[MMO] My Phase 4/Open Beta Experience and Error 3102

Hello, hello...

Disclaimer: This is a long one. Skip past the wall of text to to get to the photos. 

Sorry for not updating much recently. This weekend marked the final phase of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and what an eventful weekend it has been.

If you were in the previous Beta tests, Phase 4 began on Friday. I was unable to play because I was busy on that day, but it seems the day went by without a hitch. Many budding players all logged on, loaded up their designs from character creation and got straight into the game.

However, Saturday and Sunday saw a lot of problems. People were getting kicked out of servers, servers were too full, people couldn't create characters on their desired servers so had to go to other ones... it was hectic. I somehow managed to miss all this by fifteen minutes. On Saturday morning, around 9.45AM (UK Time), I decided I would go on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It all loaded up fine, I selected my character design and off I went. According to my boyfriend, fifteen minutes after that open beta began - which then was followed by all the server problems. I got very... very lucky.

A major problem over the weekend was "Error 3102". Basically, when players are trying to sign in, they are greeted with this error code. So, everyone turned to the forums, making multiple threads about the error. The forum moderators responded to this and made an official thread for the error. They asked people who were experiencing the error to list their character name and server. That thread now, reportedly, has over 1,000 posts. The forums are down currently so I am unable to check what the exact page count and post count is, but a lot of people are suffering from this error.

I am one of the lucky ones and it didn't affect me - but it did affect my boyfriend. Now, since phase 1, he has dutifully tested and provided feedback. So, as you can imagine, being locked out of the game for the beta weekend has had quite an impact. He has not been able to log in on his character since Friday. I can imagine there are so many other people who are in the same boat.

However, it is a beta test. It exists purely to test for things like this. It is also open beta, meaning anyone could sign up and log onto the game. At one point, the game was reported to have over 120,000 concurrent connections. There was so many people trying to get into the game, that Square Enix had to open up two new servers on the Japanese side. I hear today they also opened up two new servers on the EU/NA side, and consequently locked all the other servers in a move to push players onto the new servers, and hopefully spread out the amount of players.

Crazy. The commercial that was released to the public the other day has obviously done it's job. They've amassed more players than they can handle. Of course, one does wonder, all the errors and server shut downs have probably pushed a lot of people away, but still - they really have made an impact. The official launch is getting ever so close. One side of me is wondering if the game will crash again, or will they have learned from this weekend and be able to handle it better. Also, with so many people rushing to play the game, it may end up being a historically huge launch... we can only wait and see.

My Phase 4/Open Beta Experience ...told in pictures.


I managed to get a good days worth of Phase 4, and took some screen shots of my adventures. I rolled a Miqo'te Thaumaturge. She is a Seeker of the Moon named "Aylin Moon". (Don't roll your eyes! I'm not good at names...).

And here she is...

She hasn't quite grasped the concept of gloves yet

Uh... that could have went better. This is just shortly after I made her. She is sporting a lovely mage hat which almost resembles a sombrero. She's rocking it.

Ready to explore!

There we go! Minus the interface... she randomly has... across her legs! Finally worked it out. 

So do you come here often?

She made a new friend. He doesn't talk much. Keeps repeating "Kweh", for reasons she couldn't understand. There also another one of them in the background... showing us what he thinks of it all.

This is awkward.

Ended up in a pretty awkward situation with a random guy in a pub. He kept falling off the chair. She just acted like she wasn't looking. (She was.)

Her eyes look like moons. I went all out with her.

Isn't she cute? I never really liked the idea of face paint but considering she is a THM, and she has such bright eyes... I decided to go with it. Obviously, the hat really sets off her eyes here. Meow.

I am the tallest one here. Ha.

After some adventuring, some killing, some questing, some ooh-ing and aah-ing... I got some new robes from the little Lalafell's in the THM guild! They totally make her oven gloves mittens hand gear look awesome.

Ooh, flashy

Here she is in action, showing those Cactaurs who's boss. I love the cactuar in this picture. It's so like "Come at me bro!". It even brought it's friend. "We can so take her on!". Silly Cactuars. 

ALL DEM THMs

Helping out in a FATE. I found it hilarious how many THMs were there. THAUMATURGES, ASSEMBLE! You ain't got nothing on our Blizzards, Fires, Thunders, Sleeps, Tranposes... we own Thanalan.

This...this would make a pretty cool hat.

NEW ROBES! NEW THREADS! EAR SLOTS! So I marked the occasion with this fancy tourist-y picture. She doesn't look too happy about it all to be honest.

This adventurer business ain't too shabby.

Upon returning to Ul'dah, I was informed I now had a room at the inn. Went to check it out. My reaction was something like, "Niiiiiiice." Pretty spacious. Good amount of natural light. Good storage. A cute little table. A very flat bed.

Maybe it's too little.

The table could be better. Can just see her little ears popping up at the top there.

Perfect weather for mischief.

Upon returning outside... It was foggy in Ul'dah! I had read the patch notes and was aware that they had added in the new weather cycles, but this was my first time seeing Ul'dah being anything other than sunny. It is really well done... I loved it when it was foggy.

Action shot

Weather soon cleared up and I was back on the adventure - this time I had a friend! Boyfriend had to make another character just to get on the server. But any where, she looks pretty awesome when she's casting.

And that's it...! That is all I got up to really. I managed to get to about level 12. But I am purposely taking my time with levelling - I really enjoy the story and the scenery, so I do tend to go off on tangents and just go off exploring.

My thoughts so far... I love this game. Considering I've been able to take such fun screenshots and spend more time running around, just soaking up the atmosphere says a lot. I am really excited for full release and although all the server problems it has experienced this weekend is a little worrying... as I said before, it is a beta test. These things happen.

I am really enjoying playing THM. When I get to level 15, I will be switching over to Arcanist. I am quite looking forward to it! I think from today onwards, I will document my time on FFXIV: ARR like I have here. It's fun.

I leave you with this quite serene picture to see you off.

If you have any cool screenshots or stories from your time on Beta, let me know in the comments box below! :)