A Beginners Guide To Final Fantasy XIV
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
I am new to this kind of gaming, as many of you may be. I have rarely played an online massive multiplayer game for long. I grew up in a time when video games were mostly single player, or you had to play games with others on the the same console. I did play the Red Dead Redemption multiplayer with my friends; it was my first ever and though I loved it. I stopped playing it over a year ago, when I reached fifth legend. I started to play DC Universe Online for awhile (twice in fact), but though it is a fun game to play with your friends, I am not a comic fan. It lost its appeal the minute I heard that a true fantasy genre MMO would be available for play on my PlayStation 3: Final Fantasy XIV.
My gladiator
Final Fantasy has always been my favorite series of games. I own all of them from seven to thirteen, with the notable exception of eleven because it was online on computer. Final Fantasy VII will always be my favorite game of all, it was that good. The storyline was fantastic as were the characters, even though the graphics are antiquated by today’s standards. I truly wish they would consider redoing this classic for us; they would sell like hotcakes at a church breakfast.
Final Fantasy XIV is a fantastic game though. It has extraordinary depth and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface after many hours of play. It is the first game I am ever going to actually pay to play, something I never thought I would do, but it is just that good.
I was lucky enough to get into the third phase of the closed beta and then be invited again into the fourth open beta stage. Now I have been playing it for the past month or so and thoroughly enjoying myself. There are so many choices here, but I will attempt to give those considering this game a bit of an idea what they can expect from it.
The city/states
There are three major city/states in Eorzea, the continent you find yourself in when the game starts. Gridania is an elven type city/state filled with woods and rivers, they are connected to nature and their economy is largely related to that. Limsa Lominsa is a city/state filled with pirates and is a largely sea going country whose economy is built on their connection to the seas. Ul’dah is a desert kingdom with vast barren areas and oasis’ strewn about; their economy is based on their merchants and mining.
Each of these areas has certain “classes” which you will have to choose from when you do your character creation. The creation engine allows you a great deal of latitude in the making of your characters. You can choose from five different races to begin with: Hyur (Human); Elezen (Elf); Lalafell (a very small people who look like children); Miqo’te (Feline) and Roegadyn (a large Orc type people). All of these come in either gender and in two sub races. There are a large amount of changes you can make from eye and hair color to height and facial choices, like many other games have had to make the character your own.
Once you have your basic look down you will be asked to choose what type of class you want to become. Classes are the kind of fighter you will be. There are two schools of thought here, the Disciples of War and Disciples of Magic. The war one is comprised of Gladiator (sword); Pugilist (hand to hand); Marauder (axes); Lancer (two-handed polearm) and Archer (bow). Magic has three choices Conjurer (healers and users of elemental magic); Thaumaturge ( dark magic or sorcery); and Arcanist (summoners).
The class you choose also dictates which city you will start out in. Each of the three has different guild headquarters in them, so be careful which you choose, especially if you want to play with some friends right away. One of the things you need to know about the game is that unless you choose to start together in the same city, you and your friend will play alone until you reach level twelve and play through the main storyline to a certain point and gain the ability to travel to other city/states.
There are some other finishing touches to complete the character for you such as the name you create and their birth date and guardian, which determines your affinity for elemental defenses and offense.
Another thing to keep in mind is the selection of which world/server you are going to start out in. The last choice you are given before confirming your character is this one and if you want to play with friends you have to choose the same server to play in. Otherwise you won’t be able to enjoy the game together at all, at least until they choose to give you the option to change servers, if they do at some point.
Once you have confirmed all of these things the game truly begins and you will find that there is a great deal to learn here. You will have to get to a certain level before you are allowed to change classes and learn new things, but once the time is right you will have a myriad of things to do. Right now I am a level twenty-six Gladiator as well as a beginning Fisher and Armorer. At some point I am going to learn healing as well so that I can heal myself and my comrades if necessary. You can become almost anything you can conceive of in this game, the combinations are endless.
There are several types of quests available, some which are random and others which are either main story or guild related. There are some harder ones called “instances” which require four players with specific skill sets. These are timed dungeons and tend to be a bit difficult to complete. They are set to certain levels and if you enter one with a level too high it will reset it back to where it needs to be. There are also random occurrences called Fates which yield large amounts of experience and some other nice prizes at times.
You can join groups called Free Companies, which are basically users who have a guild and help each other when needed and can share resources. There is a main quest storyline to follow but once you can travel freely you can decide for yourself what you want to do and where you want to go, with the whole of Eorzea to explore and discover some incredible places that will send your imagination soaring. As you level up, more and more areas will become accessible to you. Many have some high level enemies in them and they will attack you instantly if you venture there too soon, so be careful in your explorations.
There are several types of crafting
Each city/state has a series of teleportation devices in them called Aetherytes. You attune yourself to them and use them to travel the city you are in quicker, and yes you will need them, the places are huge. These Aetheryte crystals are also sparsely distributed throughout the countrysides for quick travel later in the game. All long distance travel costs you money though, in this case Gil, the currency used in the game. If you are going to do something particularly dangerous be sure to set one of the closest Aetheryte as your home point so you spawn there if you die.
Crafting, gathering, fishing and several other types of jobs can be learned here. You can master them all one at a time if you so choose, it is up to you and each has their own distinct set of quests to complete and gain both experience and levels.
As you progress in the game you will be able to create a personal servant called a retainer to hold items for you from your inventory, which can fill up very quickly if not emptied now and then. The beauty of this system is that if you have them hold these things and later decide to add a class or job such as a Leather-worker, Cook or Blacksmith to your repertoire of abilities, you will have a lot of the things necessary already in stores for using to accomplish the tasks necessary. Retainers can also sell things for you if you wish them to, so you don’t have to be bothered with it.
Riding a Chocobo is also a mainstay of any Final Fantasy game as any aficionado can tell you, so of course you will find it here as well. There are stations to hire one in almost every town and it is a cheap and fun way to travel quickly. Eventually you will be able to own your own personal Chocobo and ride anywhere you wish, they will even fight with you or provide healing.
As I said this game is huge. The information I am giving you here is just the start of what lies in store for any adventurous soul who chooses to jump into this fantastical game. I highly recommend that you give it a try if you have the time and the resources to play it. There will be a monthly subscription fee, believed to be $12 for the first character and an additional dollar for each added one. Playing on PS3 will also require the purchase of a disk to obtain the code to activate it, which costs $39.99. Once you get the disk, redeem the code immediately and follow the directions as you will download the game from the PlayStation store.
As you can see the game is a bit costly, but I feel it is worth the investment because of the hours and possibly years of enjoyment to be obtained from playing Final Fantasy XIV.
September 22nd, 2013 by Burbie52 | 1 comment
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
Share
| Tweet |
I really enjoyed my beta experience in FF14, but it’s really hard to justify the huge investment to play the game. I would have really liked to see this a free download with a much smaller monthly charge.
I can see why this game took so long to make. (I got into beta Sept 2010, but the problems didn’t let us in to this year.) The game is massive, like overwhelming massive. The detail is also very impressive and the game ran totally smooth. I was sold on everything but the price.
Nice review Burbie!