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?

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.

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!

ohhhhh kimochiiii~~~

so yeah that happened.

This go around, I managed to get way more in depth with the main storyquests. I will admit that I began this beta sort of breezing through the initial storyquests because I was antsy to get out there and level. Not to mention that I still had the WoW mentality of "omg no time to read text must get xp and experience the game". But then I realized... the story is experiencing the game. In the deep seeded habit to rush through I had overlooked that this is Final Fantasy, and story is pretty emphasized and integral to the overall gameplay experience. Pay some fuckin' attention, said me to er... myself.

I hit 15 Archer and essentially was forced to clear the starter dungeons one after the other. I will admit that by no means does this keep you from leveling, but it does keep you from leveling optimally.... you really kinda have to do this to continue your character's progress. Thankfully by the time I reached this point, the Duty Finder was active. Before this in the previous P3 beta session I recall seeing large groups of people in front of Satasha, /shout-ing and assembling groups the old fashioned way.

Duty Finder
Touchy issue. Let's get into it.
I personally cannot argue against it's inherent convenience, especially for healers and tanks (sorry DPS classes, we still gotta wait it out longer than those two types). To be able to join in an automatically assembled party and essentially bypass the stress and work of assembling one yourself is pretty neat. It's pretty awesome for me tbh, as I tend to get plagued by bad luck trying to round up people for myself (especially in my early FFXI days), either in not being able to find an available tank/healer and groups just breaking up as a result of too much waiting around for that one guy. Being able to draw from such a massive pool helps its functionality and ease of its intended use. However, like it's originator's counterpart, it's not without its consequences by its very nature.

Doody Finder
One of the first arguments raised against Duty Finder is the consequences of dealing with every type of player through recruiting from such an expansive roster. "Massive pool = massive tools" becomes held in the conciousness of most of the current playerbase, especially when the frequency of dealing with complete assbuckets and douchenozzles increases enormously. Those who are experienced in the game aren't immune to this label either as it's just as easy to label an inexperienced player a complete imbecile turdmuncher for not knowing what the fuck. Suddenly a new player to the game has his or her experience marred because of elitist snobbery from more seasoned players. This sort of immediately divides (as if the beta crowd wasn't divided enough already over other various issues) those against and for DF, but definitely not as much as its perceived overall social consequences.

Ultimately most people reference WoW's Looking for Dungeon/Raid tool as the very thing that eroded and eventually destroyed the last remnants of what player community remained in World of Warcraft. I wouldn't wholly agree with that statement 100% but I do agree it made the raiding and party experience very impersonal, despite its intentions. I also admit it's made WoW a social unsociable game, and it's made LFR/D something to endure rather than enjoy, all in the collective pursuit for gear and loot. I admit I have stirred some shit in LFR simply because I could, being bored carrying a raid full of bads with my veiny epeen of DPS. It makes it too easy to become jaded and slide into this mindset. Why care, no one else does, right?

:

Perceived worry and concern (or more like rabid frothyness) that FFXIV's Duty Finder will do the same for this game's community as Looking for Raid/Dungeon did for Warcraft's player community (what's left of it, anyway).

Dungeons

Dang, I went on aboot that for a bit eh?

I flipped on the DF and set about to playing each dungeon one by one. Queues, despite them being longer for DPS classes passed by after nailing down a few mobs and doing a few well timed Levequests. Average time for queues never displayed for me, I wonder if it didn't for anyone else.

I'd have to say that surprisingly, the overall experience was actually pleasant and mostly painless. I like to think I was very lucky in getting groups of people that were seemingly rational and quick to learn even if it was apparent it was some of our first times through each place. The fights weren't insanely hard but roles still had to be fulfilled (Like tanking maybe? Thanks random marauder), otherwise some boss mechanics could quickly overrun a group.

i kill with my heart

Archer plays really well in a group. So long as one maintains Venomous Bite on bosses and high HP targets, Archers can haul in some threat pulling damage. Holding back for hate to get established first benefited me in the long run. If you had a sucky tank though, it could turn into a game of HP attrition between myself and whatever mob(s) had focus on me at the time. 

By this time I finally got my first frontal cone AoE damage shot (I really ought to remember these skill names). The particle effect on them I think is pretty cool. However it's gotta be used wisely as spamming it will quickly drain your HP, and at current speed, it's not worth the damage output by doing so.

Continuing the Story

I won't spoil what happens, only that by the time I was through completing all 3 initial dungeons, I was fully hooked by the events. Off I went and quickly completed one quest after the other, despite numerous outside interruptions. Whenever I left I couldn't wait to be able to get back down to my computer and continue. I wanted to see what happens next. I knew a battle was brewing, and I was really anxious and eager to get to it so I could get down to it. I couldn't help but want to hurry, as I had been hearing lots of positive responses to the conclusive battle.

oh nothin, just thinkin 'bout burnin stuffs.

Ultimately I can see why they saved this for last. Like I said, I won't get too into the details of the fight, but the details of it all came together beautifully, despite the hangups I have of the game's graphics (and my Radeon card, and lack of Dx 11support).

i'mma hang dis off a gold chain mhm gorl

Graphics

I am divided. I'm running out of time before the next phase begins so I want to get this out of the way quickly. I had mentioned in an earlier post that FFXIV has a tendency to do shiny and glossy a little too well. I had also mentioned in an even earlier post that perhaps the initial shaders's glossiness and/or specular maps could be tinkered with to matte out some of the overboard reflectivity and shininess of certain materials. Metal has no problem looking like metal, however it's when things that aren't metal begin to look like it is where I usually start to get squirmy about it. 

MEHHHHHHH.

I'm not joking when I say rocks are hard. As someone who is practicing 3D modeling whole environments, one of the first things I realized about making scenes outdoors is that my first time pass, my rocks looked like deformed baby poo. Sadder part still is that was my very teacher telling me this. Something seemingly simple can look awful or mediocre with lazy texturing and that's some of what I see on certain parts of the world. Especially outside. On rocks. I also have to remember that this is the beta, and ya know, I'm also just gonna have to accept it. It's doubtful at this point that replacing textures on some random wall is top notch priority Defcon 5 level shit.

if i turned something like this in i'd get raked tbqh.

Here's a few more parting screens before I get ready to begin this session of the beta. The good news is I don't have to be up early either, weeeeeeeeeeeeeee~~~~

-Riza

Until next time.

Scarce to be counted, filling the darkness...

gouda bye thaumaturge, for now...

Switching to Archer:

In my previous post I had mentioned that I wanted to make the switch to Archer. I have my eye on becoming a Bard for launch and part of the requirement is to level this class. So I began where I left off, just barely handing in my first class quest inside the Archer's guild. I have to admit, that the storyline for this is quite entertaining for me personally. It made me want to spite that dude (you'll know about him) and be very "Oh yeah? We'll see about that." about leveling Archery. I'm not sure if you get the same cutscene though if you roll Elezen, but this NPC would probably act the same anyway. 

Archer plays exactly like how one would think it would. It's obviously ranged, and the ideal goal is to kill it before it gets to you and kills you. Seems simple enough right? So, off I went, to go shooty shooty n' shit all over some ladybugs.

Archer's abilites are typical. I can't recall the name of the shots right now, I do know that you get a couple of initial strong shots (one instant, one cast timed), a DoT poison shot, a self accuracy buff, a binding ability, and a finishing shot that activates after a certain percentage. There's also a "Disengage" type ability (yea yea, I borrowed the name) that would propel you backwards, gaining instant distance between you and the mob. I hardly had to use that one to be honest. Things died before I took damage... mostly. Most of these abilities are fueled by TP, so I learned quickly when and how to use Sprint if I ever had to rely on it. Engaging a mob when in the middle of the TP dive valley I would learn would be a mistake, but of course I wasn't thinking that when I opened up and started wailing on a mob after reaching a new area to quest in.

totally cute bow tho, amirite?

Overall though, I do enjoy archer quite a bit. Though it doesn't really make sense right now why I need it to level Bard, but if it's a requirement, then I gots to.

Overworld Map:
Oy... the Map system in this game is... a bit getting used to. I think a lot of the initial problems could be solved on it if it centered the map from where you clicked on the next area. Looking at a map from a questing point of view is a hot mess, especially if it's a map to an area that you haven't been to yet. Trying to figure out where to go from a quest indicated on a map, to an area where you have actually been, to where you actually are takes way more effort than it should. When you click anywhere to get to a new area in the map interface, the map of the new area you clicked on automatically centers right on the new map, instead of the area where you clicked from. On the one hand it sort of forces you to memorize the layout and names of areas, but that should come from natural repeated play, not by an absolute (and somehow simultaneously confusing) display.

Otherwise though the actual look and UI of it is nice to look at.

Questing
I love questing in this game. The only foreseeable problem I can tell is leveling new classes after leveling through all three areas. I feel like grinding or through the Levequest is probably the solution, but at the time of beta phase 3 on the second weekend, there was a cap to how many could be completed. Last weekend that cap was increased and most of these quests could be repeated. Along with FATEs, I think that it would seem like enough. It just would make me miss regular questing though to be honest. Some of them were quite memorable!

story of my life tbqh

Names

I'm two ways about names. On the one hand, I can see why people would want a naming convention implemented, but seriously, that would just be ass to enforce. Besides, I have seen some names that had me giggling or laughing outright because of how RIDICULOUS some could brazenly be (Here's looking at you, Baron Vonhugendong.) . Of course though the references to other popular media got extremely tiring to see over and over again. How many Game of Thrones names did you spot last weekend? If you said zero, you've either never read/watched GoT (or have been a hermit), or you is a lyin' wanker. Same with names from animes.

That's it for now, the beta is about to go up for this weekend and I have to do some sleeping before getting down to brass tacks.... so here's some various pantyscreenshots!

graphics and textures are a topic I'll get into next post, but I wanted to point out that this game does wet and shiny a little toooooo well...

c u at the next lalafel orgy