1468: Magick and Mend

I'm just shy of level 49 on the White Mage class in Final Fantasy XIV, which means I'll more than likely hit 50 tomorrow, which in turn makes Final Fantasy XIV the first MMO that I've not only reached the level cap and done some endgame stuff, but also the first MMO in which I've reached the level cap more than once. Granted, once you've done it once, subsequent levelling is significantly quicker thanks to the "Armoury Bonus" mechanic — bonus experience points based on the difference between your current class' level and your highest class' level — but it still demands a significant amount of commitment and, as the complete-once quests around the world dry up, creativity and flexibility in terms of how you're going to level up 49 times.

This second run to 50 has been interesting for a number of reasons, firstly because it's involved playing the game in a completely different way. During my first runthrough, in which I took the Thaumaturgist/Black Mage class up to 50, I was following the game's "Main Scenario" questline, which takes you through a complete, authentically Final Fantasy story in the purest sense. And it's a resolutely old-school Final Fantasy, too, all about crystal-related mysticism, powerful ancient forces stirring to cause chaos and, of course, a cast of villains in memorable-looking but impractical armour that probably makes it impossible for them to go to the toilet without lacerating their genitals. It's also paced in such a way that aside from a slight "dry spell" in the mid-40s, it's always taking you to new places in the world and providing you with a bunch of sidequests to do — by the time you reach the grand finale, you'll be level 50 and have a thorough understanding of how your class works, and consequently should have little difficulty challenging the "final" eight-player dungeons and obliterating the Big Bad from the face of Eorzea.

Conversely, once you're done with all that, there's not quite the same narrative push to keep you earning XP and progressing — the game switches, for the most part, from being all about following a linear storyline to "living" in the game world and making your own fun to a certain extent. It takes on a much more freeform feeling — though there's still something of an "optimal" route to level up as quickly as possible — and provides fun of a different sort. There's also a lot more flexibility to take on your own personal challenges — I'm hoping to eventually collect all the unique sets of equipment from the various dungeons, for example, but this will require me to be a bit more organised than I currently am, clear out my bulging Armoury Chest and make some checklists. Soon. Soon.

As well as this shift in play style, playing a completely different type of class has been interesting, too. Ever since my first serious attempt at playing an MMO — World of Warcraft — I've largely focused on playing heavy damage dealers, usually mages or the local equivalent. While these roles are demanding in their own right — particularly later in the games, there's an expectation that you have a thorough understanding of your abilities and how to use them efficiently to inflict as much damage as possible in as short a time as possible — there's often not as much "responsibility" as comes with the other two important roles in a typical MMO party: the "tank" and the "healer". Consequently, when I came to Final Fantasy XIV, I wanted to start with something I was familiar with — and while Black Mage comes with its own unique mechanics that I haven't seen in an MMO before, it was still largely about flinging flamey things at bad things until they fall over.

Switching to Conjurer/White Mage, though, was truly interesting, and it becomes particularly clear how different it is to play a healer the moment you step into a dungeon. No longer are you concentrating on the enemies and queueing up devastating attacks; instead, you're focusing your attention for the most part on the little party window in the upper-left corner of the screen, and making use of your restorative abilities to ensure none of those numbers reach zero as much as you can. This is very easy early in the game — a lot easier than I was expecting, in fact — but becomes more challenging the more abilities you have available to you. By the time you're healing later dungeons, you're having to content with status effects (dispatched with a swift cast of the "Esuna" spell) and bosses that inflict damage on the whole party at once. You start having to prioritise your actions carefully — can the tank take a few more hits while you buff up the armour of the more squishy party members, or should you fling him a heal or two first? — and the responsibility of knowing that the fate of the party largely (though not completely in many cases) lies with you becomes more obvious.

I actually thought this experience would be terrifying — to be frank, I was worried I'd fuck it up and get yelled at by people who died as a result of my incompetent healing — but I've found myself enjoying the experience a great deal, and seemingly being quite good at it. I haven't yet been thrown into an eight-player dungeon — the first of those don't show up until you reach level 50 — and I'm a little nervous at the prospect since I'm not quite sure how two healers divide up the workload of healing a much larger party, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Plus it's always nice to be useful, and healers are certainly that.

Anyway. Time for bed. It's been a pleasantly peaceful day today, and I can feel my head gradually getting back to whatever passes for "normal". Not quite perfect yet, but getting there.

1462: Filthy Lucre

There are many things that bug me about free-to-play games — specifically, those of the mobile and Facebook variety — but one of my biggest bugbears is the ability to purchase in-game currency. Frustratingly, this is an option that has transcended its free-to-play origins and is now starting to infest other types of game — including full-price retail games on the new consoles.

The ability to purchase currency is usually touted as a time-saving feature that eliminates the need for grinding. In some cases, it's simply that — an option. In others, it becomes abundantly clear before very long that the game's economy has been balanced on the assumption that most players probably will purchase in-game currency at some point, and consequently those who just want to play the game without having to get their credit card out every ten minutes can just go fuck themselves.

Now, in many ways, choice is a good thing. Not everyone has time to spend earning virtual money in games to achieve somethingorother. But does that mean they should have the option to spend real money in order to get ahead in the game? I'm not so sure.

You see, the second you put that option there, it devalues the efforts of those willing to put in the work to earn the money themselves. Why would you bother working for something if you can just throw money at it, effectively paying to not play the game?

The reason I bring this up is that my Free Company in Final Fantasy XIV has started saving up for a medium-sized plot of land on which to build a house for guild activities. We already have a small plot, but the shed-like house that fits on the small plots is already full to bursting with the furniture that the crafters have been churning out. Consequently, active members of the guild have been working together to earn money in order to purchase one of the larger plots, which allows you to build significantly larger houses.

This evening, we spent a couple of hours in a "spiritbonding party" — we grouped up together, equipped with items of jewelry that weren't part of our normal equipment loadout, and then proceeded to battle hordes of monsters until said pieces of jewelry were "spiritbonded" to us — a mechanic in Final Fantasy XIV that means you can then break the item of equipment down and turn it into "materia". Materia are items that can be socketed into pieces of equipment for various stat bonuses, and certain among them — particularly the better ones — sell for pretty high prices due to their usefulness in completing the high-level "A Relic Reborn" quest that culminates in a character acquiring their almost-best weapon.

As you may have surmised already, someone in the guild had the bright idea of mass-producing a bunch of these jewelry items, taking them to an area with enemies that respawned quickly, and then indulging in some mass Water Sprite genocide until we had all Spiritbonded with the items enough to turn them into materia. We could then sell the resulting materia and plough some (or all, depending on how generous we were feeling) of the profits into our fundraising efforts for the new house.

The point is, while the act of going through the spiritbonding process is rather tedious — it largely involves killing lots of things that you're way overpowered for — it was something that brought a lot of us together for an enjoyable time. The experience was meaningful, worthwhile and even fun for the fact we were working together on it, even though the actual things we were doing were pretty mindless. And, when each of us successfully and finally spiritbonded with the items we had equipped, there was a feeling of achievement; a feeling of achievement that amplified considerably when the little message popped up on screen some time later saying that the materia we created had sold for a respectable amount of money; a feeling of achievement that amplified even more when voluntarily donating some of our own in-game currency to the guild coffers.

Everything I've described above would have been utterly meaningless had the option to purchase currency been in there. Attaining the medium-sized house would have felt like a hollow victory, as we wouldn't have done it through our skill and dedication to the game — we'd have done it through how deep our collective pockets are. That carries no meaning in the game world; one of the nicest things about Final Fantasy XIV's land of Eorzea is that the real world never intrudes. There's no "cash shop", the game never once asks you for your credit card details — you set up your subscription before you start playing — and once you're in the virtual world, everything you do relates to the virtual world somehow. It's a highly immersive experience, and one of the best things about the game.

Drop in a "Buy Gil" button and that goes out of the window. When working hard to attain something challenging in the game that costs a lot of money, the thought would always be there: "I wonder if I should just pay up and get it instead." And sure, it's certainly nice in the short term to be able to buy your way to victory — but in the long run, it's much more satisfying to know that everything you've achieved is because you've put the effort in.

A bit like life, you know.

1451: Learning to be a Better Virtual Person

Contemplating my time in the virtual realm of Eorzea so far, I feel that Final Fantasy XIV has had something of a positive effect on my mental wellbeing in a number of ways. I also acknowledge that it brings with it its own problems and considerations — primarily the fact that what is one of its best qualities — its inherently social nature — is also something that makes it compelling and addictive, and consequently distracts from other things. As with anything, it's all about finding a good balance.

But I don't want to focus too much on the less positive aspects of the experience because they're all things that can be solved with a degree of self-control and discipline. What I instead want to focus on is, as I mentioned at the beginning, the positive impact it's had on me.

I started playing Final Fantasy XIV's new version A Realm Reborn for several reasons: I'd been curious about it for a while, but had never played the much-maligned version 1.0; I'd enjoyed my time in Final Fantasy XI, but had never got that far; and someone I knew via a combination of Twitter, 1up and possibly some other places around the Web too invited me to come and play with a group of like-minded somewhat casual players who were in it to have fun rather than become the sort of people who run tightly-regimented raids and complain about "noobs".

When I fired up the closed beta version of the game, I was instantly smitten, and my love for the game only continued to deepen as the closed beta became open beta, and open beta became live service — with significant, noticeable improvements along the way. But what keeps me playing day after day is the fact that the people whom my friend invited me to come and play with have turned out to also be extremely pleasant virtual company — and while I don't know very much (or indeed anything) about their real-life selves in many cases, in the land of Eorzea I most certainly consider them to be friends.

The growth of these friendships has not only helped me from the simple perspective of making friends and having a reliable group of people to interact and play with every time I log on, but it's also helped me to build up my own confidence slowly and gradually.

As longtime readers will know, I struggle somewhat with social anxiety, particularly from an assertiveness perspective. Even when I'm among friends, family or other people I trust, I find it difficult to be truly assertive and say what I'm thinking or what I want. And indeed I often find myself acting the same way in online games — I find myself apologising in advance for messing things up, or not knowing how something works, or not being as familiar with the challenges ahead as more experienced players.

Over time with FFXIV, however, I've noticed myself changing somewhat. Whereas a month or two ago I'd respond to a guildmate's request for companions to take on a dungeon or boss fight with an "I'll come if you've got room for me" or "I'll come if you don't mind a newbie coming along" whereas now I feel a lot more confident in stepping forward right away without qualifiers. I've even stepped up and led my own expeditions into particular dungeons, or helped provide the impetus for a group excursion into more challenging content by expressing my desire to see it.

There was still the question of strangers to conquer, though. Final Fantasy XIV features a system called the Duty Finder whereby you can queue up to play the multiplayer content by yourself or with friends, then get matched up with other people to fill the spare slots in your party. For someone with anxiety issues about meeting new people and disappointing them, this is a daunting prospect, but again over time I've noticed myself changing. I've not only been happy to queue for the level 50 dungeons I now know quite well by myself, I've become more confident at stepping into the "Duty Roulette" option to challenge a random dungeon with a group of random strangers.

Not only that, but I've started experimenting with party roles other than my traditionally-held post of black mage — a damage-dealing class that specialises in standing back from the main melee, flinging spells, killing monsters and trying not to draw the attention of the more powerful enemies. No, while I still consider Black Mage to be my "main" class — largely because it's the one I've spent most time with, feel most attached to and have consequently kitted out the best — I've been having a lot of fun with playing as a healer, though I haven't yet got to the dungeons where it's a significant challenge to be the healer, and this evening I tried tanking for the first time.

Tanking is a particularly daunting prospect in a game like this because you become the de facto leader of the party. You're the one who goes up front; you're the one who starts fights; you're the one who's supposed to protect everyone else. The tank has important responsibilities — ensure you maintain the attention of the monsters, and don't die. A tank is generally expected to know what they're doing but, of course, everyone has to begin somewhere.

I'd levelled Final Fantasy XIV's "Gladiator" class to level 15 previously, which is the earliest point at which you can take on the game's multiplayer dungeons. But I'd never yet had the courage to step into a dungeon and lead one like a proper tank. The prospect was scary; I was worried about doing a bad job and getting yelled at by my fellow party members. And as such, I'd put it off.

This evening, however, I formed a party with my "real life" friend and board-gaming buddy James, who's recently started playing, and another guildmate who agreed to come along. That only left one slot for strangers, and that helped me feel a bit more confident about using our run through the game's first dungeon as a learning experience.

It didn't start well; I died at the first monster, but that was because James was busy figuring out important healer things like how to target me and how to cast curative magic on me, not himself. As we progressed through the dungeon, I felt myself getting the hang of what was expected of me — still hesitant and keen to get the advice of my comrades, but more confident about being the one standing at the front. By the time we reached the end and successfully beat the boss, I felt like I'd happily take on that challenge again — though I couldn't resist a quick apology to the lone stranger in our party — who was also something of a newbie, as it happened — for my "incompetence".

"It's cool," she said. "We made it through, and that's all that matters."

As any social anxiety sufferer will tell you, the reality of a situation that's been a considerable source of anxiety to you is rarely anything even a little bit like what you've built it up to be in your head. And that's something that Final Fantasy XIV is helping me remember more regularly.

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…

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.

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.

1308: Adventurer's Guild

The Final Fantasy XIV beta closes down early tomorrow morning, so I've been making the most of it this weekend. I've levelled my Thaumaturgist class all the way to 20 — the level cap for the beta — and had a play around with the Weaver crafting class for a bit, taking that up to level 11. This gives me a nice head start ready for when live service begins — though the nice thing about Final Fantasy XIV is that if at any point you fancy a change, just switch out your weapon and bam! You're another class.

This carries its own considerations however — the main one being that if you switch to a class based in a city you've already done all the low-level quests in, you might struggle to find things to do if you're not used to all the additional stuff the game offers. In that particular situation, you turn to any one of a number of different possibilities: the short, snappy, time-limited Levequests; your Hunting Log, which challenges you to hunt down specific monsters in set quantities in exchange for very generous experience point rewards; Guildhests, which are short, extremely fun co-op challenges you take on alongside other players; or simply grinding.

I wanted to give another shout-out to the amount of effort that's been put into the game's story. As well as the usual MMO-style "random people need you to do odd jobs" quests you get around the place, there's a "main quest" to follow, too. After a certain point, this quest tasks you with travelling to the other two capital cities in the world to meet their leaders and start making preparations for what is clearly going to be some sort of Epic Battle later in the plot. What was particularly great about this quest was the fact that it makes you feel super-important — you're sent off on an airship to the other cities, and as the ship leaves, the Final Fantasy prologue theme triumphantly blares out, as majestic as ever. Then you get some awesome "meanwhile" scenes — something that doesn't tend to happen in MMOs — that give you a real feeling of the plot unfolding even when you're not present. There's some characters who look a lot like FFXII's Judges in play, it seems, and I'm looking forward to the inevitable confrontation with them later in the story.

It's hard to pin down one thing that's quite so satisfying about FFXIV because it really is an example of lots of overlapping systems complementing each other very well. There are lots of different ways to play, and plenty of means to ensure that you shouldn't find yourself getting bored or with nothing to do — unless, of course, you don't enjoy the base mechanics, in which case there's probably not a lot that can be done for you. The final game's going to be great; I can't wait to see what the future holds in updates and expansions.

1307: Thaumaturgist

You'll have to excuse any typos in this post; I'm very tired due to having spent a significant proportion of the day/evening playing the Final Fantasy XIV beta. And I'm pleased to confirm that it's very much living up to my expectations.

I'm playing a Thaumaturgist this time around — in the last phase of beta I played a Pugilist. I was a little concerned that the game would fall into the usual MMO trap of all classes playing in a pretty similar manner — spamming the same combination of hotbar items over and over again, repeat until dead — but the Thaumaturgist plays noticeably differently to the Pugilist. As it should be.

While the Pugilist is a melee character that demands you get close in to — and preferably behind — your enemies, the Thaumaturgist is a ranged magic damage dealer. Unlike your common or garden usual MMO mage, though, the Thaumaturgist makes use of an interesting mechanic that, thematically, represents their "aetherial balance" between "Astral Fire" and "Umbral Ice". Essentially, what this means is one of two things: if you're in Astral Fire state, you do increased damage with your fire spells, but they also cost more magic points to cast; if you're in Umbral Ice state, your spells do less damage but your magic points regenerate a lot more rapidly than they would usually. Playing a Thaumaturgist effectively involves knowing how to use these two states effectively to ensure you have good damage output while also keeping your stock of magic points high.

That's not all, though. Each of the classes in FFXIV has its own unique questline to follow, with new "episodes" in the story coming every five levels or so. The nice thing about these is that they have their own storyline to follow, but also they help teach you things about your class you might not have realised. The level 15 quest for the Thaumaturgist, for example, is essentially a stealth mission that teaches you about the effectiveness of your Sleep spell: you're tasked with sneaking in to retrieve an artifact, and rather than fighting the strong enemies who are between you and it, you simply put them all to sleep and prance through singing "trollolololol" or something.

What I've really been surprised about is how much effort's been put into the narrative side of things — something that's often neglected in MMOs. The genre giant World of Warcraft, for example, has an enormously rich and detailed setting to draw on, and yet — at least in its early incarnations, I haven't been back since Catacylsm — this storytelling potential was utterly squandered in boring quests that were given to you in the form of dull text readouts.

Final Fantasy XI, XIV's predecessor, was somewhat better in that there were "missions" as well as "quests" to do — these often incorporated cutscenes, story progression and even boss fights at times, but XI's difficulty and painfully slow progression meant that a lot of people might not have got very far.

XIV nails the balance. There's a ton of solo content you can do, with a storyline to follow that makes your character feel important. There are recognisable non-player characters whom you come to have various feelings about, and events occur that actually have some sort of meaning. There's also a lot of instanced battles where you get your own private special event without other players interrupting — proper boss battles. And these aren't just like fighting any other monster — sometimes you'll be battling alongside other non-player characters in a huge skirmish, other times you'll have to hold out against seemingly overwhelming odds until an NPC shows up to tip the balance in your favour.

It all feels like an actual Final Fantasy, in short, rather than an MMO with a Final Fantasy skin atop it. Your incentive for progression comes as much from the unfolding story and the cool setpieces as it does from gaining yet another level.

I haven't done a lot of group stuff yet, but I did try a Guildhest earlier. This also gave me the opportunity to try the Duty Finder system, whereby you mark yourself as wanting to do a specific multiplayer "thing" — be it a Guildhest, a dungeon or something else — and then let the game match you with other people looking to do the same thing automatically. Pleasantly, you can continue playing while you wait to find a party — it's a good time to take on the short, snappy, time-limited "levequests" for some pocket money and experience.

As for the Guildhest, it was short but very enjoyable. It was essentially a party-based arena battle intended to give players practice at working together and trying not to aggro multiple groups of enemies. Initially, you and your teammates must simply take out two parties of relatively easy monsters; then another set appears, accompanied by a huge boss monster. Inevitably, they all come charging towards you, so it becomes necessary to prioritise your targets — taking out the smaller things first before starting on the big boss. When you've successfully completed it, the iconic Final Fantasy fanfare plays as if you'd just completed a battle in a "normal" Final Fantasy game — a nice touch.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the game continues once it officially launches later this month — the current beta only allows you to progress up to level 20 and is still lacking a couple of features. The only real challenge is going to be — as ever — juggling both it and other games I want and/or need to play!

#oneaday Day 901: Lost in The Secret World

Well, I've spent a great deal of today playing Funcom's new MMO The Secret World and… and…

Well. Wow.

You remember how everyone hailed The Old Republic as a massive step forward for MMORPGs — before everyone realised it was actually just World of Warcraft in space, that is? Yeah. The Secret World actually is a significant step forward for MMORPGs.

Why, you ask?

Well, let's consider its thematic content for starters. The Secret World is a lush, rich combination of all manner of influences, including, among other things, Illuminati/Templar/some Asian dudes conspiracy theories, The X-Files and the work of H.P. Lovecraft. The early stages of the game feel very much like what a hypothetical Arkham Horror Online would play like — you're an "investigator" for one of the three factions in a town called Kingsmouth (which, in the "creepy American small town" stakes is in the unenviable position of being somewhere between Lovecraft's Innsmouth and Silent Hill's, uh, Silent Hill), you wander around trying to get to the bottom of what has caused a zombie apocalypse (I KNOW, ZOMBIES, but bear with me) and the mysterious fog that has come in from the sea. Also, big slobbering tentacle monsters. And people going "a bit mental." Apparently Cthulhu is involved at some point, but I haven't got that far as yet.

So The Secret World eschews the usual fantasy or sci-fi tropes of the MMORPG genre in favour of a modern-day setting dripping with Lovecraftian atmosphere — at least in its initial stages, anyway. And it actually bothers to tell a fully-realised story (with full speech and cutscenes) rather than a limp, loosely-connected set of questlines. But it's not just the theme and the strong narrative that distinguishes The Secret World from its numerous competitors. The game systems are also an impressive breath of fresh air.

Let's start with the quests. While some quests do include objectives such as "kill [x] [y]s", these are usually part of a longer chain of events. Where things get interesting are when you break away from what the game refers to as "action" missions and you get to take on "sabotage" and "investigation" quests. While "action" missions, as you might expect, involve killing things, "sabotage" and "investigation" challenges are a little different.

In a sabotage mission, stealth and environmental puzzle solving is emphasised. In an early example, you have to retrieve a number of security cameras from abandoned businesses around the town and set them up in strategically advantageous places for both the police and your faction. Many of the cameras are out of reach from ground level, necessitating a bit of exploration as you figure out how you can actually reach them. As the mission progresses, you eventually find yourself exploring an instanced "mini dungeon" in which you have to avoid security cameras and laser tripwires while working out a route to disable various control panels without being spotted.

Investigation missions, meanwhile, are a lot more elaborate. The current one I'm working on has 18 steps in it. If you consider that your average MMO quest has 3 steps at most (get quest, kill/collect shit, return to questgiver), this is pretty impressive. When you look at what some of these steps involve, it's even more impressive.

In investigation missions, the fourth wall is broken slightly as the player has to put their own intelligence to the test. Clues are given for various challenges, and it's up to the player to figure out how to solve them. An early, simple example involves working out the password for someone's computer using a couple of hints they've left around the place, but later ones see you doing everything from deciphering morse code messages to making use of the in-game web browser to research real-world things. (Of course, you could just cheat using said web browser, but the community is already rather sensitive about spoilers, so you'll be surprised at how few "answers" are out there already.)

This brilliantly diverse questing system is coupled with an excellent levelling mechanic. Players level up at a consistent rate throughout the game and can eventually unlock all the skills from all the disciplines — but it's only possible to equip seven active and seven passive skills at once, much like how Guild Wars does things. It's possible to save these "decks" of skills, however, allowing you to easily switch your character build on the fly according to the situation you're in or what the group you're with needs you to do.

Combat, too, is quite interesting. While it's the usual "hotbar and cooldown" approach, there's a much more "action game" feel to it here, thanks in part to the fact that positioning is important — particularly when baddies start doing area-of-effect attacks. You can take on a lot more enemies at once than in many other MMOs, giving the game a much more exciting, dynamic feeling rather than simply getting into the rhythm of pressing the number keys that titles like World of Warcraft offer.

In short, The Secret World is evidence that there is still some creativity among those who make MMOs. Not everyone wants to make a World of Warcraft clone, and Funcom have succeeded in creating an experience that is very much its own thing — and very much worth your time and money. C'mon. You can't say the prospect of doing a raid on Cthulhu doesn't appeal just a little bit.

#oneaday Day 704: Old Republican

I caved and picked up the new Star Wars MMO The Old Republic this week. This despite never having really been that into Star Wars (certainly nowhere near as much as my brother and his kids, anyway) and rarely having the patience to see MMOs through to their endgame.

You know what, though? The Old Republic does one hell of a lot of things right, and might just be the big shakeup that the stale, overcrowded genre needs.

By far the best addition to the whole experience is the fact that plot is delivered with some degree of effort, rather than through static text boxes. One of the things which always bugged me about World of Warcraft was that there was this huge, epic storyline going on, but you wouldn't have known it. Text boxes do not make for good interactive storytelling. Interactive cutscenes with dialogue choices, however, do — particularly given the innovative implementation of "multiplayer conversations", where each "response" is rolled on by all party members to see who gets the chance to say their piece. It sounds odd, but works really well in practice, and is certainly a far more elegant solution than what Guild Wars did by only having the party leader visible in cutscenes.

It helps that it looks like being an interesting story (or, indeed, stories) too — I've only played as a Jedi Knight so far, but already the things I've been doing could have been straight out of a new single player Knights of the Old Republic game. This is very much a Good Thing, and the fact that you can have a completely different experience and story by playing with one of the other classes is also a Very Good Thing.

The game doesn't break completely with established MMO conventions, however. We still have a hotbar filled with abilities with cooldowns. We still have clearly defined party roles. We still have vendor trash, skill trainers, flight paths, rested XP, Elite mobs and all the other shenanigans we've come to associate with the genre. And while it would be nice to see a little more originality in some of these aspects, what we haven't seen before is the combination of these game mechanics with strong storytelling. And, unlike most MMOs, where the mechanics are very much at the forefront, here — at least early in the game — the story is very much front and centre, making you feel, as the marketing says, like you're in the middle of your own personal Star Wars saga.

It's ironic, really, that out of all the recent "new" Star Wars material, it's not the movies that were the most worthwhile things. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the Episode I-III movies were some of the worst things to happen to the franchise. Conversely, the Old Republic series has been one of the best things to happen to the saga, plot holes relating to the fact that the galaxy has been using the exact same technology for thousands of years notwithstanding. And the new game certainly has the potential to create an enormous expanded universe over the course of its lifetime. Will it ever eclipse the movies themselves, though? Probably not; the movies have a considerable head start on the game, after all. But there's so much potential here for BioWare and LucasArts to explore, and I for one am actually quite excited to see how it all develops. It's a very strong game now — where will it be in ten years' time? You only have to look at how far World of Warcraft has come since its 2004 release to see how much one game can evolve. And if The Old Republic is starting from such a strong beginning, I can't wait to see what the future holds.

This likely isn't any consolation to players of Star Wars Galaxies, which shut down earlier this week. But despite the fact that The Old Republic is far more focused on the heroic side of things rather than, say, being a dancer in a cantina, it's an authentic-feeling Star Wars experience that makes good use of both its multiplayer mechanics and BioWare's considerable chops in the storytelling department.

In short, if you've been considering trying it for yourself, then don't hesitate. Give it a try; you won't be disappointed.