[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! :)

[MMO] Final Fantasy XIV Japanese TV Commercial Released

It looks like the advertising for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is in full swing in Japan!



Quite an interesting commercial - a lot more interesting than the leaked one (which eventually turned out to be the actual one!

What I thought was pretty cool was this shot of some armor...

On a Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn group I follow, someone suggested it was the Paladin AF+1 gear. It's looking pretty snazzy.

The Japanese commercial is advertising the release/launch date which is the 27th August and the Open Beta/Phase 4 dates which is 17th August until the 19th August.

Exciting stuff. Personally... I can't wait! I genuinely feel sorry for this blog... It will either turn into an FFXIV blog or I'll never update it.

I must find a balance... ;-)

[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! :)

[PS3/Wii U] Monster Hunter Frontier G coming to PS3 and WiiU, announced Capcom Network Game conference

Capcom are currently holding a "Network Game Conference" where it is reported they plan to announce 13 new game titles.

The event seems to be centered around online and smartphone games, as the full name of the event is something like, "Network Game Conference~Next Generation: From online to smartphone, introducing 13 games". (I'm bad at translating, don't shoot me for it!)

It is an update of Monster Hunter Frontier which is already available on PC and Xbox 360.

Announced for PS3 and WiiU

The PS3 and WiiU version will have new servers that are separate to the PC and Xbox 360 servers, and everyone will begin from Hunter Rank 1.

It will be available as a free download and as a physical copy, and the monthly fees will be around 1400 yen ($14, £9). 

The PS3 version will be released on November 20th, and the WiiU version on December 11th.

Source/picture credit: 4Gamer
4Gamer are doing a live update of the conference here on Twitter. 

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