Thought the feedback of a new player might be interesting.

small background info: been playing WoW for upwards of 5 years, stopped a few months ago. Passed by all other MMOs during those years. The last Final Fantasy title apart from Tactics for PSP has been FF VII on Playstation for me.
I read about Final Fantasy XIV and saw some videos prior to it's release, but pretty much didn't notice the launch. Some months later I came across the rather horrible reviews. In early August I saw it mentioned again and that things had gotten better. They were supposedly still not great but the game was essentially playable now. That the game was selling for 30$ and is essentially free to play until Square Enix considers it "fixed" helped persuade me to give it a try. Judges are still out on if I'll pay a monthly fee for the game at this point should SE now end the F2P phase.



8/09 - bought FF14 on a whim in the evening at my local Gamestop. Registration seemed needlessly convoluted. The part where I had to set up billing through Clickandbuy was annoying. My account with them is currently still blocked until I get around to call them during their limited business hours - other MMO operators don't give me such a headache, why does SE? The free Crysta as alternative currency finally let me enable character creation on their website. Actually, after reading some posts on here about CnB I think I'll just leave it blocked to prevent further headache down the road.
I'm currently not sure if I can add more character slots without paying or what the deal is there, for now I have one character slot which feels rather limited.
Character creation is reasonably straight forward. Supposedly the crafter classes one can choose in the process are essentially unplayable from what I read, didn't try that myself but wondering why they are an option at all during char creation if that is true.

I tried a few melee and caster characters in the three different cities that first night. It was a little weird how cut scenes are initially fully voiced and then abruptly transition to being text-only. What really bummed me out was that I could not adjust graphics settings in the game, that was a separate little application in the FF14 folder which would only run after quitting the game, quite annoying. Just as annoying as the game crashing when run in full screen mode and alt-tabbing out to take care of other things, like IMs from the wife etc.



8/10 - Running the game windowed was shockingly sluggish. I found forum posts mentioning a little app called "Final Fantasy XIV Priority Booster" which takes care of that problem, I'm a little dumbfounded that SE hasn't fixed that issue themselves after a year now. Given how crappy things were without that little app I'm not sure if I would have just junked the game by now.
The interface feels as if it was primarily designed for console use, rather unflexible, overly menu driven. Haven't found yet if/how I can lock the UI elements in place and if the battle and general chat windows can be combined into a single tabbed window.

I settled onto playing a Pugilist on the Mysidia server starting in Limsa Lominsa. I followed the introductory quest which took me to a small camp outside the city where after clicking the crystal I was tasked with killing three small critters. Pretty straight forward, easy and I must say the map and combat system work nicely for me. I was a little confused when I got no further quests in that camp. Ran around killing more critters for a while to level 5 just to get a few more abilities and get a better feel for things before returning to the city.
Still manage to target myself an awful lot when mouse-targeting. Not sure why there is a need to toggle into an active mode before initiating combat. Seems counterintuitive and somewhat annoying with no good reason for it.
Anyway, after my rat genocide I returned to the city and talked to the guy who had sent me off initially. He then sent to deliver a fish to a restaurenteur. Supposedly I now have to run and find some other dudes wherever, I kinda didn't bother and decided to leave that for tomorrow. I did find some guildleve quest giver in the tavern, not started any of that yet.
Oh, and I can't jump? meh. I can't fall to my untimely death? kinda neat actually.

No idea where the market/auctionhouse stuff is yet or how it works. No idea what the elemental points I've been spending do. No idea what that guardian deity I chose is for.

Found an NPC vendor with weapons, from what I understand if I buy one of those I effectively change my character into another class based on which weapon I equip, might give that a try tomorrow.
I wouldn't want to imagine how the game was right after launch, pretty much unplayble I fear. I to my own surprise kinda like it so far.

Even as the cities feel a little sterile and I usually am not the biggest fan of the asian art and game style. I actually enjoy not having a damn clue and discovering things.

I do think the general public which is used to WoW style games might not have the patience for this though.
Oh and I don't have the foggiest idea how crafting works or what the stuff I looted from all those moles and rats is for.

If only there were more players on my "high population" server. I was surprised to see japanese characters on my chat window. I suppose the servers are effectively global? can be interesting.



8/11 - what bugs me a little is what I can only call "the uncanny valley of inanimate objects". The cities are beutiful, but seem somewhat sterile and dead. I'm not sure if

all those random loitering NPCs have some purpose in quests later on, meaning they have to be static and stand in one place, but either way some NPCs walking around going about their business would liven the place up. There appears to be no wear on any structures, nothing indicating that the cities are actually lived in by people, no hint at any kind of housing.
Don't see any kind of general chat channels for a region/city, a bit of a bummer given the somewhat steep learning curve of this game which has me feel like being thrown in at the deep end with no apparent way to just throw out a question and being pointed in the right direction by fellow players.
I assume there is no pvp in this game, don't miss it though.