The Mog Blog

Is the Beta finally over?

Just announced today with a rather huge letter from Yoichi Wada, the President and CEO of Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIV will be moving on forwards with huge planned improvements and attempting its hardest to remove the stigma that it has once given itself with Final Fantasy XIV Version 2.0. This is a good thing but it is also a bad thing for those that have been playing FFXIV for so long: You’re going to have to pay for your FFXIV fix now.

“Every resource possible has gone into this year’s patches.” states the letter as it begins to talk about going back to the subscription based system. “Following the results of the development and operations teams’ efforts, together with the release of the overall plans for the game’s future, we will bring the unbilled period to a close between late November and early December of 2011, and thereafter introduce our subscription-based billing system.”

Don’t worry though if you already setup your subscription a long time ago but ended up forgetting about it, as they state “we have decided to first suspend all automated renewals for service accounts. Only account holders who have agreed to reactivate the automated renewal system will be billed. ”

And as for those who are still on the fence about the whole thing? “Between October and December of 2012, we plan to integrate the current service and the coming PlayStation®3 version into the all-new FINAL FANTASY XIV. At this time, a second free trial period will also be offered. ”

On top of all of this, they provided several PDFs as to where FFXIV will go. These points include:

• A complete redesign of current repetitive maps
• The implementation of a new graphics engine
• New server system designed for increased speed and performance
• A fully renewed user interface
• The Expansion of in-game community content

Concept is Concept... but this does look possible.

They mentioned that because of the new graphics engine, everyone will be able to change their race, gender and appearance to go with the new engine. Makes sense! The graphics will also seem to be not only on the high end but focusing on a smooth gameplay experience as well.

Oh and they mentioned PvP.

The new servers will require an overhaul and they say that they will work on that by May 2012.

Taking a bit of a chip from World of Warcraft, they also mentioned that with this new server system, they would like to have people from different servers be able to team up for partying and tackling down content. Setting themselves up with a huge goal, though, they don’t anticipate finishing this aspect until March 2013 (yes, 2013). Finally, they will be able to put in basic search functions that weren’t in the game already… for whatever reason. Expect this to be done by Feb. next year.

And, another thing from WoW… User made add-ons for FFXIV. Now that is something I would like to see in this game!

There’s going to be houses, some in-game mail, some PvP and a revamped retainer system. Oh and male emo cats too? That’ll be interesting to see as well.

So… what are we looking at here?

• Late Nov/Early Dec will see the end of the free unpaid subscription model and will be introduced with patch 1.20
• Early Feb 2012 will start seeing some of the updates with 1.21.
• Mid April will be 1.22
• Mid July will be 1.23
• Sept to Oct will a software revamp of the PC version as it brings the game closer to 2.0 and a PS3 beta will begin to start setting itself up.
• Oct to Nov 2012 will start the PS3 beta and they will give a free trial period for those that are still on the fence about Final Fantasy XIV.
• Beyond that… Version 2.0 will be released sometime in 2013.

All of these dates are preliminary of course.

As for more notes on the system changes:

• Miqo’te males, Highland Hyur, Roegadyn females.
• Focuses on classes and jobs
• Job Specific Gear, Abilities to be earned by quests
• Using a global standard for MMO UI, won’t be so complex as it is now.
• Drag and drop functionality
• Mannequin system for one-touch gear set swapping
• Search function, Auction House features
• Enemy leader and group systems removed
• Summoning ability for certain jobs and classes
• Taming ability
• New jobs and classes
• Incapacitation of body pars for boss fights
• Legacy Final Fantasy items return!
• Redesigning all non-instanced areas
• Convert all dungeons into instanced raids and creating a content finder to find groups quickly
• Ability to replay cutscenes
• In-game voices for Japanese, English, French and German!
• Seventh Umbral Era storyline (a “World Event” for you WoW players) to go along with 2.0
• PvP venues with PvP-specific abilities, gear and ranking
• Large scale battles too!
• A notebook to store all your cooking recipes
• Signature feature found in FFXI in crafting gear
• In-game player communities called Free Companies (sounds much like a Guild)
• Chocobo Mounts to be expanded upon
• In-game mail
• A content finder much like cross server dungeon finder in WoW
• Achievement systems (because who doesn’t like them?)
• New primal battles
• Summoning system that will reward you the ability to summon them for defeating them
• Odin… because he’s a douche.

All of this, and a hell of a lot more in Final Fantasy XIV Version 2.0, coming Early 2013 for PC and Playstation 3. Further information can be read in this teaser.