It's not a "Job" System; it's a "Class" System.

Wow, after a long dry spell, a bunch of new FFXIV videos and pics came up all at once, and speaking of "WoW," I've got to get a few things off my meaty chest:

1. To everyone already screaming "WoW-clone" at FFXIV with excessive use of exclamation points, shut up. WoW did not invent quest experience. So stop toting yourself as some hardcore gamer who won't play FFXIV because it's too casual. It only proves how few games you've actually played. You may as well say FFXIV copied DnD.

2. To everyone already saying FFXIV's casual gameplay is a step backwards compared to FFXI, shut up. FFXI did not advance the MMORPG genre in any way. The only thing unique about it is that it was the first online Final Fantasy game, and maybe the job/subjob system was pretty different from other MMO games. It wasn't genre-defining.

3. To everyone making bold assumptions, rash conclusions, and stating facts otherwise based on logical fallacy about FFXIV, definitely shut up. You have seen a few minutes of Alpha gameplay. ALPHA. You cannot make any accurate predictions, positive or negative, about this game yet. Speculate all you want, but stop being a dick about it.

Okay, that aside, this is the first PS3 game I've seen that has blown my mind, visually. Clearly, out of the PS3, 360, and Wii, the PS3 has always been the graphical powerhouse, but this is the first game where I actually think it's a selling point. The fluidness(definitely not a word) of the gameplay is pretty amazing, and this is only alpha.

Still can't comment much on the actual combat. Obviously, there are some similarities to FFXI and some differences. The HP, MP, and TP bars are still around, though TP seems to function differently. Seems the lock-on and auto-attack are still part of combat, but it looks like there's home kind of hotkey spread at the bottom of the screen in the video. I'm thinking this, along with the very high amount of TP shown in the video, may imply that weapon skill type abilities will play a much larger role in combat than they did in FFXI.

The best news for me has been this:






























I mentioned some concerns in my last post that this whole lack of a defining job system might mean everyone was basically going to be a Warrior with a different weapon, as far as melee go. Mostly, I was actually worried that there would be no Monks. Monk is one of my favorite jobs in FFXI(though my main is actually Dragoon), and I was hoping they'd make a return. It seems they will in some form, at least. SE is still hush-hush on the details of how this "class system" will work. In a way, it kind of is like everyone is a Warrior with a different weapon. They keep saying there are no "jobs," par se; it's all in how one trains his skills and equips himself.

The most sense I can make out of all it is that if you use hand-to-hand weapons, learn hand-to-hand skills, wear armour that augments and aids said style of combat, you are, essentially, a Monk, but you won't be called that. We're all just "people," apparently. It's like SE is trying really hard to not be racist so they're just generalizing all the jobs. I'm all for seeing how this turns out, though, no matter how convoluted it seems right now.

P.S. - If you've not checked the FFXIV official site recently, do so. It's been updated.

It all began with a stone...

... and several nations previously at war but who are now in an unspoken truce due to the invention of "airbourne battleships." Okay, I threw the "stone" part in myself, but according to the latest news at 1UP, the basic plot of FFXIV is sounding a lot like FFXI.

This news hit the internet highway a couple days ago, but I've not been able to formulate an opinion. I try to not have an opinion and base reactions only on facts, but it's difficult to do that when one is so underwhelmed.

Paraphrasing from the 1UP article, there are four "job skills" in FFXI: Fighter, Sorcerer, Gatherer, and Crafter, all of which will grow depending on one's equipment. I guess if you have weapons equipped, you'll be training your Fighter skills, if you have some kind of tool equipped, you'll be training your crafting skill, etc., etc.. I'm hoping it only sounds dull now because of how little information is available. I also hope that equipping different weapons will, essentially, change your class. If you equip knuckles, you're a Monk, a Polearm, a Dragoon, and so on. I'll be seriously pissed if the intent is for everyone to be a Warrior with the only difference being the weapon one has currently in use. Hopefully, I'm way off the mark. Still, I'm apprehensive to learn how this will work out, but this isn't much to go on at the moment. So let's focus on something more concrete.

Eorzea will be the starter continent with several islands surrounding it. Cool, sounds like a big world. The five races have pretty much been confirmed: Hyuran(Hyrulian), Miqo'te(Misquito), Lalafell(Lala, fell), Elezen(Eleven), Roegadyn(Rose Garden). All, respectively, correspond to Hume, Mithra, Tarutaru, Elvan, and Galka from FFXI. You can see scans of them in this thread on ZAM.

Better still, all the races will be fully customizable. Hyuran will also be split into "midlanders" and "highlanders," while Miqo'te will be split into "diurnal sunseekers" and "nocturnal moonkeepers," whatever that means. In any case, I'm glad there won't be as many dopplegangers around.

What has me most intrigued, though, is how the quest system will work. It reminds me much of the Tactics Advance games and how mark hunting worked in FFXII. Adventurers will receive work passes from Eorzea's guildmaster to go on quests either solo or with others. Paraphrasing Komoto, he says a certain amount of players will not be needed for specific quests. It'll be up to the players how many people they want to bring. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. Maybe he means that the quest difficulty will scale up or down depending on how many people are present.

All in all, these are interesting ideas with a lot of perplexing vagueness. SE has my attention, but we'll see how long they keep it:



... Okay, I'm all ears.