Names Sugar. Nice to meet you.
For my first post I have Bitter/Sweet news. Bitter; the alpha test is ending with the last Alpha test slot tonight. That's right, no more Final Fantasy Alpha. It has been fun. For the Sweet; that means the Beta starts soon! This is what we've all been working so hard to get to. I'm surprised it's started so quickly considering how much goes into making this possible. That also means everyone needs to keep an eye out for Beta test invitations. If that isn't sweet I don't know what is.
Now, to get everyone up to date with my short trek through the alpha. I'll take you through my first couple tests, my likes, and my disappointments. That entails my first run through Limsa Lominsa, the port town, and my first quest. I also want to talk you about the guildleves, both battlefield and gathering versions and all the while I'll give you insight on the sweet and sour parts of this Alpha. I won't touch on E3 as Wicked has done that oh, so well already and I don't want my first post to become a novella. I have quite a bit on my plate already. With that said, I apologize if this seems a little half baked. I'm about to head into my Alpha test for the night in about 15 minutes and my husband keeps calling me over to help him make dinner. Ah, real life. I'll make sure my future blogs are sweeter. It's a long drive so let's get started.
Despite my excitement of being picked to join the alpha test my first night was full of real life disappointment and distraction. I had about enough time to die, pick up a guildleve, get lost in Limsa Lominsa, start a quest, and then make a quick Lalafell emote video, about 20 minutes of the 3-4 hours allotted. On that note, the emotes are pretty amazing. Voice to laughter, sound to the clap, vivid/realistic facial expressions, butt shaking... That's right. After the test ended I felt robbed and was eagerly awaiting my next chance to play.
To kill time between tests I roamed the forums. This tends to give me a chance to voice my opinions on the things obviously wrong or deliciously right with the game. Reading the other testers posts was enlightening. Especially since, being starry eyed, I was blinded by my excitement. After reading a few posts I was able to recall the things I didn't enjoy about the game. I'm going to focus on some of the problems I ran into.
One of the first things you do after landing in Limsa is start a chain of quests. This gets you acquainted, supposedly, with the area. Just FYI when you do certain parts of quests you are put in an 'instance'. This is mainly because there are special “custscenes”that are about to take place involving your character and NPCs. These NPCs only exist in this instance. You'll see all the other players that are on the same quest at the time though and can join up with them to finish together as well. Anyway, the escort quest I went on was really confusing since the NPC told me to protect her, gave me directions, but then whenever I would run ahead I would run 'out of the instance' without much warning. A lot of other testers were complaining about this too. Some didn't even finish the quest because they kept accidentally leaving the instance as the “instance” is generated just around the NPC, something I figured out by looking at the huge orange circle around her indicator on the map. Well, as I entered the instance I realized she started running crazy..so I just sat back and watched her. About the 3rd time I realized...I have to follow her! After that the quest went as smooth as silk and was quite enjoyable. She knew where she was going and all I had to do was protect her from Chigos. Ah, memories of XI...
Then there is the map and layout for limsa lominsa. If they don't change this I guarantee you will all be throwing your keyboards at your monitors in frustration so you might want to bolt your Razrs down. It literally took me 15 minutes to find the Fishing guild. On the map I was on top of it. I ran up and down the building the map said it was in and nothing! Then I decided to try going a completely illogical roundabout way, mainly to just see if I could see the dang place from the bottom, and there it was. There's a good 3-4 levels of Limsa and the map doesn't do well to tell you which bridges and levels connect to which, what level you're on, or which level the entrances are. There aren't even really any landmarks to go by. I was constantly flipping back and forth from the useless map trying to figure out how to get to certain places. It's 100xs worse than you thought Windurst could EVER be. There aren't even any warp Lalafells.
Another point I just want to get out there is concerning the “pirate talk”. While it was admittedly cute when I docked.. it soon became difficult to understand, frustrating, and then downright stupid. Not everyone talks like this, mind you, but it's just full of half words and apostrophes. Grraaaaugh! Limsa is frustrating enough, getting lost all the time, without the inhabitants not even speaking clearly.
There's also a lot of testers complaining about the camera when in battle and not being able to lock on but as I'm playing with a ps3 controller I have no problems with any of that. It's got the same exact game pad setup as XI. You lock on with L3 and control the camera with the right analog stick. That's a problem though as not everyone likes to play with a game pad or can. The gamepad is not without flaws either. When I locked on to flying targets the camera would lay down on the floor and look up underneath the target. I did try the keyboard when I first started and the camera downright made me sick. It was like moving through sand. You move your character with the keyboard and the camera with the mouse. Weird thing is the camera won't do crap unless you move it. There's no auto follow for it at all and since the camera moves at a vastly slower speed than the character, you end up spinning around a lot. At the rate people are complaining I imagine this will be fixed quickly.
During my last test session I decided to really try the guildleve again and after I finally figured it out I really enjoyed it. You get your Guildleve in the city, teleport to the Aetheryte camp it tells you to, activate the leve by talking to the Aetheryte there, the music begins to rock out, and then some arrows appear on your mini map and you're off! It's a really neat take on questing. When you get to the area the arrows are pointing there is a dim orange circle surrounding the area on your map that where the target resides. After you kill everything there, the arrows pop back up, and you follow them to the next area. Some tutorials would have been nice explaining how to activate the leve as I would have been able to try this the test session before last. Even this time I didn't notice the orange circle until a few seconds after running out of it. It was fun though. The beloved FF fan fare plays after you're done and you receive your gil, exp, and prizes right after on the spot. A glowing light appears and after clicking on it you're teleported back to the Aetheryte Camp you started from. For Guildleves you're not 'instanced' or 'phased' out of the normal realm. You can team up and set the difficulty of the leve before you start it. Such as choose how many players are going to be involved etc... I haven't tried this but I would imagine it would be pretty fun.
I was also able to try out a mining Guildleve. I really enjoyed this. The system is very different from your normal point, click, mine. The mining, and possibly gathering, system is much more interactive and intuitive. You keep your one pickaxe, no need to stack or run back to town to get more, and find your mining point.
Let's walk through the mining system briefly. We all know your 'job' is decided by your weapon. So, once you equip your pickaxe you are presented with an action bar with attacks and abilities tailored for said job. That said, you have an ability to search for the nearest mining point and how far away it is for you, represented in 'Malms'. After finding the mining point you begin mining by targeting and selecting the point. A circle appears on your screen as well as a health bar of the excavation point. After starting to mine an orange circle grows larger and smaller inside the aforementioned circle. You hit the enter/X button and the circle stops alternating and your character mines. You receive your ore/items and the excavation point collapses. Now, I would really appreciate a tutorial for my first trip mining as I wasn't and am still not completely sure how I'm supposed to be timing the circle to stop. However, I was able to complete my mining guildleve so I can't really complain. I'll figure out more the more I get to mine.
I have to make mention that I'm very very impressed with how much I can get done in the relatively short amount of time given. I wouldn't call it casual, just yet, but it's certainly easy to get stuff done quickly and on your own. As I stated before, this is the last Alpha test, and while I haven't been a part of it long I have been able to try out just about everything and get a good feel for it.
Again I apologize for any disjointedness or if any of your are intimidated by my wall of words but that's my alpha in a nutshell. I hope the beta is as productive as the alpha. Trust Wicked and I will be bringing you every drop of information we can get our minds wrapped around as soon as the beta starts.
Thanks to Wicked for allowing me to be apart of her awesome blog. I guess it's not too bad for my very first real blog ever and I hope I can bring you a more refined version of my SugarSpeak
That's a big dose of Sugar and I'll see you in the Beta!
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