EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamerbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ffxiv_banner_whites.jpg)
Final Fantasy XIV
Table of Contents
- Synopsis
- Game Information
- Lore
- Community
- Gameplay
- Strategy
- FFXIV and TL
- Additional Information
1. Synopsis
Final Fantasy XIV (Hereafter: FFXIV) is Square-Enix's second MMORPG following the success of Final Fantasy XI (FFXI). In this game, much like any MMORPG, you control a single character, however, what differs FFXIV and FFXI from many other popular MMOs, you have the ability to change your class/job when permitted, allowing you to have many different avenues of skills to conquer.
FFXIV takes place in the region of Eorzea, located on the world Hydaelyn. Within Eorzea, there are 4 main city-states, known as Ul'dah, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ishgard. The player may chose one of these city-states to begin their adventure, with the exception of Ishgard which is currently closed off.
Eorzea has a mysterious magic running through it by the name of Aether, forming large crystals and rifts throughout the land. The player can travel between these using the rechargeable resource known as Anima.
There are 5 races that inhabit Eorzea, the human-like Hyur, the elven-like Elezen, the halfling race of Lalafell, the cat-like Miqo'te and the brutish Roegadyn.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xxbck.jpg)
There are Twelve Guardians of Eorzea that could be considered Gods, they provide sanction to the player and NPCs alike, when you create your character, you chose one of these Twelve guardians to be your main guardian. (More Explained in Lore).
Within FFXIV, there is countless amounts of lore and story to be told, and it is ever expanding. In later sections, I will be posting more about the lore of the city-states, races, and your character's story and adventure.
2. Game Information
If you have kept up with FFXIV since it's release in September 2010, you will know that it had a very rough start with many game review sites giving it negative feedback and very low scores. In the past year however, the game underwent a change in producer/director from, Hiromich Tanaka (who produced FFXI, and recently, has gone back to FFXI) to Naoki Yoshida (more commonly referred to as Yoshi-P by the FFXIV community).
More recently, the announcement of FFXIV 2.0 has caught a lot of people's attention. FFXIV is in the midst of large changes, including a whole new graphics and physics engine. Yoshida is very aware of the Japanese and English player bases wants and needs, and is constantly trying to accommodate everyone, while in practice, this doesn't always work, he is one of few game producers that listens so actively to it's community.
FFXIV 2.0 has set a beta release date sometime around October, it is unknown when the game is going to be in stores. FFXIV 2.0 should also come out on PS3, to many players excitement.
Currently, (as of writing) the game is on Patch 1.22b, the patch archives for FFXIV can be found here: Patch Notes
FFXIV has a monthly cost of $12.99/30 days. The game comes in 4 languages, Japanese, English, French and German. You can find out more about system specifications at this link: System Specs
At E3 2012, Square-Enix unveiled some screenshots for FFXIV 2.0 as well as various concept arts, these can be found here: FFXIV 2.0 Screens
3. Lore
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/woMK3.png)
~Coming Soon~
4. Community
~Coming Soon~
5. Gameplay
![[image loading]](http://www.animeclick.it/prove/upload/img/News13240.jpg)
FFXIV offers a large amount of gameplay with 18 different classes. 7 of which are used in battle, which are further split into two categories, one for the Physical Classes (Disciples of War) and one for the Mages (Disciples of Magic), 8 for crafting various armour, weapons, reagents and food (Disciples of the Hand), and 3 that are gatherers of the land (Disciple of the Land).
The Disciples of War and Magic do what any good battle class does, and that is, kill stuff. These are classes that you should have at least 1 of, to progress throughout the story, they are far and away the most common classes that people have, with many people having all 7 at the maximum level of 50. Recently, these classes got an addition to their strengths known as a "Job". These jobs allow for a more defined role between the classes with some gaining more survivability, and others, more damage. Here are some details on the Disciples of War and Magic, and their respective jobs:
Class/Job - Short Description/Role <--- Template
-Disciple of War-
Gladiator/Paladin - A tank class that uses a Sword and Shield, with the ability to heal itself and an assortment of defensive abilities makes a great tank.
Pugilist/Monk - A damage dealer that uses fists and knuckles. With high attack power, and high accuracy, assists a lot in party play.
Marauder/Warrior - A tank class that uses a Two-handed Axe, with many enmity keeping abilities, high HP and high damage output, it makes for an excellent offensive tank.
Lancer/Dragoon - A damage dealer that uses a lance. With powerful drain abilities and high critical power, it makes for a powerful addition to any party while still being excellent for solo play.
Archer/Bard - A damage dealer that uses a bow. Ranged damage dealers are excellent in FFXIV, and with Bard, it doubles as a strong support role that is almost necessary in party play.
-Disciple of Magic-
Conjurer/White Mage - A mage that uses healing magics to assist allies in battle. Necessary for party play, with 2 required for many endgame events.
Thaumaturge/Black Mage - A mage that uses powerful damage magics to vanquish it's foes. Low survivability, but immensely powerful extremely good in party play.
In FFXIV, solo play is very possible with many of your early levels (1-20) will be done solo using the levequest system. But all endgame events and leveling at higher levels are done in parties of 8 members, a general party will have 1 tank, 2 White Mages and the rest DD, primarily ranged DD.
For leveling, I mentioned the levequest system already, these are rechargable quests (8 every 12 hours) that award a decent amount of EXP when completed, in general, this is the fastest way to level if you're playing solo. Parties are faster in general however.
Within FFXIV there are tons of quests in the main storyline, sidequests and Grand Company Quests (this will be explained in the lore section tomorrow)
There are also endgame events in FFXIV, albeit there isn't too much diversity at the moment, we have the 3 Primal fights of Ifrit, Good King Moggle Mog XII and Garuda. These battles have very specific strategies and can last upwards of 20 minutes. With achievements being possible if a speed run is accomplished. They require good coordination between the party members to succeed. As well as these we have instanced raids in FFXIV, the popular ones are The Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry, the players have to navigate through the dungeon doing specific requirements in order to get more treasure when the final boss is vanquished.
On top of this, we have the strongholds and Hamlet, the strongholds have high level beastmen type monsters and provide for good experience and good treasures. Hamlet is an instanced battle system in which all classes can participate, this event is very new and is interesting in how it plays out with NPC AI assisting you in battle.
On top of all of this, we still have the other classes to explore! The 8 Disciple of the Hand classes are as follows:
-Disciple of the Hand-
Blacksmith - Weapon Craft
Armourer - Armour Craft
Goldsmith - Weapon/Armour/Jewelry Craft
Leatherworker - Armour Craft
Weaver - Armour Craft
Carpenter - Weapon Craft
Culinarian - Food Craft
Alchemist - Reagent Craft
These classes use various materials obtained via killing monsters or gathering in order to create gear, food, potions, among many other things. On top of this, they are also necessary to repair broken armour and meld materia on to armour and weapons.
Crafting in this game is important, especially with the materia system, it is possible, with some serious luck, to craft the greatest gear in the game. Using materia to alter the stats of the gear you craft, you can make incredible pieces of gear, worth millions, however, the greater the materia, and the more you put on a single piece of gear, the higher risk of losing both your gear and materia comes into play.
The materia system makes for crafters to always have something to work towards, and are always necessary, also, the crafting system, is fun, and more difficult than just pressing one button and watching an animation.
Disciples of the Land scour the lands of Eorzea in order to find materials to sell to crafters, or, to craft with themselves. There are three Disciples of the Land, each with their own bounty:
-Disciple of the Land-
Botany - Harvests Trees
Miner - Harvests Rocks/Quarries
Fisher - Harvests Fish
Much like crafting, these classes are fun to play and more difficult than just pressing one button over and over again, and requires some thought.
Both DoH and DoL are incredibly helpful in the new battle system of Hamlet, more of which can be found on the lodestone site (see section 8)
The good thing about FFXIV, is that changing your classes is so simple, all you have to do is change your weapon, that you can change what you're doing on the fly, allowing you to do many different things close to each other, personally, I very rarely get bored with so much stuff to do!
6. Strategy
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YHnHF.jpg)
~Coming Soon~
7. FFXIV and TL
My character is Kanade Vahriel on the Balmung server, if you currently play FFXIV and are on the Balmung server, feel free to send me a PM on here or a tell ingame, and I will add you to the linkshell I'm creating for TL!
If you play but aren't on the Balmung server but play still, feel free to send me a PM with your character name and server, and I will add you to the playerlist below.
If you want to start playing and want to know more; feel free to PM me too. ^^
~Player List~
Kanade Vahriel - Balmung Server
8. Additional Information + Links
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/# - Promotional FFXIV Website
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/index.html - FFXIV Site run by SE, has a lot of good information on the left hand side
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page - FFXIV Wiki
http://xivpads.com/?-Portal - Good FFXIV Community and Achievement/Quest/Everything Tracking Site has good guides also.
http://mooglebox.com/includes/ - Good FFXIV Site detailing weapons/armour with a few guides.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forum.php - FFXIV Official Forum, Must have an active FFXIV Account to post.
+ Show Spoiler [Disclaimer Information] +
© 2010 - 2012 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
FINAL FANTASY, FFXIV, SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. "PlayStation" and the "PS"
Family logo are registered trademarks and "PS3" is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The PlayStation Network Logo is a service mark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ESRB rating icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
I am in no way affiliated with Square-Enix or Playstation.
FINAL FANTASY, FFXIV, SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. "PlayStation" and the "PS"
Family logo are registered trademarks and "PS3" is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The PlayStation Network Logo is a service mark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ESRB rating icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
I am in no way affiliated with Square-Enix or Playstation.
