Originally posted by boredsilly

This game is realistically at least 6 months away from release. Those telling you its polished are delusional at best.

 

 1. No information of where I am in the queue, have no idea how long I have to wait (use to be present though)

Its beta, you should not expect one!

 

2. Alt tabbing out while waiting is a no no ... game crashes

To prevent 3rd part aps as with FFXI - I can't see them changing it.

 

3. Mooooving the mouse (better termed a snail in this game) is way too slow.

Due to Lag

 

4. starts in window mode and no way to change to full screen except exiting and running the configuration utility.

Set it right in the first place

 

5. Spelling and grammar is lacking in parts which really degrades the user experience.

This will be ongoing as with all games through monthly patches.

 

6. Most mobs I attacked were bugged out (when I finally worked out how to attack!)

Due to lag

 

7. No tutorial to familiarise yourself with the game ... It’s the age old 'hmmm what does this button do * 100'

Its beta, you should not expect one!

 

8. System specs for the game are way too high for most.

Not there problem, industry wants you to spend money.

 

9. Exploring is a no no with your character 9 times out of 10 running into the proverbial invisible wall.

Just different to what you are used to.

 

I'm glad I managed to play this in open beta, because unless they fix these issues before release there is no way I'll be wasting my time or money on it.

So 6 months away from launch you say, and all they really have from your comments to fix is the lag - but that might be due to the server loads during stres testing.

Originally posted by sdeleon515

Originally posted by VikingGamer

My first impression is that they are in no way prepared for release in terms of capacity planning. The first day of open beta has been a dismal failure. But that is just my first impression since I haven't been able to get in yet. You only get one first impression though. Server error pages when trying to sign up for a key don't inspire confidence. Especially now that we are more than 18 hours in. In 18 hrs they could have processed most of these beta applications manually though email by now.

Based on your logic, then it must boggle the friggin mind as to why Aion is still active and should've been for all the reasons according to your argument shelved and just abandoned of a game....Welcome Mr. Einstein, would you like to make any other logical conclusions because they seem so iron clad and 100% on the mark....

Aoin kills players for over a week and you seem to ignore that. FF has issues under a day on a non-official release which no one is paying mind you and you loose as much confidence as if you were being forced to give Lorena Bobbit lessons in oral....

Aion had long queues mostly due to the ill conceived idea of allowing players in personal store mode to stay logged on indefinitly. A rather basic problem in queueing theory. But they at least had a queue and had no problem with and initial surge of beta sign ups since they had a completely different and ultimately smarter way of distributing keys which didn't encourage everyone to sign into the same servers all at the same time. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that was a bad plan.

I am not saying this is a bad game. So far of what I have seen from a distance it looks very good. It is also not to say that I wont still check it out if I get the chance. All I am saying is that this was there opportunity to make a good first impression on people new to their franchise. For a lot of people right now, the impression is not good and we are going on 20 hrs of not having anything possitive to offset that impression.

Originally posted by baalio

Originally posted by loyaltrekie

>Expecting retail features in beta

>lol

 Its open beta/stress test

Its weeks before final release

 

In closed beta I don't expect to see those at all.

In open beta or right before the release, especially right before they let in a ton of people who may not be experienced with betas and are going to judge the game based on first impressions here, I think it is reasonable to expect at least some basic introduction or something pointing you in the right direction so you can figure it out.

 

Open beta is basically trial-by-fire. This is what people are seeing when they get their first impressions, and that is what I reported.

 

I have no doubt I can figure it all out relatively easily. I started playing games in days when they didn't have the kinds of elaborate tutorials that have become standard... That does not mean that this is not a problem with the initial impression they are giving to people. *shrug

 Yeah weeks before launch, 3 weeks infact.  Miracle patch anyone ?

Incoming wall of text:

Well, I have to say my first impressions of this game are... not good. First off, I don't recall ever having to jump through so many hoops to actually get in the game. First there was the battle to get past SE's busy servers to actually get a key. Thankfully, the community prevailed for me on that one (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/289540/link-to-bypass-server-busy.html - Thanks sykez9!). Then there was the showdown with the little patcher that couldn't. Once again, the community came through (http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/12719-open-beta-megauploadutorrent-links-install-instructions). The utorrent route worked like a charm.

Finally I hop in game, create a character, select a server, and hop in game. I got through the ship pretty easily and arrived at Limsa Lominsa, which I explored for a while. Impressed with the graphics, but not with my framerate, I log off to change my graphics settings. Apparently that's the new "thing" in MMOs these days: not featuring your graphics options inside the game. My last game, APB, had few options in the game too. If I didn't know better (and I don't), I'd say MMOs were devolving. I digress... Once I did some research and set a lower graphics level, I went to log in again, only to be hit with the lobby 30100 error (or some such number). A new patch came out shortly thereafter, and the patcher promply got stuck at 47.3% completion, which lasted for 15 minutes until I turned it off. I plugged the torrent files into utorrent, got the patches in about half a second, and off I went into Eorzea again.

I grab a guildleve (I guess SE felt rebellious the day they decided to put the quests in) and head out to kill 3 plague rats. Couldn't be too hard, right? I expected there to be a sizeable crowd out, but I also expected to have plenty of spawns, since the surrounding land seemed to be pretty expansive. Yeah...turns out there were only like 4 of these spawns, and to make matters worse, two of the spawns of the plague rat were apparently bugged: you could try attacking them, but the game would just tell you that they were invalid targets. I discovered as I ran around that there was an exceeding large amount of land that didn't hold any mobs or anything else of interest and was left wondering why they couldn't have more spawns around.

Well, whatever, screw the guildleve, I'll just kill some monsters and level. So I kill a few Wharf Rats and Bumble Beetles. At one point I was fighting a Wharf Rat when the game decided to not let me attack it any more, giving me the "Invalid Command" or some such nonsense. I figured I ran out of arrows, so I equipped more via the "2" key and attempted to continue attacking, but to no avail. I had to run away before I died. I never figured out why the game wouldn't let me attack. Once I hit level 2 Archery, I got a new attack, Piercing Shot. Well cool, I'll put it on my hotbar and... wait, how do I do that? I fumble around in the Abilities and Traits window for a little bit before giving up and logging off.

So...

The Good

-The Graphics and Animations. Seriously. If only the rest of the game was this good.

-The Music. Pretty much a given with a Final Fantasy title. I wasn't fond of FFXI's music most of the time, but I took an instant liking to Limsa Lominsa's music.

-The Combat. An interesting fusion between turn-based and free action. I thought it was quite nice when I managed to find a mob to kill.

-Controls. I found that the controls were exactly as I expected, except for one thing. (see below)

The Bad

-The Patcher. This really should be under "The Ugly", but fortunately this can be bypassed. (Diety) only knows how many customers they'll lose if they don't fix this. Not everybody will want to or have the knowhow to work around this problem.

-SE's handling of the beta rush. You'd think people would learn from others about the handling of events like this, but it's always the same thing.

-Bugs. Much luck to SE in their squashing attempts.

-Minor annoyances. Things like NPC dialog windows taking 5-10 seconds to come up. General lag on performing actions like getting in and out of ready mode.

-Mob spawns. There's a lot of empty space in the area outside Limsa Lominsa that could be put to good use.

The Ugly

-Accessibility, Accessibility, Accessibility. No functional tutorial that I found, no help except to search one of the various fansites. A lot of things in the game could be reworked in the name of simplicity. I'd almost assume they went out of their way to make things unwieldy.

-Mouse lag. I don't know what their excuse could be for not having a hardware cursor. It seems like a no-brainer if you're releasing a PC game.

--------

All in all, I'm not sure that this game is ready to be released inside of a month, but I'm sure they will anyway. That's the MO of MMO devs, amirite? I'll probably log in in a few days to see if the starter zone rush has died down and I can actually get my feet off the ground. Hopefully my next experience will be better.

Originally posted by loyaltrekie

Translation: I'm turly butthurt and can't do my research on my own - spoon feed me the facts. :)

Where the hell do you get that from?  What facts did I demand? But yes, I do want to see the game for myself. FFXI taught me that you cannot pick up a game, site unseen, and expect it to be playable if you are not used to a console interface.

Originally posted by Starlight14I grab a guildleve (I guess SE felt rebellious the day they decided to put the quests in) and head out to kill 3 plague rats. Couldn't be too hard, right? I expected there to be a sizeable crowd out, but I also expected to have plenty of spawns, since the surrounding land seemed to be pretty expansive. Yeah...turns out there were only like 4 of these spawns, and to make matters worse, two of the spawns of the plague rat were apparently bugged: you could try attacking them, but the game would just tell you that they were invalid targets. I discovered as I ran around that there was an exceeding large amount of land that didn't hold any mobs or anything else of interest and was left wondering why they couldn't have more spawns around.

Just a head up, if it says invalid target it means for rats are for someone else Guildleve not yours.

Your mobs will flash on the minimap when you get close enough.

Guildleve spawn the mobs you need automatically for you... you just have to follow the arrow (and look at the map, because going straight toward them isn't going to always work.) then attack the ones deemed your's

Originally posted by lornphoenix

Originally posted by Starlight14I grab a guildleve (I guess SE felt rebellious the day they decided to put the quests in) and head out to kill 3 plague rats. Couldn't be too hard, right? I expected there to be a sizeable crowd out, but I also expected to have plenty of spawns, since the surrounding land seemed to be pretty expansive. Yeah...turns out there were only like 4 of these spawns, and to make matters worse, two of the spawns of the plague rat were apparently bugged: you could try attacking them, but the game would just tell you that they were invalid targets. I discovered as I ran around that there was an exceeding large amount of land that didn't hold any mobs or anything else of interest and was left wondering why they couldn't have more spawns around.

Just a head up, if it says invalid target it means for rats are for someone else Guildleve not yours.

Your mobs will flash on the minimap when you get close enough.

Guildleve spawn the mobs you need automatically for you... you just have to follow the arrow (and look at the map, because going straight toward them isn't going to always work.) then attack the ones deemed your's

I see. I figured it just wanted me to go out and kill plague rats in the general area. When I was out in the field prior to getting the guildleve, I spotted a few Plague Rat mobs that could be killed by anybody scampering around, so it seemed to make sense. The guildleve text talked about a few locations, but I had no idea where those were, and I couldn't find them after looking over the map.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for the tip. I didn't notice an arrow pointing the way, but this will make it much easier to get started. Hopefully I can refrain from making any more hasty assumptions based on previous MMO experiences next time. :D

LOL

"its beta"

so i wait for magic wand that will swing in 3 weeks.(release)

will fix bugs, add tutoria,l fix ui and others

I'd like to see some of the system specs for folks playing the OB and how it performs.  My system was rated as playable but low in the demo that came out a while ago so I haven't really followed the game too closely as I'm not upgrading anytime soon.

I'm near the minmum reqs

Geforce 9600 GT 512mb DDR2

4GB DRR2 RAM

Intel core 2 quad Q6600 (2.4GHZ)

it's playable with everything turned down.. but still shutters alot.

I been playing windowed at 1280x768 monitor set at 1280x800 to make psuedo full screen... runs better since I done that.

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8500  @ 3.16GHz

Memory   2943.168MB

Graphic Device(s) NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
   +Chip GeForce 8800 GT
  +Maker NVIDIA
  +Video Memory 512.0 MB
  +Shared Video Memory Unknown
  +DAC Type Integrated RAMDAC
  +Display Mode 1440 x 900 (32 bit) 
  +Driver nv4_disp.dll
  +Driver Version 6.14.0011.9713
  +Driver Date 16-03-2010 08:51:59
  +Driver Language English
  +Vertex Shader 3.0
  +Pixel Shader 3.0
  +Vertex Texture Supported

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)

In game settings:

1440 x 900

No AA

Buffer Size : Resolution ( no idea what this does tbh)

Shadow Detail: Lowest ( turned Off in game)

Texture Quility: High

Texture Filtering: Highest.

Runs smood.

Originally posted by Professor78

Originally posted by boredsilly

This game is realistically at least 6 months away from release. Those telling you its polished are delusional at best.

 

 1. No information of where I am in the queue, have no idea how long I have to wait (use to be present though)

Its beta, you should not expect one!

 

They need a queue, if they had one they'd want it tested in beta just like any other piece of code.

 

2. Alt tabbing out while waiting is a no no ... game crashes

To prevent 3rd part aps as with FFXI - I can't see them changing it.

 

You can prevent 3rd party apps without preventing alt tabbing out.

 

3. Mooooving the mouse (better termed a snail in this game) is way too slow.

Due to Lag

 

Mouse movement is client side, it has nothing to do with game lag.

 

4. starts in window mode and no way to change to full screen except exiting and running the configuration utility.

Set it right in the first place

 

In game I need it full screen or it's too slow, if I cant change to windowed in game I have no way of accessing my pc as alt tabbing is not working.

 

5. Spelling and grammar is lacking in parts which really degrades the user experience.

This will be ongoing as with all games through monthly patches.

 

Ok, i can live with that

 

6. Most mobs I attacked were bugged out (when I finally worked out how to attack!)

Due to lag

 

Due to me not knowing my quest mobs are 'instanced' in a sense and I can't just kill any mob I see.

Again a tutorial may of helped me out on this.

 

7. No tutorial to familiarise yourself with the game ... It’s the age old 'hmmm what does this button do * 100'

Its beta, you should not expect one!

 

They need a tutorial, if they had one they'd want it tested in beta just like any other bit of code.

 

 

8. System specs for the game are way too high for most.

Not there problem, industry wants you to spend money.

 

It is their problem if the majority of their potential customers cant play the game.

 

9. Exploring is a no no with your character 9 times out of 10 running into the proverbial invisible wall.

Just different to what you are used to.

 

No it makes the world a lot less emersive, it has nothing to do with what I'm use to

 

I'm glad I managed to play this in open beta, because unless they fix these issues before release there is no way I'll be wasting my time or money on it.

So 6 months away from launch you say, and all they really have from your comments to fix is the lag - but that might be due to the server loads during stres testing.

 

I expect lag during beta testing and lag is not responsible for the issues I've addressed here.

Originally posted by loyaltrekie

 

[quote]

9. Exploring is a no no with your character 9 times out of 10 running into the proverbial invisible wall.[/quote]

 

Also - once again it's a beta - it's walled off so people have to leave stuff for the retail version. Jesus Christ you people are ignroant as to how betas work sometimes <.<

Haha.

...

Wait, you're serious, aren't you?

O_O