This was going to be a Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn review | FRONTBURNR

But it’s not. Originally, I had planned to tell you the tale of how I created a Roegadyn named Arlyxir Somnambulist, and he was the happiest Conjurer in all of Eorzea after a few short weeks of play. I was going to tell you how I aimlessly wandered my way through the city of Gridania, with all of its strange travel crystals and awkward zone connections, and somehow managed to stumble my way out into the wilderness to do battle with some of the fiercest bees I’ve seen since the Greater Faydark days.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

[GentlemenRUs]

Well SQUARE did die back when FF-13 came out...

If I was the reviewer... I would have told Greed-Enix to go shove it.

[razorpakk]

A realm reborn has different problems, like the end game that forces you to play the same dungeon 8 times per week. After weeks of playing CM (another dungeons) like thirty times...
Very, very linear and boring.

But it just came out, i know... I wanted to get into a mmo from the beginning, but I'm realizing it would've been better to wait a year or so.

[clouds5]

You should have been there when WoW launched. I was one of the first people on my server with a Mount. That was a good feeling :D
And the first time we entered a 40man dungeon? That was an unbelievable experience. A milestone in gaming if you ask me and nothing has come close.

I think most new MMOs set the wrong priorities. They usually have very elaborate stories and nice questlines and everything, but you don't play an MMO for that. All that really matters in the end is ENDGAME content, wether PvE or PvP. I think that is biggest reason why so many MMOs failed. You need to keep those max lvl people entertained. That's why WoW is still around IMHO, the game has good quests but it only really begins when you're maxlvl. And that's how it should be.

When you program a MMO you should have your endgame concept first and then build everything around it.

[Reborn]

How does it force you to do the same dungeon? You talking about Myth tomes? You can run WP, or AK. Or, want more of a challenge? Run some Primal HM fights. CM made it lame, and they adjusted by making other dungs give better philo rewards.

I'd assume Crystal Tower will have the reward of tomes, and level 80 gear for coils. It is tedious, but its not like they mean for you to run it 8 times in one go. I don't get it. It's over the course of a week.

Run it once or twice a day, and you'll be fine.

[Edward75]

Totally agree with you reborn. Some of the people I know who are slightly disappointed with endgame are the people who are playing 15 hours a day, relic+1, and they run everything with the only goal of being the best and first to have.... People need to relax and enjoy this game a bit. Level every job to 30 to see some awesome stories. I guess it's simple... If you want to always be the "first" or the "best" you have to sacrifice something... In a videogames or MMO it's usually the fun.

And more on topic... Endgame for this first month+ it's been out is still better setup then almost every single mmos set up in the same time frame.

[haftarun8]

As a player who used to be a hardcore WoW raider (through Burning Crusade), who has only had time to play XIV ARR for 5-6hrs a week now, I LOVE the game. The story and gameplay even when solo'ing is superior to a lot of modern single player RPGs I've tried over the past 4 years, and feels more like "Final Fantasy" than anything since FFIX. The music is incredible, graphics have their issues but has the best lighting and shadow system of any MMO out there. I love the story arcs, quest text, and the true sense that YOU are the emerging hero of the main story, not just xXPlayerZcoolXx of raiding party Y in guild X on server Z.

It's an interesting comparison to Guild Wars 2 in terms of pros vs. cons, but I feel both serve the casual MMO player (in terms of time allotment) extremely well.

I play MMO's for the immersion and feeling like I belong in the world, and thrive in it. I get that in XIV, I never got that in WoW (and damn does it look ugly besides). Hopefully XIV will start catching up in endgame content with the Crystal Tower 24-player raid (which really should've been in there at launch), and the PvP arenas they're adding before year's end.