Almost ready to buy

Ok so ive got through the free trial and have really enjoyed the game so far, especially the soundtrack, as expected of a Final Fantasy game i guess. Anyhows before i press on ahead and go for a subscription i have a few questions that i hope can be answered.

First it may be a condition of being a trial player or a silly mistake im making im not sure, however im not seeing any communication happening between players in the chat box, like, i literally havnt seen a single player say a word to another and/or myself, nor can i seem to ellicit a response out of anyone, what gives? (im a pc player btw)

Second how long does Square plan on keeping this game going for, as im starting quite a while after release and i dont want to pour my time into this if a new FF MMO is going to be on the shelves soon if you catch my drift.

Thank in advance for help/replies! :)

Hello Spanyard. Always glad to see a new player jump on board.

Square-Enix should have plans to keep the game going for at least another 2 years, since there are apparently plans for a 3rd expansion (which hopefully will have Yoshi-P announce a couple new job trailers in the Las Vegas fan event on Oct 14-15).

You may or may not be aware of this, but Phoenix is an EU server. If you are playing from NA, there is both a time and (in some cases, although very rare) a language issue.

That aside, a trial character is not allowed to yell, shout, tell (whispers), or use linkshells (unless invited).

The majority of chat occurs in linkshells, free companies (guilds), and tells. I also find that players generally do not talk that much, although most should be friendly enough to at least respond back to you if you explain you're new and a trial player.

There's also a new mentor and newbie system, which actually connects the new players with mentors experienced in the game. If you haven't joined that, it's a great resource. Most of the players who are actually willing to help new players understand the game can be found there. Understandably, I'm not sure if trial players can actually register with the system. There should have been a quest in your starting city just for it.

Hello there and thank you for your reply :) yes i chose an eu server as i am from the uk. As for my chat concerns then if i have my chat bubble set on 'say' is that its own channel as such and as you said most people are using this link shell business or tells so they would be different chat channels i assume?

Yes, more or less.

It depends on the level of spam on your server, but a lot of servers have received spam through the normal say, tell, and yell channels. It's not so bad now, but you still get it from time to time. I know about 40% of players on my server just outright removed the say channel from their chat window because of spam. Instead, they use the partyfinder system (which trial players can't use) to find players with like-minded goals, or through linkshells.

Linkshells are like global chatrooms, except you can control who the group talks to and listens to. Most are just lightly curated, but all of them require an invite to get in to, so it's generally a much friendlier group. As you play the game, you'll expand your network and get a nice collection of social and goal-oriented linkshells to fill your chatbox.

Oo hell they have plans for the next 4 years. There just about done with the 2nd Xpack and the alrdy said there getting rdy to start on the 3rd Xpack. Yosh talked about it a few weeks ago about having the next 3 years planed for sure.

And most of us know an Xpack only last 2 years. 3 years = 5.0(or 4.55)

Discussion rarely happens in /say. Next time you are in a party try using the party channel (/p).

Keep in mind that SE supported their previous MMO, FFXI for fifteen years. A few XI servers are still online and they still get content updates, just no more expansions or story quests. I wouldn't be worried about the game going offline anytime soon.

Have you joined the novice network channel? You should be automatically invited at some point. The people there are generally helpful and chatty. But yeah, from what I've seen so far people rarely converse with /say other than in certain conditions.

Thanks for your replies, very informative! I guess once i subscribe tonight linkshells and party chat will become available so that will solve my chat issues. Will be focusing mainly on the main story though as its very enjoyable so far, i guess there will be no need to party up until i level a bit more.

I don't know about Phoenix, but on Coeurl, /say and /shout chat are both pretty common in Limsa Lominsa, but rare anywhere else. More chatting goes on in private groups, whether that's Free Companies, Linkshells, or parties.

Yeah, rarely see any chatting in /say or /shout in the cities on Phoenix, mostly just the more private channels.

If you feel like chatting, or need help with anything, I'd agree with the Novice Network mentioned earlier or your FC. Or throw me a tell, if I'm online ;)