Freyar

That's a lotta male Miqo'te.

As long as I'm not seeing stupid costs associated with repair as a result of fishing like I do with mining, then I'm fine with fishing not being so valuable. It'll be a distraction and any distraction is a good distraction as it pads out the game. I just hope that in the long run it won't be an expense, because crafting sure felt that way early on in V1.

AS far as my design goes, there will be experience with certain classes, especially as more reach cap, but expertise will be limited to the primary area that the character has been working with. This can even be represented with the way bonus points are distributed, and attribute points are allocated. A character could be considered a master in a lot of different professions, but that doesn't mean that the character has the expertise beyond that point. I realize I just re-wrote (and poorly) what others have said, but that's the gist of it. Rorohiju Momohiju, primarily a studious Lalafell will have his expertise with magical work (with most in destructive spells and research), but he will eventually have master's proficiency in many other physical jobs as well. Expertise != Mastery

This kind of behavior is exactly why I don't put myself in a position to play any sort of MOBA in a multiplayer environment. I stick to Demigod at most, and that is a singleplayer affair to me. Overall, I have a very basic rule for my behavior. If I'm getting frustrated to the point where the game isn't fun, I'll stop and do something else. I used to get frustrated and grumble an awful lot, complain about mechanics, about how they were "stupid" and "unfair" but over time I've gotten to the point (partly due to having seen so many different games and being able to see what works and what doesn't) where I can see merits for design decisions I didn't think about before. I do think "hyper-competition" is a core component of why we have this kind of behavior. We see people who argue that if they aren't winning, it isn't a good game. I believe a close game is a good game, there have been spectacular losses that were a blast to play through to the end and I just wish more people could see those in the same way. Hearing and seeing people play League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, DOTA 2, and other hyper-competitive games almost every day, I watch as they get frustrated over time, I can hear them get more and more angry each time they happen to have a loss, or something didn't go right. Rarely do I hear someone owning up to a mistake they made, with over three quarters of the time, problems get blamed on other people. I've had some people even threaten each other with violence (to which has resulted in one or two people being thrown out and told to cool off), I've actually witnessed a physical fight as a result of certain people taking these hyper-competitive games too seriously. Have fun first, win when it works. The drive for "World" and "Server" firsts has only thrust this issue into the MMO spotlight. The constant focus on min-maxing and perfect execution always causing some sort of commotion. Call of Duty has the same problem with that hyper-competitive streak. People do stupid human things (which is to be expected since they're human), and they explode in frustration since what they expected to happen didn't come to be. They explode over latency problems, they get angry over randomly assigned teammates who may or may not work well with them. I constantly try to argue to people who play Call of Duty, or any game that uses matchmaking, that part of their game is indeed chance. Bullet Spread, Latency, Teammates. These are all random elements added to the game. We had this strange explosion of focus on personal performance, KDR KDR+A being the pedestal that people focused on all the time. What's strange is that people don't actually remember that for every kill you make, that's a death for someone else. 1.0+ is a good ratio for non-objective games, yet some players are SO uptight about getting more than 3.0 in each match (otherwise they're horrible.) This whole post has kind of gone to a bunch of different topics stemming from this, but they all culminate into what makes it hard for people to actually play in multiplayer games these days.

Why did I hear this in the voice actress's voice for Cirqus Voltaire?

Nobody mentioned Judge Dredd? D:

Neat to see things are still going strong!

Imagine my surprise when I saw all the names I recognized when Phase 3 picked up.

Hello, I am Freyar. You may have heard me threads such as "Not Without My Hat" and "Where the Stick Roams". While I may have been absent for over a year or two, FFXIV's return has me coming back! I'm still debating as to whether or not I'll provide patches like I did in Version One. While the launcher has been cleaned up some, it still uses the same basic infrastructure. Character names that I play with and the like are most definitely going to change, but I expect it to be "for the better" anyway. See you guys on Balmung!

Patch D2010.12.06 has been added. Changelog on the OP.

Patch D2010.11.30.0000 has been added. Changelog on OP. The file structure for Patch D2010.11.25.0002 has been fixed. It should be able to be extracted like normal. Those that have already had it downloaded should find the patch itself in ..\Final Fantasy XIV\downloads\ffxiv\48eca647\ Copy D2010.11.25.0002.patch to the proper folder and it should be good to go.

I probably didn't preserve the file structure properly. The actual patch is in there, I have a suspicion it's just one folder up.

An important note. If your FFXIV config utility is crashing, you will need to enable windows fonts, select any one (Arial may be the first on the list). Hit okay to save it, go back and disable the windows font again. This problem is caused by the new Windows Font option not having a font selected even if it is disabled.

It isn't, it's just the only one they remember.

The auto-sort was never going to do that.

Click To Embiggen, and for Lossless Version The UI updates not only makes the critical step towards moving Final Fantasy XIV away from feeling like an emulated console title, but also helps critically reduce the amount of time spent in menus. What used to take literally four to seven minutes in gear swaps and unequipped, is now literally 15 seconds. UI lag is most definitely down, though some wait is still noticeable in high traffic areas. This is probably because there is a significant reduction in server-authenticated actions. Custom chat tabs are now available, though only two will be able to be "typed in", which are the two set on the first bar (IE: "General", and my re-designed "Whisper" tab). So, the second set will have to be used entirely for logging things. This makes stuff much better in the long run though, making it easier to sort out chats with vital combat information. The SP and XP bars at the bottom make for a much-needed method to track progression without having to always go to the menu. This is most useful during Synthesis and Gathering (such as fishing). As far as the changes to magic, this has made my (what feels like) neglected Thaumaturge discipline feel like something I can use. Spells are potent, they actually hit and while still have a chance to resist aren't prone to it. Combat feels much more fair in that respect than it used to be. Thaumaturge characters were at best used for spam-healing and Punishing Barb "Lalabombs". It seems they've done a bit of optimization too. Performance on my machine using the old "max" quality for rendering has gone up while giving those with even stronger CPU and GPUs than mine a chance to really kick in environment lighting up another notch. It sure does look pretty. Only complaint is that with the XP/SP bar at the bottom, I'd REALLY like to see a "borderless windowed" mode, or at least the ability to alt-tab without crashing.

D2010.11.25.0002 has been added. Changelog in the OP. Personal Views on D2010.11.25.0002

I've only been away for two days (Black Ops release), feels like it's been a week. Might jump in when I get home if just to fish.

I've had to resort to pestering linkshell members, or at the worst start shouting along with the rest of them.

* How big are they? ---> Not defined. * Do they transmit both sound and visual?\ ---> Sound Only * Are they actually "pearls" or some other type of object? ----> I tend to think of them as a pearl, but it's something I don't typically consider too hard. You could say it's a marble that does the same thing.

At an MMO release, populations are booming. Naturally over the course of the first month or two the population shrinks. This is normal.

D2010.10.26.0000 has been added. Changelog on OP.

I was there during the beta. I studied it too, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, though I didn't come to anything conclusive. What makes you say it's a dungeon? The mob you see may be explain partly why the gates are closed.

The Good (positives)[*]Better direction available for players. [*] Armory Systems provides interesting character combinations. [*] Game is very pretty.[/list:u] The Bad (negatives)[*]Game doesn't scale well. Seems overly aggressive on particle effects and the like. [*] CPU use seems to be over-used for what is shown on screen. [*] Skill-Point gain is bonkers. [*] Enmity is broken making playing as primarily a caster extremely trying. (Punishing Barbs bombing anyone?) [*] Market as it is, is completely useless. [*] Targeting is near impossible, especially in heavy combat.[/list:u] The Not-So-Ugly (thoughts, hopes, neutrality, etc.)[*] Content will be added over time. [*] Major bugs will be ironed out over time. [*] More information on game mechanics could be released by SE.[/list:u]

D2010.10.22.0000 has been added. Changelog available on OP.