Stormblood Early Access has soured me on FFXIV

[MalRage]

As I type this I am also clicking on Pipin over and over and over, trying to get through the second instance roadblock of the Main Story Quest. I have been doing so for the last hour and a half for this session. I have done so for more than five hours since yesterday morning after spending a similar amount of time to get through Raubhan. I am surrounded by dozens of other players in the same digital circle of hell.

For the last few weeks I have been eagerly looking forward to this expansion. A friend and I had the naïve idea to make arrangements to play the game at the Early Access launch, planning a schedule so that we could experience the game together. He even planned on streaming the adventure and our commentary as a way to memorialize the event. It was going to be fun.

Things started well enough, with only ten minutes in the login queue. We started our respective job quests and made our way into the MSQ and Stormblood proper, surrounded by hundreds of fellow travelers. The server felt very much alive. We grabbed every side quest we could find and stopped at ever fate. We looked for aether currents, explored maps, played Triple Triad with new NPCs. We tried to taste everything the expansion had to offer.

Then we met Raubhan.

There was a small group of players surrounding the NPC, all with the Cut Scene Icon next to their names. We tried a few times and were met with an error, so we thought to go to the next zone instead and do the MSQ there. We'd come back and finish this when things got sorted out, which was SURE to happen soon. After all, Square Enix takes care of its player base, right? That was a mistake I greatly regret.

A few hours later, after having explored everything and done all available quests in the two available zones, we came back to Raubhan. The group around him had grown larger, and a line had been formed, traveling all the way to the Aetheryte at Castrum Oriens, with hundreds of players now halted from progressing. We began our attempts to get through, eventually ending the stream. What would be the point in broadcasting us standing in one spot clicking the same npc over and over, skipping the same cutscene over and over?

After an hour or so, we decided to try other things. We had unlocked new classes and had time to do some beast tribe quests and roulettes before the daily reset. After that we did some hunts, which was refreshingly lively again. Then we tried Palace of the Dead, which turned out to be rather unstable and not worth the risk, as disconnecting there can lead to no gain whatsoever.

On and off we would go back to Raubhan, try for an hour or two, then give up and waste time elsewhere. We did our new set of Beasttribe and Roulettes, clan hunts, anima progress, food, naps, anything to break up the monotony between click sessions trying to get through the MSQ block, all the while waiting for updates from SE about how they would fix this bottle necking issue; updates that never came.

27 hours after EA launch, we got through. My friend loaded first; I got in about 8 attempts later and we finished at nearly the same time. Before getting in we were about to log off and sleep again, but with the progress came a burst of energy. More content was available to us!

20min later, it came to a halt. We heard warnings of another block, we never imagined it would have been so soon. Already a group of players surrounded Pipin, though not as large as the one around Raubhan. For an hour we tried before giving up to sleep, our brief excitement giving way to melancholy.

Throughout day two we came back to try again, thirty minutes to an hour and a half each time. Once more we broke it up with daily tasks, or helping out friends with their runs. The server seemed less stable than before with disconnects and 90k errors, players dropping out of duties, and attempts at logging back in taking upwards of twenty minutes between errors and queue times, and one of our friends couldn't progress in the 2.0 story because he too was blocked behind an instance that wouldn't work. We didn't stream at all this day. By 9 that evening, we gave up for the day. We couldn't get past Pipin, so perhaps we would have better luck if logged back in the middle of the night when there MIGHT be fewer players on. As bad as this has been for me, it was worse for my friend. He was able to enter the Pipin instance, but was wearing the wrong gear set and failed. To have finally lucked out in entering, then forced to try to enter again? That is a taste of despair I do not envy.

Now once more we sit, our main experience with Stormblood Early Access one of standing still and clicking the same npc over and over again. As I sit here on this seemingly pointless endeavor, I was overcome with a sense of disappointment, which inspired me to pen this screed.

At this point, I don't even care about the story. I've watched to same cutscene a dozen times, hoping that perhaps doing something OTHER than click and skip would help, and I find I just don't care about any of it. In the lead up to launch I completed Heavensward and all the side quests. I ran through the entirety of the Hildebrand quest line, as well as the Scholasticate just days before launch. None of the characters matter to me at this point.

The players that I have seen get through, the fresh level 70s with the purple griffin looking mounts, they seem to be the ones with laser focus on the MSQ, skipping past cut scenes and sidequests and distractions to progress as quickly as possible. They were the ones to stay ahead of the bottle neck that has halted the progression of the rest of us. They are the ones that get to explore the new areas, new bosses, new dungeons, the new experience we've all paid for. By ignoring the carefully crafted story, they are able to experience Stormblood to its fullest, while the rest of us click an npc for days on end. I certainly don't fault them for that. I only lament that I came to such a realization too late for it to do ME any good.

More than anything, though, I am disappointed in the team at Square Enix. They spent so many resources advertising and hyping this game, but then didn't anticipate or bother with the need to allocate resources to HANDLE the load. We have seen a couple new updates acknowledging this issue, but the player consensus of Square Enix's position is that the bottle neck is "working as intended" to maintain server stability, and so those of us at this step will receive no succor. We see the Susano glitch addressed quickly and the Red Sea area brought down for emergency maintenance, while we are left on our own.

Well, we hear you, Square Enix. We hear you loud and clear. I certainly won't make the mistake of trusting your ability to have a stable launch ever again.

Now on to hour four of clicking Pipin...

[Reaperking386]

I went to the other side out of bordem. I believe it leads you back to the quest, but it is something for me atleast. This blows.

[Frostyflakes]

That is cool that you and your buddy planned a picnic and stuff but its early access....its not even launch. You guys should have took a rain check and moved your date to the 20th which is actual launch. To use the airline ticket analogy so many people on this forum like using....If you buy an airline ticket for a flight that leaves in 4 days, but I let you onto the plane 4 days early to play around with the seats and the oxygen masks, it doesn't mean that bitch is getting off the ground until its time to take-off.

[Annah]

That is cool that you and your buddy planned a picnic and stuff but its early access....its not even launch. .

no offense but this argument is kind of pointless.

Early Access is not beta. It's a "treat" for buying the game before the date the game is to be release. This isn't a test, it's not beta, it's not a stress test, its the real thing but a week early.

Now, true, every MMORPG always has issues one the first week of launch (and despite what anyone wants to say, this is the first week of launch) and there has been worse launches than stormblood and there has been better launches than stormblood

Now, what makes Stormblood unique is the fact that its an MMORPG that cannot be progressed forward (even in zones and travel) without speaking to the Holy Trinity (Raubauhn, Pipin, and Susano)and they're all being bast*rds right now

[Araxes]

This is why only Paladins can access through all the MSQ without problems.

[MalRage]

That is cool that you and your buddy planned a picnic and stuff but its early access....its not even launch. You guys should have took a rain check and moved your date to the 20th which is actual launch. To use the airline ticket analogy so many people on this forum like using....If you buy an airline ticket for a flight that leaves in 4 days, but I let you onto the plane 4 days early to play around with the seats and the oxygen masks, it doesn't mean that bitch is getting off the ground until its time to take-off.

Another analogy would be I'll sell you a plane ticket to leave on the 20th, but if you buy now, I'll let you fly on the 16th instead, and then telling you no, nevermind, we're not actually leaving until the 20th, even though based on what I told you, you made plans to leave on the 16th and now have four days wasted vacation.