[MMO] Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Producer 8th Live Letter Summary

So the 8th Producer Live Letter just finished a while ago, and boy, was it a long one!

I am just going to summarise what was mentioned, major dates and announcements in this post for those who missed it.

Open Beta Phase 4 will be from the 17th August until 19th August. For those who were already in beta, it starts on the 16th. (Yay!)
Early access will be 24th August until 26th August, and there will be no down time. That means it will lead straight onto launch.
Open Beta/Phase 4 is capped at Level 20.
PVP will be in OP/P4 but is only available to Legacy players who already have level 50 characters. It seems they want to focus on testing higher level PVP.
Player Housing will be in available in P4 in Limsa Lominsa.

Arcanist will be available in OB/P4.
 - Arcanist will mainly be a DPS class.
 - It seems Arcanist won't be as strong as other DPS classes without taking advantage of Carbuncle.
 - Carbuncle can long range DPS.
 - Stat-wise is MND (Mind) based.

Scholar as we already know is a Healer.
It was said on the Live Letter that for a fully balanced 8-man group it is advised to have both a WHM and a SCH. So nobody is left out! ;)

They showed off Summoner a few of the Egi summons they already have. More Egi will be released when the level cap is reached.
Summoner stat-wise will be INT (Intellect) based.

Summoner rocking that awesome hat

Good news for PS3 players, in Phase 4 they will be adding a screenshot feature.

Gametime cards will be available. 30 days and 60 days.

There will be a World Transfer service available 2-3 weeks after launch.

There will be a smartphone app on iOS named, "Libra Eorzea". - Good news folks, it's free!
Yoshi-P mumbled something about Android, if I'm not mistaken, it will be available a few weeks after the iOS one is released.

You will be able to retry bosses/primals with the same group... I didn't catch much of this so I will update this when I know about it.

Barber shop in 2.1 patch! So you don't have to worry if you character isn't how you wanted it. You can change hair styles, hair colour, eye colour, beard, face tattoos and face paint/colour.

There will be seasonal gear for Summer/Christmas. They showcased a few off the items. Something about fire-resistance gear is vital for one of the events!

There was some information about Crystal Tower/Bahamut's Labyrinth.
 - Bahamut's Labyrinth will explain what happened on Behemoth's Attack. (Credits to @ffxiv_finn for this one - I missed this in stream but read it on their Twitter!)
 - Crystal Tower is a 24 man raid.
 - You will be able to use duty finder to group up for a raid.
 - Crystal Tower will be in patch 2.1 - something to look forward to!

UNICORN MOUNT
 - Have to complete Conjurer quest to get it
 - Can be used with other classes

A lot of cool items for the Housing system. I saw stuff like Tonberry lights and chocobo chairs!

Veteran Bonus Award System - get rewards based on how long you subscribe, rewards for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and so on and so forth.

...and I think that is everything.
If I have missed anything out - let me know - I will add it in here.

Big thanks to the awesome FFXIV Community on Twitter who were constantly updating through the Live Letter! I missed some thing because I zoned out a few times and my brain couldn't process the Japanese quick enough. So thank you to all you guys on there!

I will edit this later with pictures and the like but yah - this is the summary for now! Hope it is helpful to someone. Be sure to check out other FF communities and Twitter because it will be available all over the place.

:)

[MMO] Even More Fun With Character Creation & Live letter VIII

SORRY. More FFXIV. It is a mixture of withdrawal symptoms and people making up really fun threads on the Final Fantasy XIV Beta Forums that is causing all this. Following the success of the Lala Yourself thread, they've thought up a "Male<->Female" thread. I absolutely loved the Lala one so I had to do this.

Don't they look like twins!?! 

Man, I had so much fun doing this. I am probably going to carry it on and do it with other characters I've made. Make Lalafell versions of them all and make them the opposite sex. It's too fun man. You know it's going to be a good game if it has people sat there for hours making character after character, just to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay!

Any way, on the topic of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, it seems the next Producer Live Letter will be broadcast in the next couple of days. It seems the next one will be on the 8th, so maybe they will announce the dates for Phase 4, and we can all stop making characters on character creation.

I will be doing live updates during the Producer Live Letter so if you can't watch/don't understand Japanese/just want to watch me get excited and fan girl over Yoshi-P then you can do so at @aoiciely/http://www.twitter.com/aoiciely !

Now I'm off to go make a million more characters. Gief me XIV nao. :(

[MMO] More Fun With Character Creation

I spotted this in a thread on a Final Fantasy community, thought it was a fun idea.

Lala Yourself!

The idea is you make your main character on Final Fantasy XIV into Lalafell then post up the results. 

I thought it was a really cute idea so I thought I would give it a shot...

Before

After

I cannot get over how adorable she looks haha! If Miqo'tes weren't so perfect I would make a Lalafell. But I like how cheeky and devilish my Miqo'te looks, where as the Lalafell is more innocent and cute - which isn't bad - but I prefer the Miqo'te (;

Any way - you guys should give it a go! Give it a shot and "Lala"  your main. Feel free to post your designs down below~ :)

[MMO] So I Had Some Fun...

Warning... this is going to be a picture heavy post! I don't really know how to make it less picture heavy (apart from get rid of pictures) and one picture is especially huge but just bear with me... it's full of pretty Final Fantasy XIV characters.


As you may all already know, on August 1st Square Enix released a new benchmark along with some character creation for all of us to play with as we eagerly await the release of Final Fantasy XIV.

I was exceptionally bored today so I played around with it for a few hours and came out with a few designs. I thought I would share them all here. I did a lot of them but I only ended up like 3 or 4 ... I'm picky. I'm also not that adventurous with designs as others are, but hey, I try my best.

Any way, I also got Photoshop CS6 back again today (like the new banner? It is should be way better quality but blogger took a huge crap on it) so I created this little introductory image...

Yaaay!

I made this purely to get back into Photoshop... but I liked enough so I thought I would put it here. The Miqo'te in that is the first design I did, and was originally the design I was going to go with but then I ended up playing with it more and...

Out came this cutie. (She is also the Miqo'te in my banner! She will be this blogs mascot... for now). Whenever I make Miqo'tes, I usually always make them Seekers of the Sun, but instead decided to experiment with a Keeper of the Moon...

Those eyes. Her eyes are white so they kind of all blend in but those eyes. I absolutely love how large their pupils are! I love how the Seekers of the Sun have small pupils and huge irises, but I love how the Keepers of the Moon have huge pupils and little irises... it's just too cute ♡

I think she will make a purrrfect Thaumarturge. 

Then, I went onto make a Roedagyn... Such strong women.

I originally went with this hairstyle...

But I thought it was too subtle and for such a strong looking character it didn't suit her. So after some playing around...

I saved this as "choo choo motherf*cker...apologies.

YEAH, THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!

I absolutely love this design. I was really chuffed with myself. Her hair looks like fire man, and look at that pose! I made her eyes a bright crystal blue to contrast with her skin and eyes. Man, if I wasn't so dead set on Miqo'te, this would be my main. She rocks my socks. 

Then after I had my fun being inspired by my Roedagyn, I went back to Miqo'te, but this time went male...

I tried to go for a ... I don't even know. Think Baywatch. I love female Miqo'tes but I love the males more. Haha. Out of all the characters, they are perfectly proportional, and just look awesome. I usually don't like facial hair on a character but this guy looked super baby-faced without it so I had to add it :'D. But he is my favourite. What a babe.

I am proud of him. So, I will let this guy see you out. ;)

But in all seriousness, if you haven't already, download the benchmark! I linked it here in this post, download it, see how the game runs on your computer... then get making some characters! The character creation is really flexible and you can do so much more with it - I am just a boring old fart when it comes to character designs. You can really get some unique designs out of it if you spend enough time on it. This here is just a small taste of what you can do.

I wanna see your creations! Link me them! :)