly de-railed by interludes back to the fray that was Facepalm Valley from either party.

Now on the other hand, I can't imagine those who never ventured outside of FFXI or FFXIV 1.0 to be not shocked at this kind of "savage" behavior. Then again I can't help but think that this is what most of this camp has been used to, being isolated from other toxic gaming communities. Suddenly the feeling of their game mixing with the "unwashed masses" begins to collectively form in their mind. And you know, I can't really hate on that because it happened to me too. Maybe in another game and in a different way, but I can understand that feeling akin to the idea of walking into your favorite restaurant and suddenly a flood of whiny brats stroll on in by themselves, complaining about everything, making mountains of molehills, exploding at the earliest inconvenience. And you can't do anything about it except keep sipping your coffee sitting across from your friend as you stare at each other, with the idea dawning on both your minds over the harsh reality that this is how it's going to be for a while. A long while. Some of these from this particular camp are very quick to defend the game and its rash decisions, but I like to think it's a direct result of being indoctrinated by the usual treatment from Square Enix's customer service. Or lack thereof, let's be honest here.

u tellem, blanche-dave!

Dang, Finally:

1AM came and the realm I wanted to roll on finally unlocked. I made Oriza and began my journey... FINALLY.

Was I pissed that I couldn't go on the server of my choice initially? Of course. But I did suck it up and waited. I knew I had lost a day of time, but so had a lot of other people. I just would have to make do with the time that I would get. I was happy though, to finally get started.

eeee so cute

Once again I was whipped up into the story fairly easily. I began in the city of Gridania, and unfortunately, it meant that my storyline cutscenes would be with these two chuckle-heads insead of the heart-throb Thancred:

princess cameltoe and dude with glasses.

yea those glasses are goofy, sorry 'bout it

But onward I went. I began Archer this time, because I had expressed earlier intentions of becoming a Bard later on down the road. I know that will change depending, but for now, I think it would do well for me to level something useful.

sparkly thangs!

ha!

rofl. yep. managed to get one snap before he got away.

some rando qtpai

Yeah evenually I did have to level Conjurer. Balls.

Starting Again:

Yeah, sure, Archer is easy DPS. As long as you can cycle your globals/buffs efficiently as well as keep the DoT up, you could do some real decent damage. Sometimes beneficial procs of certain self buffs would kick in at inconvenient times, right after spamming some other ability. But for the most part, as long as you had your cooldowns in check and timed them efficiently together, the damage could stack very quickly. I had to stop at 12 to level Conjurer. I figured I may as well. Blegh. I got CNJ til about 8 until I couldn't stay awake, and I knew that if I slept now the beta would be over before I woke up.

Oh well. Off to sleep I went anyway, grateful I made some progress.

Finally, I leave you with this:

he's too sexy for his er... hat?

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

So the Live Letter came out on the 8th. And subsequently, this happened:

we're talking real housewives kinda raaaaaaaaeg over this.

Ok so maybe the reaction was not as drastic, but let's be real here, peeps were pretty mayad. But whom really, and why they/we mad tho?

YOU LIARS!11!!1!
So it could be argued that overall it seemed that Squeenix basically pulled a basic, ye olden bait-n'-switch on its playerbase, betraying everything they could have ever believed the game (specifically level-capped content) should have been and into some version of the game that will apparently plunge the game into a spiral of failure and doom FFXIV forever. Uhhh... okayyy...so what are these complaints? And what's the issues really? And how is it a new player like myself, with experience doing hardcore levels of play (but not of FFXI 1.0) think aboot it?

I think one of the biggest issues right now is the disappointment most of FFXIV's beta playerbase so far  being extremely concerned over the first supposed end game dungeon, the Crystal Tower, and its links towards the utilization of Duty Finder for one. It is the prime example over the bigger overall picture or snapshot of the game at a whole, and the "Doomsday Clock" it supposedly will generate and tick away the literal seconds until FFXIV's complete and utter armageddon. Dramatic, no? Well this whole ordeal has been blown sky-high to those levels according to some of these reactions I've been reading over the forums I frequent.

Once again, Duty Finder comes under fire for being utilized for FFXIV's first raid experience. Yes, it makes finding a group easier, especially if you're the type of player that has a difficult time for whichever circumstances that prevent a player from joining a raiding team in an FC for example. Players who "play for fun" for example generally tend to roll DPS roles, which  often have been saturated in other MMO's. From what I've experienced in the beta, this game will be no exception. I mean yeah I am aware that numbers could be skewed, considering that most players do have to level a DPS role first to reach support classes, but nonetheless, queuing as DPS in Duty Finder is nowhere near as instant as queuing a Tank or Healer role. The positives over Duty Finder are eclipsed in lieu over the controversy over hosing down level-cap dungeons and raids when the game hasn't even released yet.

harrrumph!

Editor note: WHOOPS, forgot to paste this bit in:

So many points for the Hardcore vs. Casual argument were made, touching on free to play vs. having a subscription model, versus za waaarudo! It all boils down to the difficulty of the content, and the amount of achievement that most players crave.

I understand the need to want to challenge and ultimately wrestle down difficult content. I also understand (as a busy bee) the need to feel like I've accomplished something with the time I've allotted myself. But I'm gonna be real here for a second...

To me, there is nothing that compares to challenging what seems to be something impossibly difficult and pulling it off. Especially after being crushed by the encounter, that moment of absolute impeding inevitable victory to the moment of death animation and the subsequent collective cheers of our team is absolutely unmatched. There are many moments like these throughout my raiding career, from downing my last Promyvion with a B-Team, besting the failed stacked group, to completing Chains of Promathia, to completing my Tier 6 set in Warcraft not just once, but twice, and experiencing and progressing significantly through Sunwell at its original strength. I cannot deny the incredible highs that it has brought me, not to mention the memories it would establish for some of the people involved in these epic endeavors. It's something that is missing now (or has been missing) in most MMO's in order to cater to the common denominator, to provide this sense of accomplishment to everyone.

But to me it's just a heavily, heavily diluted version of receiving that sense of accomplishment. In fact, nowadays I don't even feel it at all. I would say most in my camp don't feel it either. And it's sorely missed.


FFXI-2: World of FFXIV-Craft
If you thought that FFXIV wouldn't ever be compared to FFXI's and World of Warcraft's overall game design model, you'd be sorely mistaken. I would say the three are constantly compared against each other all the time. There are many camps that have so many opinions regarding where the game should go, how the game should  be balanced, and to whom the game should overall cater to.  It's seemingly pointless to try to collectively argue for any side because from what I've seen, there's enough numbers in each camp to tout their collective *~*~unique snowflake~*~* opinions over how the game should be run. And of course, each camp goes to battle Braveheart style in words most prevalently in the beta and live forums over the "dumb downing" of the game, which is probably the biggest gripe of them all. But let's be realistic, those forums are just a mess of this instead:

Release the Hosebeast:
None of us can possibly predict what's in store for us, just like how still tedious it is that the FFXIV development team despite having a Live Letter about what they have revealed (in opposite to what I complained about in my last post over being so secretive about end game content), still have to deal with the collective shitstorm that ensued over the event. The dev team is punished for witholding information. The dev team gets punished for revealing it. So I can't blame them now for throwing their arms up in exasperation over the reaction, especially when there's the possibility of points made in the Live Letter that apparently got lost in translation.

"..."

One thing that can't be denied is that the playerbase for the most part wants this game to succeed. It's just that we've got opinions, man.

So ultimately my own opinions mean jack shit, and I am coming into this game pretty fresh, so I just want to play, reach endgame, and shoot from the hip.



Chix Dig the Ride:

mothefuckin' unicornsssssss!

I love mounts in games. I'm not even gonna lie about it one bit. The fact that I won't have access to the Gobbue mount evarrrr makes me a sad panda, mostly because it just looks so damn derp and I like that. But I'm not gonna stress over it, considering the amount of content that was revealed in the Live Letter, especially regarding mounts. I suppose I would have to level a CNJ to obtain that mount, and there's no guarantee I'll be able to use it when I'm not a Conjurer, but I'm willing to make that epic sacrifice into stupid healy land if I could re-enact the unicorn scene in Legend with Oriza, heeeeeeee.

hnnnnnngggghhhh....i need dis

big pimpin' spendin g's...

Set Phazu to 4:

Another bitchfest ensued over the beta start dates, and pre-order dates, and then the release. I know people planned shit to start sooner, but to be honest.... I think peeps just need to get over the dates. They're pretty much set now, and while yeah, there's a level cap of 20, it's still more than what most MMO's would have offered in the past. We're gonna be essentially trying the game for free. It is an Open Beta after all.

Fishing

*hand-jackoff-motion*

part of the sketch for the banner image and header for laters

Welp, that's about all I'll cover for now, but there's stuff to prepare for! I know I'm going to be busy balancing school, work, and playing this game, but when there's a will, there's definitely a way. As for now, I gotta put my sketch pen down and actually finish my homework for this week. BLARGH.

-Oriza

Character Creator Benchmark: Otherwise known as "The only methadone tablet you're gonna get for now until Phase 4."

The benchmark came out on the first.


Every time I think I go on there and I have to keep tweaking and messing around with Oriza's live look until I know I'm happy, but end up reverting back to the same settings as before. I think I should just be happy with how she looks because I think she's just lovely personally...

eeeeee so cuuuuuute

So as I had mentioned, Faiyt had also tinkered around with their live character and I decided to feature Faiyt in all her Paladiny Artifacty glory:

she'll kick ur butt, tenderly

Plus I wanna include this shot which I think is the tits:

faiyt ready to tackle some tentacles tbh

Speaking of tits, I also heard of people already breaking the CC and making giant tittayed characters. I wish I had screens of this on hand, but I assure you, they are as hilarious as they are soft and cushy looking.

I also messed around and made some other characters with the character creator simply because damnit, it's something, SOMETHING, til phase 4:

she kinda looks like sandra bullock a bit to me. also, wtb butt slider. admit it, you want it too.

sigh. if you only lived to see this.

yes i made a femroe too. I THINK SHE'S PRETTY.

Personally I love how everyone's been making everything. My friends are on the same boat as I am, still tweaking (still twerkin'), making final, final, final, decisions, then going back and making more final choices. 

We'll have to lock it in soon though.

Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!

Here's some screenshots!

oriza's final look for live? WHO KNOWS.

i think i'll always be a fan of this hurrdo

one thing i wished for: screenshots during cutscenes

ginger kids!

welcome to choose-a-company

going through this part was muy interesting, i know literally nothing other than the game really lends itself on the onset. and this game sure loves to showcase these guys and their armor rather well. adds mystery for someone like me who was completely sheltered from 1.0 and most of the information from 2.0 on purpose

last day of beta, look at these pervos gettin all up on my battleshorts, homies can't get enuff

must explore dangerous areas!

femroes. yes. get uncomfortable.

viewing this screenshot and editing it was just as uncomfortable as first laying my eyes upon this nymph of a boy in a pool. i figured ya'll need to behold this too. he's a pretty special dude though.

boop biddy boop biddy boop boop boop

 like idek what this is all aboot

i cast da spells dat make da skirts fly up

there was a lot more of this than i thought there would be, but am i shocked? i wasn't.

oh dare i say you're thancredible. ghohohoho stawp it yew

full size glory (click iiiiiiit)

r.i.p. u glorious sex kitten

It's Enough to Make You Want to Rock Yourself Sitting on The Floor, Smacking Your Arm

when is release again?

It's time to play the waiting game. Tick tock, tick tock.

So apparently there's been a huge content leak. LET'S GAB ABOUT THAT IN A BIT. First off an explanation on an update delay:

Comic Con 2013:

Faiyt and I went to Comic Con this year. Anyone who knows me in my personal life know that I used to attend this schindig every year up until about a few years ago when it was Twilight-Con (why anyone is a fan of that series is beyond me) for a while. What a hot mess.

In any case we made a visit to Square Enix's booth and tried out the new Lightning game. It certainly looks cool, and the battle system is similar(ish) to that of FFXI-2's. But that's neither here nor there. I was hoping to glean some new information of FFXIV: ARR by the team that happened to man the booths at Square Enix, but honestly it seemed like their team consisted of slighly cringeworthy fanbois gone intern from the SE offices. Awkward didn't even begin to cover Team Squeenix Redshirt Brigade. It seemed doubtful they knew much if at all. The most I could really hope to get is information I hadn't heard already. But... there was a nice printed banner? And a rather large campaign to sign up for the last phase of beta? Yay.

Grab Yourself Some Depends or Taco Sauce:

either way you're gonna need a box o' these.

Yes. Tons of content was datamined and leaked. Though I haven't gauged the response from the development team, I would not be surprised if internally they are acting super shocked that this would happen. I would HOPE THEY ARE NOT though (it seems like no maybe, especially after reading a certain quip in this most recent iteration of LftP). Usually you could roll with leaks one of two routes, by either going nuclear or just letting it go and continuing. Secrecy is hard to maintain nowadays, especially with a smarter, older MMO crowd so I'd hope that some of them realized it would only be a matter of time and wear the shock better. I like to think that while they're upset they can't reveal it like how they wanted to, it just makes some of our FFXIV-starved audience hungry for more at this point really. 

PHAZU NO JUTSU:

Everyone is looking forward to learning exactly when Phase 4 will begin. There's been lots of speculation as to the exact date, and apparently it was enough for the JP development team to sort of respond by musing and chuckling about themselves about how we Americans are just so silly, taking words that they throw out there and somehow come up with a date and time of the actual start of P4. While I think it's ok to speculate, the response from the dev team over this imo wafted traces of dismissive amusement reminiscent of when I was back in the audience during the "QnA" (moar like Q n' gay amirite?) session of the FFXI Fan Fest. Maybe it's a Japanese thing and we just don't understand, but it's 2013, not 2003, and this kind of "Maybe if you believe in the heart of the cards it's true!" bullshit won't fly anymore. I'm hoping that the development team is in a position to ditch that mindset quickly if remnants of that attitude remain and keep an open transparent humbleness if they want to make FFXIV a successful MMO not just in Asia. Just super saiyan.

lemme work mah mighty prowers, plaes peoples, plaes

I foresee problems in the future with that attitude of the dev team knowing what's better, and in the end they just might be right. Only time can tell really at this point, but I'm just not convinced that this slow unearthing of reasoning really is the right answer at this point. Ultimately the MMO audience of 2003 doesn't exist anymore. I do believe FFXI only got as far as it did because as I had mentioned in a previous post, it was a lot of people's first times with lots of MMO's. Even the game itself was one of the first really populated MMO's out there, pre-dating World of Warcraft and like myself, only stuck around because we just didn't know any better. Today's audience is smarter, older, jaded, bitter, and most likely won't suffer "g'hohoho well aren't you amusing" giggle fests. Which brings me to another topic...

Bubble-Boy Vets versus Jaded Asshat Vets:

This to me has always been an interesting topic, especially regarding the players of FFXIV on a purely social level. Personally I could clearly tell some player types apart just by attitude who had stuck around 1.0 and/or FFXI, and those who ventured onward into other games, especially WoW.

this particular lalafel has managed the dismissive sneer to a precise science of fluid motion.

Because the FF MMO's heavily relied on community to get anything done in this game, it was imperative to retain a certain reputation within your server. This was exceptionally true of FFXI, at least from what I could remember, and it had always been that way since I played up until I quit in '06. If you were a complete peehole, you could expect to become an outcast of your server or forced to join other peeholes in their Peehole Linkshell until it imploded and re-collect into another Peehole Linkshell until that would eventually self destruct later or shuffle on despite their collective peeholeness (I am liking this word too much right now). Some of these Linkshells ran on their collective being hated on, working out simply just to spite their haters. It was a sad state of affairs when it didn't work out for the most part, but it strengthened the amount of reputation maintenance every player felt obligated to maintain if they had hoped to attempt greater milestones within their FFXI careers.

It made those who made the move to WoW from FFXI a bit of a jarring experience because as one would expect, "they all" were peeholes. While in the past the community may have existed more or less in WoW back then, it most certainly became a non issue when LFR/D went live, thus seemingly aggrivating the problem. Players from FFXI realized very early on that their ignore list would fill up rather fast, and when that option ran out, either stuck it out earning their thick skin, or peacing out. Sticking it out would change some though, I know I've seen it happen to myself and other friends who made the jump to Warcraft. It becomes that much more apparent when you're put back in an MMO where these FF only MMO players seem on a hairtrigger snootfest when/if you do something by mistake or don't act polite enough... I've seen it during the beta a lot. Like, what? It's easy to want to be as dismissive as they percieve to be, but of course one will always think they are more right than the other. You get boogers, and YOU get boogers, and YOU get boogers! 

Honestly though it's probably going to be a good idea to just accept the fact that there will Always be Peeholes. Anywhere. Here's some pics!

Faiyt and I decided to go through the character creator one last couple of times. Inebriating substances (not really?) may or may not have been involved in choices and reasoning behind why we chose the things we did. Pervy cat girls gotta keep pervyin'. Ain't even mayad.

Edit: Eugh, Blogger's photo uploading service is being a dink right now, I'll put up more screenshots later on tonight. Mayhaps a drawing too!