1439: Titanic

Been making good progress with Final Fantasy XIV over the last few days and once again I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I've taken to the multiplayer-centric endgame content.

Tonight's job — the last-but-one step in the quest to acquire the almost-but-not-quite-ultimate weapon for my level 50 Black Mage class — was to fell Titan in his "Hard Mode" fight, a notoriously difficult boss battle that I had a considerable degree of uneasiness about going into — and which I was terrified of the prospect of jumping into with strangers.

As it happens, the fight wasn't all that scary if you know what you're doing — much like every other fight in the game. You'd think I'd have learned that by now.

Titan, like Ifrit and Garuda before him, is one of the "Primals" — major bosses that crop up over the course of Final Fantasy XIV's main story, and a good opportunity to test your party's skills against one very strong opponent without having to run through a long dungeon first. The battles against them — known as "trials" in game parlance — tend to be unfold in deceptively simple boss-fighting arenas, but the simplicity of the environment is to ensure there's nothing to distract you from the important thing: paying attention to what your opponent is doing.

Ifrit, Garuda and Titan all have abilities that are far beyond almost anything else you fight in the game, and a party that doesn't know what it's doing can wipe out very quickly if they're not careful. They're highly mobile fights that demand you recognise your opponent's attack patterns and know how to counter them — and how to avoid them. Titan in particular is highly dependent on the party being able to avoid a relentless string of devastating attacks — and the healers being able to deal with the few, less-damaging attacks that are unavoidable for the whole party.

Aside from Titan, I spent a bit of time playing with the Conjurer class earlier — this is the healing class that later becomes White Mage, but also has a few offensive skills, too. It's an interestingly distinctive class to play when compared to Black Mage, and a good demonstration of how Final Fantasy XIV makes even ostensibly similar classes play markedly differently from one another.

Black Mage and its predecessor Thaumaturgist involve highly destructive spells that cost large amounts of magic points to cast. The key mechanic to get your head around with Black Mage is the balance between "Umbral Ice" and "Astral Fire" — the former causes your ice-based spells to cost more to cast, but increases your magic points regeneration enormously, while the latter causes fire-based spells to cost more to cast and deal considerably more damage, and also stops all magic points regeneration. Essentially, Black Mages have a limitless pool of magic points that mean they can continue casting indefinitely, so long as they make the switch between Umbral Ice and Astral Fire at appropriate junctures — and, at higher levels, make good use of the MP-free, instant-cast spells that occasionally trigger.

White Mage and its predecessor Conjurer, meanwhile, are very different. Spells are considerably cheaper to cast, but there's no Umbral Ice mechanic to quickly regenerate magic points in a hurry — so you have to manage your spellcasting a little more carefully. The class also has an interesting "stance switch" option, allowing the white mage to swap their Intelligence (determines spell damage) and Mind (determines healing power) stats around, effectively making them either damage- or healing-focused at the touch of a button. And then, of course, there's the fact that white mages are mainly regarded as healers rather than damage dealers, and as such you have to be a lot more aware of people around you so you can heal them. The tradeoff for this, of course, is that people tend to like you because you can stop them from dying — and, once you reach a high enough level, you can even bring them back from the dead.

I jumped into one of the short party-based "Guildhests" earlier on to have a go at healing as part of a group with a relatively straightforward challenge. The party I was with was clearly very inexperienced — the fighter charged ahead without waiting for me to cast protection spells on him, and the damage-dealing mage seemed to take as much damage as he inflicted. I managed to keep everyone alive, though, and my reward from these random strangers whom I'll probably never see again was three "Player Commendations" — a new system introduced in the latest patch which allows players to show their appreciation for random teammates they were matched up with through the Duty Finder system. It's a very nice, friendly addition to the game, and I can't deny feeling a pleasantly warm and fuzzy feeling inside after a successful dungeon run when I see that little "You have received a player commendation" message in my chat window. Even better when there's more than one.

Anyway. With Titan down, the only thing left for me to do to get my Black Mage relic weapon is to collect 400 more Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy by running dungeons — should be easy enough. Once I've done that, I'll be well on the way to being appropriately geared for the Binding Coil of Bahamut, the most difficult dungeon in the game… or I can just start working on one of the other classes, with the eventual goal of getting their Relic weapons, too.

This post was probably indecipherable to those of you who don't play Final Fantasy XIV but eh. Whatever. Tomorrow I'll write about kittens or something.

1434: Free Company

The Internet is by turns a strange and wonderful place, filled with all manner of people from fair to foul. Wander inadvertently into the wrong corner of it and you'll find yourself surrounded by some of the very worst people in the world; somewhere else and you'll find people who will go on to become lifelong friends.

Online gaming is somewhat troublesome in this regard at times, particularly for those of us who struggle somewhat in social situations. The prospect of talking to strangers in an online game is, to me, pretty much as frightening as the prospect of walking up to a random stranger in a bar — particularly if voice chat is involved. With text chat, it's somewhat easier since you have more time to consider your responses, but the inability to express your tone of voice can sometimes lead to misunderstandings, and it's still nerve-wracking to, say, ask a favour of someone.

This is something that's held me back a little from fully enjoying some online games, because sooner or later you're going to have to play with people you don't know personally. Your friends won't always be available to play with you, or you might need more help than your friendship groups can provide, or you might be playing a game mode where you're organised into teams. Whatever the reason, it can be anxiety-inducing.

In the case of MMOs, you have to put your virtual life in the hands of strangers quite often, whether it's for running a dungeon, beating a boss or getting a piece of equipment crafted. It's easy to forget that a lot of people playing these games are in a similar situation where they need help from others to progress, and thus it's in their interests to be nice to one another.

There are, of course, exceptions. The team-based e-sports games Dota 2 and League of Legends have notoriously "toxic" (the word that's most commonly bandied about) communities that are somewhat unforgiving of newcomers attempting to learn the game "in the wild," as it were. MMOs, too, have elitist players who are quick to complain at those whom they do not think are playing the game "properly", and players who are impatient with newcomers just trying to have fun and learn how to get through some of the tougher dungeons and fights.

I get it. It's frustrating for these people, who want to play in a particular way, to find themselves having to change their play style to support someone who's perhaps less familiar with a particular challenge. But there's really no excuse for rudeness.

That's me in the big black coat in the background.

I've been extremely lucky with my time in Final Fantasy XIV so far. While most of my runs through dungeons and boss fights have been with friends, the few times I've dared to jump into the Duty Finder alone and be grouped up with strangers have been very pleasant surprises. Pick-up groups (or PUGs, as they're sometimes called) have a rather poor reputation in most MMOs, and indeed in Final Fantasy XIV's case most people seem to have at least one tragically amusing Duty Finder story where they played with someone who was just a colossal dickhead. I'm glad to have escaped that fate to date — but it also makes me extremely nervous about "going solo", as it were: in other words, braving things like the new Duty Roulette system, which picks a random dungeon for you and three other random players to play in exchange for some very generous rewards, and indeed other group-based content I need to complete in order to proceed further in the game.

Which brings me on to my main point: how grateful I am to have a group of regular players whom I enjoy playing with, and whom I like. I'm a member of the "Giant Bomb" Free Company after being invited by someone I know through some combination of 1up, Twitter, The Squadron of Shame and possibly some other places — I forget the exact details — and am very happy that what I originally hoped would transpire when I started playing Final Fantasy XIV — that I'd make some friends with whom I felt comfortable playing — has indeed come to pass.

The interesting thing is that I don't really know anything about the people I'm playing with, so they're basically still "strangers" to me — just strangers I'm somewhat more familiar with. I'm not an active member of the community on the Giant Bomb website, so outside of my friend who originally invited me in the first place, I can't relate any of these in-game names to real names or even usernames.

It sort of doesn't matter, though; when we're online in FFXIV, we're there to play FFXIV. There's the occasional mention of real-life things — usually when someone has to go and make dinner, or go out, or whatever — but for the most part, conversation in the game is about the game. We're all enthusiastic and passionate about the game, and we all enjoy talking about it, whether that's sharing our thoughts on the new content in the latest patch, sharing strategies for clearing dungeons, or collaborating on group projects such as the Free Company house and the various weird and wonderful objects therein.

I'm really very grateful to these people for making my experience with the game so enjoyable and welcoming, and the pleasant feeling of friendship and camaraderie I have with these folks is the main thing that keeps me coming back to the game time after time. Final Fantasy XIV is a great game in its own right, but when played with the right people, it becomes even more enjoyable — even for an old hermit like me.

1431: Relics and Rebirth

I must say, I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it, but I'm really having fun with Final Fantasy XIV's endgame content. Part of this is due to the fact the new content update that dropped earlier in the week added a significant amount of stuff to do for people who had hit the level cap, but I'm also enjoying working my way through the stuff that was already there. A lot of it encourages you to try stuff that you might have ignored throughout the rest of the game.

Take the A Relic Reborn quest, for example, which culminates in you getting your class' powerful Relic weapon, which can subsequently be upgraded to a Relic +1, for those who just like to be slightly better than the best.

A Relic Reborn tasks you with a number of different things to do, the first of which is acquiring a specific weapon and melding specific materia to it. (For those less familiar with Final Fantasy, materia are things you can plug into items of equipment to improve their abilities; in Final Fantasy VII they determined what specific spells and other actions your characters could perform, while in XIV they tend to confer bonuses to various stats.)

I had gone through pretty much the whole game without melding any materia to anything. This was partly because I wasn't able to do it myself — in order to meld materia to a piece of equipment you need to have one of the crafting classes up to a high level, and my efforts as a Weaver were stalled by my running out of lightning crystals — and partly because I'd been replacing my equipment reasonably often as I levelled up, and consequently didn't see the value in upgrading an item only to discard it a few levels later.

I was hoping a member of my Free Company might be able to meld the necessary materia to the weapon in question, but no-one had the right skills, so I had to brave random strangers. As someone with social anxiety, the prospect of approaching a random stranger and asking for a favour is, as you might expect, rather nerve-wracking — particularly when you're not quite sure of the etiquette for doing so in this particular community. Should I offer them some (in-game) money? Is it rude to ask them if they want paying? How do I find them in the first place?

As it happened, finding them was a simple matter of wandering into the Ul'Dah marketplace and yelling really loud. Virtually, of course; it's a matter of typing "/shout [message]" rather than literally having to bellow your message into the ether. Just as well, too; if I was using voice chat, there'd be no doubt in anyone's mind that my short-but-pretty female redhead character was being played by a big hairy bloke. Not that I think anyone would care; playing off-gender is pretty common if our Free Company is anything to go by. And occasionally, playing a female character can allow you to flutter your virtual eyelashes and get people who might not otherwise help you out to play with you. (Well, it worked in World of Warcraft; the land of Eorzea appears to be a somewhat more egalitarian and less sexually frustrated society, perhaps due to the fact that the player base is slightly older than that of World of Warcraft.)

Anyway, it took me a matter of seconds to be bombarded with people who wanted to help me. Eventually I picked someone whose name I'd seen in public chat before, and whom I remembered didn't seem to be a jerk. I met up with him at the Goldsmiths' Guild, used the game's convenient "request materia meld" interface to indicate what I needed and offer him suitable compensation — my Free Company brethren had suggested 5,000 gil per meld was a good starting point — and within a matter of moments it was done. We bowed courteously to one another and went about our business.

That wasn't so hard, was it? No, of course it wasn't; as anyone with social anxiety will know, the reality of a particular social situation that gives you cause for unease is rarely as bad as what you build it up to be in your mind. And this is just as true in the online space as it is when you're meeting people in reality — even with online games and virtual worlds' capacity to let you represent yourself in any way you wish.

Anyway, the upshot of all that is that the quest to construct my Relic weapon is now well underway, and a big punch-up with Chimera is in my near future. But that is a story for another day.

1419: Endgame

I can't remember if I mentioned it on here, but I reached level 50 — the level cap — with my Black Mage class in Final Fantasy XIV a short while ago, which means that I'm now into what MMO players refer to as "endgame content".

I've only ever reached the level cap in one other MMO to date — World of Warcraft — and in that instance I didn't really explore a lot of what the endgame had to offer. In fact, I think I stopped playing not long after getting that far; I tried to return after a break when Blizzard offered a free upgrade to the Cataclysm expansion back and a free boost to the slightly-higher level cap of 85 that they introduced then, but the magic was gone, and I've felt no inclination to go back since.

You see, as I mentioned in that post I linked to above, for me, a key part of the appeal of MMOs — and indeed RPGs in general — is that journey you make from, quite literally, zero to hero. The road to the level cap is paved with a variety of new skills and things to learn, and by the time you reach your "pinnacle" you're well-equipped with everything you need to survive… and continue onwards.

You see, once you hit level whatever-the-cap-is-in-your-game-of-choice, it stops being about gaining XP, and it starts being about doing other stuff. It starts being about running dungeons, acquiring new gear, taking on new challenges with friends. For those who played through most of the game solo, now is probably the time to jump off the train, because most endgame content is reliant on playing together with others, whether that's running small-scale dungeons to get gear, or taking on raids that require larger parties.

It's also often where the story grinds to something of a halt. In Final Fantasy's case, "endgame" is where you've beaten the final boss of the main scenario quests, so the main story is indeed over. But there's plenty of things still to do, most of which have some sort of narrative context, and if the impressive recent trailer for the upcoming patch 2.1 is anything to go by, the main scenario quests will continue to be added to with each new update every three months, which is nice.

What I've found interesting in the endgame stuff I played this evening, is that it lets you concentrate on the game mechanics a lot more than if you're trying to pay attention to the story. Some MMO players play through the whole game this way, skipping cutscenes and not reading any text, but I can't help but feel in Final Fantasy XIV's case that this is missing the point somewhat.

Regardless, once you reach endgame you're probably going to be running a lot of the same dungeons and other content over and over again, often with different groups of people each time. And while this might sound boring, there's a few things to bear in mind: firstly, some people plough hundreds or even thousands of hours into games like League of Legends and Dota, and those have very few maps, and secondly the appeal isn't necessarily in seeing new and unique content; it's in seeing new and unique people.

I braved Final Fantasy XIV's Duty Finder system for two runs into the "so you've just reached level 50, what now?" dungeon the Wanderer's Palace this evening. My two runs were markedly different from one another, despite the monsters being in the same place and me playing exactly the same character class.

In the first case, the party was well-organised, careful and methodical. We didn't talk much because it was clear from our behaviour that we'd all done this before, and we all knew what we were doing. Consequently, we got through the whole thing without any serious mistakes — and, more importantly, no-one dying.

Compare and contrast with the second party, in which the de facto leader — usually the "tank" class, who runs ahead to get pummelled by enemies while everyone else hangs back and throws fireballs at them — was seemingly trying to race through the dungeon as quickly as possible, and causing issues in the process. Speedruns of dungeons aren't particularly unusual, particularly in the case of places like Wanderer's Palace that provide a good source of material for acquiring high-level gear, but in order to be successful at them you need a well-oiled party that communicates well.

Our poor old tank wasn't very good at speedrunning, you see, and ended up getting him — and the rest of us — into situations that it was difficult to survive. Wanderer's Palace is particularly harsh due to the presence of an unkillable "Tonberry Stalker" enemy who runs up to you and stabs you in the throat if you enter his field of vision; on more than one occasion, the tank attracted so many enemies that we weren't able to defeat them all before someone got throat-stabbed.

This was interesting to me. It wasn't frustrating or annoying because everyone took it in good humour and no-one was a dick about it — a constant risk with online games — but was instead fascinating to see. I have a feeling there's some intriguing psychological observations to be made about the different ways in which people play — and how people like me respond differently to different types of people — but I'm not sure I'm altogether qualified to make those observations.

It was also an interesting experiment for me in that throughout most of the game, I've played with people that I'm at least casually acquainted with. These two runs were attempts to test the water and see what it's like playing with random strangers; you often hear horror stories of people getting together with a bunch of jerks in the Duty Finder but, aside from the tank's clumsiness, there was nothing untoward going on, and so it's something I'd feel comfortable doing again.

Fortunate, really, because I need one hell of a lot of Tomestones if I want to upgrade my equipment to a suitable level to be able to take on the later dungeons and boss fights…

1406: Sunday Night

It is, as the title says, Sunday night, and as usual I have left writing this until the last minute, and as such rather than churn out the first thing that comes into my head while tired, I'm instead going to hold fire on the ongoing story until tomorrow. This week I'm going to attempt to write each installment in the morning before I start work rather than saving it until the last thing in the evening.

This will also (hopefully) have the side-effect of allowing me to focus on those aspects of it that are a little more challenging to write — i.e. the bits drawn from my personal experience as a teacher — while my brain is reasonably alert and thus able to process things a little more clearly.

This, then, leaves this entry free for some generic ramblings about what I've been up to. So, okay then, let's do just that.

After a short break, I've been getting back into Final Fantasy XIV and it remains just as compelling as it ever was. Over the last few evenings, I've been completing the "Lightning Strikes" questline, in which the heroine from Final Fantasy XIII and its upcoming spinoff Lightning Returns shows up in the lands of Eorzea and enlists your assistance in defeating various unpleasant beasties, culminating in a battle against a giant… thing called "Aspect of Chaos". It's essentially an advertising event for Lightning Returns, which came out in Japan recently and comes out in the West in February. (And yes, the event is repeating in February.) But it's pretty well done. The usual Final Fantasy XIV battle music is replaced by the brilliant "Blinded by Light" from Final Fantasy XIII, until the final boss battle, which is accompanied by Final Fantasy XIII's boss music, the name of which escapes me right now.

The equipment you get out of it allows you to cosplay as either Lightning or Snow from Final Fantasy XIII, depending on your character's gender, but it's not particularly good equipment — it's just level 13, so it's all but useless to those who are bumping their head against the level cap. That said, the Free Company I'm in is considering doing some low-level dungeon runs all in Lightning gear, so that might be fun to do at some point.

Aside from Final Fantasy XIV, I've also finally got around to playing Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, aka 999. I was expecting to like this, so I was unsurprised to find myself enjoying it a great deal. It's a very clever game that makes good use of the DS' twin screens to present its visual novel-style storytelling sequences effectively — dialogue on the top, narrative on the bottom — and features some enjoyable "room escape" puzzle sequences. There are six endings to the game; so far I've seen three of them, and they've all involved the untimely death of the entire cast, which is unfortunate. There is a "true" ending but I haven't yet determined the conditions that cause you to proceed down that path — I have my suspicions, but I'm investigating thoroughly since a single playthrough doesn't take very long and I'd like to see all the different endings, even if most of them are "BAD END"s.

Anyway. Now I'm off to sit in bed and find yet another way to kill off the whole cast. The story will continue tomorrow, assuming I manage to haul myself out of bed in a timely manner.

1359: Lady of the Wind

I'd been putting it off, but I finally beat the Garuda boss fight in Final Fantasy XIV this evening, renowned by some as one of the harder battles in the game's main story.

The "Primal" fights that you engage in over the course of the main quest's narrative are genuinely thrilling engagements that reward cooperation, communication and everyone knowing what they're doing. Sure, the fact that there's the possibility of instakill moves is frustrating, but with a good party gathered you shouldn't fall foul of them, particularly if you've taken the time to either discuss the fight with more experienced combatants beforehand, or learned from past mistakes.

The thing I've been most impressed with by the Primal battles in particular but also a number of other setpiece engagements in the game is how exciting they are. This is something I'm not altogether used to in MMOs, many of which are focused on doing things by rote as efficiently as possible. Final Fantasy XIV's combat, while not deviating hugely from the template set by World of Warcraft, requires that you stay on your toes, survey your surroundings and move around the battlefield according to what's going on. In the case of the Garuda fight, there's a lot of cowering behind pillars (until the horrid harpy destroys them all, anyway) and then ensuring that you don't get sucked into the increasingly tumultuous storm all around you during the latter stages of the fight.

I played through most of World of Warcraft up through Wrath of the Lich King and I can only think of a few fights I participated in that elicited the same feeling of heart-in-mouth excitement as these Final Fantasy XIV battles. The difference is that in World of Warcraft's case they were all high-level or endgame content, while Final Fantasy XIV spreads them out over the course of its entire main quest. And then you get to do them all again, but harder, once you hit the level cap. They're some beautifully designed encounters, and I'm interested to see how Yoshi-P and the team intend to top them in the coming content updates.

It's that heart-in-mouth feeling that feels most authentically Final Fantasy to me. I can vividly recall the first few times I beat Final Fantasy VII (because I beat it a whole bunch of times in my teenage years) — every single time I reached that final cutscene before the final boss ("And Sephiroth! … To the settling of everything!" — God bless that game's appalling translation) I would feel real, honest-to-goodness excitement. I'd get a delightful feeling of "butterflies in the stomach" before the screen went all swirly and Birth of a God started playing, and it would continue right through the final fights, even if I was hopelessly overlevelled, which I usually was.

In fact, a good JRPG (hell, game, full stop) these days will still give me that feeling, and if a game makes me feel that way I'll immediately think considerably more fondly of it than those that don't. It'll be a sad day for me when I can't get fired up by a game's final confrontation at all — I hope that day never comes, and I shall continue to enjoy that pleasurably anxious feeling for as long as I can in the meantime.

1322: Online Gamers Aren't Always Jerks

People who play games online are always dickwads, right?

Wrong. For starters, if you've ever taken that attitude, it's entirely possible that you aren't a dickwad yourself and just simply find the prospect of coming face to face with a dickwad distasteful — and thus it stands to reason that there are probably other people out there like you. (You may also take that attitude because you're a dickwad yourself, and use it as an excuse to behave like a dickwad. If that is the case, I'd encourage you to take a good, long, hard look at yourself, and perhaps indulge in some self-flagellation until you see the error of your ways.)

Anyway, I have a specific story that happened today — one that filled me with a pleasant amount of hope. It was only a little event in the grand scheme of things, but it was one where I felt happy after it had transpired.

A little context, first: Final Fantasy XIV allows you to play cooperatively with other players in one of two ways: either forming a party with them manually, or by letting a mechanic called the Duty Finder match you up with people who are looking to complete the same challenges. The advantage of the former option is that you can get together with people you know, or at least people on the same server with whom you'll be able to communicate with afterwards. The advantage of the latter option is that it allows you to play with the entire player base of the game, rather than just the 5,000 (maximum concurrent players at the time of writing) present on your specific server. Both approaches have drawbacks, though: in the former case, it can often be difficult to find people who are available at the same time who want to do the same thing; in the latter case, you're usually paired up with complete strangers, with all the inherent risks that carries.

Earlier today, I took on one of Final Fantasy XIV's dungeons with a party of random people found through the Duty Finder. Things were going reasonably well to begin with — though I would have preferred that the tank mark targets to help mages like me know what order to set fire to things — but after a while I started to notice one of the players behaving a little strangely.

Her in-game name was "Amelia," and she was a black mage like me. She'd obviously run the dungeon before, as she was regularly charging ahead well before the rest of us had got our bearings — sometimes even causing enemies to start attacking before we were ready. Partway through the dungeon, I could see her continually running off in the opposite direction to us, only to come running back when the tank started the next combat. I could tell she was getting frustrated, but she wasn't saying anything for some reason. So, once the next combat had finished, I spoke up.

"Amelia," I typed. "If there's something you'd like to show us, please say something rather than just charging off by yourself. Thanks!"

I gritted my teeth and was prepared for a barrage of abuse. A lot of online players don't like being told how to play the game and get very defensive if someone criticises them. I was all set for "Amelia" to start yelling at me, or even to quit the party in a huff. It wouldn't be the first time I had seen something happen.

What happened next surprised me.

"Yeah," she replied. "I was just thinking that myself."

The rest of the party stopped — the tank hesitated before pulling in the next group of enemies — and I could feel virtual eyes on me.

"Communication helps," I typed. "Is there some treasure down there or something?" I asked, referring to her continual attempts to run off to the south.

"Yes," she replied quickly. "There's two chests down there."

"Okay," I typed. "Let's go get those before we go any further then."

After that, we followed Amelia's lead and, sure enough, found our way to some extra enemies and some treasure chests. I was sure to thank her for her help, and when it came to time to fight the boss at the end of the dungeon, she volunteered some helpful information that ensured we were able to take it down without too much difficulty.

Ultimately, a bit of communication helped rescue a party that was at serious risk of falling apart. I'm not-so-secretly quite proud of the fact that I was the one to initiate communication and help hold things together — and I was very pleasantly surprised to discover "Amelia" was receptive to the things I was saying, and apparently knew she wasn't handling things as well as she could have done.

So wherever you are now, "Amelia," thanks. And I hope we get the chance to play together again soon.

1318: Cooperative Collective

I probably don't need to tell you this by now, but Final Fantasy XIV is really great, predictable MMO launch issues aside.

One thing I've been very pleasantly surprised with is how well it handles group cooperative content. This is something that its predecessor, Final Fantasy XI, did not handle as well as it could — which was unfortunate, since progression in Final Fantasy XI was pretty much dependent on you being able to reliably get into a group of other players.

Final Fantasy XIV has a nifty system called the Duty Finder, which is essentially a cross-server matchmaking system that picks up players who are looking to play a specific part of the game, groups them together in an appropriately balanced party, then sends you on your way to do the thing you said you wanted to do. It's a good system, though you can sometimes be waiting for up to half an hour or more depending on what type of character you play.

If you're unfamiliar with the way massively multiplayer online RPGs tend to do things, there's a fairly standard setup for a productive, cooperative party to complete cooperative content, and that is this: at least one "tank", who is designed to take the brunt of the damage from enemies and protect the other party members; at least one healer, whose role is self-explanatory; and the rest of the slots taken up by damage dealers, whose role is also self-explanatory. In Final Fantasy XIV, you'll either be in a "Light Party," which is made up of four members (one tank, one healer, two damage dealers) or a "Full Party," which is, I believe, eight people — though I'm yet to encounter anything that requires that many people.

Early to mid-level content is based on playing in a Light Party which has a few benefits: firstly, it's easier to gather four people together than eight; secondly, it helps everyone in the party understand what their role is and see how they're contributing to the group effort. In larger parties, it can sometimes be difficult to understand exactly what you're actually doing. If you're one of just four people, each of whom has a clearly defined role, however, you can see the effect you're having.

The established party structure has one unfortunate side-effect, though, and that is the fact that it's easy to assume that completing challenges will be impossible if you don't have all the requisite members. This isn't always true, as my experiences this evening proved.

A group of us — three "Free Company" (guild) members and a random fourth person — had entered the dungeon Halatali using the Duty Finder. All was going reasonably well until I had an unfortunate crash, and it took me a few minutes to get back into the game. When I returned, the random fourth person had vanished, apparently having tried to get the rest of the party killed before leaving. Dick. The three of us fought our way through a few enemies while waiting for a fourth member to come and join up. When they eventually arrived, we were good to go.

Unfortunately, our tank had a connection problem towards the end of the dungeon, leaving me, the other damage dealer and the healer stranded wondering what to do next. Eventually, we decided to charge forwards anyway and see if we could survive the dungeon's main boss — and you know what? We did, thanks to some excellent teamwork, and everyone doing their job properly. Sure, we probably could have done it a bit easier if we actually had our tank with us, but it was a fun challenge to do it without someone drawing the boss monster's attention away from me flinging fiery death at all and sundry.

We all had a good laugh about it afterwards — particularly at the fact that we finally managed to get a new tank to join us just as we were whittling down the boss' last 15% of health. By the time he'd run through the dungeon and met up with us, the boss was lying defeated on the floor. Immensely satisfying — and very amusing.

Anyway. Yeah. FFXIV is great — even for someone like me who is normally quite uncomfortable playing with strangers. I'm having a blast. And when the servers calm down, you should totally give it a chance, too.

1314: Day One in Eorzea

So it's finally here: Final Fantasy XIV. Of course, this isn't the first time I've played, as well you'll know if you've been paying attention to my enthusing, but we're at last at the stage where the game won't be "turned off" for significant periods of time (maintenance periods aside), and all characters people are playing as now are for keeps. (Here's mine, if you happened to be curious.)

While I'm not exactly what I'd call a hardcore MMO player, I have been present at the launch of a number of reasonably-to-large-sized MMOs, including World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online and a few others I've doubtless forgotten. And I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised at how well things have been going for Final Fantasy XIV so far — more often than not, an MMO's launch is a complete disaster, with servers going down, significant gameplay problems and at least one Legendary Error that becomes a meme before the first day is out.

Today's experience on Final Fantasy XIV hasn't been completely flawless — on more than one occasion, there has been problems with the instance servers, for example. For those not au fait with MMO lingo, an "instance" is a private copy of part of the game world specifically for your character and, in some cases, your party. Final Fantasy XIV makes extensive use of instances not just for multiplayer dungeons, which is how World of Warcraft popularised their use to the world, but also to keep significant "story events" for your character private and free of naked catgirls wandering around ruining the atmosphere (or enhancing it, depending on your view on naked catgirls).

FFXIV isn't completely reliant on these instances, thankfully, but the game's main story quest and class-specific quests do make use of them quite frequently, so the fact that they haven't been working properly for part of today has meant some people haven't been able to make as much progress as they'd like to have done. Naturally, some players have expressed anger at this — this is the Internet, after all, where people start petitions to remove Ben Affleck as the next Batman, for fuck's sake — but, as ever, this isn't particularly reasonable. Sure, it'd be lovely to have the game working as intended from the moment it's turned on, but we're currently in an "Early Access" period, with official service not starting until Tuesday for players who didn't preorder or play the previous incarnation of the game. As such, it's a good opportunity for Square Enix to work out any last-minute kinks — like this instance issue — and ensure things are running as smoothly as possible when new, non-preorder players start to arrive.

I should also draw attention to the fact that Square Enix hasn't just been sitting back and letting these problems go on; they've been investigating the causes and trying their best to fix them. There was a maintenance period earlier today that temporarily fixed the instance issues, but then they came back; as I type this, they think they've found the solution, but are testing it thoroughly before rolling it out to the game proper. By later tonight, it should hopefully be a lot more stable.

So far, then, FFXIV's launch has been one of the smoother ones I've seen. It hasn't been without issues, no, but at the same time they've been handled as well as can be expected — and things can only improve from here.

So here's to many more adventures in Eorzea; I've had fun today, and I'm looking forward to the further adventures of my character Amarysse as she becomes an ever more skilled thaumaturgist.

1313: Whew

That's what's felt like a very long week over and done with. And I'm happy to see the back of it. It's been tiring and stressful, though I'm not entirely sure why; nothing really specifically stressful or distressing has happened as such, it's just been… bleh.

I haven't had particularly restful sleep all week; that's part of the problem, I think. We appear to be bang in the middle of Flying Things That Like to Bite You About the Arse, Legs and Arms season. I'm not sure exactly what form said Flying Things That etc. are taking this particular year, but I'm pretty sure I've heard mosquitoes at the very least. Bastard things.

Trouble is, it's at that frustrating sort of temperature where if you shut the windows it's too warm, open the windows and it's slightly too cold (plus Flying Things That etc. come in uninvited), put a fan on and you wake up with a mouth like a badger's been sticking its arse in it all night long.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this. I think my brain has just plain shut down for the weekend, suggesting that I should attempt to get some sleep and hopefully feel a bit fresher in the morning. After all, it is Final Fantasy day tomorrow — Early Access for Final Fantasy XIV starts tomorrow, which I've been looking forward to a lot.

I levelled my Thaumaturgist class to 20 — the level cap for the recent open beta — and made a start on the Weaver crafting class. I'm torn as to what to do when I get back in, though; should I start a new class, or carry on developing the ones I've already been working on? I haven't tried a "Disciple of the Land" gathering class at all yet, and I've been curious to.

I guess I don't even have to decide if I don't want to. That's one of the nice things about the new game; once you've reached level 10 in your starting class and completed the appropriate quest, you can then switch classes whenever you want simply by swapping out your weapon. This is absolutely ideal for situations where you want to play with friends who are perhaps just starting out in the game — I'd be able to swap to a class I haven't levelled at all and help them out from the very beginning. For situations where that isn't practical, the Level Sync function artificially limits your level in situations like dungeons and boss battles to ensure you're never overpowered and that you always have a decent challenge to take on.

Incidentally, if any of you reading this are planning on playing the game and want to meet up with me, my character's name is Amarysse Jerhynsson (naturally) and she calls the Ultros server home. Depending on how many of my colleagues at USgamer I manage to rope into joining me, I may start an official USgamer Linkshell on that server; in the meantime, I'm part of the Giant Bomb Linkshell and will continue to be part of that once the game goes live. (A Linkshell is basically a global chat channel; not quite a guild, but a means of a group of people to communicate with one another. FFXIV does have "guilds" in the form of Free Companies, too; a single character can be in one Free Company and, I think, eight Linkshells at once.)

I'm just rambling now. I'm off. Good night all.