Personal Gamescom report

[Loggos]

I don't claim any of the information to be 100% true. I just write down what I perceived and what I asked and got as an answer. I may have understood some parts incorrectly so please don't refer to this as a "water-proof" source.

---------

Hello everyone.

I managed to attend Gamescom today and collected a lot of impressions I'd like to share with you guys.
Except for something about Meteor Survivor T-Shirts and Beta there is not much you don't know yet from the formally uploaded video but maybe it's nice to have the subjective view of a player and not of a press writer.


First off a description:

The presentation was the same as seen in the video, repeated thrice over the day having each time the same order/schedule, talking, ingame material and even the same "faults" of the moderator. :P (I guess it's because I'm used to my German pronounciation of "mi'qote" but I didn't know I was a "mecotty". ^^)


My personal view:

I must admit that I was really really impressed by Yoshida.
He was incredibely friendly and easy-going. The way he behaved appeared natural and not artificial or forced, specially when he interacted with the fans (such as giving away presents and taking photographs. He took his time particularily for the latter because in fact the organisators said there was no time for photographs. Yet he just hopped of the stage after the presentation so that we could take some pics with him! ^^).
Same was for the autograph session. I really wouldn't have thought that he is so close to us fans.

The presents given away were little ventilators/fans of FFXIV: ARR that had little lamps on one rotor blade so when turned on the writing "Final Fantasy XIV" appeared to hover in the air and even moved. I loved that idea!
The T-Shirts were white ones but I don't know what is printed on them 'cause I couldn't catch one.
They weren't the "Meteor Survivor"-T-Shirts though and when I asked a staff member she said, she didn't know if they would be for sale in the future because they had originally been printed for gamescom only.

As said before the presentation was held thrice a day in the same order. However I must say that I enjoyed it (and come on, Yoshi has to give three presentations a day, for five days plus autograph sessions. I suppose this must be very exhausting so that a fixed programm is easier than several ones. I - as part of the audience - can only say that I consider it well done.)
Also I have to say that I really liked the ingame footage. The fighting alreay appears very smooth, fast and well-animated and the environment conveys a lot atmosphere due to the real-time shading (that simply looked impressive)!
All in all this makes me hope for something good and leaves me confident!
The user interface seems very intuitive now, too. Finally I can click-add a member to my team!! (Miss that so much atm. ;_; ) Same goes for the drag/drop menu.

Now, one could say that SE should have shown more from the game but that would probably have been too much for the presentation that lasted half an hour. After all they it had to contain:

Introduction, Concept arts, questions regarding prior FF references, trailer, ingame footage (live with Yoshi), Limitbreak, questions regarding the schedule and the "presento".
This is why I consider the current set-up as very reasonable, specially because also non-FFXIV players should be attracted. And I suppose this only works by showing the most elemental things first (being a character that interacts with the world, travels it and fights).
That's just my personal view of course. But as I said I found the live scenes very appealing, already!


The only thing that I criticise is the lack of information to the world outside of Gamescom, e.g. via a "one-time" record/stream or official videos. Regarding this point I don't understand SE, as others don't do, either.



Some more information I could gather:

Something that was very important to Yoshida and that he repeated several times is the fact that everything shown is still in the pre-alpha phase!
Alpha will run in autumn, beta is set for winter so that we can probably count on many upcoming changes compared to what we know now and I think to get us informed about this fact is very important to Yoshida.
The material shown at Gamescom is by no means the final product (who knows, maybe even the grass will look better ).

I think Yoshida is in a hard position anyways: The most important game expositions of the world take place before FFXIV can show products from the final stage but for the expositions coming up next year its launch is yet too early (beginning of 2013 if I'm not wrong).
I know, I sound like a mad defender. xD I'm really sorry!! This is just how I imagine things could be.


Another message regarding the beta, that I could get from a staff member:

There will most likely be several beta phases (or rather an Alpha and two or more(??) Betas).
The very first phase (I think it's not the autumn alpha but the first winter beta but I'm not sure!!!) will be accessable for those who registered for it at Gamescom (and E3/Anime Expo?) because the servers of the early phase would be too full (think of the fact that we already fill all servers with 1.0. I guess for testing 2.0 they just don't have as many).
However all those who have an account (us) will be invited into the following betas, but again not >>all<< at the same time but in steps due to the server filling. But yes, you as legacy players can most likely play beta.


My conclusion:

I really enjoyed the presenations, even though the moderator of the show seemed a little stressed but geez, gamescom is really exhausting...and very noisy for everyone...
Since I assume that the material shown is still from very early phases and I'm already quite impressed I believe we can expect a good game.
I also asked about the graphic qualities and a staff member said that we can scale it up to have great graphics on high end computers but we can also scale it down to run FFXIV on lower ones.
I think the presentation was held on an average (not very good, not very bad) computer hence the graphic didn't live up to its full potential (but was still very good).
I am optimistic and I must admit that I really believe Yoshida can do this.
On the other hand he is just human, too so he will make faults sooner or later. But imho one must also grant this to him, specially because he has done very well so far.
This is why I'm positive and now I just hope that the gaming press doesn't give too bad reviews after gamescom, because like I said before a few times, this is not the final product. What we've seen is pre alpha.


And some photographs...



The FF-stage


Cool lighting


Official cosplay models who looked very convincing imo (if I may not post them I'll take them down again. Just let me know.)



The master himself enters the stage.






Pictures from the live-presentation




The autgraph session and the voluntarily organised photograph time. ^^

I hope I could give you guys some insights... xP

[Babydoll]

Very nice! Thanks for this Loggos I wish I could have gone!

[Rokien]

Thank you for that! I hope you are enjoying yourself there!

[Dragonheart]

Thanks! Very nice to hear current players! .. Did you take the video of the presentation?

[Picoman]

Very Cool. Thank You!

(btw What has happened to the Highlanders recently??? They being exterminated!)

[neorei]

that graphics

[Loggos]

Thanks to you all! Really glad you like it.


@ Picoman

About the highlanders, I don't think they have been forsaken but I guess for the sake of clear arrangement they only show the general races and not the tribes as seen on the character line up in the opening post (e.g. there is no trace of hells guard roes either). :x
But I agree, I'd love to see some concept on them, too! ^^


@Dragonheart

Ah yeah, I've tried to take some with my camera but it's basically the very same as you guys already know. I can try to upload them of course but it will simply be a copy of the already existing video of the press presentation. :x

[Laughlyn]

thats is one happy smileyface on the last photo lol ^.^)b

[Dragonheart]

Thanks to you all! Really glad you like it.



@Dragonheart

Ah yeah, I've tried to take some with my camera but it's basically the very same as you guys already know. I can try to upload them of course but it will simply be a copy of the already existing video of the press presentation. :x

If it is higher quality than that one, it would be nice !

[Ralliare]

The Admiral plushie is unguarded!