Thinking About Starting Up

Is this game a ghost town? I have been reading the updates and to me it sounds like the improvements in this game, along with others coming, are really going to change the game. It really sounds like they are making it more like FFXI which is great.

If i start, does anyone actually play this game? Are there people on the servers or is it barren from the lack of interest and awful game that was?

Any updates on where this game is now with all the changes?

please join trabia if you want to, start in uldah as every one hangs out there.

I have a question. They apparently changed/changing the way you level now right? How exactly does it work now?

you go kill stuff, get sp and exp, sp for class, exp for phy lvl

at update, it will be "claim" mob, any one can kill it, you get exp, exp for job, no more classes and phy lvl.

but still quests and missions give good sp now.

Im on one of the lowest populated server (Fabul)and i still think plenty of people play this game. Give it a shot while its free. Nothing to lose :P

Mysidia is pretty well populated. I think there may be a couple servers that really are completely lacking in players, but for the most part many people exaggerate on how "barren" the servers are

palemecia has alot of players. its starting to get full in uldah since everyone hangs out there. but it may be like that for alot of servers. i am seeing alot of new players too. seen a few people rank up in their phy lvls lol. havent seen those in a long time.

There are actually quite a few players however if you don't start in Ul'dah then you may think nobody plays.. the other cities are pretty sparse for population..

It's ok to start in the others but keep in mind that Ul'dah is where everyone hangs out.

I actually just started and such (saw the game for cheap /shrug)

I've been enjoying it so far and have been reading the new update notes with some excitement. It is a little bit difficult starting especially getting used to the differences. All in all though, Im glad I ended up buying it as I know that down the road they'll make the game better... at least, I hope so.

welcome to the game. the game has come a long way since RD. GL in game!

Thanks, I've noticed the changes as well from the beta... That's the actual reason I waited so long, I felt like the beta was missing too much. Thankfully it seems I picked a good time to pick up the full copy.

yeah i bought the CE on RD. like $80 but i dont regret it one bit.

I don't think there is any reason why 14 won't follow the same path as 11. 11 didn't really get really good till a few years after release.. and it's debatable on what the states of each game were at release but that's not really my point.. my point is SE is actually pretty good at developing new content, we've seen that in 11 and starting to see it in 14 now. Also the 14 dev's are actually communicating with the player base much more so than they ever did with 11 so that's good too.

Like some of the things in 11 took them years and years to fix (if at all) because they didn't listen to the player base. The entire creation of the windower is because SE was stone deaf to what the players wanted.. with 14 they are actually paying attention and fixing things. Simple things like a quest log with a map.. imagine doing a quest without looking it up on the wiki, what a novel idea to 11 players eh? lol and hell the way 11 was designed originally it would even boot you out of the game if you tried to tab to a web browser.

True... But I meant more it feels different to me in some respects, in others not so much. I wasn't knocking the game or the dev team. As I had said, I'm enjoying it so far.

It took some time for me to get into the game and now I play two characters different servers incase I get bored I hop on the other both different races I guess its the gemini in me lol but ya welcome and hope you like it

I had a friend bug for for about 1 month to make the switch from FFXI to FFXIV and well....I'm still here so yeah well worth it.

You are still here because you love me :D

And yes, the game is getting better every update. I quit at release and started playing again and I love it now.

I started at release and never stopped playing, then this guy started playing recently, convincing me to start over in Lindblum XD
Been in Lindblum 3days now, coming along great now that I have all the good peeps from my old FFXI LS to play with.
(Old Characters:)
http://www.ffxivpro.com/player/Selbina/Vestara-Khai
http://www.ffxivpro.com/player/Selbina/Artemys-Knight

It appears that a lot of the new changes to the game are really making FF14 like FF11. The Materia looks like an augment-type system and the incoming job system of course. I loved FF11 so it wouldnt bother me if this was a FF11 HD with a few different things. Is this an accurate interpretation of the updates?

I started the game on Selbina about 3 days ago but they haven't implemented the new stuff yet so I guess doing all this rank leveling is a waste of time as they're completely revamping how leveling works.

But from what I saw of the beta vs what i've seen of retail now I realy enjoy the game how it is, besides a few things that are making the game a bit difficult.

Making gil or armours seems to be a very big chore, most, if not all the earlier armour crafting synths require materials that require LV12+ of other crafts to make the materials for armour synths so its basically grinding nearly every craft to be able to make even a lv8 weapon for certain classes, like Marauder.

I've had a Weathered War Axe the whole time up to rank 18 as Marauder, it's so weak but you can't even get a rank 8-12 weapon because they're never usually in stock in the market wards and are heavily overpriced at the NPC stores, if they are in stock in the market wards they are about 50-150k and to craft them is far too difficult for a new player lol.

Also, the way weapons and armours "break" is just absolutely ridiculous, how is leveling against "incredibly tough" mobs going to work in party dynamics with this system? It means that just a few hits or more is going to put a tank in "heavy damage" status in a short time... they seriously need to rethink this I think, if they have to keep it they need to make it a bit more balanced because as it stands, it means only people with high craft levels will be able to constantly fix armours at the higher grade and it would mean during a party you would have to keep having the tank repairing like 6-8 pieces of his armour during a party because its all breaking at the same time.

Oh and not having an auction system sucks too, even with a retainer selling your stuff it barely ever sells... if at all and the economy is all over the place, if you can even call it that, even some lv8-12 weapons are going for 50k+ on Selbina. >_<

Levequests are also a problem, but they are well improved from what I remember in the beta, I think they should have kept them as they were at some point in the testing phase, when they had it so that you could repeat a levequest but for much less a reward, but then again... that would cause major RMT issues and stuff huh? Cause then they would just repeat it until they had multitudes of gil... 8 once in a day is a bit lame though...

Overall though the game is enjoyable.

Ok, well it looks like I am about to buy this game. Should I wait until after the update Tuesday to start since it seems like the game is about to change drastically again?

Also, what server should I use?

I was a FFXI pro, so I am hoping this one will be fun as well for me. I am pretty excited about starting up especially seeing that the upcoming patches are going to introduce a more traditional job system!

They're not doing a traditional job system, rather a expansion on existing classes, more info will hopefuly come soon tho.

You'll have a better experience if you started after the update tuesday in my opinion, any server is good. I'm on the least populated server (Fabul) but its still got tons of ppl.

Being on a more populated server is good for more party. People are /sh to make party so something like selbina or w/e other world have a lot of people is good.

Just don't join party that go to a camp that there a lot of walking it a waste of time people think getting 300sp every 2-3min of walking is better then killing 20mob for 250 and only waiting 5min+ish for a full repop.

It does not matter if you join now or oct 4 the sooner the better i say so you can get some level in.

You change Jobs by just equipping different weapons correct?

This is the case for doing anything right? If I want to be a Miner I have to equip a pickaxe and shovel and if I want to cook I have to equip a frying pan. Am I reading that right?

Basically you can change jobs at any point in time? And are they going to change this or have they changed this?

Yes you change your class by changing your weapon and can do it pretty much whenever you want.

They aren't changing that as far as I have seen.

Shouldn't have an issue starting out on 1.18 ranks will turn into levels automatically so you don't loose anything. Things are getting more FFXI like.. at least the good elements of FFXI so thats positive.

Your always welcome to come to Fabul man, I'd be more than happy to help you learn your way around.

I had no intention of joining the game because of the poor reviews. My son bought a copy for £10 so I got sucked in and I love it. For me, they fixed a lot of things that were annoying about FFXI. Crafting no longer costs a fortune to level seriously and I actually enjoy it. Botany and fishing are also enjoyable and the levequest system is inspired. As for game population, we deliberately chose a quiet server - Saronia and it is far from being barren UlDah is a vibrant and lively place, kind of how Jeuno used to be in the old days. The other cities have less population but are by no means barren. My advice is - go buy a copy, you won't regret it.

Personally I think it's pretty enjoyable so far, but that's because of the more causal atmosphere while FFXI is grind fest + competition atm.

Some design in that game is FFXI+1, some are FFXI-1 like that dumb AH design and LS interface(but fairly easy to fix)

It haven't offer any unique experience FFXI had offered, some experience like CoP before lv cap remove can't be found easily in other MMORPG, although I probably won't enjoy stuff like CoP nowadays, it's once in a life time experience, and not worth all the effort to experience it for second time.

I think it's just a matter of time when it become more and more FFXI like(Since SE don't have any other successful formula to follow when it comes to making a new MMORPG). I have to admit I was a bit worried.

I personally don't really want FFXIV go back to what FFXI was, it should remain as a causal friendly MMORPG like it's intended to be, hardcore players can play XI and go grind that ridiculous amount of heavy metal XD

I don't think it's really sunk in for a lot of people yet but, 1.19 is going to be just as much of a time sink/grind fest as XI was/is with the new materia system.

It didn't sink in here. I really don't want them to turn this into XI. Am I missing something again? Please explain.