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First Impressions: Final Fantasy XIV's beta phase 1 and 2
I'm going to completely fail to surprise any longtime readers of the site with this sentence: I am kind of a fan of Final Fantasy XIV. Of course I am. I write our weekly column about the game, I discuss the game in other columns, and I went across the country to preview the game back in February. It's not a secret. Nor should it come as any surprise that I am a Legacy player and thus have had the opportunity to take part in the game's first two beta test phases. As of today, I can start talking about those experiences. Well... I can sort of talk about those experiences. A lot of what I have to say was already conveyed back when I took that aforementioned trip in February. My warm feelings about the game have not diminished in any way over the past few months, but rather than rewriting everything, I thought I'd go with a look at some things I've discovered from not hitting just the highs and the lows.
The Mog Log: Stuff I'm going to miss from Final Fantasy XIV 1.0
The end of Final Fantasy XIV as we know it provoked a lot of emotions from me, as did the trailer released concurrently. I felt a great deal of sorrow, both for the end of the world and the end of my character's story at the time (which is tied into a lot of roleplaying you don't need to hear about). I felt a stirring of hope for the changes coming to the game and the world. I felt inspiration at the sweep and movement of the events surrounding the conclusion and a sense of awe at what had been done. I also felt a great deal of frustration at the game's servers and the rather lackluster event itself, but that's kind of an irrelevant discussion. It's a lesson to learn for a next time that won't happen. Amidst all of these other feelings, I also felt a sense of sadness about certain parts of the game that are going away when it relaunches. There are aspects I'm going to miss about Final Fantasy XIV's first version, even if I know why those aspects need to be removed from a design standpoint. Today, I'm going to look back at those elements, things that we're going to be rid of that I'm still going to sort of miss in the long run.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: My plans lie in shambles!
Welcome to another installment of A Mild-Mannered Reporter, where you've all stumbled into my trap. Yes, you thought that I was going to have a column discussing another villain group due to the end of the last column, but no. Today might not quite be the anniversary of City of Villains, but it's close enough for our purposes to look back at the impact that the first expansion had on... Wait, what? You mean I already did that? Foiled again! Of course, it's not really a surprise. It's hard to picture a world without the villains running around, even if the world conspires to give them a bad name -- not to mention the bad name they give themselves. But in honor of this anniversary, I want to look back and reminisce about a couple of nefarious features that the expansion brought with it that haven't held up quite as well, for better or worse.
Ask Massively: Massively is one of those multiple-robot Transformers edition
The technical term depends on how much of a fan you are and whether or not you want to be a jerk. The only term that has been officially used with any regularity is "combiner," which describes nicely what's going on but isn't terribly evocative. "Gestalt" is always a popular fan term, but it's also clearly the sort of term that bored 20-year-old psych student comes up with when talking about a cartoon online instead of doing homework. You know what? Let's just say we're a supergroup, like Asia. That's easier. So while you're queueing up "Heat of the Moment" and cursing me for getting that song stuck in your head for the next four days, it's time for Ask Massively, which this week features questions about the staff's opinions on games past, present, and future. Fun for everyone! And of course, you can send in your question to ask@massively.com, or you can just leave it in the comment field.
