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Final Fantasy XIV adding market and player search improvements
As the release of Final Fantasy XIV's next major patch approaches, more previews continue to go up for the various improvements it will bring. Two of the major promised features are the improvements to both the market wards and the introduction of a proper player search feature, both of which have been posted to the official site. The market wards will now include several pieces of functionality similar to the Final Fantasy XI auction house, including transaction histories and the option to buy direct from the search screen. The player search feature, meanwhile, will allow players to flag themselves as looking for a party, indicating preferred classes and activities. Searchers will be able to sort results by a variety of criteria to help identify potential teammates. It should make assembling groups for larger content much simpler than it currently is, which should in turn encourage the community to take part in more challenging content. Neither system might seem like a revolution, but there's no doubt that both improvements will have a definite impact.
Patch 1.15a live for Final Fantasy XIV
The latest pass of revisions to Final Fantasy XIV has just gone live, bringing another set of improvements requested by players. It's also the first installment of Naoki Yoshida's promise to bring patches out on a faster schedule, with the announcements having just hit the official site recently. As promised, the update brings with it further improvements to inventory space, the market wards, and the battle system, the last of which was highlighted just yesterday. Inventory space has been helped notably by the increase of stack sizes for a variety of common materials, previously capped at stacks of 12 and now stacking to 99. Search results for the market wards have also been improved and streamlined, thus making it easier for players to sell their larger stacks of several items. The full list of patch changes are available for perusal, and while it's not everything promised for the near future in Final Fantasy XIV, it's a good first step.
Final Fantasy XIV brings in the item search with the last update of the year
Final Fantasy XIV has boasted a robust crafting system since launch, but the system designed to help players sell their goods has been somewhat less robust. After several passes of revisions and improvements, the game has received a feature that was both much-requested and promised -- a search function for the market wards. That's the bulk of the game's newest patch, along with a slew of bug fixes, but the search itself merits extra explanation as offered in the patch notes. Rather than simply having players type in an item, the search function requires players to select a ward, then one of the item categories properly sold within that ward. The full list of items for sale will be displayed, with players able to select a given item and have the retainers therein marked as vendors for the sought item. There are a few more wrinkles as explained in the patch notes, but on a whole it should make searching for something specific far simpler for Final Fantasy XIV players -- and that's nothing but a good thing.
Late-month update for Final Fantasy XIV to include an item search
Final Fantasy XIV has not had an easy road out of launch, with several large patches having been added to the game in short order. The most recent patch was only a week ago, but the newest patch is slated to go live tomorrow as the second update for the month and the last one for the year. Although the full details have not been released at this time, one thing that is known for sure is one of the much-requested features due for inclusion -- an item search feature. The crafting-heavy system of the game has suffered from the lack of a dedicated auction house, but the continued reorganization and restructuring of the market ward system has helped address that. With the newest update, it will be possible for players to search for the item they want as soon as they step into the wards, thereby improving the time between entering the markets and determining whether your desired item is available. What else will be included -- if anything -- will become clear to Final Fantasy XIV players tomorrow afternoon.
Final Fantasy XIV's update dated and expanded
The first of two major updates for Final Fantasy XIV in the month of December will be going live tomorrow, according to the official word from Square-Enix. That's good news for the game's players, who have been looking forward to the previewed notorious monsters ever since the first of several teasers was made public. But that's not the only thing that players can expect, with the promise of another update later in the month bringing even further improvements to the game's mechanics and the market system. Among the more significant features that have not been previewed in detail are the addition of more guildleves and recipes for crafting, as well as another free retainer slot that will serve to boost inventory and marketing capacities significantly. The update is also scheduled to contain more UI improvements, including an increase on the maximum allowed input in the chat box (which is currently rather myopic). Further details on the second December update are promised for a later date, but this update alone should be a fine tiding for Final Fantasy XIV players the world over.
The Mog Log: The road ahead
I was originally going to take this week to start looking at building a character in Final Fantasy XIV, but then I got smacked in the face by something else. Namely, there was a gigantic explosion of news about the coming version updates for the game, the sort of thing that really takes precedent over my natterings about freeform character development. (If you were really looking forward to that, don't worry, it'll still find its way into the column at some point.) A lot went through my head as I was reading the updates listed. There were a couple of things that struck me as a bit worrisome, several things that I am psyched about beyond all reasonable points, and one strange little theory that occurred to me as being just paranoid enough to have some truth to it. And yes, were we promised customizable ships in there at some point? I can get behind that.
The road ahead for updates to Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV is a game that inspires rather energetic opinions, but even the game's most ardent defenders will say that the game has issues that need to be addressed. Square-Enix has acknowledged this and promised to start rolling out updates starting this month to address many of the most pressing issues. Not only has the most recent update the player site enumerated several changes coming to the game in November and December, it also outlines the changes due for implementation early next year, and it's quite the list. Among the more hotly anticipated changes are a set of UI overhauls aimed at mouse and keyboard usage and improvements to the market ward interface. The updates will also see adjustments to skill point awards to help ease out the somewhat spiky nature of current rewards and a reduction of the points needed to attain rank 20, both allowing players quicker access to longer-term content. If you're playing Final Fantasy XIV or simply wanting to see what was on the horizon for the large patches before making a decision, take a look -- there's a great deal of information to digest.
Final Fantasy XIV grants players a month of freedom and revamped markets
Player opinions have been strongly mixed on Final Fantasy XIV, something that hardly needs to be reiterated. Even the game's supporters have occasionally been a touch leery about paying for their first month of the game with the current state of polish. Which means that it should be good news for players all around that Square-Enix is extending the normal "free month" to encompass an additional month, placing early adopters out of the realm of billing until November. Aimed primarily at purchasers of the collector's edition with its headstart, the extension will be credited to any and all accounts created before October 19th. Billing will be credited for another 30 days, giving a total of 60 days free time within the game world. The official announcement assured the community that the development team is listening to all the feedback received, and wishes to thank Final Fantasy XIV's players for their devotion to the game. Considering that the game has just seen its first pass of reorganization for the market system and a director dispatch on the game's future, it's a morning of good news for the game's players. [Thanks to Bartillo and FusionX for the tip!]
The Mog Log: The negativity song
As you read this, I am in New York at the New York Comic Con, where I am very angry. It's not because I dislike the city or because I'm going to be spending all day running around trying to put together interviews and information, although those are both true statements. It's because all of this means I'm going to have to skip out on an entire day of Final Fantasy XIV. This should give you some idea of how much I like this game -- that I'm more annoyed about not playing it than about spending fifteen hours working. But this is not to say that all is well and good within the land of Eorzea. Things are pretty darn good, yeah, but to the surprise of absolutely no one there are some things I really don't like about Final Fantasy XIV. They aren't game-breaking, and some would argue that they're not even really drawbacks, but if I had to pick a list of what to dislike about the game? Here's the list. (And while I'm still not pleased with the column, I'd like to look back on this particular installment and note that I freaking called it. Except for the communication -- the development team has stepped up on that count.)
Final Fantasy XIV gets a version update and another developer dispatch
The bad news about the most recent version update for Final Fantasy XIV is that, despite player hopes, it does not yet contain the heavily awaited first revision to the market wards. That's planned for next week, according to the patch notes themselves. The good news is that it does contain a number of bugfixes and helps clean up several chat oddities. Accompanying the notes on the main page is another dispatch from the developers about how the game works, this one on the topic of character creation and disciplines, and while the developers give some vague answers, they also offer some useful, concrete information. For example, while there are no game differences at the moment based upon a character's birthday or guardian deity, both are in the works -- and if the benefits that are ultimately awarded for your chosen deity disappoint you, Square-Enix will be giving players the chance to change their guardians. The new dispatch also provides a full listing of where to get tools and weapons for every discipline at the start, allowing players from any nation to change class right from the beginning. Final Fantasy XIV players are encouraged to check both the patch notes and the latest update and to keep their eyes peeled for what promises to be a large update next week.
The Mog Log: Gil rules everything around me
My original plan for this week was to step back into the experiment with soloing that I started in Final Fantasy XI what feels like an eternity ago, but the recent updates about Final Fantasy XIV's market system prompted a comment that interested me. A reader noted that the auction block in Final Fantasy XI was partly responsible for the enormous gilselling issue that's plagued the game more or less since its release stateside, with the theory going that the market wards and so forth in Final Fantasy XIV were a specific response to this. It seems fitting, in light of all of the gilselling issues that we've gone through in Vana'diel, to take a look at the sordid history of the currency in the game and at how likely it is to translate to the new kid on the block. I don't think the problem lies so much with the sellers as with the environment that Square-Enix unintentionally created, as well as with the perfect storm of circumstances that devalued the currency of the game to near-worthlessness with no alternatives. That's right -- it's time to look back six years or so to the launch of the game in the U.S.
Changes incoming for the markets of Final Fantasy XIV
Even if you're a fan of Final Fantasy XIV, you're probably not enamored of the way that selling items among players is currently handled. It's not that the market wards aren't useful, they're just a really slow way of finding items in a game where nearly every single item is crafted by players rather than found or purchased. So it's good news for the game that the development team is aware of the issue, and adjustments are incoming within the relatively near future. The first slated update will sort the market districts by items sold, thereby allowing players to zero in on exactly what they're looking for rather than the current ambling search. There are also plans for further refinement and specialization to the wards, along with plans to better facilitate hiring and employing multiple retainers at once. Whether or not the system will ever be replaced or supplemented with the often-requested auction house has not been stated, although there are no hints that such a system is incoming for Final Fantasy XIV. Even so, the promised updates should make finding items a good sight easier.
