Final Fantasy XIV (14) Online - Coming 2010 - Exclusively to PS3

Jan 29, 2009
7,187
Sony reveals the next Final Fantasy title will be an exclusive PS3 MMO, coming 2010

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Box Art:

FinalFantasy14BoxArt.jpg

Trailers:



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The clans of Final Fantasy XIV detailed

The official website for Square Enix’s forthcoming Final Fantasy XIV has been updated, revealing more information about the clans in each race. The five races each have a pair of clans to choose, each with different lore that is sure to add quite a bit of depth to the game.

Final Fantasy XIV is set for a simultaneous global release this year on PlayStation 3 and PC.

We’ve put together a little outline highlighting the different clans background.

The Elezen

Wildwood Elezen – Possessing a keen sense of sight, the Wildwood clan are expert archers. After hundreds of years living in the forests, they have emerged to urban centers or to live more nomadic lives on the plains.

Duskwight Elezen – The Duskwight clan have the ability of detecting the faintest sounds, making them a perfect build for hand-to-hand combat. They are a bit like scavengers, robbing and pillaging to survive.

ffxivduskwright2.bmp

The Lalafell

Plainsfolk – The Plainsfolk live in thatched huts, with intricate passageways underground. Their long ears allow them to hear the faintest sounds.

Dunesfolk – With distinct eyes covered by a protective layer, a response to the glaring sunlight of their home region, the Dunesfolk live on structures stuck to backs of large beasts of burden.

The Hyur

Midland – The Midland are the larger of the two Hyur clans, establishing themselves through every city in the realm. They are some of the most educated members of the game.

Highlanders – Living mostly in mountainous regions of Eorzea, the Highlanders are bigger than their Midland counterparts. They are quite rare and work as mercenaries.

ffxivmidland2.bmp

The Roegadyn

Sea Wolves – Besides sounding like a new species of animal you’d see at a zoo, the Sea Wolves work as sailors or naval mercenaries. Their history consists of living on islands on the north seas and working as fishermen.

Hellsguard – The Hellsguard are all about the volcanic region they inhabit – both in body and mind. They believe the mountains of flames are doorways to the underworld, making them act as gatekeepers.

The Miqo’te

Seekers of the Sun – The Seekers of the Sun have a preference for the light of day. They have a devout reverence for Azeyma the Warden, goddess of the sun.

Keepers of the Moon – These are the more nocturnal of the Miqo’te clans. They worship the goddess of the moon, Menphina the Lover.

ffxivseekers2.bmp

you mean to tell me that girl in the middle is a Mercenarie? ummmmmm, i once stole some cash from my neighbor when i was a kid, i think there might be a bounty on my head, hope she comes after me :p lol
 
This isn't our first time to hear all of this information, but a lot of it is new.

Remember that these are leaked details (found here via andriasang, but translated by us). Though all information below is likely true, the magazine won't hit shelves until Thursday and Friday here in Japan (depending on the area). This information will be updated/edited as necessary.

* The tempo of combat in the alpha test was/is poor and explanations insufficient, but the beta test will improve upon this by making it easier to string together consecutive attacks; the changes will result in a completely different system.
* It will be easier to save Gil this time around.
* The alpha version's graphics use something called "Project Shadows" while the beta version will use "Depth Buffer Shadows." You can see a comparison at the end of this thread.
* Limsa Lominsa will have two levels, the meaning of which is not quite clear. A hierarchy perhaps?
* The chat log will see a large variety of filtering options in phase 2 of the alpha test. They were unable to be completed in time for phase 1.
* Preparations for large-scale housing similar to Final Fantasy XI's Mog House are currently under way.
* Additional participants have already been chosen via a drawing for phase two of the alpha test; however, they have yet to be notified.
* Your character's god/deity can be chosen during the character creation process.
* Methods of transportation will include chocobos, carriages, boats and airships.
* Item customization will include the selection of materials, colors and a variety of possible inscriptions.
 
Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka has said that Square Enix currently has “no plans” for an Xbox 360 version of his game, although he did admit that the company is “still in talks with Microsoft”.

Speaking in an E3 interview with RPG Site, Tanaka said the company is only working on the “PS3 and Windows version of the game” at the moment.

Elsewhere in the interview Tanaka said that while the version shown on the E3 show floor was running with a full resolution of 1080p, the final PS3 version won’t support this.

“The PS3 version will be running in 720p in order to ensure performance remains high quality, but the PC version can go up to 1080p if your machine is powerful enough. We also support multiple displays, so players can use two or three displays to show the game.”

Finally, the producer said the game is still on track to be released before the end of the year.

“Yes, that is the plan,” he said. “In fact, we were planning to bring the director, Komoto-san to this interview as well, but he had to remain in Japan to work on the game, so it is really at a critical finishing stage at the moment.”

Final Fantasy XIV Online was unveiled by Square at Sony’s E3 press conference last year.
 
So I was just passing through the Square Enix booth at E3 and I noticed a door slightly ajar. I can never resist a slightly ajar door so I poked my head in to find Hiromichi Tanaka, senior vice president of software development, sitting down for a Final Fantasy XIV round table interview. There was a spare seat so I sat down, whistling behind a newspaper, and asked a few questions of my own.

As an extra titbit, there was PC monitor running the game in stereoscopic 3D in the same room, although Tanaka told me that this was purely a technical demonstration and he wouldn’t be drawn when I asked if they had any 3D plans for the PS3 version of the game.

How do you feel about the challenge of developing the first MMO on PlayStation 3?

“We had a similar experience with Final Fantasy XI as that was the first MMO on PlayStation 2 [in Japan only]. So this time, things came quite naturally for us and it helped us having the technology in mind from the very beginning.”

How do you intend to reach out to those console gamers that haven’t experienced an MMO before and are used to more instant gratification in their games?

“Because Final Fantasy XIV is designed as a cross-platform MMO, there is no difference between the PC version and the PS3 version. We believe that previous attempts to bring MMOs to consoles have been unsuccessful because they focused too much on adapting their style to suit that audience and they lost the feel of a true MMO. Therefore, regardless of the platform, we are aiming to produce a real MMO with Final Fantasy XIV.”

How much co-operation has there been between you and Sony Computer Entertainment in bringing an MMO to PS3?

“Sony [Computer Entertainment] has been extremely helpful to us, particularly with technical data while we were at the programming stage of development. We’ve also held talks regarding PlayStation Network functionality and we will be making the most of what that offers, integrating trophies and other features.”

What do you think of the PlayStation Move motion controller?

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had chance to try it out yet but we’ve heard very interesting things about it and we’d like to look at supporting it in Final Fantasy XIV, if we get the chance to do so. However, at the moment I would say that there are no current plans.”

blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/06/21/e3-interview-final-fantasy-xiv/
 
FF XIV Preview

After only being able to spend five minutes or so with Final Fantasy XIV at E3, I anxiously awaited a chance to sit down with the beta version in the comfort of my own home. I've been playing the beta for a few weeks now, and can now exclusively offer you impressions from the Final Fantasy XIV beta so far.

Character Creation

Character creation in Final Fantasy XIV is potentially an extended affair, and I spent a good 30 minutes playing with it before settling on a Wildwood Elezen Thaumaturge. Players should have a lot of fun with this when the game is released, as there are a number of large and small details you can edit. For races divided into multiple clans, each had a number of unique "characteristics," like scars, tattoos and even mutton chops that were unique to their clan to help you tell your Wildwood and Duskwight Elezen apart.

Our one complaint with character customization? Some clans had limited face and hair choices, with only a handful of too-similar options. Hiromichi Tanaka, Final Fantasy XIV's producer, suggested at E3 that we may see more customization options in the final release, and hopefully some or all of them will be in the highly visible hairstyle and face departments.

Beginning My Journey

Those that have run the Official Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark program know how our freshly-minted Elezen's journey begins. Awoken on his ocean voyage to Limsa-Lominsa by a mysterious voice, he has an ominous vision, and helps fend off the sea monsters attacking the ship.

After some brief instruction on combat basics, the tutorial battle against a single Frenzied Aurelia is short and simple. While my two Thaumaturgy spells, Scourge and Banish, have no effect on the floating jellyfish-like monster, a handful of Spirit Dart attacks dispatch it quickly. I'm never in any danger of actually losing, but just in case, AI-controlled NPCs come and heal me occasionally -- no doubt to help the relatively combat-deficient gathering and crafting classes get started.

With the Aurelia defeated, an enormous sea serpent jumps over the ship. Could that be? Leviathan? As our hero basks in the sea serpent's spray, a rambling, choral song fills the air? that only he heard, apparently.

While not available in the beta, it seems likely that characters starting in the forest nation of Gridania and the desert nation of Ul'dah will have completely different, if equally epic, opening sequences like the above.

La Noscea

After landing in Limsa-Lominsa and asking around about the "shapeless melody" I heard, a friendly pirate bartender instructs me to activate the Camp Bearded Rock Aetheryte Crystal in La Noscea (the rocky coastal region just outside of town). After making our way through the labyrinthine Limsa-Lominsa with the help of the map, I arrive outside.

Stepping out into Limsa-Lominsa, it becomes clear just how big the world of Eorzea really is. La Noscea itself is enormous, seemingly ten times the size of Final Fantasy XI's starting zones. With rocky, Maine-like cliffs and a number of caves leading to beaches and canyons, there seems to be plenty to explore.

Scattered throughout La Noscea are several camps, a small staging area built around an Aetheryte Crystal, and Aether Gates, which offer one-way transportation back to the nearest camp. Interacting with these will "attune" the player to them, allowing them to teleport back later using their character's own spiritual energy -- making travel to previously visited areas instantaneous.

La Noscea is home to more than gorgeous scenery, and abounds with monsters. Exploring the region, I discover more than twenty different types of monsters, ranging from tiny rats and beetles to massive demon toads and rat-men. Naturally, a number of these monsters are quite cute, such as the curl-nosed sheep and little hopping hairballs known as "furbles."

Guildleves

After taking in the sights, I arrive at Camp Bearded Rock after a quick jog north and teleport back to town. Anxious to kill some things, I make a beeline for the Guildleve (FFXIV's name for quests/instances) counter, activate the three available to me, and then teleport back to the camp. Interacting with the Aetheryte crystal again, I activate my Guildleves, put them at "solo" difficulty, and set about my slaughter.

All the combat Guildleves so far involve finding and killing a handful of monsters: adorable sheep, tiny bats, and butt-faced molerats. The Levequest helpfully facilitates the finding of my prey, with arrows on the minimap guiding me to their spawn areas, and then reserving the monsters for me once I was in their area (so I wasn't competing against other players). In all three cases, the Guildleves took about 10 minutes or so, and I get rewarded with money, experience points, and gear.

Each time the player completes a Guildleve, they'll be able stack points awarded from that onto subsequent leves, which in turn improve the rewards. And while each player is limited to initiating three Guildleves every two Earth days, they can participate in them when partied with others all day long, if they like.

Combat and Leveling

Solo combat is pretty simple: find a target, draw your weapon and start whacking away. While engaged, your stamina constantly builds, and each action depletes it. You're free to spam as many attacks as you want, provided you have the stamina -- use too much, and you'll have to wait.

After experimenting with most of the combat classes, it's clear that melee classes are currently at an advantage. Not only do they kill things faster, they don't have to worry about running out of MP to stay alive, and can sojourn out longer without having to return to a camp or gate to restore their MP.

As you thin the La Noscea pest population, your character will accrue skill and experience: skill raises your class rank, earning you new abilities and spells, while experience levels up your character's "physical level." Physical level is constant across all classes, regardless of their rank, meaning that as you raise other class ranks, the higher your physical level, the faster a new class will be able to progress.

Growing Your Character

Final Fantasy XIV's director, Nobuaki Komoto, says the game's primary theme is "growth," and this comes across most in the impressive character customization options.

Each time your character reaches a new physical level, they'll be awarded points to allocate towards stats. A character's HP and MP are a function of their class rank and physical level, but the player can add points to the six main stats and elemental resistances however they please. Building a warrior? Load up on Strength, Dexterity and Vitality. Building a mage? Load up on Intelligence, Mind and Piety. Don't worry, though -- you can reallocate stats any time you please, if you make a mistake or change classes.

Changing classes may be simply a matter of equipping a different weapon, but the more classes you level, the more versatile and robust your character will become. Once an ability or trait has been learned on one class, it can be used on all other classes. There are a few class-exclusive abilities, and some abilities and spells are weaker when used on other classes, but all in all, there is a huge level of customizability.

Eorzea Awaits

Final Fantasy XIV is now in the "beta 2" phase, with the next phase starting up shortly and promising tons of new features and tweaks. In the meantime, every two weeks, we'll be posting a new FFXIV beta report in 1UP's RPG Blog The Grind up until the game's September 30 release date.

1up.com/do/reviewPage?pager.offset=1&cId=3180680&p=
 
Square reveals FFXIV PS3 delay was down to "memory"

Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka has revealed that the PlayStation 3 version of the upcoming MMO title was postponed due to “memory” issues.

Chatting with VG247 at GamesCom last week via a translator, Tanaka commented, “The main reason was the memory,” adding, “On the PC, they have enormous memory. For PS3, there’s a restriction."

"They are adjusting the memory size and customising it; it took longer then we were expecting. But we’re really working hard to bring it out as soon as possible.”

Quizzed as to whether or not this was a memory issue relating to either Blu-ray or HDD, he simply replied “Memory” in English.
 
Final Fantasy XIV: “Players Only Allowed 1 Hour a Day”

Square Enix is introducing a “fatigue” system to upcoming MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV which will apparently see players hit with crippling penalties if they play more than an hour a day, with those daring to play more than 4 hours having their XP reduced to 0.

Square Enix acknowledge the existence of the system in an interview and in previous comments, but are strangely reticent about providing specifics:

Tell us about the “fatigue” and “dormancy” systems please.

We wanted to introduce a system to reward players who don’t have a lot of time to play. Maybe it looks as though we are placing long playing users at a disadvantage, but the idea is really to let play for short periods be viable.

Won’t that cause some concern amongst players who play for longer?

We want these players to try different classes. If you change class the fatigue doesn’t affect you, so you could try non-combat classes as well. You actually have more play choices now as you can make more characters.

“Some concern” may be a colossal understatement if early reports of just how draconian the limits are turn out to be correct:

Fatigue goes up to about 50% in 2 hours, and it takes 2 days to go down! So, if you play 4 hours you have to stop playing completely for 2 days!

WHAT!?

Only 1 hour a day!

What’s really amazing is that you have to pay a monthly subscription for this…

They can’t get away with this on a subscription game. They’ll be sued!

So you get bonuses for staying logged out – the servers are going to be nice and quiet, aren’t they!

More on the “dormancy” system:

Recovery takes time.

2 hours of combat or 1 hour of craft will induce “dormancy.”

The dormancy is actually shared over different characters.

It will decrease gains to 0% in the end.

It seems to be proportional to the amount of XP you earn.

Both light and heavy player are going to weep...

Such systems are not unique, but Square Enix appears to have taken the system to an extreme likely to either completely eliminate its “hardcore” player strata – to say nothing of its high-handedness in dictating to players that they can only play an hour day.
 
Square Enix on FF14: “Players Get 8 Hours a Week”

Square Enix have finally clarified how their controversial “fatigue” system for limiting player advancement in Final Fantasy XIV works – players are not after all limited to 1 hour of play a day, but instead to a much more generous 8 hours a week.

The announcement was made on the internal Final Fantasy XIV beta tester site by the game’s director Nobuaki Komoto, and has since been reproduced by multiple sources:

In summary:

Players earn XP at 100% for the first 8 hours.

For 7 hours over this limit the XP received decreases to 0%.

The time limit for the playtime counter to reset is 1 week.

The XP gain limit is not tied to any class/job but is per character.

Drops and loot are not affected by the XP “fatigue.”

Strangely, this is not so far off the “1 hour a day” limit which caused so much controversy – and hardly “fabrication” and “delusion” as Square Enix put it not s
 
i've been looking forward to this, but seriously 1 hour a day to xp! BS i used to go 8+ hours in one day on FFXI... Im sorry but i dont want to keep changing classes just to xp, i usually stick to mages and want to keep extra items clogging up my mog house just so i can xp...
And getting penalized for crafting too!? W0W!
 
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WTF? I know one game i'll pass on! I can't see being forced to pay a monthly fee, then being told I can't play but a certain amount of time.

Then there will be those trophy grinds that require like 1,000 hours of game play...

It'd take 2.4 years to get the trophies at that rate. Greedy much?

(assuming my math isn't wrong)
 
WTF? I know one game i'll pass on! I can't see being forced to pay a monthly fee, then being told I can't play but a certain amount of time.

Then there will be those trophy grinds that require like 1,000 hours of game play...

It'd take 2.4 years to get the trophies at that rate. Greedy much?

(assuming my math isn't wrong)

I guess they dont want my money either.... FFXI took too much of my time and money too. I guess this will please the wife, i already got warned about this game lol.
 
Final Fantasy XIV Trailer Asks - "Radiant Glory? Or Heinous Oblivion?"

In Final Fantasy XIV Online, "the uncertain future weighs upon our souls", apparently. Or at least it will when the game comes out next year.

Square Enix is back doing what it does best once again, with a fantastic new Final Fantasy XIV CG trailer showing some of the epic action unfolding in the world of Eorzea.

And we're reminded that although the choice of 'radiant glory or heinous oblivion' might be a clear cut one, you won't be alone in achieving said radiant glory, which makes sense given that FFXIV is a PS3 MMO.

Final Fantasy XIV Online is due out in March 2011. Check out the new video in the OP.
 
Final Fantasy XIV Open Beta Sparks Canceled PreOrders

Final Fantasy XIV is scheduled to release worldwide for the PC later this month. Right now the game is currently undergoing an open beta test that had been delayed by a couple of days last week due to “crucial bugs”.

Since the open beta went live eager gamers were greeted by long downloads, server errors, emergency maitenance and numerous instances of server congestion. Such problems should be expected when a large amount of people attempt to download and then log into the game all at once. For some who finally do manage to gain access to all that FFXIV has to offer their excitement quickly evolves into discontent.

Final Fantasy XIV is without question a gorgeous game but looks aren’t everything. With 24 days left before a worldwide release, open beta testers are reporting issues within the game world that one would think would have been resolved at this point.

Among the many complaints made by numerous OPT include: ”interesting huge world, but it’s empty”, “you’re given 8 rather short kill quests on a 48 hour cooldown”, “not enough content”, “ridiculously high ( PC ) requirements”, “MP doesn’t regenerate when you heal”, “little-to-no-tutorials”, “bad targeting system”, “very repetitive”, “server crashes” and ” clunky party search functionality.”
Since open beta runs on the same system and programming code as the final version and with the game launching worldwide on September 30th, many testers have come to the conclusion that FFXIV will be a bit of a mess at launch and have decided to cancel their preorders or wait until the PS3 releases next year. Others continue to hold out hope that the mmorpg will improve when it launches for the world this month.
24 days and counting.

thesilentchief.com/2010/09/06/final-fantasy-xiv-open-beta-sparks-canceled-preorders/
 
Latest Final Fantasy XIV CG Trailer Is The Very Definition of Epic

Square Enix shows once again that they're the experts when it comes to putting together an amazing trailer with the latest Final Fantasy XIV video for the Tokyo Game Show later this year, which sees the game's band of merry adventurers clubbing together to battle the forces of evil.

The CG TGS trailer ticks all of the right boxes, featuring a battle with a huge Marlboro monster, some airborne action with an immense Bahamut-like dragon, some spells, swords and a bit of archery. In short, it's awesome.

Essential viewing then. Check out the trailer right here. Final Fantasy XIV Online is due for release in March 2011.

Check out the video in the OP.