Beta FFXIV: A Look at Ul’dah

Yesterday we took a look at the second city of Eorzea with our trek around Gridania’s lush forest setting.  Today we are taking a step into the Savannah type desert setting that attempts to bring the city of Ul’dah alive.

If Gridania is “Windurst in a forest” then Ul’dah is most definitely “Bastok in a desert”.  The more I thought about how to compare each city to its FFXI predecessors, the more it actually began to crystalize in my mind eye of what the development team actually did with the three Eorzean cities.  In FFXI, Windurst is a very green and water filled city but it located in a very desolate type place.  Sarutabaruta is a Savannah type desert location with Tahrongi, Buburimu, Meriphataud and Sauromonge most definitely full on dirt ground deserts.  Where San’doria is a very lush and green set of regions.  With three separate forest zones and a prominent waterway connecting them.  Then Bastok is a very rocky, seaside cliff area moving into greener areas as you move towards the Highlands.

In FFXIV we see three very similar starting area climates but the nature of the cities that make those climates their home has been shifted by one.  Gridania is Windurst in a forest, just as much as Limsa Lominsa is San d’Oria amonst the rocky cliffs.  Leaving Ul’dah as Bastok in the Savannah.  The beauty of the design is that each city feels incredibly familar and yet is different enough to not be the same old thing with a new coat of paint.

The Think, Feel… theme is here once again in the opening cutscenes of the city.  Which while has less “action” than the other two cities, focuses the action much better.  Your focus is a runaway goobue and the actual character interaction between multiple characters.  This is a huge step forward from Limsa Lominsa’s opener where the two characters introduced in its scene are really uninteresting and completely underdeveloped.  You actually get a feel of who these characters are, and there are 6 of them in this opener compared to a mere two in Limsa’s.

City Layout -

A Concentric Circle

Ul’dah’s concentric circle based layout radiates from the Adventurer’s Guild (AG) very near its center.  Making the city the most well thought out of the three city-states.  We start our adventure in the AG which allows us easy access to the city in its entirety.

Both of the shopping districts are conveniently located within seconds of the AG as well is the elevator to the upper level where you are treated to a beautiful view of the multilevel fountain/planter system that is the centerpiece for the city.  Once on this level you may also choose to visit the Alchemists’ Guild for your concoction needs.

The desert city is home to a number of other guilds as well.  Within the city walls an Adventurer may find the Gladiator and Pugilist Guilds as well as the Thaumaturge guild is located nearby in the western quadrant of the fortress.  The Gladiator’s guild itself is a sightseeing destination as you can see combatants fighting to the “death” in the Coliseum.  All the while being safe from randomly thrown weaponry or spells by remaining well above the fray.

The several Discipline of the Land and Hand guilds that make Ul’dah their home can be found quite close together in the southern area of the city.  The only downside of the guilds’ location is that they are a bit far from the Market Wards.  Yet even with their lack of proximity, they are still much closer than the majority of guilds in the other two starter locales.

Isn't that always the answer?

Ul’dah does have a bit of a flare compared to Limsa Lominsa and Gridania as it is the home of the game’s version of a casino.  While this is currently not functional in the beta, many players are looking forward to seeing what sort of traditional Final Fantasy mini-game fun will be had within the Platinum Mirage’s walls.

Conclusion -

Each city has its own specific look and feel that goes along with it.  Ul’dah definitely has a wonderfully familiar vibe to it that makes you feel right at home when you first start running around its tall earthen walls.  The concentric design allows for easy travel and more importantly, easy to memorize guild, elevator and Market Ward locations.  Match that with two easy to access gates to the outside world and an Aetheryte crystal that is close to the outside world as well as Market Wards and the AG you are bound to be a happy camper starting in this desert city.

When combined with the fact that the Platinum Mirage is here and will no doubt be some place that the developers intend as a hub for player activity outside the guildleve and grinding that the rest of the game has to offer, this city will more than likely become the “Jeuno” of Final Fantasy XIV.  The only thing the city is missing at this moment is easy access to an airship dock.  As a matter of fact out of all three cities, only Gridania has an Airship Dock within in the city walls.  This could be a make or break for some players when starting out.  However, if there is an “Airship Pass” questline like in FFXI, it will fast become a moot point.

I am torn right now as to whether I want to start in Ul’dah or Gridania.  Only a little more time will tell.

As always, after the break is a number screenshots from around town for you to look at your leisure.

Beta FFXIV: A Look At Gridania

The Final Fantasy XIV Open Beta test is finally here.  If you can get in, more power to you.  The test application site along with the game and the overall Square-Enix ID site has been extremely congested since the launch of the test last night.  They are continually giving out beta keys and then ceasing to do so every few hours now, so keep trying over at entry.ffxiv.com if you want to experience what the game has to offer for yourself.

If you can’t get your own key, here is the place to be to see the sites and sounds of Eorzea.

A good friend of mine made this hi-res video of the opening sequence of the forest stronghold of Gridania.  Unlike Limsa Lominsa, you do not start being asleep on a boat you start out on a…  well just watch the video.  In my person opinion it is better than its sea fairing counterpart.  Even if SE likes to be a little pervy with its female characters.

As you can no doubt see the world around Gridania is a very different place than Limsa Lominsa.  The stronghold is found at the center of a lush green forest. The forest setting is used everywhere in the city.  We are surrounded by a very similar feeling as we once had in Windurst back in the games predecessor.  Like Windurst, it has many flowing streams and fresh water is a main theme of the area.  Along with the woody forest atmosphere we are taken away by a city that is ever so much like a cross between Windurst and something from another Final Fantasy game, Guadosalam from FFX.

City Layout -

A New Windurst Walls?

While it is a wonderful thing to mimic the look and feel of a modern Windurst, it is an entirely different thing to want to mimic its layout.  Unfortunately, Gridania is laid out very similar to a modern Windurst Walls.  The stronghold is basically a large circle with most of the needed areas inhabiting the outer edge of the circle.  While the exits of the city are long Windurst Canopied paths and tunnels that take a decent amount of time to traverse to reach the outer forest.

In the outer lying areas of the stronghold you will find such things as the Conjurer’s guild deep in a cave to the north.  Or deep to the southeast you will find the Archer’s guild.  The one bright spot of this particular city is that there is not nearly as many elevations and stairs to navigate to get from one point to another.  It is perhaps the most straight forwards of the three cities in that regard.  You may have to spend some time running between place to place, but in the end it is far more easy to navigate for a new player than Limsa Lominsa is.

Benches we can sit on!

The Market Wards are located in the “Lotus Gardens and are much more aesthetically pleasing that LL’s as well.  Complete with built-in benches where you can actually choose to sit.  (This in and of itself is a HUGE step forward from FFXI.  We can only hope that SE has a few more tricks up its sleeve for the launch in several weeks.)  Not only do they feel more like the zone they belong in, they are infinitely easier to get to.

Besides the actual duration it takes to get from point to point, the biggest downside of the city has to be the location of the Adventurer’s Guild (AG).  Now if you are new to FFXIV, the Adventurer’s Guild in any of the three cities is the key hub to the location.  It is the place where you hire and fire retainers, create linkshells, and obtain guildleves for both crafting and adventuring.  Gridania’s AG is located in the far southeastern portion of the town.  It is a hop skip and a jump from the outer gates of the stronghold, but is nowhere near centrally located like its Uldah and Limsa Lominsa counterparts.  Making it a very long treck to go from the AG to any other portion of the city.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.  If you are a Conjurer or Lancer, this becomes a fair bit of a problem, but if you are a member of one of the guilds located only steps from the AG, then you are loving life.

Conveniently Located Airship Dock

The biggest perk of Gridania’s AG is the fact that the Airship Dock is situated inside the AG itself.  If you want to head on out to a different city (something that is not currently available in the beta) you will be able to take mere steps downstairs and hop on the most conveniently placed transportation hub in the game.

Conclusion -

The town of Gridania may not be for everyone.  Yet in my personal opinion the entire experience so far in the zone has been a leap beyond what Limsa Lominsa offered us in the Closed Alpha & Beta testing period.  The overall feel of the zone is only multiplied by the wonderful town and city music that is dominant in the area.  This is the closest to a Sanctuary of Zitah feeling I have had in this game at this point.

Check beyond the break for a more extensive gallery of screenshots from the Opening Cutscene, a little battle and a look at a few of the sites of the city of Gridania.

Beta Cataclysm: New Darkshore

A Whole New Can Of Paint -

New Look Grove of the Ancients (Complete with Flightpath)

Like most zones in Cataclysm, Darkshore has gone through a major redesign.  While most other areas in the game have changed dramatically, there are some areas where old quest lines remain.   These areas have one thing in common, most of them have felt the Cataclysm and its aftermath.  The war that followed has changed many other zones.  People have died in other places, but no other zone has seen such devastation to its former quest giving NPC inhabitants.  In part because of this,  there is not a single quest left from before the world was rocked and town of Auberdine so completely devastated.

Auberdine’s Death brings a new beginning -

Your experience in the new Darkshore begins in Lor’danel, the new Night Elven homebase in the zone.  This is not much of a town in comparison to what Auberdine was.  There is only an inn, a few tents and a conspicuously empty Night Elven guard tower.  There is no dock to be found in all of Darkshore now.  If you want to go to Darnassus or Exodar, all you have to do is jump on a flight path.  (Yes, I said that correctly.  Exodar is now accessible via flight paths from anywhere in Kalimdor.)  If Stormwind is you desired destination, then its a short hop to the remains of Ru’theran Village and hop on the old boat that now docks there.

Lor’danel is a much more lush and green “town” than its predecessor, but I would hardly call it a town.  It is more akin to a forward base.  It has a great deal of amenities, but lacks at least one major one… A meat vendor.  Questing through this area as a Worgen Hunter with my default Dog pet was tedious to say the least.  Finding meat for him to eat (and he only eats meat) was impossible without going to Darnassus.  Even the fauna that has survived the Cataclysm does not seem to drop raw meat nearly as commonly as they did before the changes.  It was only because I had kept a good deal of spider bits from the Gilneas experience.

Solving the Old Darkshore’s problems -

Catpath in action

The biggest complaint about the original Darkshore was the sheer area of the zone.  Questers had to traverse the length of the zone many many times during their 8-10 levels they spent there.  The long narrow zone forced players to run North and then back to Auberine, then farther North and then back to town.  After that, they had to run south and back, farther south and back.  The tedium of this fact made many players turn to Bloodmyst as the main questing area after it was released in TBC.  Bloodmyst was a well designed, far more compact zone that had far better quest rewards, storylines and a much more diverse set of enemies.  Unfortunately, the developers thought it was better to mimic the design concepts that worked so well in the Death Knight starting experience.  This means heavy usage of the big staples that became used and overused in Wrath of the Lich King.

The zone is designed for players too low to have access to mounts.  Instead of just giving mounts to players at level 10, they have given both of the overly large 10-20 zones their own system of “easy” travel.  Thusly, like Azshara and its Goblin Rocketway, Darkshore also was given a system of “catpaths”.  Situated at several key points in the Northern Darkshore there are cat calvary guards that allow you to access these “catpaths” to most of the miniquest hubs that you are directed to.  This system solves one of the two major issues with the old zone.  The changes to the flow of the zone itself solve the other issues.

The Quests -

Phased In Malfurion & Friends

Lor’danel gives us a whole new look on the way Blizzard wants us to play the game.  This microcosm is both surprising and disturbing.  We are given a beautiful new zone, with a wonderful quest flow.  However, like so many other new Cataclysm zones (Hyjal, Vash’jir, Deepholm) if one quest is bugged, you can not continue in the zone.  During testing this has happened many times, and the nature of the bugs it will be extremely difficult for Blizzard to continually prevent this.  As evade bugged mobs have been a problem since the first day of Vanilla.  (It actually took 2 patches and a very inventive level 83 Fire Mage to un-bug a certain NPC in the zone allowing players to continue past level 15.)

The zone has many “phasing” aspects starting with the major ones in and around Lor’denal itself.  Most of the phasing has to do with rescuing and not rescuing the survivors of Auberdine.  It is completely unclear how much time has passed since the destruction.  Long enough for other areas of the world to have been wrought with war and for Auberdine to have been overtaken by Twilight Cultists and Air Elementals.  Yet, you are still asked to rescue former questgivers, flightmasters, innkeepers, etc from the aftermath.

As you rescue these npc’s you are continually phased and receive follow-up quests.  This is nothing new.  We have seen similar questing systems throughout Northrend.  To put it simply, the system is not as large as anything in Ice Crown or the Death Knight experience.  The phasing, with one large exception, is very subtle.  Mostly we will see the results of your efforts being visible in the world.  Quest givers and NPCs will appear, disappear and move as you progress through the zone.

Choose your own adventure? -

Questing in the Burning Strand

This fact makes the zone incredibly linear.  Which in my opinion is an incredibly bad thing.  Don’t get me wrong, the zone is wonderful and fun, but there is very little choice in how you progress.  This is a predominant theme so far in my explorations of Cataclysm in its entirety.  What was so wonderful about the game thus far has been stripped away by phasing and its resulting prerequisites.  Cool quests are fun no matter how you have to come upon them.  Yet there is something to be said about being able to choose to do 1 quest and not another.  To choose to go “here” before you go “there”.  There is basically one non linear quest hub in the area, but even it has a breadcrumb that only appears after you have completed several other tasks.  You can complete the hub without ever receiving the breadcrumb, but it’s obviously designed that you do it in an extremely linear manner.

Whats so wrong with getting our hands held through to level 20?  Well nothing really.  Yet it does get extremely old after a while.  The Worgen starting experience has improved leaps and bounds since I first played in months ago.  This time through it was much more informative and interesting from a story point of view, but I had my hand held by some unseen Blizzard developer the entire time.  This feeling continues on until you finish the zone completely.

Conclusion -

Yet Another Bombing Run

The new Darkshore is fun.  Well, fun may not be the exact word for it, but it works for this discussion.  The zone is interestingly redesigned, we get to see the little story points of the old zone leak in here and there.  The often difficult to get to Troll Village is now dance free and trying to expand into the Northern zone with the help of the Horde.  The Master’s Glaive is being excavated, and somehow the dwarf archeologist that stands 10 feet away from the Twilight’s Hammer is left untouched?  Some things just don’t make a lick of sense.  Which is what really hurts the zone.

It’s an obvious fact that Blizzard’s “timeline” for the game is completely screwed up.  Zones farther into your leveling experience in Azeroth take on a somewhat interesting view on time.  Originally it was seen as “time goes by as you level up and get ‘older’”.  With Cataclysm this is evident, as your experiences with Malfurion in Darkshore and then in Hyjal would attest to.  Time is relative as you traverse the world my friends, be wary to not get too entrenched at what came first or things will begin to unravel more than “How is the Lich King still alive when he’s dead?” quandary that most people are still harping on.

In the end, the zone was a let down.  The zone ran the gambit of quests from the “go kill 10 Twilight Cultists” to the “go fetch 10 pieces of crab meat”.  But these were fewer and farther between.  Instead we got loads and loads of gimmicks.  There are multiple vehicle related quests.  In fact off the top of my head I counted 3 and a few other vehicle related gimmicks tacked on.  These include multiple Sunwell style “on rails” bombing runs that have been so completely over-utilized that Blizzard really needs to take a huge step back and say STOP! The zone had its high points and low points.  In the end, what could have been an awesome ending with a good reward both in a piece of equipment and plotline payoff falls flat mostly because there is never any real danger.  Being lead around by a leash through 95% of the zone and distracted by gimmick quests and famous npcs does not make the zone anymore fun than it was.  Sure it is much improved.  Some of the gimmick questlines are quite interesting, but in the end the zone falls flat because of its linearity.

A few more screenshots from the zone after the break.

Beta FFXIV: The New Armor Paradigm

Final Fantasy XIV’s new armor system changes the paradigm from most other MMOs out on the market today.  There is no required level for armor and armor scales with you as you level until you reach its Optimal level.  Check out the video for more information.

Beta FFXIV: Gathering Impressions

I had intended to make two follow-up posts on the other gathering professions after my examination of the Botanist class.  However, as I thought more about it, all three classes work exactly the same.  So instead of an in-depth look at the Fisherman and Miner classes in Final Fantasy XIV, I will give you my overall impressions of Gathering as a whole.

Everything has a Mini-Game

All three Disciplines of the Land are basically mirrors of each other.  They all have Main Hand weapon and Off Hand weapon based gathering nodes.  The only glaring difference is that Fishermen can use their Main Hand (MH) fishing skill  just about anywhere there is water deep enough to do so.

All MH gathering skills include the Chocobo Hot-n-Cold like mini-game that I described in The Botanist overview.  While the game takes slightly different forms for all three classes it is still there.  This is the biggest downside of gathering.  No gathering profession is all that unique from one another.  For a game where every skill set from Swordplay to Weaving to Fishing is a job class, this is a huge disappointment.  I can understand having crafting generally the same, but they could have created separate mini-games for each of the gathering professions in the game.  Our only hope is that the final Discipline of the Land, The Shepard class, has an entirely different outlook compared to the other three in the category.

I was most disappointed by the fishing.  After the great addition of the fishing mini-game in Final Fantasy XI, I had extremely high hopes that this time around we would see something active and engaging again.  What we ended up was a lackluster version of the Hot-n-Cold game where you need bait to catch certain fish instead of finding certain kinds of trees or rocks to hit.

The actual mini-games themselves can be a pain to play successfully.  Sometimes there is a large amount of room for error, sometimes there is not.  I am sure that these games are supposed to get simpler as you level up your skill in the profession but up until now, I have not seen it.  What makes this worse is that the game itself has so much input lag that you really have to time your hit of the Enter key at the exact moment you need to while taking into account the ever-changing amount of interface and server lag.  The game itself is not purely in the client which is a huge issue.  The client has to send the server your input and then the cursor stops.  This of course is probably an anti-RMT/bot countermeasure, but it creates a highly unresponsive system that is simply annoying and un-fun to play at times.

Beta Cataclysm: A Look at Tol Barad [Updated]

The Addition of Tol Barad…

The latest Beta Patch has brought us the islands of Tol Barad.  What is Tol Barad you ask?  To put it simply, it is Cataclysm’s cross between Wintergrasp and Sunwell Island.  It offers two separate experiences, an Open style Player vs Player interactive zone with set objectives and a Daily Quest Hub when your faction controls the PvP zone.  Both of which are in extremely early phases.  You are only able to test the Pseudo-Wintergrasp timed PvP battle system at the moment.

Wintergrasp 2.0?

The encounter is a cross between Isle of Conquest and Wintergrasp.  The goal is to capture the island by taking control of the three “flag buildings”.  These buildings seem not unlike Isle of Conquest’s areas where eventually each one will give a specific buff to the controlling team.  However, this portion of the encounter is not yet functioning.  It is obvious from the lay of each Flag building that one will definitely involve added siege engine usage.

The second objective is to destroy the three “Guard Spires” situated around the prison island.  In order to do this you need to accomplish two things.  Just like Wintergrasp you need a “Pilot’s License” to gain access to Vehicles on the battlefield.  So get to killing those Horde (or Alliance if you swing that way.)  Then you must successfully pilot a Siege Tank from the center area of the Map to one of the towers and “transform” the vehicle into an Auto-Turret.  At which time the vehicle will continually fire on the tower eventually destroying it.

Pretty simple concept at the moment.  The battle system is far from complete.  It is beginning testing purely for a feedback as they develop it standpoint.  Right now each battle lasts 30 minutes and you control it for a specific amount of time afterward.  While these are obviously placeholder numbers, the current time you possess the zone after successfully completing either the Attack or Defense goal varies depending on how many successive times a faction has owned the island.   During the time you possess the zone the daily questing hub that is made available

A Sunwell Island without the Naruu.

The island is pretty well populated for the advent of its Daily Quests.  Whether or not this is going to match Sunwell Island and its slowly phasing motif is yet to be seen, but its an eclectic selection of smaller subareas all packed right on top of one island.  It has both a feel of all fitting together and not meshing well at the same time.

Because the Daily Quests are not available until 85, this area is currently untestable.  Well, if you really want to jump in the water and get eaten by the huge elite Shark with a wooden harpoon in its side and call that testing, go for it.

Otherwise, we can see that the island is a haunted one.  Everything from ghosts ready to jump out at you and say “Boo!” on a creepy mountain overlook, to the overly common graveyard with zombies and ghouls and one big Elite in the middle.  The area is entirely too cliche for its own good.  Right down to the entirely overused mechanic of the two factions fighting in a central area.

You also have the cursed living in several areas of the island just to even out the monster types that can be found here.  The only disappointment was there were no murlocs to be found.  I honestly was hoping for some Murlocs or Naga on the island.  It would only be fitting that they would be around.  It’s a damn island after all and it’s not far north of Vashj’ir.  At the very list some Kvaldir would have been a really nice touch here as it is an “undead island” after all.  They are much more interesting than the same ghosts and ghouls we’ve been seeing since the first time we happened across Darkshire.

The the biggest thing you will notice, is there is no return to the Vault of Archavon model here.  The draw here is to gain access to the daily quests so you may purchase the first tier epic rewards.  While they are nice epics, time will only tell if its enough of an incentive to keep people competing for control over the course of the expansion.  VoA was a wonderful idea, even if it did fail in terms of execution.  One can only hope that Blizzard learned from it and improve on the formula this time.

The island itself has some potential.  I am not a huge PvP guy though and if the Daily Quest Hub area retains the Open PvP of the Wintergrasp section, this place can go die in a very big fire.

—

Take special note of the new default raid UI.  With it you can quickly and easily dole out Raid Marks as well as handle your Healers, Tanks and DPS simply and effectively.  You can even hide and show individual groups with a push of a button.  The Raid UI is also detachable as well as lockable to any portion of the screen you desire.  Combine that with the Compact UI format and the default UI has come a very long way.

Edit: Looks like I was premature on the “no raid” part of Tol Barad.  New datamining has pulled a map of the Baradin Hold raid.  Which indicates that there will once again be a PvP based raid dungeon in Cataclysm.

Many more screenshots of Tol Barad after the break.

Beta Cataclysm: A Strange Disease…[Updated]

A Strange Disease has stricken the Alliance -

In interest of equal time, I bring you news of the great plague of the Alliance.  It is fast sweeping the beta realm but it seems that the youth of Azeroth are immune.  As you can see the Prince has not been infected.

Seriously, there is something going on here.  There is no actual debuff to be seen on any of the infected NPCs.  If I would hazard a guess as to whats going on here, I would have to say this will be part of the opening event for Cataclysm.

Update: Added a screenshot of a large brown orb that seems to be the source of the infection.

—

I really wanted to have a decent discussion on the state of the Paladin tanking build.  However, seeing as we are at least one Paladin talent build behind what is actively being developed and currently you can not choose Shield of the Righteous when talenting at the moment.

Not to say the current Protection Talents make the class impossible to play, but it just doesn’t feel adequate.  Its not the class that it used to be.  Without Consecration and Shield of the Righteous in the rotation and with a nerf-batted Hammer of the Righteous, its far from the same tanking class it currently is on Live.

Ghostcrawler has eluded to some big changes recently in a few posts.

The paradigm shift that Ghostcrawler is eluding to is quite nice.  Shifting from their proposed Holy Power = Mitigation into a Holy Power =  Threat First, Mitigation Second is a huge step in the right direction.  Moving towards a system where we can use our Holy Power for multiple applications based on the situation is where the new resource system needs to move towards.

We can only hope that when they hit, there is still not the “You can not learn this talent” bug is fixed so we can actually do some testing.

—

An interesting link for all you Achievement Whores out there.  (You know who you are.)  A Hunter Blogger by the name of Lyraat has created a decent little “Guide to 9000 Achievement Points“.  Its not super indepth but it does give you a good idea on how and where you should be looking to gain those achievements the easiest way possible.

Popquiz: The Green Me!

This week has been an adventure.  I have taken myself all over Azeroth and found myself fighting so many enemies that I became increasingly angry.  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and the anger within manifested itself and I became a hulking manifestation of death.

Pop Quiz:  Where am I in this screenshot?

Picture Perfect: General Goods Vendor …

I am 79 now and while leveling I came across this lonely giant.  He had quite an assortment of goods for sale to anyone who came along brave enough to approach him.

This is perhaps the coolest vendor of any kind I have yet to see in World of Warcraft.  The expansion gets better and better as I creep towards the level cap.  Yet I have not set foot in Crystalsong, Ice Crown or Sholozar Basin.