FFXIV: First Impressions

I hope everyone had a happy holiday! I spent the day with some of my gaming friends and received a copy of FFXIV that a friend had ordered for me.

First off this is a gorgeous game! So gorgeous in fact that even on the lowest settings I had a hard time getting more than 15 frames per second. I really hope this doesn't cause problems during battle scenes. 

I decided to play as a Miqo'te hunter, similar to the Khajiit character I once played in Skyrim.

Also like Skyrim, this game starts off in the back of a wagon, though your character is not a prisoner. Instead, the player is an adventurer, answering the call of a country called Eorzea to aid them against invaders from the north. A chatty merchant fills the player in on the situation, along with an ambush that stops the wagon. So far I think it's been one of the better ways of getting the player into the story I've seen in an MMO.

Because I play so many different MMOs for this blog, one of the first things I do now is go through the settings and keybindings. One problem I'm beginning to notice more and more is the fact that many MMOs like to assign keys to the number pad, along with numlock, scroll lock, home, and end keys. This isn't so good for laptop players like me who need to press a key combination in order to access those keys. I think future MMOs would be better if there was a laptop keyboard setting under the keybindings.

A nice little feature I found while reassigning some of the key bindings was the ability to make your character turn his head face the camera, which is how I took the first screenshot. It's pretty nice for players who enjoy taking screenshots.

After playing around with the emotes for a bit, I started questing and found the way quests are given out to be a much needed breath of fresh air. Instead of clicking on a questgiver and encountering a wall of text in a box, FFXIV gives you the basic objective and rewards in a box.  After clicking accept, the NPC begins talking to you in the style of classic console RPGs. A few sentences at a time that appear to be coming directly from the character feels so much more immersive, and actually makes me want to read what the character is saying.

Turning in quests is slightly different as well. Instead of automatically handing over the quest items, the player is presented with a trade window where they must place the quest items.  Weather or not this is a good feature remains to be seen.  While I found it to enhance immersion, I also found myself looking for a button to hand over all the items at once rather than one at a time. Only time will tell if this feature grows on me.

Finally, the starting village feels more like a maze than an open world. To get around, you follow paths, hemmed in by tall rock formations. A series of crystals allow you to warp quickly from one area to another, and after a few levels you get a spell that allows you to warp from anywhere in the world for a fee.  All and all, I found my first few hours of FFXIV to be more fun than RIFT.