However: The game is decently fun before the story kicks in
and the devs for sure need to trim the story a lot more specially the earlier levels.
in addition to that the early content is becoming very stale and needs a rework
I’m not kidding when I say the 4th expansion is some of the best story telling in video game history, the music and production is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced and I look back very fondly to that expansion
So for someone who has never played, and doesn’t have a clue about the game, is it worth diving into? Do I need to do anything special to avoid spoilers, or will the game take me through the story from the original game through the expansions without deviation?
I tried the free trial recently, and… it wasn’t for me.
Cool art. Running around and interacting is pretty straightforward. Good linux/proton support (though couldn’t recognize my controller immediately, so I just went mnk).
But it’s delivery missions for like 10s of hours. I don’t have much MMORPG experience, so maybe it’s just not the right genre for me. I had more fun in character creation than I did in the actual game. Plus I couldn’t play at all during peak because I apparently chose a popular server/world. Combat felt clunky on mnk.
If I had friends who played, maybe I’d be more inclined to push through, but as a solo player it felt like doing chores.
I only pitch it to people who already play MMOs. It’s a massive time sink, and very heavy with cutscenes. Sometimes the story gets really slow (like basically doing chores for people to convince them to help you save the world) but at other times it’s absolutely incredible. I agree that the 4th xpac is some of the best writing ever.
As for spoilers in the game, you should be pretty safe. The game itself will take you through the story linearly and the community is generally very respectful.
You can play the base game and I think the first expansion up to level 60 for free. Be aware that it is an MMO, and they’ve kept most of the content that they’ve added in the game, so it’s pretty daunting starting out.
Okay, so definitely not right now in my life, lol. It sounds great though. One of the reasons I ‘fell out’ with MMOs was the rushed nature of their story due to wanting to throw people at the end game content. EQ2 was reasonable with it, but WoW just fucked everything for me. It was never worth the time to learn about an area, because you’re already past most of its content and getting to the next one by the time you sneezed from the book dust.
WoW just fucked everything for me. It was never worth the time to learn about an area, because you’re already past most of its content and getting to the next one by the time you sneezed from the book dust.
WoW has been getting worse and worse at this in the later levels after the scaling rework, BUT if you start a new character, then anything that’s not the most current expansion, you can start doing the content from a lower level and actually take your time through… Well probably one expansion’s story lol
So if you go to Northrend or Pandaria or whereever at level 10, you have plenty of time because you can keep doing these zones till you’re level 60 or 70 or something and only then do you actually HAVE to move to the newest region to keep leveling up.
Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor of course are so big that you’re going to have to do multiple characters to get all the storylines done without doing some at max lvl.
I’d say it is, because while it’s a slow burn the buildup leads to some pretty epic payoffs.
And the game will not only take you through each story in sequence so you don’t have to worry about spoilers, it will lock you out of progressing class quests (if they have spoilers, and the later ones often have at least a few) until you’ve played the relevant story parts. So it’s extra-anti-spoiler.
Very definitely worth it. And it’s free so if you don’t like it, not like you’re wasting anything. Have something like 10k hours in it. I don’t play it much anymore other than to check in and/or dick around with friends since I’ve done most of what I wanted. There’s no FOMO or anything like that. It’s very much built as an RPG, just online (though with the recent updates you can play the entire thing single player if you so wish). So you can just take your leave of it once you’ve done the content you want and come back later without missing anything. Very worth it.
Unironiconally one of my favorite FF stories, third to 9 and 10. And that probably has to do with them taking the time to build up a backstory and lore. So it’s not off to the racetracks minute one, big deal. Do you expect that when you read a book? Makes you care more about the people later on since they’ve been established as actual people and not just Spiky Hair Video Game Guy #1 and Woman Who Should Be Cold In Those Clothes #8
I love the franchise. I really do. But I couldn’t get over 14 feeling like an MMO during my free trial. It didn’t feel like the ambitious mainline FF games. Is it really worth picking it up for the story?
I play FFXIV, it’s unironicslly true.
However: The game is decently fun before the story kicks in
and the devs for sure need to trim the story a lot more specially the earlier levels.
in addition to that the early content is becoming very stale and needs a rework
I’m not kidding when I say the 4th expansion is some of the best story telling in video game history, the music and production is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced and I look back very fondly to that expansion
So for someone who has never played, and doesn’t have a clue about the game, is it worth diving into? Do I need to do anything special to avoid spoilers, or will the game take me through the story from the original game through the expansions without deviation?
I tried the free trial recently, and… it wasn’t for me.
Cool art. Running around and interacting is pretty straightforward. Good linux/proton support (though couldn’t recognize my controller immediately, so I just went mnk).
But it’s delivery missions for like 10s of hours. I don’t have much MMORPG experience, so maybe it’s just not the right genre for me. I had more fun in character creation than I did in the actual game. Plus I couldn’t play at all during peak because I apparently chose a popular server/world. Combat felt clunky on mnk.
If I had friends who played, maybe I’d be more inclined to push through, but as a solo player it felt like doing chores.
I only pitch it to people who already play MMOs. It’s a massive time sink, and very heavy with cutscenes. Sometimes the story gets really slow (like basically doing chores for people to convince them to help you save the world) but at other times it’s absolutely incredible. I agree that the 4th xpac is some of the best writing ever.
As for spoilers in the game, you should be pretty safe. The game itself will take you through the story linearly and the community is generally very respectful.
You can play the base game and I think the first expansion up to level 60 for free. Be aware that it is an MMO, and they’ve kept most of the content that they’ve added in the game, so it’s pretty daunting starting out.
Only if you don’t have a family or plans to do much else for a year
The main story alone will take you literal months
Okay, so definitely not right now in my life, lol. It sounds great though. One of the reasons I ‘fell out’ with MMOs was the rushed nature of their story due to wanting to throw people at the end game content. EQ2 was reasonable with it, but WoW just fucked everything for me. It was never worth the time to learn about an area, because you’re already past most of its content and getting to the next one by the time you sneezed from the book dust.
WoW has been getting worse and worse at this in the later levels after the scaling rework, BUT if you start a new character, then anything that’s not the most current expansion, you can start doing the content from a lower level and actually take your time through… Well probably one expansion’s story lol
So if you go to Northrend or Pandaria or whereever at level 10, you have plenty of time because you can keep doing these zones till you’re level 60 or 70 or something and only then do you actually HAVE to move to the newest region to keep leveling up.
Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor of course are so big that you’re going to have to do multiple characters to get all the storylines done without doing some at max lvl.
I’d say it is, because while it’s a slow burn the buildup leads to some pretty epic payoffs.
And the game will not only take you through each story in sequence so you don’t have to worry about spoilers, it will lock you out of progressing class quests (if they have spoilers, and the later ones often have at least a few) until you’ve played the relevant story parts. So it’s extra-anti-spoiler.
Very definitely worth it. And it’s free so if you don’t like it, not like you’re wasting anything. Have something like 10k hours in it. I don’t play it much anymore other than to check in and/or dick around with friends since I’ve done most of what I wanted. There’s no FOMO or anything like that. It’s very much built as an RPG, just online (though with the recent updates you can play the entire thing single player if you so wish). So you can just take your leave of it once you’ve done the content you want and come back later without missing anything. Very worth it.
Unironiconally one of my favorite FF stories, third to 9 and 10. And that probably has to do with them taking the time to build up a backstory and lore. So it’s not off to the racetracks minute one, big deal. Do you expect that when you read a book? Makes you care more about the people later on since they’ve been established as actual people and not just Spiky Hair Video Game Guy #1 and Woman Who Should Be Cold In Those Clothes #8
the free trial has infinite time and some minor restrictions so imo you should try it
i didn’t know what to expect and only played guikdwars 1 and some 2 and very little WOW and ff14 won me over
it’s a very charming game with lots of character and you can tell it was made with love
I love the franchise. I really do. But I couldn’t get over 14 feeling like an MMO during my free trial. It didn’t feel like the ambitious mainline FF games. Is it really worth picking it up for the story?
yes, ff14 is literally a single player game with some multiplayer element
it’s the one thing I don’t like about it I wish it was far more social and MMO like
Ff14 is as social and mmo like as you want it to be. Just need to engage with it
Depends, try it and see. There’s some really good content and great fights. But yeah being an mmo it takes time and is hit or miss.
Didn’t they already trim down ARR? I thought that was during Endwalker or Dawntrail
But yeah, very few video games have made me cry and Endwalker was one of them
yeah they have, imo it’s too long due to the “onboarding” for new players to play current content with friends
It peaked at Shadowbringers. Endwalker was very good. Dawntrail is crap.