Lo and behold! I picked up the game for cheap during my final days at uni, and I've been slowly getting into the game since.
Linnaete Mellemme
Server: Lamia
Grand Company: The Immortal Flames; Flame Private Second Class [as of typing]
Free Company: Sector 7 (Lamia)
Current jobs: Arcanist [main], Thaumaturge, Conjurer, Weaver, Armourist, Botanist
My impressions of the game thus far will have to be fairly brief, and I hope I'll be able to expound on these points later, so for the time being:
- Duty Finder and party forming for dungeons seems inherently flawed. I am primarily a DPS, and as expected, DPS classes are more numerous and far more popular than say, healer classes. The wait times may have allegedly improved, but they are still long, and a few times I have found myself serenely gathering shards in the Black Shroud when after 35 minutes after I first joined a queue, the message that e.g. Halatali is now ready, unceremoniously pops up, giving me little time to fully re-equip my Arcanist equipment/prepare. I don't know how they intend to address the greater imbalance still when Rogue/Ninja come out.
- The fetch quests/kill quests/backtracking feel considerably archaic compared to my last MMO, Guild Wars 2, but fortunately, I've not let that hamper my enjoyment of the game, and I generally love running around the variety of environments, and having a gander at all the vistas.
- But for some reason, despite the size of the world that would dwarf Ivalice, Eorzea seems rather small relative to other MMOs. Additionally, the game is surprisingly not seamless, and is dotted with loading screens, which suggests to me that they had to technically compromise the game for PS3. Bit of a shame, because I don't think 1.0 had these, I don't think. In addition, settlements seem so frequent, that it rarely feels like I am in the middle of a vast, hostile wilderness. A sister town from another seems more like a few hops away instead of something you absolutely need a Chocobo for. I concede that this can be a positive point for players without mounts, and players who generally aren't too fond of endless trekking particularly when backtracking is ubiquitous, but I think I've been somewhat spoiled by the large worlds that a couple of other MMOs I've encountered have.
- PS3 animations and frame-rates are as bad as I thought. But it's impressive enough that it can run on such old hardware.
- This so far is the only MMO with a story that I find rather engaging. Guild Wars 2, as impressive as its scope is, never entranced me with its story, and I'm hard pressed to recall what actually happens in it apart from dragons and berserk ghosts. I'm getting deja vu when I look at the Garlean Empire, which is probably a good thing. Storyline quests may not be the most riveting things ever, but it's quite a good story, and the writing is generally fantastic, namely in NPC and quest dialogue.
- Voice acting I am more mixed about. Minfilia sounds amateur, and most other people sound flat. Kan-E-Senna particularly sounds perpetually dull and monotone.
