- Journal of the Kitty

This is the journal of Vivacia Hoshi, an adventurous kitty in the world of Final Fantasy XIV. Find me in the deep woods of the Siren server and please enjoy these tales of my travels.

tisdag 2 november 2010

Kitty takes a time out

Final Fantasy XIV sucks.

Plain and simple.

I shall now spend some time in Real Life, and then I shall attempt to play Rift and/or Star Wars. If FFXIV shape up, I may rejoin the "fun" in the future.

Until then. Miao.

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tisdag 19 oktober 2010

This dodo is freaking me out

Is this freaky or what... this blob was just... looking at me!


Anyhow, so Square Enix decided to give everyone a free month so that they will stay and play this content-free unfinished mess of a game until a major patch in late november. /cheer.

Incidentally, the patch arrives just a few days AFTER everyone's free time is up... so if you want to try the patch, you gotta pay the monthly fee!

I think I'll wait for the reviews.

Yeah, cause, I'm just not dumb enough to pay any more money for this product before they fix it. I'll enjoy barely playing during my free month though!

Now, back to playing a slightly pirated (maybe) Settlers 7.

Oh come on, Settlers 7 was so fucked up by DRM, there is no way I'll pay for it!

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söndag 10 oktober 2010

Review of Final Fantasy XIV after 2 weeks

I award this game....

2 / 10

The economy is completely stalled due to no market search function or auction house.

Crafting progress is stalled due to too many complex recipies for simple upgrades. I am all for a mixed crafting experience, but there is value to making at least ONE upgrade readily available without co-dependencies.

The UI leaves nothing but frustration on this side of the screen. There is no reason for all those sub-menus, even on a PS3. A lot of menus could be joined together without any loss whatsoever - for instance when you craft and you open up a list of things you can craft (1 screen), select one (2nd screen), confirm your selection and learn the crystal requriements (3rd screen) and only THEN you find out if you actually have the materials on you - if not, you have to click "back" three times through the 3 screen with each leaving a 5 second lag = a total of at least 30 seconds in order to get the respons "insufficient materials". This check should and could be moved to the first scrren, so that the game shows you a marker or icon in the inital list on the items you have crystals for.
This is just one of many examples of the dysfunctional UI - where too much priority information is hidden in sub-sub-sub menus.

The retainer system is simply useless. The only way to sell something is to plant your character in a crowded part of the cities, /sit it down and go to work or bed for 8 hours.

The lag and targetting system is insufferable in combat. I play a marauder and my boyfriend plays a healer. We sit in the same room and we are separated by about 3 seconds. We constantly die due to the server lag since he can't effectively heal me, and the targetting system suffers due to the lack of targetting frames for your party member.

You have to do macros for the most simple things. It's 2011, I shouldn't have to manually write a macro for battle targetting or switching gear! Manually switching gear using the user interface can easily take 5 minutes if you need to change several pieces of attire and weaponry - a macro does this in 5 seconds. Why are these basic functions missing from the game?!?

You cannot sort your inventory. Insufferable. I have 80 slots on me and 80 on my retainer that I CANNOT SORT. IN ANY WAY. Not even alphabetize it!!! This is a deal-breaker for me.

The chat and social functions are under-developed. Even the early MUDs had better chat- and social functions. The SMS-lenght chat messages that you can send after correctly typing in both the name and surname of your friend Ynymnminjh Zhvtcyth is unacceptable for a MMORPG and the area chats have the same range as an average piss radius. Without a functionig chat system, this is nothing other than a very dysfunctional and clunky one-player game. I get more in-game social interaction from Dragon Age, and that's a single player game.

The user interface is what we actually USE to play the game. If the UI isn't working, the game isn't working.

Now, I don't need everything to be just like WoW, because I hated the way that WoW developed over the years, but one thing that WoW DID excel at was a customizable user-friendly interface that was easy to use and understand and let you do multiple things at once, such as checking out your ínventory or organizing your bags while you were crafting, inspecting a fellow player while running, and chatting while doing ANYTHING.

I have hoped for FFXIV, but let's be honest, except for pretty graphics and animations, this game blows so far. Big time.

I will be returning to the game in the future if the UI, the social, and the trade are fixed, but in the mean time, I am not paying for this. The game is, at best, in an alpha developement state and the PC launch seems to be only an attempt to finance the PS3-launch in 6 months.

In short, I will NOT be playing past my free 30 days at this time. The game is way too unfinished. And yes, while WoW and other games also had rough starts, they were nowhere near as unfinished as this product. This is, by far, the LEAST finished MMORPG I have ever seen launched.

Sorry, SE, I am NOT paying a monthly fee for access to a game in Alpha state. No f*cking way.

I will play casually for about 2 more weeks until my free 30 days run out, and keep updating the blog. After that, I'll take a looooong kitty nap and play some games that are actually finished before I give FFXIV more of my time.

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lördag 9 oktober 2010

The best starting area of FFXIV

Okay, so I got some questions about what the best starting area is, so let's discuss that!

As for me, I started in Gridania. I had no idea about the options, so I just thought "fuck it" and picked one. I ended up in the woods.

By now, I have visited all three cities. They differ in some significant ways, primarily in that each city houses different guilds and merchants. For instance, Gridania seems to lack a weapons merchant, meaning that if you start there, you'll have a really hard time changing your class.

I don't really know why that is. I mean, one would think that all types of shops would develope in each city in a marketable location. Like, hello? Stupid. Of course Gridanians want to buy weapons too!

For this reason, above all else, I would recommend Limsa Lominsa as the starting city. It has a weapon shop that's easy to find. Yeah, that's right. Cool. If you start the game as a fisherman and figure out just how gay this is, and that you actually want a weapon, this is by far most accesible in Limsa.

Aside from that, my personal favorite is actually Ul'dah. I think that Ul'dah has the nicest and most logical layout and it seems to have developed a natural player-based marketplace near the front gate, which is pretty nice. It just has these open areas and feels more like a city and less like a labyrinth (like Gridania and Limsa does - parts of these cities are just labyrinths of paths!). Ul'dah has this "wheel" feeling on the layout reminiscent of the World of Warcraft alliance cities like Ironforge, which is very nice and accesible.

So, I would advice you to pick Limsa Lominsa in first hand (for the accesible and easy to find weapon shop) or, in second hand, Ul'dah for a better and more logical layout of the city, which will make it easier to find the things that are there. Also, another thing that speaks for Limsa is that the mobs in the starting area seems to drop somewhat more useful items for low-level crafting, like rat pelts that are used in making animal glue (essential!).

As the picture of the day, enjoy this screenshot of me (Vivacia Yuuki) with my real-life fiancée, Hikkhammer Yuuki. If you see me in the game, he will often be around to... err... heal me when I run head-first into huge mobs and get us both killed.


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Travel in Final Fantasy XIV

Now for a note on travel.

I started out in Gridania and ran all the way to Ul'dah. That was a seriously long run, but not so bad. I mean, the trip between Ironforge and Darnassus was way worse before they added the Wetlands - Aubergine ship route, so you had to run across the entire continent...

At least in FFXIV, you can just teleport if you have enough anima, as long as you have been somewhere before. But anima is limited and it regenerated slowly, so it encourages you to plan your game sessions and your travels. I think I like this aspect. If you dart around on the teleport you'll soon run out of anime so that you have to run... but if you plan your travels and use the teleport only once in a while, you'll have anima left for when you want it.


From Ul'dah it was a fairly short run to the Limsa Lominsa ferry. A few notes on this:

When you board the ferry, you will be placed on board a ship for about 10 minutes. There is nothing to do on this ship, except fishing, trading with your fellow travellers, and possibly crafting. But beware! If the ship docks while you're crafting, you'll automatically botch the synthesis! I would recommend that you stick to fishing or go get a cup of whatever real life brew you're into. In my case, coffe.

For travelling in the wilds, you can either run or teleport between the crystal gates without using up anima. That's pretty neat - especially since the teleport gates are not right at the camp, so you still have to travel a little bit. Again, you need to plan your travels to make them efficent. I like the realism of that.

Finally, there is the classic "death teleport". I used this a lot when I played Anarchy Online. There, you "saved" your character in a computer bank in one of the cities and went off to the Temple of the Three Winds to grind bosses for wierd scifi tech components, and when you were done you got yourself killed and reloaded at the city. This was convenient since the Temple was in the middle of fricking nowhere, about 30 minutes run from anything else, and had no save point of its own.

Final Fantasy has the same possibility, unlike World of Warcraft where you had to run back to your corpse. In FFXIV, you are "saved" at the latest crystal that you touch and if you die, you respawn at the crystal. This is useful if you want to go out farming metals or plants and want a quick teleport back to town: simply touch the crystal in the city, teleport out to the farming area and when you are done, strip naked and aggro the biggest monster you see. You'll respawn in the city!

All in all, I'm fairly happy with the systems for travel. I especially like that the map is semi-transparent, so that you can look at the map while keeping an eye on your character.

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torsdag 7 oktober 2010

The scenery of FFXIV

One thing that's really cool about this game is that a lot of effort has been given to the scenery. There are some drab areas, yes, but there are also a lot of places that just seem to be made for you to stand and gaze out into the distance. And I've only seen the beginner areas so far! I appreciate that kind of attention to detail. Once the creators figure out the user interface and gameplay problems, I think that it is moments such as this that will really make the game worth playing and will eventually make it feel like a real and inhabitable world.


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onsdag 6 oktober 2010

Kitty got a dagger!

Finally! After all that time, all that grinding and crafting and running and exploring... kitty has a new weapon! Yay!

It's a lovely brass dagger that I bought from a passer-by for 50 000 gil. I'm sure I overpayed, but hey, it's basically the first time I ever saw a decent weapon for sale.

So now I'm levelling Gladiator, which seems to be some kind of sword-tank class. Got some useful skills from Marauder as well, so I'm sure that I'll be fairly useful in a fight. I feel about ready to tackle a dungeon or something... are there dungeons in Eorsea?

And the 100 000 gil question is: how can I get a shield?

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tisdag 5 oktober 2010

Desert adventure

Today I was hanging out in the woods around Gridania, just crafting the usual stuff, when I met a nice fellow who helped me rid the forest of some more evil mushrooms and then showed me to a repair vendor in the city of Ul'dah!

Ya-tta! The vendor gladly repaired my underwear for a few handfuls of gil (well worth it!). He also offered to repair my harness for about 10 000 gil, but I was like... dude... I can get a new one for less than that! Or a better one...

So, with everything repaired except my wierdly pricy harness, I am my new friend Silvari headed out into the wilderness around Ul'dah. This was quite a difference from Gridania! The Black Shroud is basically a forest layrinth with very few vistas... it's green tunnels with some mushrooms and squirrels and lots and lots of rain. However, the area around Ul'dah was quite amazing. It has fantastic views over this desert-like plateus and steppe-inspired vegetation with awesome mountain silhouettes in the distance. When the sandstorm faded it revealed spectacular colors, especially at sunset.

At Camp Horizon, Silvari introduced me to his friend Noelle and we decided to celebrate our meeting by assassinating some dodos. Dodos are bloated huge hen-like pinatas that (for some reason) transform into imps when you smash them. Ugh. Okay. Apparently imps are intestinal parasites in Eorsea. I must remember not to eat imp eggs! Or wait, arn't they mammals?



Anyhow, after finishing with the dodos we attempted some cactoid... and man, was that a bad idea! They have this special attack called "1000 needles" that shredded us to pieces in a single outburst. But were we discouraged? No! We tried again. And again. And again. And again. And then we gave up.

Curse you, wierd cactoid invasion!

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söndag 3 oktober 2010

So far FFXIV is only grinding


Still no new weapons! In order to make myself a new axe, I need to become a better blacksmith. In order to become a better blacksmith, I need materials. In order to get materials, I need to mine. In order to mine I need to run around for hours and hours looking for mining nodes. Level 13 marauder and I still kick around with my level 1 waraxe of not-so-much doom!

See, it sucks so much I even got my pretty little behind kicked by a FLOWER! Yeah, that's right, a flower kicked my ass and it hurt bad!

So, to recap:

  • My underwear is still broken, since I can't remove them and I haven't found any repair vendor yet.
  • I still use my level 1 noob axe because crafting a new one is too hard and buying one is impossible since the market has no search function.
  • I have trouble progressing with my crafting professions due to co-dependencies (simple recipies require materials from other professions, sometimes high-level stuff).
  • Gathering materials is a chore since the yield is extremely random.
  • I constantly need to run back to town to exchange items with my retainer since a) my inventory is too small to handle materials for multiple professions, b) there are no vendors at the quest camps that I can sell trash items to.

All in all, I am not terribly impressed with the game mechanics. The graphics is nice, and the world has a nice "feel" to it, and I love the look of the scenery and the characters... but sometimes the game simply feels too hard!

I have only played for a week, and instead of adventure this is about 99,9% grinding.

I must admit that I am somewhat disappointed. I had expected this to be more of a social adventure MMORPG and not so much mind-numbing grinding... yet, grinding seems to be the only way to progress. Even the quests are disappointing... almost the only kind of quest available are what the WoW-nerd would refer to as "dailies", ie repeatable quests that you can do over and over again.

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lördag 2 oktober 2010

Oyasumi!


Today didn't quite go as planned... I couldn't find any kind of weapon upgrade or the parts needed to make one! I am a blacksmith / armorsmith / goldsmith... surely I should be able to make some sort of weapon or armor upgrade for myself?

Apparently not. Each recipe needs some part from some other profession, like some silly log of lumber from a carpenter or some cloth from the weavers. This would be fine and dandy if there only existed some kind of MARKETPLACE with a search function or cathegories or some kind of clue as to who might possibly sell the items I need to craft.

Sigh. Kitty is too upset. She must rest now. Miao. Oyasumi!


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Trading in Final Fantasy XIV


So I found this new city! It took a pretty long walk, but I got there. Upon arrival, I spent some time browsing the market ward, looking for nothing and everything. I found this nice turban and these cool boots! Good thing the turban has holes for my furry ears. ^^


Well, let me tell you about the market districts in Final Fantasy XIV! In what real market would you ever walk around and see a bunch of sellers just standing around without any commercials, without adressing you, and without any signal whatsoever as to what kind of goods they are selling? Well, some are called "Ivan's armory", but most are called stuff like "Bob" or "LegolAss". To find out what they are selling you have to physically poke them and ask: "HEY, LegolAss, what do you have for sale?"

"I have these lovely handfuls of moss," LegolAss replies. "And look, I have the dismembered paws of a squirrel. They cost only 600 gil a foot!"

Uhm, no thanks, LegolAss, I think I'll keep browsing.

About 20 vendors of assorted crap later, I stumble upon some Wind Crystals at the bargain price of 200 a piece. Lucky! I buy a dussin and go on to find a few pieces of bone that I can use to make rings.

In the vain hope that some lost traveller will buy something from me, I plant my retainer Verity in the "Second Gigiyom Ward" of the market district. This is like one of a dussin totally gay sub-instances where you can plant your retainer so that no one will ever find her.

Time to leave my journal and return to Eorsea! My goal for the evening is to obtain a sword. Most likely, I will only manage to obtain three quarters of the materials used to craft the ass end of a mediocre blade. If I am very lucky.

(And I shall also pray to the gods that there will one day be an Auction House in the cities of Eorsea).

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fredag 1 oktober 2010

Discovery!


Not much time for chatting and blogging today... Viv has found a new city with tons of things to explore! The road there was fairly uneventful, but I did see some dragons on the way! Yay! Dragons!

Maybe this city will offer some challenges worthy of my attention. Killing mushrooms and squirrels isn't really that stimulating. Kitty needs a dragons to play with! Also, it was very nice to find a more open area - I was getting sick and tired of the green labyrinth of the Black Shroud!

To get to this city from Gridania, just head south and follow the road - do not stray, the dragons will kick you ass! And remember to tag some crystals on the way, so that you can teleport to that location later.

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onsdag 29 september 2010

Wednesday's adventure


Hi there!

Today I spent some time crafting and practising my blacksmithing, armorsmithing and goldsmithing. It gets a bit confusing sometimes, when I have my blacksmithing hammer out and tries to select something to make... but noooo.... I need my armorsmithing hammar for that. Growl. One would think that in a more sensible reality, I would realise on my own that it was the wrong hammer and simply exchange them automatically. But nooooo....

After my crafting session, I headed out to Camp Emerald Moss again. Lucky me, I found a guy there selling gloves! Kitty likes new leather.... miao! I teamed up with a friendly gnome who couldn't stop looking up my tail... and together we exterminated some malicious fungi.

Really now, when do we get to the dragons? I'm level 16. Seriously, game, you want me to annihalate 8 mushrooms? And maybe a couple of badgers and a snake?


Yeah, that is a freaking funny/annoying video! Nothing however to do with Final Fantasy, though. You are now converted to the badger tribe!

Speaking of tribes, I had a bit of an Avatar-moment when I found this awesome tree in the woods... it was a kind of crystal white and swaying in a very hauntingly beautiful way in the green glade. I couldn't stop to admire it for long... those mushrooms needed swift punishment!

Eight mushrooms later, I returned to Camp Emerald Moss. I am starting to feel that this area is getting a bit old. Green, green, green, and you know what? Just a hint of green.

Tomorrow I'll try to find my way to some other area, I think. I've heard good thing about this lake-city somewhere in the far far away. Time for some change, I say!

So I'll take my noob level 1 axe (still haven't been able to upgrade!) and my still broken underwear (yeeeew!) that I am not allowed to remove to repair, and leave for Limbo Limbasa? Whatever it's called. I hope they have gay pirates, they are the best!

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tisdag 28 september 2010

Singing in the rain

Finally I was able to get back out into the woods! Along with a friend I defeated some evil swarms of bees, some naked moles and firestarter imps. Very epic. *cough*

After all that smiting, it was a relief that it started raining. That way kitty can get clean without having to lick herself! Hmm, *cough*, sentient kittys are wierd. Anyway, I took this wonderful photo of Vivacia's moment in the rain. It will be my picture of the day. Enjoy!

Oh, and in other good news, I got a new belt today! Well, it's a rope, really... apparently it took a lot of crafting, but it's a... rope. A fucking rope. As belt. That took a lot of crafting. Uhm, well, okay, I'm down with that.

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Kitty doesn't like waiting...

Patch evening!

Viv kitty thinks that this is GAY. Come on, Square Enix, fix your patches during work hours, please? Kitty wants to play in the evenings.

Miao.

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måndag 27 september 2010

Resting at the fire

Yawn.

Vivacia has been up all day, mining and working on her crafting skills. Mining is kindof fun, running around looking for veins to quarry. The Black Shroud might not be the most inspiring of areas and the scenery is quite monotunous, but sure, I get a good workout! Crafting is very tricky on the other hand. Making simple things requires many different parts from many different professions, and some make no sense. Like, why would I need a level 11 blacksmith to make components for a level 5 axe, when the finished product can be made by a level 4 blacksmith? Really?

Anyhow, I found Viv a nice new top from a merchant at Camp Emerald Moss. It fits her quite nicely, don't you think? Tomorrow she will kick ass in this getup. Well, if she can find someone to repair her broken undergarments... that, thankfully, she can now remove. What a relief!


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Journal of the Kitty - the start


Hi there!

This is the start of the journal of the adventurous kitty - Vivacia Yuuki. She is a fictional character living in the world of Final Fantasy XIV. Well, trying to live and make a living, at least. So far she has been dying a lot and spent most of her time being confused, but it is still a fun journey.

I make a kitty because they are very cute and have big ears. Sadly I could not make a dwarf in FFXIV (usually my race of choice), but hey, I'll go for the cute stuff this time. The kitty is named Vivacia after the Liveship in the epic fantasy series Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb, and the surname Yuuki is japanese for "courage" - I felt that this was an appropriate homage to a great author as well as the japanese origin of the Final Fantasy game.

Anyhow, Viv is a marauder blacksmith and she has been a menace to animal life in the woods of the Black Shroud these last few days. Squirrels and marmots beware!

Anyhow, sadly, due to the *^?//%& ass morons who designed this game, there are very few trade possibilities, so Viv can't seem to find any new stuff to wear. Her stuff is starting to break. I was informed of this by a nice icon saying something along the lines of "something is broken... guess what!"

Searching through half a dussin menus I finally found the right submenu for checking broken gear. I can really imagine Viv (seemingly mildly retarded) sitting in a clearing in the woods checking her stuff...

Hmm... is it my axe that's broken? No, it seems fine. Alright... could it be my shoes? No, they seem okay. My gloves are a bit tarnished... gotta do something about that... hmm... I can't really figure it out... what the heck is broken? Did I check my axe already? Yes, it's fine. How about my underpants? Oh fuck, broken! Shredded! But my pants are fine? How did I manage that? It seems quite impressive to break my underpants in battle without much significant damage to my pants.

Oh well. After the broken underpants incident, I decided to go exploring. I wandered off into the wilds and discovered a really hauntingly beautiful windswept moor that looked like something Heathcliff might like to hang out at. Anyhow, while I was lusting after a hunky Heathcliff and checking out the scenery, I got my butt kicked by an evil bird.

Tomorrow we shall move on to new adventures!

Stay tuned.

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Disclaimer

This is a personal blog, I am in no way affilated with Square Enix and the opinions expressed in this blog should not be interpreted as being representative of the creators of the game nor even of the gaming community. If you don't like my opinions, get your own or go hump a giga sheep. Peace.