A Better Beta.

Greetings from Eorzea everyone! A Few days back marked the start of FFXIV Open Beta. With this game a lot of changes, a lot of good changes, fixes and more. However even at this point there is so much left to be desired. So many things still need fixing, from bugs to completely flawed systems. So many things need attention and need fine tuning and so many things show Square Enix's "laziness" so to speak. However, not all is bad don't get me wrong. Much is good and grand and with the beginning of Open Beta Square Enix did prove they can fix things and make them better. Not only that, but this is still just Beta. As much as we all hate hearing that from time to time it is indeed the truth. Let your voices be heard but don't you dare give up hope until we give this game a proper chance. Beta is HERE for the very purpose of fine tuning the game before official launch, so help Square Enix fine tune we shall.

First I'll start with the ugly and save the good things for last as to end on a lighter note.

Laziness -

So far Square Enix is showing their renowned and notorious laziness in many different aspects. A lot of people will be quick to disagree and make excuses for it but for the average person with a neutral opinion or a skeptical opinion it is no doubt things you will notice, you will even notice them if you are completely in love with the game and excuse them as I do, or you might just be completely in-denial. Either way, let's take a look at some of the things I'm talking about, shall we?

First of all, the reuse of monsters. Now some times it's absolutely alright and should be done. For example, Squirrels, Rabbits, some things of that nature. But others simply don't make since. For example, why are Dodo's out in the middle of the desert...? The look and seem more like a island bird, something that should be native to a area like Limsa Lominsa. This doesn't pop up often and I'm glad for that, well so far anyways. All games will have reused, re-skinned monsters, but some times you notice a little rift in time-space and something just doesn't make sense. Square Enix was bad about doing this after the implementation of "Treasures of Aht Urghan" in FFXI, where each time they added monsters after that there were way too many reused models some of which made no sense at all. But, I want to make it clear, so far the only real thing I have a problem with in FFXIV is the Dodo's...

Revolving Landscapes begin to make you feel like you're going through the same exact place over and over and over again. You know that feeling when you get lost in the wild and spend hours trying to find your way back, only to say "Wait a minute, haven't we been by this part before? And before that? And... Several times now?" well, you probably haven't but I think you know what I'm talking about. It's not going against realism or anything and not all areas are like this, but there seems to be a lack of diversity in many areas of the game. Instead of wondering what's around the next big bend or a ways ahead it's pretty much just the same thing over and over, usually, however this isn't always the case. Again, let's just say there's more of it than needs to be? It's not like you won't see differing areas and unique things depending on where you go, just not enough of it and you'll be feeling deja vu more often than you probably should.

The music. It's absolutely great honestly, I like it and you most likely will to, but some of it seems a little bit rushed. In FFXI you get use to the zone theme's being more of "songs" that are on replay. In FFXI, it feels more like they are just simple little tunes that aren't long enough. I have to say though, this isn't really the case in Limsa Lominsa. The theme there I think is honestly so good it should have been saved for Ishgard or some such and Limsa Lominsa should have been more on par with the other cities, if they were going to use more "loopy" style themes. The music is good, just a bit rushed feeling. Again, this is just me being a critic.

Also the Guildleve System. Square Enix likes to act as though it's some new, amazing revolution in video game design. It's not, in fact, it's a step back from what FFXI had. Instead of going on a quest and getting a reward for it, you go to a counter, get a little card, the card has flavor text on it, tells you to go kill a certain amount of X monster, you finish, click a crystal and get a reward. Honestly, it would be so much fun of these things were actual QUESTS with little story lines tied to them. Think it's impossible? Go play FFXI. You don't get EXP from them there, but you do get rewards and it is more or less the same thing. This is simple laziness on Square Enix's part marketing it off to be some amazing new system. It's not, it really isn't and it feels cheap.

Attitude. Once again, their attitude. You hear things from them like "This is a feature we really want the players to enjoy" after they admit to knowing the enormous amount of upset behind their not being a auction house and why. They say things like "This goes against our vision" or just the good old fashion "We have no plans to change ______ at this time". This is all on top of Tanaka's Tweets, miss information and bad communication. For a company saying they really want to reach out to the community this time around, they sure are doing a lousy job of it so far.

Bad Design -

There are a lot of bad designs in the game and honestly even being in open beta some of these should have been fixed by now. Let's take a look at what those are, shall we?

First of all, no Auction House. People have no idea how bad this is, well actually they do. The small minority (and I do mean quite small) defending Square Enix's decision in this couldn't be more delusional. Square Enix say's there doing it to allow our market to "stabilize" and to reduce inflation. Poppycock I say! Honestly though, it's not going to help. It doesn't matter what means to a end some one has to sell things. When people sell things they sell them and there are prices that become fixated on those things as well. People can undercut and overcut on a auction house just as easily as they can in a bazaar. There are plenty of good counter measures you can put into place to avoid price manipulation on a auction house. The main one is listing how much people have things up for auction for and for how much. If you don't want to do this, list the previous sales history as they did in FFXI. If one person makes too many sales of something then simply let it notify a GM. These are just some simple things I'm thinking up off the top of my head. There's plenty of ways to make a auction house work just fine to avoid scammers, gil sellers, and generally naughty people. People act as though bazaar's are flawless, well think again, let's take a look at their flaws shall we?

Want a piece of armor? A new headband, a new jacket, some new boots? I bet you do, we all do. Guess what? You're going to have to go to a in game flea market, target, go through several (laggy) menu's, look into some one's bazaar, browse their goods and hope you're finding what you're looking for. The best thing is, 99% of the bazaar's are simply crafting materials. Not only this, but there are about 6 of these little flea markets ("market wards") in EACH city. Not only this but there are a LOT of bazaar's in each one. It took me half a hour the other day simply to get through all the bazaar's in ONE market ward in ONE city. You better get good at memorizing them to so you know which ones are still selling junk you don't want, or maybe they aren't...? Maybe you're a crafter and you aren't looking for a piece of armor but rather crafting materials, and crystals. Ohh boy, this is why I'm not leveling crafting classes right now nor will I unless this ever gets fixed.

Not only that, but say goodbye to the days of browsing gear, comparing it, seeing who has what up for sale and just a all around better economic structure.

Finally, the price of additional characters and retainers. Basically, you have to pay a extra dollar/pound/euro/etc each time you want a little extra storage space. This isn't for a character you can actually play, but simply for more storage space. Remember how in FFXI you could get 80 inventory, 80 mog locker, 80 mog safe, 80 this and 80 that? Well in FFXIV each one of those "80's" is going to cost you real life money. If that's not terrible enough, maybe you like playing more than one character? I know I was looking forward to that, especially in a more casual MMORPG. Well that would be lovely, if they didn't cost an extra THREE dollars/pounds/euros... Yep, 3... So you start off with the base fee of 12.99 a month, but decide to add 2 additional characters? Suddenly it's 20 a month. This is quite disappointing. Charging people 3 hard earned currencies just for a extra character to play is complete madness.

But before we conclude let's take a look at some of the fundamental things that absolutely need changing. They will most likely be changed by the end of Beta but if they are not, well... Gods Forfend...

Guildleves. If you disconnect (which happens ALL the damn time so far) you fail it. Remember that part about them being on a 48 hour cooldown and only getting 8 per 48 hours? Remember how they're the main source of leveling? So should you happen to log, or should the servers/your internet/etc decide they hate you for the day well, you pay for it and you're up a creek without a paddle. Supposedly they are going to make this to where you can re-start if this type of thing happens, we'll see. I sure hope so.

Delivery Box System... There's none currently... Surely Square Enix isn't this stupid? Well, actually... Ohh damn! Anyhow, I imagine this will be implemented by retail launch but if it's not, this will be quite crappy indeed.

NPC Dialogue. Misspellings, misspellings everywhere. Not only that, but a lot of things are not even translated and show up as Moon Runes. Not only that, but this is on top of the fact that some of the NPC's are so... So... So... "Down to earth" that it can be hard to understand them at times or you just want to plum' out n' deadgum slap'um upside da' head goshdrnit!

Alright, so enough about the Bad and the Ugly, why WOULD you want to play this game?

It's absolutely beautiful. Anyone who says otherwise has a broken or low end PC. This game is the Crysis of MMORPG's. You've never seen graphics so stunning in your life.

Cut scenes, so far are absolutely amazing. They are better than good. The facial expressions on the NPC's and even your character are so amazing you'll soon feel like you're watching a cross between a Micheal Bay movie and William Shakespeare. Like FFXI, the game is worth it's weight in gold for the story alone and the cut scenes are phenomenal.

The story. It's only open beta, and already the three nation's story lines are amazingly interesting and fun.

Playability. This game is just simply fun to play. It's fun to do things, it's fun to kill things, it's fun to gather and it would be fun to craft if they would just ADD A DAMN AUCTION HOUSE... Ahem, where were we?

The armor. We're still in Beta and we are still only in the newbie levels/areas and what not and already the armor is super diverse and absolutely amazing looking. I think the armor higher up will be so amazing when it finally comes to fruit that it will blow your mind strait out of your head. So far my favorite hobby in game is collecting as many fashionable sets of armor as I can... Weird? Well maybe just a bit...

Amazingly designed cities and areas. While repetitive some times, for the most part the open areas are absolutely stunning. The cities are designed creatively and amazingly. Hopefully they expand on them and add more shops/npc's/variables, there is indeed plenty of room in them for expansion and I can't wait for that.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. The good, the bad and the ugly. Just remember I am a critic and a long time FFXI player. I expect Square Enix to do their best and address things that need addressing, you should to, but by all means do not give up hope till it is far past the proper time which currently, is no where near. I hope to see you all in Eorzea, I'm sure at the very least even through some frustrations at worst case, you'll have a blast here.