Today saw the new “Letter From the Producer Live” updating players on upcoming content for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (FF14). The chat, lasting nearly two hours, covered content for the upcoming 2.2 patch, and a few other announcements and surprises. But as always, not all that glitters is gold, so here’s our rundown of some of the best and worst pieces of the latest FF14 news.
Best
Leviathan Primal Battle
We’ll finally start to fight other Beast Tribe’s primals that were absent in the main story line. What’s more, the arena for this battle is a floating barge, with some artwork shown suggesting that it will dip and tilt during the battle. No news about whether summoners will be able to summon a Leviathan Egi, however.
New Dungeon
The Amdapor Township will be a new “challenging” dungeon that will appear in version 2.2. This is exciting because it’ll likely build more on the lore behind the ruined city and the Cult of Dalamund. The artwork and prototype gameplay footage showcased shows this an outdoor area with lots of floating pollen and haze.
New “Hard Mode” Dungeons
There will be new “hard modes” of Brayflox’s Longstop and Halatali. Whilst we don’t care particularly much for Halatali, Brayflox’s Longstop is one of many players’ low-level dungeons of choice as it’s as colourful and fun as it is hectic. So it’ll be great to see what Square Enix do to it to make it even more challenging and manic.
PlayStation 4 (PS4) Collector’s Edition Mount and Minion
Once the PS4 version comes out, those who purchase the PS4 collector’s edition will get the usual stuff available with the original PC and PS3 version goodies, plus an adorable Moogle minion and Fat Chocobo mount. But despair not, PC and PS3 collectors! Comments from the producers mentioned that they will not force non-PS4 collector’s edition owners to also buy the PS4 version to get these.
New Blu-Ray Soundtrack
For those who are into the great legacy of game soundtracks that the Final Fantasy series has created, this new Blu-Ray disc will included all tracks from FF14: A Realm Rebron up to version 2.1. Boasting 119 tracks culminating in almost seven hours of music, it also comes with a Wind-Up Baby Bahamu minion.
Worst
No New Classes/Jobs
Unfortunately, players will have to wait even longer before they can try their hand at any new jobs or classes. This will be especially frustrating for 1.0 players, many of whom already have all their classes capped and geared. This means that they’re also likely to get through what new content there is rather quickly and run out of things to do.
Valentines Event
In-game weddings are already a sensitive topic given that no clear indication whether FF14 will allow same-sex marriages. This could potentially spark a lot of upset for the many LGBT players if they chose to hetero-normalise the event, or cause “outrage” from conservative players by allowing same-sex romance. Where is the love?
No News on Housing
There was no more details about the capabilities of player housing. With the prices for plots still very high, it doesn’t help many Free Companies who have yet to decide what size housing they want to buy and/or whether they want to pay the hefty premium now rather risk being “homeless” later. This just leaves housing still looking like an overpriced novelty and a big let-down for what was heavily promoted ahead of version 2.1.
Physical Game Guides
These seem utterly useless and will only serve as a prized hardcore collector’s piece. Going on sale in late February, they will also only contain information up to version 2.1, meaning they’ll be somewhat redundant come the 2.2 release. Besides, with resources such as XIVdb and Square Enix’s own Libera Eorzea app, physical guides are already completely unnecessary.
Huge thanks to Reinhartv for providing a live translation throughout the event on Twitch.
For more information about FF14, visit www.finalfantasyxiv.com.
Published: Jan 25, 2014 05:21 am