I managed to grab a copy of the open beta for Final Fantasy XIV, I thought that it would be a small distraction while I waited for Vindictus but I guessed wrong. The client that I managed to download was in fact a small down loader that quickly installed all the major files that was needed to run it. But when I managed to double click the exe file to run the actual download system for Final Fantasy XIV, that’s where everything has gone wrong.

The patch system that they used to update the system was using a peer 2 peer download that was supposed to be really fast but instead it was slow as a turtle meaning u have to wait about 5 hours to download, even if you have high speed internet. When it managed to finish one major part of the update and the down loader would hang for a long time that causes you to have a major time out meaning that u need to reconnect just to download the same file about 7 to 8 times before getting the whole update, but that didn’t make me angry at all.



After I managed to get all the major updates and started the game up. The character creation was extremely basic it has lots of character customization but it seems to be copy and pasted from all the other Mmorpgs out on the web. When I saw this I was shocked and didn’t say anything, so I quickly created my character and picked the server and hopped on. I was quickly amazed how wonderful the updated graphics compare to Final Fantasy XI. Several seconds later, I tried moving my character and I noticed that the how much data was sent to my client was about 30 kb seconds and transfer data speed was about 100 kb and due to low transfer rate that caused my character to lag.

I think a couple minutes later, getting through the laggy character movements. Then I ran into my first monster run in and the mouse well it wasn’t running smoothly at all and that caused me to quit, until I managed to find a simple update that fix the problem of the mouse cursor and I was back into the game. The combat was literately stupid, where you need to click on the icon on the screen to make your character attack and used the WASD keys to move closer to the monster so you can managed to score several hits to do damage to the monsters while you get hit by them.



Amazingly I managed to get pass the absolutely boring battle system just to listen to some really good music it was just freaking stupid and when u finally complete it  becomes quite again. So I managed to get my character to one of the main cities and where I  experience the exciting  city life in Final Fantasy XIV and it turns out that the way it was shown it seem lively but in Final Fantasy XI you have free movement to explore the town without getting major laggyness but I was wrong. Instead of giving you freedom to move around your character to explore the area but instead you’re transfer to an instance where all the other players hanging around the environment waiting or figuring out what to do next. About several minutes later, I finally got out the instance and completed one part of the major story events and it seem that it was more of a cut and paste version of Final Fantasy XI just with more added coding to make the main character stick out like a sour thumb than anything special.



I would say about 4 hours and 30 minutes later, I have finally complete the first major story quest and wondered if there was anything way of continuing the main story so I asked around and spoke to a GM who was running the whole server and say that there’s no second main mission yet and please stay a while and try out the mini quests while we fix this issue. But instead of waiting I logged off and when to Square Enix Account manager site and canceled the account and quickly uninstalled the whole game. I was in shocked that they expected the players to play the game with a little or no content after you managed to finish the first main quest.

Thus that ended my open beta experience, I would continue to play but with lack of content that has force me to quit playing. The major things that were missing are unable to join guilds and learn combat skills or life style skills, absolutely no content when you complete the first quest for the character you created and the last thing you need to put up with boring group quests that suppose allow you to play with other players but those quests are pretty much the same thing over and over again forcing the players to grind as you wait for new content to be patch over. I would say if Square Enix decides to make an new Mmorpg they should make a brand new one from top to bottom not try attract players with updated graphics and a simple combat system hoping to make another blockbuster game but instead of creating a master piece u get a lemon of an Mmorpg that will disappear when something new comes along.