im in grim, but i wont be playing metriod till december lol!

also, when can we confirm the realm we are going to be on, i think most of us are just getting normal copies so we can play on the 30th (i know i am) so will we confirm the realm on the 22nd or before if they give a list of realms or something IDK i got a buddy getting collectors as well as gidon up thar

no realm lists at the moment, we'll know when we get closer to release

OMGLOL:

http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/recom/na/pc.html

I dont match those specs and i can play it just fine. The benchmark video does a good job of assessing performance. I can supposedly play the game on default settings w/o any bog. I turned off shadows and some other things cause i never like those functions anyways.

The game plays fine.

My previous post about character levels was inaccurate.

You have two level systems. Class level and Physical level. Your Physical level is your character's level and does not change between jobs. When you gain physical levels, you are awarded attribute points (AP) and resistance points (RP) to allocate as you see fit. You can reapply your AP and RP as you see fit.

Example:

Timmy levels his Conjurer to 17, Physical level 21. Timmy decided to punch things for a while and switches to a Pugilist class.

Timmy is now Pugilist 1, Phys 21. Timmy's AP were previously pumped into INT as he was a conjurer and had use for INT for that class. Timmy hits the "reset" button for his AP and RP and now distributes his AP to STR and DEX. /Example


A by-product of this system is that a high level Physical means you won't have to go back to the starting area in order to grind a low class level. Your raw attributes beef you up to the point that you would 1-shot mobs and as this is a skill based game, you won't gain much Class XP doing that.

I joined a FFXIV beta vent channel and got some useful information about leveling. If you ever played FF tactics, this game shares some similarities. As long as you can use an ability that has an effective result (actually healing dmg or actually dealing dmg) you can "skill up" or "Rank Up" said class.

In other words, when i went around 3 shotting mobs with my strongest magic, i was actually hurting my Conjurer progression. In order to skill up Conjurer, i need to use Spirit Dart (which takes like 6-8 hits to kill a mob) in order to Rank up faster. Also, i was doing nothing but killing quest mobs when non-quest mobs give better skill-ups. You can only do a set amount of quests per 2 day period. It won't be like WoW in that quests = level progression. It's still very much a grind, quests simply help alleviate some of the grinding monotony and they also are a main source of Gil.

-edit

Many posts of players who have leveled at a good pace were part of a 2-man cell grinding on mobs. It seems to be the most efficient means of grinding. Larger groups are just as efficient but, maintaining a larger group can be problematic as more people mean more issues. Grab a partner and go level up together, imho.

First 22 hour testing period that stayed up the whole time. The servers are seeing some stability, if FFXIV were Rome, all it's players just had a giant orgy last night.

Got a Conjurer to Rank 11. Probably could have ranked higher in that time but, i set aside some time for running around getting owned by stuff way too hard for me to kill, good times!

Skills are allocated wtih AP (Action Point) system. Your Rank gains an Action point every time it levels. Most actions take 3 AP to allocate to your bar. SO if you have a high Rank Gladitor and Conjurer, you could indeed allocate caster spells to your Gladiator's bars if you so desired. The depth of which abilities will be mixed and matched is looking like it could be pretty fun to mess around with.

Mages gain TP as fast as melee classes do and when dealing dmg with a TP using action, they receive a small reimbursement of mana. Even without passive mana regen, i ran a very successful and fun wizard-cleave group today. We blew shit up and maximized our AoE heals. We rarely had to stop for mana. Good times.

FFXIV switches to 24/7 beta testing starting tonight.




.....and he was never heard from again!


Srsly though, i haven't heard anything from your end in a while. How are things coming with setting up forums for the Linkshell?

Sorry I haven't been noisy about it.

This is what I have in the works:

- Site will be WordPress with BuddyPress integration. So I'll be running the front page for FFXIV news and shit, probably as a bad attempt to mimic MMO-Champion at first but mostly to hype in-game activities with the Linkshell. Here is how BuddyPress works if you're interested: http://buddypress.org/.

- Forums will likely end up by bbPress, as it seems that after all these years there still is not a good way to integrate more traditional forum software like vBulletin or phpBB into WordPress.

- Ventrilo server costs are retarded, so I'll be going Mumble.

- All this will be hosted on domain on my own environment, so none of this guildname.guildhostingcompany.com address or lameness.

The name is so awesome that I must keep it secret until the unveiling, Sep 22 (my birthday and CE launch date).

Going to be hosted courtesy of AnimeNfo.

Edit:

For anyone interested, here is the wikipedia page and bio of Hiormichi Tanaka, the head producer and creative lead of Final Fantasy XIV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiromichi_Tanaka

Cool beans. FFXIV server loads are stable and have been running straight for multiple test periods and now the switch to 24/7. I'm saturated with FFXIV. Getting kinda anxious about sharing info n getting to know people. I game on vent with people that are planning on forming LS n what not. Trying to pick up all the useful shortcuts and pro tips i can. I have a steady handle on quick XP gaining in various forms so, i think i will focus on crafting soon. Crafting requires a lot of gathering materials + crystals dropped from mobs and there are diminishing returns on XP gains after a finite amount of grinding. SE seems to want to force players into doing more than just one aspect of the game.

Gathering too much triggers gathering lockouts for that gathering class. Grinding too much triggers exponentially growing XP diminishing returns on a single class. The idea i think is to either to get you to leveling another class for support skills or try some crafting / gathering. I currently have no idea how long the diminishing returns last. It may only be a beta thing in order to get players to try other classes.

Anyway, lost my train of thought. Later.

I have a question.
I'm getting really close to just picking up the game and trying it out when it comes out (I'm getting a new lappy that will be able to play it just fine, already googled the laptops benchmark results)

How are the crafting classes in combat?
I wouldn't mind trying the alchemist or the blacksmith if they're not terrible, as I want to be ontop of the crafting game early on to reap the rewards.

Or the gathering classes like the miner.

I don't want to be a burdan to the group, but money is everything, just like FFXI