We've had our team on the ground during Gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany to check out some of the hottest titles there. In our first preview, we take a look at Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. See what we found out and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Besides showing off the introduction and a brief look of what life would be like in the new title, Square Enix also displayed a glimpse of the new Limit Break System. While the phrase 'Limit Break' generally evokes images of long-cut scenes and incredible amounts of damage inflicted by a single individual, such is not the case here. According to Yoshida, the Limit Break system will be a party-based system where the party will collectively fill up a limit guage. Once the meter is full, one member of the party can then initiate the limit break. The effects will, naturally, differ depending on the class and discipline of the user.

Read more of Cassandra Khaw's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn at Gamescom.

As a gamer, I am certainly hopeful for this. 

Here's to hoping they turn things around and fight the good fight!

Problem is the game was bad at launch.. MMORPGs find very hard to get the customers back even if they fix some of the major issues and make the game fun..

Take AOC for instance, that was released with quite a few bugs and it took funcom quite a bit to get ti right but when they did the game was actaully one of the best themepark games on the market.. Sadly because of the bad launch people where just not willing to give it another go.. that distrust from people even boiled over into the launch of TSW where people refused to try it because they thought it was going to be bug ridden like AOC..

if SE can pull this off and get people back to the games hats off to them..

I really hope FFXIV: 2.0 is really good because I love the Final Fantasy universe(s) and wouldn't mind having a sub game to play along side GW2 at some point... unless of course GW2 completely engrosses me from now till the End Days.

That combat/game play looks pretty good, game is beautiful - I actually like their ideas on switching Jobs / Classes and the whole Leves instead of quests etc.

Implementation was just awful before.

if it has a subscription, forget it. If they want a chance at getting close to FFXI numbers they are going to have to move to B2P with a shop. Too many fans were turned so far off by this game that I doubt a large number will ever go back.

Originally posted by Fdzzaigl
Afraid it will need to get some very good reviews or a free trial before I'm even going to consider touching FFXIV again, regardless of promises and hopes.

There will be a free trial when 2.0 launches.

It is going to have a free to play period. That might only be for those who have existing accounts though so if you bought it the last time around, yes you will get another free month or so in place of what normally comes when you buy the box.

It also sounds like they are going to take the old game down and have a new alpha and beta period to go along with a full on rerelease. This is much more than a slick marketing campaign.

square is lucky that they have a niche FF community that will always sub to this game no matter what

Can Square pull off the comeback of the century with this one?

I was so disappointed with the original game at launch but they seem to have done so much in this revamp its really a totally new game and I'll certainly give them the benefit of the doubt and give it another shot. I think Square really care about there reputation and felt that they genuinely let the fans down which has shown in the news I've seen since the game originally launched.

Originally posted by elocke
Did anyone get to play the new version yet?  Or see any gameplay in action?

Hello Elocke,

At their Gamescom presentation, they had either someone playing it firsthand or a video of the gameplay (I'm not sure which). That being said it was not released to the public by SE but in fact, someone with a 480p phone cam did film it.

You can find it here. Admittedly it's crap quality, but what do you expect from a phone cam 10ft away?

Originally posted by Caldrin

Problem is the game was bad at launch.. MMORPGs find very hard to get the customers back even if they fix some of the major issues and make the game fun..

 

Take AOC for instance, that was released with quite a few bugs and it took funcom quite a bit to get ti right but when they did the game was actaully one of the best themepark games on the market.. Sadly because of the bad launch people where just not willing to give it another go.. that distrust from people even boiled over into the launch of TSW where people refused to try it because they thought it was going to be bug ridden like AOC..

 

if SE can pull this off and get people back to the games hats off to them..

The thing is, they're not just "fixing some of the major issues", they have completely overhauled this game from the ground up. New engine, new graphics, new genders for three of the races (female Highlander was forgotten in the article), quest-based leveling system rather than the non-stop tireless grind that was present prior. There will finally be an auction house, mail system, player housing, LS bank system, etc. They've apparently put tons of content into the game.

They've revamped the combat system, redone the atrocious UI and well basically like I said, it's an entirely new game but with the FFXIV title. 

They are keeping very little from FFXIV in the game as it is now. Everything has been completely redone.

Funcom didn't revamp Age of Conan, they didn't redo it from the ground up. They fixed some of the bugs via patches and called it a day and hoped that they had gotten it right the second time around. The problem was the games mechanics and they didn't really fix those. Plus, it's Funcom, they seem to have scorned a lot of people over the years. I'm not so sure that SE has. Prior to FFXIV I have never really heard very many negative comments regarding them (though admittedly I am only an MMO player and have no experience with any of their console games).

Anyhow, so I wouldn't say that they're just "fixing some major bugs", they've redone the game. It's a new game. It is not Final Fantasy XIV, it is Final Fantasy XIV 2.0: A Realm Reborn - an entirely... new game.

Originally posted by Daemonweaver
FFXIV was always a beautiful game. All this sounds good but it is the gameplay that was huge let down for me so really need to see video footage not beautiful stills.

Above I posted a response to Elocke. The video is linked to that, via Youtube. Like I said, crap quality, but you can at least see the combat system and such. I think it looks fantastic and can't wait to play it.

Originally posted by rdrakken

if it has a subscription, forget it. If they want a chance at getting close to FFXI numbers they are going to have to move to B2P with a shop. Too many fans were turned so far off by this game that I doubt a large number will ever go back.

It will have a subscription. I highly doubt that they'll fail due to it. All anyone seems to want these days is B2P & F2P with cash shops, personally I'm highly against the F2P movement as a whole, since no one but The Secret World can seem to build their cash shops free of P2W gear...

That being said, I've listed the pay schedule below:

Edited some noticeable typos.

What's funny is I bet the game releasing so bad in the first place is going to end up making it a stellar game. Think about it, if it released 'good enough' they wouldn't be doing nearly this much stuff for it right now. But since it was such a huge IP for such a huge company, they either have to make it one of the top MMO's or go bankrupt trying. Now on top of digging themselves out of a reputation hole.

Almost like a movie. they have been completely humilated and now they have to come back better than ever to have any hope of redeeming themselves.

I am actually excited about playing a Ranger class in this new world. It looks amazing and though I am a PC gamer, I am actually looking forward to the PS3 version instead. I only pray they launch them both at the same time.

You'd think that an editor for an MMORPG news site would be more optimistic about any potentially successful titles in the genre, considering how laughably pathetic the genre has become in the past years, with every title failing after another. There is nothing wrong about this game aside from its crappy father - what a fantastic criteria to judge a game today indeed.

Unless s/he is already considering changing occupations. In which case sh*t on this game all you want, madam.