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Not for an old fart like me
I've grown up playing RPGs and reading a lot of good Western fantasy fiction. My son, OTOH, grew up with Nintendo playing Link and FF...these over-the-top and often nonsensical characters and stories seem normal to him and he enjoys them. They just seem like over-the-top farces to me...shrug.
I tried the game anyway this past weekend once I found out all you had to do was create an account and DL the client without committing to pre-order. Other than some inexplicable random crashes to the desktop, it looks polished and well-done.
I found a well-crafted game with a lot of depth... and an annoying little child race who look even more ridiculous when they appear in a gray-haired and bearded version. I know...it's fantasy and somehow I can tolerate orcs, goblins, vampires, zombies etc... there is just something about this particular brand of fantasy that seems just alien and laughable to me... it ruins my immersion.
Those of you who are more accustomed to this type of fantasy world and enjoy it...have fun, it looks like a good game for you...just not for me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
I feel sorry for you, I really do. I wish you could see at Final Fantasy through my rose-tinted glasses.
I am able to enjoy both FF XIV and Game of Thrones which I suppose is more like the Western "fantasy" you are accustomed to given that you seem to have Arya Stark as your avatar. (Quotation marks since I consider fantasy to be of minor importance in Game of Thrones and the focus being on the political game and human nature)
The early FF games were not really deep when it came to themes. The focus was on gameplay, style and music; often with a very shallow take on the "good vs evil" theme. I can imagine that the lack of deep intellectual narrative can be a deterrant for an adult trying to attempt them for the first time.
I grew up on rpg's as well, as my older brother got me playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when I was 5 years old, eventhough most of my fun just came from rolling the dice and hearing the story of modules played out. I really had no clue what the game was about until I got quite a few years older. I played the Atari, Nintendo, Super NES, and a bunch of other consoles that came later but I do find the Final Fantasy themes quite fun. I agree with you on the midget race though, I don't like it at all. At least you tried it out for yourself and didn't just take anyone elses opinions on it. I hope you can find a game you enjoy, good luck.
In a world of sharp knives, you would be a spoon.
I know what you mean OP. I also have my problems with those races (especially the little ones). It also makes me feel strange that it is impossible to create any char which even looks close to an adult. All chars look like teenagers or younger.
So I run through the world with my char, which I tried to look a little older but in the end he just looked weird, and I just feel out of place.
On the other hand I really like the p2p, trinity, crafting, world gfx, classes/jobs...
well since youre used to the old western rpgs and not the jrpg ones, i thought; try and look at it this way:
its not you, running around there, you dont exist.
its a character in a world you have no relation to, but he does, so make some back story, give him some personal traits and flaws, and RP the whole chabang without letting anyone know youre rping, might even turn out to be more fun than you think.
just my thoughts though, cause i think its a shame to miss out on a good game because you cant immerse yourself in that world, so let your char do it, and not you!
just a weird thought, mabe it would work, maybe not, and dont rol on an rp server it they exist, do it on a normal, would make it even more hilarious
The highlighted part is what gets me...
It is a well crafted game, a complete redesign and reboot will assure that, and there is a fair amount of depth - but not necessarily in the stats and "math" on the surface of the game - but in the implementation, the encounter designs, the co-dependence of systems, the overall vision and "feel" of the game is definitely focused squarely on a more "traditional" MMO experience.
I understand how visuals can completely ruin a game experience.
For example, I always thought LOTRO did some really cool things systems wise, had a lot of depth with the traits and feats and all that AA kind of stuff, and the world itself looked great, but I could NEVER get over how bad the character models looked and how stiff the animations were.
I think that's why I sort of like it. At least "to a point". It's sort of farcical.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I managed to make an old remorseful man through white hair + beard + moustache + correct bone structure + skin color, but most importantly by choosing Hyur-Highlander. I wish I could show you, but open beta over and usually don't take screenshots of my characters:/.
I'll be honest, I thought I would really hate this MMO.
I guess I'm getting older (36)..but as of late, and after playing grittier RPGS like Skyrim, I had grown a distaste for Square's FF art style. Lately, for the regular FF series, it has been the same old playbook; emo-depressed facial expressions on the main characters, male or female, male characters that are too feminine, as if the inspiration for them was a Poison album cover from 1987. My favorite FF obviously was FFVII...after that they really seemed to jump the shark a lot on their character designs.
So all that said, I thought I would hate FFXIV.
But I don't. And the one thing that saves for me are the classes/jobs and the fact that there are roles in this game. I can't stand mmos where all classes are completely balanced..i.e. all can heal/dps/tank/solo. To me, that's what made making alts in EQ1 and FFXI so fun.
As it stands, art aside, I am enjoying the game, I actually played beta back and forth on PC and PS3 and I really liked using the PS3 controller.
I did pre-order to get EA for both PS3 and PC. This will occupy my mmo fix for a while.
My 2 gil anyway.
Aloha Mr Hand !
You know, that's exactly why I didn't care for Tera. The game seemed fun, and I always seem to gravitate towards playing small physical characters and so that I can build them up to be just as tough and strong as characters that are three or four times as big...It's the underdog in me, I think. But with Tera, you had the little girl race, and then you had a bear race. I felt like a pervert playing that game once I realized that all the small folk were little girls and they ran around with pedo-bears, and the game was rather adult themed with the excuse of "Well, they're immortal, so they're 300 years old, they just LOOK like little girls. I dislike the jrpg emo/metrosexual male look as well....
...That being said, FFIV doesn't have that perverse take on things, and I am considering making a little guy, or maybe I'll go with a cat guy...because my RL male cat is a badass killer of all things smaller than it. In either case, townload and play Tera for a weekend, you'll get over your dislike of choices in FFIV pretty quickly. (toss yourself in boiling water, then in the simmering water and it'll feel like a refreshing cool swim).
You owe me 2 gil.
I hate gnomes and it didn't stop me playing WoW for years.
It seems to me OP has anime phobia. Does not have to do with age at all. It's all about tastes. I am 39 and love anime and eastern art style. Games like FF and TERA are very pleasant to my eyes.
good thought. I'm a crunchyroll subscriber myself.
Lalafell = tarutaru from ffxi.
I guess it was just a different time when ffxi launched/was popular, but no one ever had an issue with they looked.
Honestly... Good luck OP. I have some weird quirks about things too. No reason for anyone to bash or hate because of something you personally dislike.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I'm confused...is being 24 old? My son's 5 years older than you. I still remember when P&P D&D first became popular... before that I played Avalon Hill and Strategy and Tactics magazine games.... remember those? Don't answer that, lol... like OLD
I wasn't implying that FF is for kids.
But maybe "old" was the wrong thing to highlight... I need a story... that makes sense to me... I've always had a hard time relating to FF stories. They're just too out there for my taste. I tried, I really did, when my son was playing them. I was happy that he was enjoying RPGs same as me... heck, it led to him getting a degree in Computer Science and working as games programmer... but the FF storylines seemed so odd to me compared to all the Feist, Brooks, Weise and Hickman, Martin, Jordan, Goodkind, etc, fantasy I enjoy... and different from Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, The Witcher, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot... I could go on. I see them sort of like contrived attempts... same reason I prefer vampires to Godzila I guess.
My tolerance for weirdness (despite also loving SciFi...including Dr. Who lol) is a bit on the low side I guess.
My "old" comment was more along the lines that if you grew-up with that and enjoyed all the FF games on consoles, you probably have a totally different perspective on what stories you're willing to suspend disbelief for... I have narrower limits
But I actually also meant that if you can stomach the story and the kiddie race, more power to you... it does look like a good MMO once you get past that.
And I agree, this is nothing like Tera with respect to the pedo factor: this kiddie race is not sexualized like theirs is...now THAT, was creepy.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
This sounds like you just don't like the Final Fantasy series. I've played Dungeons and Dragons for 20 years, played final fantasy for about the same time and the two have far too man ysimiliarties for me to label them as two different types of fiction. Heck, Record of Lodoss wars (a japanese anime) is about as close to a dungeons and dragons tv show/movie you'll ever get. Final Fantasy was about as close to D and d as you could get on a concsole. You have a party of adventures going from town to town and trying to save the world from evil.
I have read many a old and western fiction that has halflings, gnomes, sprites, pixies and all sorts of other little people. The things you do in dungeons and dragons and i've seen in fantasy movies are superhuman. As a matte rof fact, read Gygax's auto book and he'll say that dnd is a game where people play superheroes in a fantasy world.
Some Dungeons Masters describe the action very over the top, very action oriented, that's how i am and have always been. Some more mundane. IN the end its still all the same role playing game. You just don't like the world and the dm style.
What is so farcacle about
1. A band of adventures get together to rid the world of an evil villian called chaos
4 a knight realizes he's on the wrong side of the law when his army is capturing and enslaving magical beings. He sets out on an adventure to rid the world of them.
6 a thief and a bunch of rebels get together to attempt to stop an evil general and his army from taking over the world.
Now, after 7 it got far more steam punk with the exception of 9 (and a little bit 7). Still I see a lot of classic stories in there.
Define Old Fart please ?
MAGA
I am sure the FF fans were desperately seeking your approval.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I think you've just hit the nail on the head, and it sort of is the response that you have a anime phobia. Fact is, you do.
What makes anime "weird" to many of us is that it depicts younger, say teenage and even earlier beings basically participating in activities associated with adults. (just like those teenage vampire books and movies, ugh)
Violence, sex, mature themes in general are normally restricted in western fantasy to more adult characters and it has nothing to do with character size.
Sure, Dwarves, Hobbits, Gnomes etc are all smaller in stature, but in most literature including fantasy games, it's the adult characters that are the focus, they just don't send out children to do the dirty work.
Also, for those of us who's avatars are more of representation of ourselves (or what we'd like ourselves to be) somehow I think few adults can relate to a teenage or child like character. Face it, those are not great years in anyone's life, and it certainly isn't the time when most of us had to deal with the adult issues (unless we came from some sort of disfunctional family or social situation) on a regular basis.
So it's really not a phobia, its just not something that you can relate to. It also explains why some younger folks like anime in their teens, but then seem to migrate away once they get into their 20's, once again, they stop visualizing themselves in their teen years.
In some ways its sort of like wearing your baseball cap on backwards, there comes an age when you should just stop doing it, you just look silly at that point, and no longer cool.
But then again, many folks feel the same way about gaming in general, so who really cares?
At the end of the day, you either like anime style art and games or you don't, and fortunately there's plenty of games to go around.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
And those saying it is "Anime Phobia", I can say that I like Anime. Some of it. Dragonball Z and Naruto do not trip my trigger, but give me Cowboy Bebop, Ghost In The Shell, Read or Die, or Full Metal Alchemist and I can watch for hours. Anime is not Anime is not Anime. There are as many different kinds as there are creators of it.
FFXIV:ARR is just too cutesy for my suspension of disbelief. I enjoyed what I played of it, but just could not "get into" it like many of the FF fans are doing. The systems and world are great. It is a very good fantasy world, just not one I want to spend time in. The art style is just too much for me.
If Hello Kitty Online had the gamplay and systems of FFXIV:ARR, would you play it? (I am NOT saying FFXIV:ARR is Hello Kitty-ish in art form, just taking an extreme to illustrate my point.)
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Bizarrely enough, it would appear that is exactly the case.
I also read the stuff from those authors, though I feel both Terry's and Robert failed to wrap up their stories properly. Brooks had a great first trilogy (sword, elfstone and wishsong) but the rest became redundant to me. Wheel of time and the sword of truth series became rather lame the further it went. Great start but became convoluted and non-sensical after mid point (both series). I prefer Gemmel myself for the stand alone stories. The heroes may return but not in one long, continuous story arc.
As for FF or any of those weird things you may dislike, that's only normal. We like what we like, nothing wrong with that. I loved vampires until Twilight but it still became hugely successful.