Final Fantasy XIV, is it worth it yet?

I played FF XI online and that has always been my favorite MMO, I have played wow and some others but it was FFXI that really stuck in my mind as what a MMO should be.
That said, I was expecting FFXIV to be XI cracked out on gorgeous, but I can't find a positive review anywhere =( Does any one here play it and can vouche for even a modicum of fun? Or I am reinstalling XI this winter?
Thanks in advance,
Edgar

 

well im currently at around 90hrs and for me anyway it just gets better and better, an update today largely fixed the buying and selling of items by dividing the markets into sections, menus feel less sloppy and im happy with progress, its still not the finished product but its definitely heading in the right direction and all and all im having huge fun with the game, its got a very steep learning curve and id recommend getting into a LinkShell ASAP, but it one of those games that is way better and more fun as time goes by......

 

Id play MMO again if I had the time. I dont like how FF is so linkshell driven though. If you cant find the time and people to play with you cant do much in the game (atleast on the old one) PUG was a nightmare and often it would take 2 or 3 hours for me to just get a party that would shortly disband 30 min later.

WoW for me was better in this aspect I could do some stuff solo pretty much at all times and PUG were pretty easy to find and often effective. You only need a group for raiding and that was usually a 1 of 2 times a week thing.

 

It had sooooooo much potential, but there are some major problems with the game, and for once, gamespot's review highlights pretty much all of them. Honestly, I just don't think patches can make the game that much better:

Final Fantasy XIV Online Review for PC - GameSpot

 

I know it got bad reviews, but all of them are of the launch product, and like someone said MMOs get better with time, it's not been long since launch I know, but I was just curious if it had improved. I'm really hoping the patches improve this game!

 

Looks like the devs are coming around to a lot of complaints....

FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

I would give it a bit before you try it for the first time.

 

Not quite. Launch for MMO tends to be unsteady. But the complaints are usually minor for example, lag, server issues. Not the game itself. WoW launch wasn't awesome, but the game itself still reveived tons of praise and tons of people loved the game.

Games that didn't impress at launch don't get the fans back. Age of Conan marketing was immense. But after 2 weeks of play, players left. AoC supposedly has "improved" but they didn't get the players back.

Warhammer Online again, after 2 weeks, people left. Warhammer Online has had numerous updates and lots of improvements. The players haven't returned.

For FF XIV, the game itself is the complaint. The launch actually went well. Server issues, lag, etc was pretty smooth. And neither AoC or War hammer received any reviews similar to FF XIV that said, don't waste your time, don't play this, this game is garbage.

Aion Online is a different story than the above as they have their own niche. Players who play Aion like the Asian style, appearance and they play Aion because they don't like WoW, Warhammer, AoC etc. FF XIV could have attracted some people from Aion, but not at this state. Aion has PvP and doesn't reuse texture dozens of times, the game interface and everything is considered great as it's based on WoW. Essentially WoW for Asian MMO fans. That's why Aion population has held steady. AoC and Warhammer competes with WoW for subscribers, Aion does not.

Do you see the difference?

 

Ok, this is not wow, or any other quick fix mmo, if you played FFXI you know what your getting into. Tons of complexity. The original idea was that the game was complex, your not gonna pick it up in one sitting, but like anything over time understand the mechanics and slowly build up. If you have a hard time getting passed the first 10 hours, wow is the game for you. This games about crafting, questing, grinding, farming, all the hard stuff. It like FFXI did in the past forces you to party up or get into linkshells.

Now, I can admit there was a few issues the game needed to fix, 1. the difficulty of crafting, items were already getting expensive, (undyed Canvas) but theyve lowered some of the recipe levels. 2. the market system. Its a bit better now but in there late november fix its gonna have a search function. They are staying with this system, and I believe the reason is for more of a realistic market, not just a full listed auction house, and so prices for items are fair, once someone can sell something for alot of money on the auction house, the price is for ever raised. The market system protects against that because there wont be one unified list showing the prices, rather a search list of someone selling it, then you have to go find the lowest price yourself.

This protects against inflating economy , which FFXI was horrible for. This game is definitely made for the ffXI fan in mind. Theres also an update coming late november with more fixes.

 

MMOS are a great genre of gaming. They are fun, exciting, involving and relaxing. Iv played just about every pay too play mmo that has ever come out. FFXIV I would buy in a second if I had a new laptop(still saving heh for m11x alienware), but Im a huge mmo fan. Most casual players would probubly be discusted that they spent there time and money on ffxiv and get frusterated. I cant recommend this game to anyone, as it has the lowest scores any mmo thats pay to play has ever goton on gamespot.

There are many other great mmos to look frward to; rift: planes of telara, Tera online, Guild wars 2, Star wars: the Old Republic and more if you search. Most will come out next year, at the first and second quarter. All these games are going to be better then FFXIV, so dont waiste your money and time on ffxiv, Also check out the Secret world, my favorite mmo in development by funcom.

 

Is this one of those games where you HAVE to spend 100s of hours playing? I don't have that much time(The reason I stay away from MMOs) but this game does look cool.

 

Id say its a pretty safe bet that you cant play FFXIV "casually" and need to put a lot of time into it to really get a good experience.

If the reveiw from gamespot is right looks like a lot of time is needed just to get past the learning curve of no hotkeys, finding vendors, navigating with a poor map etc.

Not to mention having to remember crafting recipies lol, time to get a 2nd monitor for this game so you can have gamefaqs open on another screen.

 

Just because its not getting great reviews doesnt mean an individual wont enjoy this game. Theres plenty of times I dont agree with what a reviewer of a game may say. That said there are problems with this game, doesnt mean it should be over looked, im finally level 20 and I cant put down the game now, im hooked. Its a matter of opinion, and yes a review is a good overview of a game, but it doesnt stop the reviewer from having even a slight bias towards it. Find a friend who has it play the 15 day trial, come to your own conlusion. Dont be another sheep and follow everyone else.