I played the prior version of this game about 4 years ago but it had a lot of problems and complaints and was revised/rebooted in this new version hence the name "A Realm Reborn".
I was really excited to be finally able to play a male cat instead of the female Mithra I played for 7 years in FFXI.
So let me introduce you to Thane. He is from the Miqo'te race.
You can choose from 5 different races, either male or female. The character creation itself is beautiful already and they let you customise your character more then the prior FF title. So Square Enix follows the trend with the older MMO's like GuildWars 2.
Now it comes to leveling your character.
You can start with either the Disciples of War or Magic that give you a range of starter jobs. I started my Mithra as a monk in FFXI so I thought it would be fun for old times sake to do the same with my new char. Pugilist it is. In order to become a Monk you need Pugilist 30 and Lancer 15 to unlock the job. I did my research before I picked a job ;).
There are storylines to follow that help you understand why Eorzea is in trouble and needs your help. Each job comes with their seperate storyline, making it more easier to level and ofcourse more fun then the grinding of experience in FFXI. You can grind if that is your forte but it's faster just doing duties.
The only thing they didn't change in the series is the amount of traveling around you have to do XD, either by foot, airship or mount. Yes, we still have our trusty old chocobo.
I do not want to spoil the storyline too much so I'll just put in some Pugilist screenshots so you can see the quality of the game, which in my honest opinion improved a lot.
Big improvement for me is that you don't have to run all the way back to your moghouse to change jobs. Now they have these nifty gear lists that let's you change in the respective jobs you need anywhere you want. And you have a seperate Armory box that keeps your gear (big plus too because I always ran out of space on FFXI). If you want to be a crafter or gatherer you can also create a gear set for that.
New for FF is the Duty Finder. This little tool teams you up with other seeking players to do a dungeon raid. It beats shouting for a group and waiting for hours in one spot hoping to be picked as a damage dealer because of the few healers and tanks. It doesn't matter where you are in Eorzea, as soon as your party is ready, you will be teleported to the respective dungeon.
Last night I had a great group for the Coppermines dungeon and I died only once because I didn't realise the bomb was going to selfdestruct xD.
Mean looking Gigas Boss
For anyone who know the FF series, the wellknown tune is played here ;).
Another cute feature to the game is that you can have minions following you around like in Guild Wars 2. As a present for the Early Preorder you get this adorable Cait Sith doll. The Collectors edition gave you a Baby Behemoth (sadly I couldn't get one :/ ) and I've seen several Baby Raptors, Bats and even Automatons running around. They do absolutely nothing but follow you :P. Still it's cute to collect these.
The old linkshell is still there to chat with your friends/co-players. But they also have Free Companies. It is kind of like the Guilds on Guild Wars in which with each rank up new goodies get unlocked. Your Free Company gets rankpoints for each participants finished levequest or fates.
Fates are timed open events that usually last for 15 minutes and lets you get a fair amount of free experience if you finish it. This can be either an escort, gathering quest or boss fight. The system will inform you if you are either too low or too high to participate. When you are too high, you can levelsync to the needed level ;).
So far I love the game. It is a total change from FFXI with a lot of new fun stuff to do and discover. Square Enix didn't expect the servers to be massflooded so they put a restriction on character creation. The coming days they are putting up extra hardware to compensate for the login problems.
It's now a month free-to-play but changes to a monthly fee like World of Warcraft and FFXI.
I'll update my blog with my adventures occasionally.
But for now ;)
See you in Eorzea!
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