FFXIV Still free trial extend? Monthly Payment less for when you have FFXI too?

[Mysticales]

Hey just got around to activating my XIV to see how it looks. I saw awhile back they wont bill you and that its extended trial? Is that still going on? (I ask since now its that new payment system going on) Just checking. =) Also when they do bill finally, they still doing the discount for subs of FFXI and XIV? Thanks. =)

[Dsherman]

FFXIV is still running as Free Trial for an indefinite period (extended 30 days at a time).

SE did have a marketing feature announced of giving a discount of $5.95 USD per calendar month (we were still all on the old POL billing system then) for anyone that had an active POL account and was paying for a FFXIV account both on the same SE account. However, that discount was limited to no more than 3 calendar months of FFXI Billing. (It was only going to be good for 2 calendar months of billing for people that started FFXIV on the day the Standard Edition was released on September 30, 2010 because of the need to be already paying for FFXIV by the 26th of the previous calendar month in order to receive the discount for FFXI at the beginning of a new calendar month.)

After the first 2 extensions of Free Trial on FFXIV, they also announced an extension of this discount, but because of the requirements and timing involved after the extension, it was still only 3 calendar months for the Collectors Edition (if started right away on September 22, 2010) and 2 calendar months for the Standard Edition (if started right way on September 30, 2010).

There has been no further word about this discount, and no one has ever received it since no one has ever paid a subscription fee for FFXIV yet.

I never thought much about this discount after I realized it was as limited as it was. The maximum total discount received through this would have been $17.85 USD per POL account since it was NOT a permanent discount for FFXI at all.

[Alhanelem]

Hey just got around to activating my XIV to see how it looks. I saw awhile back they wont bill you and that its extended trial? Is that still going on? (I ask since now its that new payment system going on) Just checking. =) Also when they do bill finally, they still doing the discount for subs of FFXI and XIV? Thanks. =)
This promotion basically hasn't happened yet simply because FFXIV has yet to charge subscription fees. You can still play it free, and there won't be any FFXI discounts unless and until they actually do charge for it.

[Gokku]

This promotion wont happen simply because FFXIV will never charge subscription fees. You can still play it free, and there won't be any FFXI discounts ever.

fixed that for ya

[Mysticales]

Thanks. =) Good to know I can play. Managed to snag a CE version for 25$ brand new at gamestop heh. Been meaning to get around to "looking" at it. Issue was, ALL my friends stayed FFXI (which I dont blame them, its alot of hard work that feels GREAT when you manage it and get somewhere.)

I just wanna see how the Tarus look. (I dont care for the name changes.. they really shouldve kept the FFXI names...)

[Runespider]

Thanks. =) Good to know I can play. Managed to snag a CE version for 25$ brand new at gamestop heh. Been meaning to get around to "looking" at it. Issue was, ALL my friends stayed FFXI (which I dont blame them, its alot of hard work that feels GREAT when you manage it and get somewhere.)

I just wanna see how the Tarus look. (I dont care for the name changes.. they really shouldve kept the FFXI names...)

They look really freaky, see you back in a week when you realise how terrihble it still is. Same as everyone else :/

[StingRay104]

After playing FFXIV I decided to start playing E.T. on the Atari, as it is obviously better than 14.

[Vold]

I went to Gamestop the other day and they tried to pay me to take a copy of FFXIV off their hands. I said no but that I'd pay them to pay me to pay them to pay me to pay them to pay me to pay them to pretend the game didn't exist. Everyone won on that day, I tell you.

[Alhanelem]

(I dont care for the name changes.. they really shouldve kept the FFXI names...) It's not tarus nor is it really a "name change" because it's not Vana'Diel, nor FFXI-2, and not all of the races are direct analogs, the "galka" don't really look much like them any more and females exist (and will be playable in the future). male miqote will also be playable. It's a different world and a different game, and the only reason similar races were offered was in a (failed) effort to make it easy and attractive for a then-player of FFXI to switch over. They then proceeded to add the clans, and will be adding the "missing" genders, and yadayadayada.

The recent patches have somewhat piqued my interest in the game again, as now the game has some actual content, the lore is developing quite well, the cutscenes are great (and every member of your party is featured in most of them when you have a party), most of the stupid ideas have been stripped out or revamped by the new team, the UI is more useable (and the mouse actually works). It still needs certain other things (like the area revamp) but it's a vastly different game from when it first came out.

[Runespider]

The recent patches have somewhat piqued my interest in the game again, as now the game has some actual content, the lore is developing quite well, the cutscenes are great (and every member of your party is featured in most of them when you have a party), most of the stupid ideas have been stripped out or revamped by the new team, the UI is more useable (and the mouse actually works). It still needs certain other things (like the area revamp) but it's a vastly different game from when it first came out.

All I see is them trying to make it more like XI and in that failing worse because XI does it all so much better. XIV is the kind of game that you can tell people to just try when arguing against it because it's so bad it does all the work for you.

I and all my friends bought it and have active accounts and none of us have played it since a few weeks after release (aside from some minor stints after patches). The game is free and sells for next to nothing for a reason, it sucks, has a godawful community far worse than wow and has a tiny playerbase anyway (they are making soloing harder too with such a low playerbase XD).

[Alhanelem]

All I see is them trying to make it more like XIIt's not even close to "more like XI." You could barely even call the battle system similar. Jobs when implemented will be nothing like FFXI's system. Materia isn't an XI system, crafting is completely different as well. Even if certain things were to be considered similar, there's no problem with that. After all, didn't FFXI do plenty of things right? I think so.


The game is free and sells for next to nothing for a reasonBecause it got weak reviews at launch. Those reviews are not reflective of the current state of the game.


it sucksNot anymore (and I agree, it did initially)


has a godawful community far worse than wowI have seen no major flaws of the community that don't exist in any other game including this one. People help eachother out a lot, quite possibly more than in XI, no one complaints about rewards or drops, I haven't seen many people be overly rude or inappropriate (heck the NPCs probably curse more)

You're still stuck in the perceptions of the game in its original state. It has changed- a lot. It's not fair to continue to look at it as if this was day 1 of the launch. It's not perfect, no, not by a longshot. But the improvments are drastic and far-reaching. Remember, they substantially changed their senior staff in order to make things happen. You clearly haven't tried the game in any of the latest patches and have no idea what you're talking about.


has a tiny playerbase anyway (they are making soloing harder too with such a low playerbase XD). Actually, even that's not true. Is it smaller than XI? Yes. Is it so small such that you can't get groups together to do what you need to do? No, it's not.

I remember one reviewer who wrote "You can't patch fun." Well, apparently you can, because I had more fun in the last two days than I had in the entire alpha and beta tests.

Obviously FFXIV will always bee the butt of the joke of any long time XI player, as you can tell from other comments here. But like many of you, I've been playing it for a long time, and while I still love it, rehashing old content to make up for their inability to add new content is making it difficult to stick with it. They will have to drop the PS2 and increase their dev team in order to free the game from the shackles it's currently under and I just don't see it happening, though I could be wrong, if that platform survey shows few people are still using the ps2 version.

[Mysticales]

Well I dont think FFXIV will replace FFXI. You still have people playing on PS2 for FFXI. Its a hardcore MMO for us. Look at Ultima Online, still busting out expansions while SWG died! Heh.... my only happy moment in life will be the day UO outlives WoW lol.

FFXI has something other MMOs dont do really. Hardcore grinding, hours worth, only to fail and waste a RL day just to fail again the next day... the next week... GOD DAMN COP MISSIONS! lol. But I still <3 FFXI. =D

As for 14, Would be awesome when it goes live again fully, that those who have accounts, get real special perks for being a old school adopt. Now if 14 plays quick short time demands, that could be cool. Quick pickup and play type mmo. Works for me. However I still have too much to do in FFXI. Heh.

[Swords]

FFXIV is still free for now. There is a rumor that it's supposed to go live soon from the supposed PS3 release scheduled at Gamestop, however I dunno if it was just SE giving them a random date just to get Gamestop to leave them alone.

Far as the game goes, it has drastically changed from the initial release. They cut out the charging action gage by introducing auto-attack and more recently auto-block (for shields). They did away with exp fatigue and just got rid of the physical level so the jobs themselves have their own individual stats. They improved the interface where it's not quite so buggy, introduced exp chains, airships, chocobos, Grand Companies (Military affiliation), Ifrit Battle, and of course the materia system while it has some restrictions it isn't ridiculously butchered like the Evolith System was in FFXI.

They also just revised alot of the recipes and gear which kind of pissed us off, because none of the old stuff (even R/EX) before the update is useful anymore, however the new recipes don't require near the amount of effort to acquire the materials or make parts which speeds things up. On a good note however, they are going to be streamlining the crafting system where it's not quite as tedious.

Anyways, FFXIV does seem to have started taking on alot of the familiar elements from FFXI, however despite it's initial flaws most people expected FFXIV to be more or less an enhanced clone of FFXI from the start and the disappointment led to further frustration and dislike for the game from the playerbase. Not that the players weren't expecting something new mind you, but FFXI's system had it's own charm and uniqueness and it was a system that worked (for the most part), however I think SE wanted to break away and try to make a new system which addressed some of the major flaws with FFXI's system, unfortunately the thought backfired due to poor implementation.

[Alhanelem]

Well I dont think FFXIV will replace FFXI.It's not intended to replace XI, directly. Otherwise they would have just immediately pulled the plug on it, remade the game on a new engine, and rereleased it as FFXI-2. (They actually considered something along that line by letting you export your character or letting your character actually more between the two game worlds but they decided that was impractical and would obligate players to play the other game)

the games are distinct and seperate and can coexist.

[Swords]

I think that was more of a rumor than anything perpetuated by the masses, because we had SE stated numerous times that the world was different, mechanics were different, levels worked differently, jobs were different, the races were different (albiet superficially), and truthfully FFXIV does not nor ever did hold any correlation to FFXI besides similar names and looks of some of the creatures/races and of course the age old franchise themes that are in all FF games.

I'll admit it does seem plausible they were thinking that, when they allowed you to import your FFXI character name to FFXIV (with server name attached as the last name), but there isn't really anything that say's SE was ever planning it (nothing official that I saw at least) and there's just as much evidence that disproves the theory as there is to support it.

[Joslyn]

Well until they have actual summons that I can summon I probably wont play anytime soon, sry just an old school smn player and has always been my favorite job/class in all FF games

[Alhanelem]

Summoner is not likely to be in the game in the same form as FFXI- The primals are much bigger and more powerful in nature than the avatars in FFXI. Summoning is sure to come in some form or another, just probably not as we know it here.

[Joslyn]

Summoner is not likely to be in the game in the same form as FFXI- The primals are much bigger and more powerful in nature than the avatars in FFXI. Summoning is sure to come in some form or another, just probably not as we know it here.

Which makes me wonder how they will implement it if ever

[Alhanelem]

Which makes me wonder how they will implement it if ever
I would guess either like tactics where they're just spells with unique/strong effects or maybe like FF8's GF system where they sort of support you but aren't pets.

Just random guessing, don't cite me lol

[Molech]

All I see is them trying to make it more like XI and in that failing worse because XI does it all so much better. XIV is the kind of game that you can tell people to just try when arguing against it because it's so bad it does all the work for you.

I and all my friends bought it and have active accounts and none of us have played it since a few weeks after release (aside from some minor stints after patches). The game is free and sells for next to nothing for a reason, it sucks, has a godawful community far worse than wow and has a tiny playerbase anyway (they are making soloing harder too with such a low playerbase XD).

Really? because since 1.19 I see people everywhere on FFXIV who are out in the field, the game will eventually surpass XI once they finish remaking the game. I mean, I get hating on the game is the "cool trendy" thing to do but its actually shaping up to be a good game, how quickly it gets there is the million dollar question.

The game has a ton more potential than XI, the cutscenes are worlds better there just isn't enough of them(yet). The mount system is so > chocobo whistles/raising that its not even funny also airships = instant travel to your destination. The people have been pretty nice that i've seen on my XIV server.

The sad thing about XIV is that if Yoshida had been there from the start instead of fixing all of Tanaka's failure design choices the game would have been pushing the larger MMO's for subs. XIV is on the right track, especially now that the game has a proper producer who has played most if not all of the modern MMO's on the market to see what works and what doesn't work unlike tanaka who said derp I only played XI derp and repeated every single mistake plus more.

[Runespider]

the game will eventually surpass XI once they finish remaking the game.

No MMO has ever failed the way FFXIV has and recovered in any meaningful way, FFXIV will never even recoup it's costs let alone make a profit, it has vastly fewer players than FFXI has a terrible community and really very little to offer as a game. It's only still alive out of shame of it dying, if it was called anything else they would of canned it long ago.

As such anyone investing their time in it is doomed to forever be playing a failed MMO with low playernumbers, I wouldn't wast my time and effort on a game like that. I remember people saying the game would be amazing in a year at realease, it's still crap. Keep dreaming and seeing that potential though.

[Alhanelem]

No MMO has ever failed the way FFXIV has and recovered in any meaningful way,Actually, that's totally false. I'll look at some notable faliures, some came back and otehrs didn't. Many MMOs have crashed and burned a lot harder than FFXIV did at its launch.

Asheron's Call 2 was a huge faliure and the plug was pulled on it within a year.

Another MMO out around the same time as FFXIV or before didn't even last 3 months before it was suddenly shut down. Forgot the name of it. Crimecraft I think?

Many of these MMOs only survive because they switch to a F2P model before they burn out.

Mortal Online isn't that bad of a game now, but they had to essentially totally rebuild the game once soon after release. It survived, and FFXIV can survive too, largely because of the huge effort SE is putting into saving it.

Dungeons & Dragons online wasn't a total faliure, but it never got a big enough player base and was slowly dying. They went F2P with an optional subscription and ingame store. The game became successful again.

LOTRO faced basically the same problem and was saved by going F2P the same way.

[Swords]

Didn't the Witcher bomb so badly that they shut down the servers after the first year?

[Alhanelem]

Well, uh, wow. Apparently, this whole time (or at least since several months ago) they've apparently been working on a totally brand new client, graphics engine and server system, and totally redoing the areas of the world, along with things like cross-world instances like other MMOs today have.

While they work toward this, they're going to begin charging sub fees, and then suspend them again for a short time when they put out v2.0 the end of next year.

They showed some preliminary screenshots and art of the work in progress along with a very specific timeline, and i gotta say- holy shiat. It looks like almost a totally different game, even the UI is totally redone and will have user mod support.

The only bad news is that 2.0 is a year away...

And about summoning: Summoner won't become a class itself, but in special groups players will be able to summon the summons, more like, say, FFVIII in that they aren't tied to a class.

[FrankReynolds]

Well, uh, wow. Apparently, this whole time (or at least since several months ago) they've apparently been working on a totally brand new client, graphics engine and server system, and totally redoing the areas of the world, along with things like cross-world instances like other MMOs today have.

While they work toward this, they're going to begin charging sub fees, and then suspend them again for a short time when they put out v2.0 the end of next year.

They showed some preliminary screenshots and art of the work in progress along with a very specific timeline, and i gotta say- holy shiat. It looks like almost a totally different game, even the UI is totally redone and will have user mod support.

The only bad news is that 2.0 is a year away...

And about summoning: Summoner won't become a class itself, but in special groups players will be able to summon the summons, more like, say, FFVIII in that they aren't tied to a class.

lol they are going to build 3rd party tools into the game.



Therefore, we have chosen to
completely rebuild the UI system
core in conjunction with the server
system updates. Not only will this
allow us to implement new features,
but also significantly improve
response times and open the door
for user-made add-ons.
*What are Add-ons?
Add-ons are user-generated UI content
created by fans from around the world for
use within a company-developed game. Addons are customizable, and help to enhance
the overall gameplay experience
*PC Version Only

[Runespider]

They showed some preliminary screenshots and art of the work in progress along with a very specific timeline, and i gotta say- holy shiat. It looks like almost a totally different game, even the UI is totally redone and will have user mod support.

They needed to do nothing else, they are still going to have a lot of work ahead of them to compete with the best of the rest and new games coming out. I hope they can do it.


lol they are going to build 3rd party tools into the game.

From what I gather Yoshi is a fan of wow and is pushing it in that direction, which isn't a bad thing if they do it right.

[FrankReynolds]

I found this link to the updates and road map on another thread. It actually looks pretty amazing. It may actually end up being really good if all this stuff actually happens. http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/ (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/)

[Swords]

I found this link to the updates and road map on another thread. It actually looks pretty amazing. It may actually end up being really good if all this stuff actually happens. http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/ (http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/teaser/)

From what I've seen of the updates thus far since I started playing it two months ago, they already are pretty significant so it looks like Yoshi's intentions are at least panning out as expected thus far.

[FrankReynolds]

I'm not sure exactly what they meant on that part about redoing the graphics engine for PS3, but it sounds like they may be lowering the hardware requirements too. which would be good considering how many people couldn't even run it when it came out.

[Alhanelem]

lol they are going to build 3rd party tools into the game.What's lol about that? Most popular MMOs allow UI mods.


I'm not sure exactly what they meant on that part about redoing the graphics engine for PS3, The redo of the graphics engine isn't just for the PS3. It's also for PC. You probably don't realize how much FFXIV makes even high end video cards melt.

[FrankReynolds]

The redo of the graphics engine isn't just for the PS3. It's also for PC. You probably don't realize how much FFXIV makes even high end video cards melt.

Yeah, that's what I meant. It sounds like by redoing it for ps3, they are going to make it capable of running on less powerful equipment. That could be a good thing, because a lot of People can't even run it.

[Alhanelem]

Yeah, that's what I meant. It sounds like by redoing it for ps3, they are going to make it capable of running on less powerful equipment. That could be a good thing, because a lot of People can't even run it.
Well it's no secret that part of the reason the PS3 version was postponed was because they were having technical issues with the graphics system on the ps3, having trouble fitting all the textures into memory or something like that. The new engine will allow them to get the game on the PS3 without sacrificing quality (Though PC on maximum settings is still going to look better), and without making people's video cards melt from the heat (Mine almost did, in part due to dust- At one point while playing the video card temp reached over 100 degrees C- yes, over boiling temp- even after cleaning it out, it still runs very hot- no other game strains my video card so hard)