地獄からのゲーマー暴言

          So sorry for falling of the face of the earth and all. I'm back for a post. Can't say how frequent I'll be. Got some real life trouble and I simply must focus on that. For now though I decided to take a minute to talk about my thoughts on XIV. I'm not going to go into all the surplus drama and I'm trying to be as unbiased as I can be when I rant. So stay with me.

          One thing I just don't understand is why people insist on comparing XIV to WoW. People who play WoW are shunned. If you mention anything negative about XIV or XI you're told to go back to WoW with the rest of the preschool-MMOers. Even as an SE/FF fan it's hard to sit there and listen to a calm "WoW player" really trying to give XIV a chance only to be berated by a group of XIV testers. I start to wonder...who is the preschooler here. Not all of the fan are like this but there are enough of them there to give the group as a whole a bad name. It goes both ways, generally, but playing WoW I have yet to have anyone tell me to "Go back to XI". I can not stand to hear, "Go back to WoW!" anymore. It's just ignorant and unnecessary. Especially if you've never played it.

          I loved and miss XI but I do feel XI is 'harder' and requires skill, determination, and most of all, time. This in no way shape or form means that people who play XI are better gamers than people who play WoW. WoW brings some great things to the table that XI just couldn't offer. PVP and Raiding do present a set of skills that I had to acquire when I started playing. I also love that I can hop on, quickly group, get stuff done, log out, then jet out for grocery shopping. Each is a great ride and I implore everyone to give each an unbiased chance. As far as XIV is concerned..Let's not compare 10% of Beta XIV to the polished monster that is WoW. :)

          Now, back on topic with XIV. Anyone who gives any type of negative feedback for XIV as it stands gets yelled at or shot down. Usually in a humiliating and degrading flurry of words. This doesn't change the factoid that the game is still flawed. That's why it's in Beta..(I'm looking at you retainer/market ward system. What's funny is all during Alpha all we did as testers was give mainly negative feedback. We complained what was wrong with the game and SE tried their best to fix it within their parameters for the game. Now it's an all out war. When a new game comes out you usually do some research before you decide to throw down on it. Even moreso when the game is going to require a subscription. That's all a lot of people are concerned with. I know SE will fix the game and it will run smoothly one day. Most likely not tomorrow, not during release month, but one day. That's how MMOs work and the majority of us accept that. But to get people to 'hold' the game the game has to intrigue and excite.(Anyone remember WoW...go youtube the early years *cringe*)

          What has me concerned aside from my financial stand, is the content. I have no doubt there will be quests and an epic storyline,(did you see the videos SE released?!). Right now though SE hasn't really said anything about the player's goal. I wish SE had given us a bit more than just the leves and a taste of the main storyline to mess with for 2 weeks. All of us from Alpha/Beta have done this 5 times over. What am I doing leves and quests for? What kind of end game am I looking forward to? Have they decided on these things yet? What do I do when I hit cap? How are DoH/DoL classes going to participate in an end-game scenario? Why are they not releasing anymore information on subjects like these? XIV has potential to be wonderful and I just want to know what I'm getting into since the OB gives nothing on this.

          The sad thing is Open Beta sounds like Demo to most and will be a deciding factor for a lot of people buying at release. I've heard a lot of people take the ignorant stand on this with, "..that's just less lag for me." or "..No skin off my back, their loss" but you have to understand release sales can say a lot about an MMOs lifespan. I'm not saying beg people to stay or jump ship before it sinks I'm just trying to explain why these are things we should kinda be concerned about. Typically if it stalls right out of the gate people are going to forget it was even there. Even if it is a Final Fantasy title. I'm not even going to go into the fact that 2011 is going to practically be the year of the MMO...Okay maybe a little...Firefall from Red 5 studios (OMG), Blade and Soul <3, Tera online, WoW:Cataclysm, The Secret World (XD), Star Wars! TIDAL WAVE OF MMO!

          I didn't care for XI when I beta tested it either though but I went on to play that for 5 years so I haven't given up hope. As it stands I don't wanna play Beta anymore. All of the fans, newcomers, strays,...give the release a chance! I want to play the real thing please!! Enough watered down XIV!

           Hey, guys. Sugar here with an interesting tidbit of information straight from Alpha/Beta Limbo!

           Without much warning and no information on the upcoming beta for FFXIV, SE has updated the online manual available to the testers. No doubt in preparation for the Beta they added three new subheadings entitled “Market Wards”, "Logging and Harvesting", and “Retainers”. There have also been a few changes announced from Alpha to Beta that I'd like to touch on. These additions are no doubt in direct correlation to the Beta giving us a 'preview' of what to expect. However, since the Beta has yet to go live I'll do my best to explain what these are and how they work based on the description given in the manual. Please keep in mind this is most likely subject to change until we are able to test these live. I recommend you take it with a grain of sugar. ;)

Famitsu Exlusive with Tanaka and Komoto

FFXIV Lounge!

Thanks to the effort of the creator of FFXIV Lounge, he has brought forth a collection of Benchmarks which are believed to be a good basis to test if your system can handle FFXIV.

          Personally, I've read that as long as you can play Last Remnant you can play FFXIV very well. Two additional links provided just for a comparison basis.

Here are the links provided by Creator of FFXIV Lounge.
Last Remnant
Final Fantasy 11
Resident Evil 5

Enjoy, post your scores here or at FFXIV Lounge

Test Specs Oc'd 9800 GTX+, 3.4 Kuma Dual Core Res 1600x1200 85hz
Last Remnant Scores Average 75  Min/Max 70/119
Final Fantasy 11 Scores 7301
Resident Evil 5: Average 57 at max everything

Paradox PC & Gaming Rig X001 aka ChaosRig01

AMD Kuma 2.9 Dual Core(OC'd to 3.4GHZ) 1066mhz Bus with a CoolerMaster V8

4GB DDR3 RAM(Soon to be upgraded to 8 because I don't like being restricted)

21 inch CRT Trinitron 1600x1200 85hz Res

1TB SATA 7200(Soon to add another TB because I'm almost full @_@)

Nvidia 9800 GTX+ Superclocked OC'd 1198 VRAM Core 819(The new GTX line doesn't impress me yet as this baby can still do it all)

Windows Vista Custom(by PPG, yes I am the owner of this little company =3 )

and these are the expected requirements for 14

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2GHz) \ AMD Athlon X2 (2GHz)
• RAM: 1.5 GB Ram
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 VRAM 256 MB or equivalent