Question To Retry This Game

So since my laptop can't play this game but I'll be going home for thanksgiving in a few weeks.and was thinking of retrying the game on my desktop.
Was wondering w/o wanting to read through all the patch notes and stuff

Where's the game at, and whats some of the plans for future development?

or is there a nifty article that covers all of that in a brief description?

First question, when did you start playing and when did you leave? There has been a very long list of changes and it would help if we didn't need to summarize all of them for you since release.

Started at release, stopped playing 2 months after :S

Yeah you've missed quite a bit then. I'll try to mention the major changes that made an impression on me; however, there are dozens and dozens of pages of patch notes, JP-> English translations, and letters from the editor to try to summarize. I haven't been able to read them all but as a dedicated player I can comment on some of the changes that have affected me.

The market wards have a search function now and a good one at that. Very similar to the AH of FFXI minus the bidding of course.

Many many more mobs have been added and spawn rates increased, allowing for feasible exp grind camps located allover Eorzea.

User interface and battle changes including different types of targeting systems, HUD changes and new skill animations.

Light and full party bonus added to encourage party play, as well as increased exp gained from leves.

Grand companies, new story content, dungeons, open area raids and there are over 130 quests now.

Grinding is more fun due to exp chains and link bonus, leve linking and leve allowances. (you can do up to 99 leves a week at anytime you want).

Chocobos and airships. amazing to help travel. the return teleport is free now with a 15min cooldown.

Repairing items has been simplified drastically. grade 1-5 dark matter is the only repair item needed.

Crafting recipes have been simplified as well.

Battling is more challenging due to healing enmity and mob stat changes.

Physical level has been removed. Stat allotment has been removed temporarily with a plan to re-implement. Battle regimen has been removed temporarily also with a plan to re-implement something similar.

Lots of changes to job skills across the board. Too many to list really but in my opinion they were for the better.

Materia has been added to allow you to add stats to gear

As for the planned direction if the game Yoshi has mentioned that there will be more new content coming in the future in the form of storyline quests, advanced jobs, raids, quests and the like. However, Ifrit, materia, raids and better grinding will easily keep us busy until the next patch comes.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the progress that has been made and continues to be made with this game and I would recommend you give it another chance. Keep in mind that you are very far behind since all of this new content has been released and you will need a lot of help to catch up. Getting a personal chocobo is going to be difficult, but you can rent them too. You will need a whole new set of gear, but lower rank sets are relatively inexpensive. Most things are based on having a party to play with and they are really trying to push teamwork so you will need to find yourself a linkshell.

I'm sure there are many other things I failed to touch upon, especially in the crafting department consider I'm lacking in that area. Later in the day I'm sure more people will chime in to add their observations, comments, criticisms and hopes for the game. Read and learn and hopefully you decide to give it another try.

sounds good.

Do you think they will try to incorporate the original FF jobs into this game? Or they still doing a unique approach?

cant really solo well anymore but i guess thats ok with the more exp you get from leves :P

That's what I thought, but recently as I've gotten my Lancer up higher I'm finding it's class dependent, and possibly skill dependent, luck and mob type. Like, on my Conjurer stuff can suck to solo my level because it requires a lot of MP to nuke down and keep myself alive, whereas lately with Lancer (which is a bloody beast now compared to what it was when 14 was released), I can chain stuff up to 2 levels higher than me (was chaining lv37-39 cactuars) solo without a need to rest. But the solo leves are still faster than solo grinding lol.

wHM and BLM have already been mentioned, and infact, both are on the cover on the most recent famicon magazine thingy. along with what lokos like Dragoon bard? and warrior. Paladin has also been mentioned

Aye,

White Mage, Black Mage, Monk, Paladin, Dragoon, Bard, and Warrior were announced for the "Job system" being implemented in 1.21 I believe.

i also read somewhere(could be false) that whm+blm will allow you to be a RDM. tho im not sure how it works

That is just a rumor at the moment Rinnsi. Similar to the Thm+Mrd would be a dark knight. For the first wave of advanced jobs Yoshi is going to keep it to a one class requirement. I.E. if you have Mrd to 50 you can unlock warrior. He will add class combinations later for even more advanced job types as the game progresses.

i hope we get DRK, would be pretty nice, conidering its an oldschool job. well, since 4 is it oldschool if it wasn't in 3? anyway, im just curious how this will work? new weapons? or will you be able to choose what class,w ehn you equip it?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Idk, I feel they will eventually have to do away with the whole "Changing weapons = changing class" thing, especially if more classes are to be added.

They can't just add a new weapon type for every class. I mean, stuff like Dark Knight would be easy (Scythe, duh). But what about Paladin? Gladiator uses sword/shield, so what would you use to change to Paladin instead? Unless they had added completely new sets of swords that only Paladin could use (which is just dumb). Also Gladiator's have a lot of daggers, so what would a Thief/rogue type character use?

Just seems kind of awkward the way it is now.