FFXIV:ARR is the 2.0 version of the game Final fantasy 14. Final fantasy 14 released on September 30, 2010 and ended November 11, 2012. After many negative reviews and continued fan complaints about the state of the game, Square Enix realized they had to revise their proposal and took it back to the drawing board, appointing Naoki Yoshida as game director and rebuilding the entire game from the ground up. The work involved in saving this product was clearly an emotional experience:
FFXIV:ARR released on August 27, 2013 for both PC and PS3,The PS4 version will start on beta on 22 February 2014 and will release sometime in April.The new release saw a rocky launch, with connectivity issues and long queues, however after the initial two week the servers stabilized and it is a joy to play.
This article brings you some great information on this game and the essentials for beginners, and will be divided into three parts. This is the overview!
FFXIV Prices and subscriptions:
FFXIV:ARR is available on PS3 and PC and will soon be available for Ps4. Both versions give you a month’s worth of subscription on purchase, but after that you will have to pay to continue playing – this subscription system is a little different than other MMO’s due to the fact that your character can level any class at any time, so here’s the info:
| Membership | Price | Days | Characters – World | Characters – Total |
| Legacy | £6.89/€9.99/$9.99 | 30 | 8 | 40 |
| Entry | £7.69/€10.99/$12.99 | 30 | 1 | 8 |
| Standard | £8.99/€12.99/$14.99 | 30 | 8 | 40 |
| Standard | £8.39/€11.99/$13.99 | 90 | 8 | 40 |
| Standard | £7.69/€10.99/$12.99 | 180 | 8 | 40 |
*Legacy is if you played the original Final fantasy 14 and subscribed for 90 days before it’s shutdown.
You can buy both PS3 and PC from any game shop, PSN and the Square Enix website. If you do buy the PS3 edition you will get a free upgrade to Ps4 when it comes out.
FFXIV Classes and Jobs:
A lot of MMO’s follow the trinity of Tank, DPS and Healer and FFXIV is no exception. A single character can swap and change to any class at any time but Jobs require certain requirements before you can change to them. Your starter class needs to be level 10 before gathering and crafting classes become available and from there you can swap and change as much as you like.
The difference in FFXIV compared to other MMO’s is that your class not race dictates your starting city of which there are three:
- Gridania: Archer, Conjurer and Lancer.
- Limsa Lominsa: Marauder, Arcanist.
- U’dah: Gladiator, Pugilist, Thaumaturge.
The only difference between cities is the guilds based on what classes start where, providing customized quests that prepare the player for their selected role. Travel to these separate areas is only possible after level 15, so there is no cross-class questing on early levels Classes will be put into a lot more detail in part 2: Classes,races and job.
FFVIV Quests, Dungeons, Guildhiests
Most of the quests in FFXIV:ARR follow a lot of what has come before in other MMO’s. The Fetch quests and kill 10 of these is here in spades. But every once in a while a quest will require you to do a dungeon with other people. Dungeons start around lvl 15. Guildhiests are tutorial dungeons usually showing mechanics that are are used in the dungeons during level 15-20 and they become available at level 10. This will be covered in a lot more detail in part 3 of this series.
So this is the bare essentials. In the next part i will do a in depth explanation of all races,classes and jobs. Hope to see you there.
7 responses to “FFXIV:ARR The essentials: Introduction”
A nice read. I was in the PS3 beta and found it enjoyable but the gameplay did get stale after awhile though I only tried the marauder class during the beta. Can’t wait to see the more indepth look at the class and jobs. My only disappointment of the game is that it requires subscription. If it wasn’t subscription base I would probably buy it.
A lot of people have said that. Yoshi-P(Games director) has said he would shut the game down before ever going to F2P. Based on SE’s previous ff mmo FFXI which is still taking subscriptions now it looks like SE is behind that.
Looking forward to more FFXIV info!
I could get behind the pay per month if the main game wasn’t a full 60 – It’s tempting as I hear great things about it, but I honestly believe giving the main game for free or adding the cost of it to your subscription would drive more people in.
Great write up. That’s not a bad sub price if 13$ USD gets you 6 months. I’m not the biggest fan of paying full retail for the disc in these cases either, I’d compromise to 20$ or so. Paying full retail for a game should guarantee you some kind of offline or free online content that makes it a viable long term purchase should you choose to forego the subscription.
I agree: it would be nice to have free/extremely discounted subscription for plus members. I personally will more than likely pass on this game, due to the pay to play, even though it looks beautiful and lord knows I’ve been waiting for a decent FF game. Square is definitely in rebuild mode financially, so I can see why they wish to keep the subscription.
Square Enix in financial trouble is a bit of a popular internet myth. Since it’s formation in they have only had 2 years where they have made a loss. (2010 and 2012.) So, yeah it’s not like they’re in dire need of a cash injection.
It’s P2P since that’s the major trend in the Japan market for MMO’s. F2P is actually the opposite in Japan as to here in the West: it’s seen as a major failure and Japanese players just seem to avoid it due to this stigma.
In terms of price: box versions of the game are now around $20 on Amazon for PC and PS3. Box versions at launch were still slightly cheaper than retail I think (my collectors edition only cost full retail.)
Also if you’re a console player on the fence then the PS4 release will be a great time to jump in with patch 2.2 being released just prior to the PS4 release.