Alpha First Look: Video 2 - Gridania

[Kiara]

Here is "Gridania," our second entry in the Alpha First Look video series!

Be sure to let us know what you think!

Hi Triairy & Yoshida-san,

Gridania is looking beautiful! Great job!

I want to also mention one point of concern that some have mentioned:

• Please allow players who use Keyboard-Only (No Mouse) to have smooth and proper control of the Camera in 2.0 without using the Mouse!

I know you've mentioned 2.0 wants to use a more "standardized / common" control scheme for default, but I hope you allow Customization so players who are Keyboard-Only can enjoy this game to our liking.

• One other feature I hope you implement is allowing us to control how "fast / slow" the Camera can move.

I know some players may enjoy the super-quick / zippy FPS-style Camera (to spin around and look around like you're playing Call of Duty), but I prefer the smoother Camera options so you won't get sick spinning the camera around too fast by accident.

Please give us Options to customize how fast or slow the Camera spins and reacts.

Thank you! and keep up the great work! Gambatte!

[Boo_Urns]

Looking good! I couldn't help but giggle when I saw the struggling moogle postman.

[Sabaku_Usagi]

Hi Triairy & Yoshida-san,

Gridania is looking beautiful! Great job!

I want to also mention one point of concern that some have mentioned:

• Please allow players who use Keyboard-Only (No Mouse) to have smooth and proper control of the Camera in 2.0 without using the Mouse!

I know you've mentioned 2.0 wants to use a more "standardized / common" control scheme for default, but I hope you allow Customization so players who are Keyboard-Only can enjoy this game to our liking.

• One other feature I hope you implement is allowing us to control how "fast / slow" the Camera can move.

I know some players may enjoy the super-quick / zippy FPS-style Camera (to spin around and look around like you're playing Call of Duty), but I prefer the smoother Camera options so you won't get sick spinning the camera around too fast by accident.

Please give us Options to customize how fast or slow the Camera spins and reacts.

Thank you! and keep up the great work! Gambatte!

Completely agree, I mentioned it on another thread way back when but it's just frustrating to have such a jagged motion on the keyboard. Who knows if they will ever fix it though...

[chrillix]

Looks amazing!!! Can't wait to explore all the new areas =D

[Matter]

OMG THEY BROUGHT BACK THE DOTTED AREA MARKERS FROM FFXII!!! :>

My life feels pretty complete right now....

[Meteos]

I am impressed as this is only alpha, my expectations have been exceeded. Can't wait for the official release.

[Mireille]

Grid looks great, and the character movement is much better than it was in the gamescon vids. I'd like to see the walk motion. The kitty's jump could be a bit more catlike.

The downside is that music is awful. I found it to be shrill and emotionless. I'd have to turn the sound off if I wanted to spend time in Grid.

[Lapulapu]

I liked 1.0 starts and stops better, turning animation should be more realistic too. FF series is known for best graphics... I can't see FF moving backwards in an updated version of this game... detail is good but animation is sub par compared to 1.0. Fix it or people will be disappointed. Jumping is a great addition ^^

[casker]

I'm mostly pleased with what I see but please FIX THE ANIMATION.

[mbncd]

The moogle animation loop needs to be longer and look more random. At the moment, it's looping far too quickly so looks really unnatural. Most 10 frame animated GIF's look better than it does...

I'd love to see the overall main map of Grid, just to get a more cohesive idea of everything. All the edit cuts kind of disorientated me. I hope they go with big maps again like 1.xx maps. Even with different zones, all the zones were depicted on the same map and it made it really easy to figure out which zone you had to go to. I've not played FFXI for a very long time but I remember their zones had separate maps so if you weren't familiar with an area, you had to go to the different zones to see if what you were looking for was there. I also hope that the AetherNet menu will somehow bring up a map or minimap or description of things in the area around the various nodes before you select them, I'm often not sure where the places on the list in 1.xx refer to.

It was nice seeing the fenced off areas are no longer inaccessible. That was kind of obvious from when Jump was first announced but it feels different to actually see the character jump the fence and run around in the flowers behind it that she previously wouldn't have been able to get near. Same for the ability to jump down the rather large cliff. Obvious but still feels different to actually see.

I suspect there will be animations when turning when the camera is locked on your back. I also suspect that you'll be able to unlock that fairly easily and that there will be keyboard AND mouse AND gamepad camera controls. Not too worried about any of those aspects. Of course, if that isn't the case by beta I'd worry a lot XD I'm not so confident in moving NPC's... Really hope they are there for the beta though!

The dock was really intriguing; there are so many travel related possibilities for that. It also felt much more intimate than the huge docks in Limsa. The huge docks have their place, especially in a massive port city with huge ships and the like, but the little dock is really quite nice. I'd love to even climb into a little dinghy there and row away to some place quiet and fish for a few hours in the middle of a lake or whatever. That just sounds so relaxing...

One other thing they didn't show was the inside of the carpenter's guild. While I was training that class, I often hung out upstairs in the back room. By the stairs there were always NPC's working on a big carving that I always wanted to see eventually complete. I just want to know if they've finished that carving in 2.0 and if they've started on anything new since then. Little things like that, things indicating the actual passing of time in a real, basic, physical way, they're so fun to find and watch. Things like seasons are just loops but actual progression is something else. A statue you see them carve and then place somewhere around the city, a new item to follow it in being made and then placed somewhere else, you get to see the city develop and I'd really love to see something like that.

The Aetherite is big (not quite sure of my impression of the size, it might be too big, it might grow on me and be just the right size, really have to wait and see with that one, but it at least stands out so will be easy to find at all times, especially for new players) and pretty and so much more convenient now. That area in Grid always seemed like such wasted potential before. It was the middle of the city but completely bare. Now the city hub is finally really going to be the city hub.

I like the music and it seems to fit the brighter Grid that we have now. It seems like the sort of music that I could listen to for a while without it getting annoying, and after a while I may not even notice hearing it anymore unless I particularly wished to go out of my way to listen. That's all I really ask of from any BGM: that it fit the situation/location, that it not get annoying, that it's pleasant when I do pay attention to it, and that it isn't intrusive when I'm ignoring it.

I think that the majority of complaints will come from people who have a vested interest in nostalgia. I understand that a lot of people don't take change well, especially in something they care about. My own mother won't even look at me whenever my hair is trimmed because she's so adverse to any sort of change. My mother gets used to my shorter hair over time though and so do many gamers get used to the changes in their MMORPG's. Things that seem "horrible" or even just a negative connotation to "different" become palatable with time and exposure and then people can't imagine going back to how it was. I do think it's important to look at things from a constructive point of view and to keep nostalgia in its place. Do I dislike this ONLY because it's different? Will I feel the same way once new nostalgia has had a chance to grow over the coming years? The answers to those sorts of questions are sometimes hard to come to grips to, especially as you want a certain answer to be true even if it isn't. After you've given the new music/colours/placements/etc a chance to grow on you, after they've been in place for a while and you've repeatedly exposed yourself to it, that's when I think people are better equipped to decide if something is good or bad based on nostalgia. If you have good (and maybe bad) memories associated with both versions, you can kind of take those memories out of the picture and concentrate on other things, such as if it fits the overall feel of the new/changed place, if it achieves it's purpose, if it is offensive in any way on it's own merit (as opposed to by comparison with the old), etc. I'm not saying throw out all the old stuff and change everything just for chang's sake, but I do think there has been a great deal of effort put into maintaining a lot of the old stuff while incorporating the new. It was easy to recognise a lot of things like the adventurer's guild, the children's area, the conjurer's guild, etc, and very few of the new things were outright objectionable in their own right.

Overall, I see some problems but I'm very happy with the vast majority of what I see here. It's still a beautiful and enchanting place ^_^ Thank you Yoshi-P and team.

Please fix the moogle though, somehow that's bugging me so much more than anything else...