Should I Start?Follow

I've heard great things about the game. But it aesthetically looks very Korean, and I am weary of a low quest kill grind to cap. How does the leveling experience feel?

This is definitely NOT a Korean grinder. Yoshi-P, the lead director, calls the road to 50 (the current cap) a tutorial for endgame. Playing causally, my fiancee and I have two level 30's and a smattering of level 15's. If you push hard, you could make 50 in as little as a week, likely, depending on hours invested.

I feel like the game has enough content and is fun enough to warrant the purchase price. Even if you dont continue the subscription, the first 30 days are worth what you pay. There's quite a bit to do during that time and by the end you should have a feel for if you like the game enough to subscribe or not.

There are enough levelling options that you can find a mixup of what you like - FATEs, Quests, Leves, Dungeons, Hunting Log. Any one thing alone will feel grindy after while, but overall the game flows nicely if you do the whole experience, especially if you craft as you go.

You're an admin with 2 posts and a "Decent" rating? What am I missing here?

The leveling grind doesn't hit you until you're leveling your 3rd class if you balance out your path by doing a mix of quests, guildleves and FATE battles. The most efficient exp is FATEs though. Beyond a few capped characters the quests dry up and you're left with only dungeons and guildleves(which are meh) and FATEs which are good exp, but incredibly repetitive and get stale really quickly.

I'm a freelancer, and new to the ZAM community. I was active in GWJ and PCG. The ZAM eSports editor left, and I was asked to cover eSports for the site. I also am into a ton of MMOs, and hope that I can start a column soon to share some of my thoughts.


And thanks for the responses guys, I'll pick up the game soon!

Don't forget all your second jobs will have a 50% exp bonus and there should still be a ton of quest left over

I'm curious as to what it is about the aesthetics that strikes you as having a Korean influence. I played around on Ragnarok Online 2 a little bit this year while waiting for FFXIV. I was struck by the difference between the two. And it wasn't just because of the quality of the graphics (FFXIV is newer than RO2, so you would expect the quality of the graphics to be better). RO2 struck me as being very cartoony, and FFXIV felt much less cartoony to me in comparison.

A lot of anime gets animated by Korean companies. So there's probably a heavy Japanese manga/anime influence on Korean animation. So in that sense, a lot of Korean games might have Japanese influence in the way they look. Perhaps that is what makes you think FFXIV looks Korean?

But is that because FFXIV looks more Korean than it does Japanese? Or have Japanese anime/mange/video game sufficiently influenced Korean MMOs? Does FFXIV look "more Korean" than other FF titles? If so, is it simply because it looks like other contemporary MMOs, and the only other FF MMO is too old to be a good point of reference?

Well, welcome to our humble home! It's nice to see someone new here. :) I know you'll be concentrating on eSports, but please feel free to post here, too, even if as just a 'fan' and not an admin. You'll find lots of great people and great conversations here and all throughout ZAM. Have fun, and see you around!

Edit: Added a missing word.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2013 12:37pm by Vaaniks

The interface felt koreany to me. Like very flashy, futuristic. I might just be being silly though!

BTW, go ahead and start. This game is fun.

Worst case scenario, you lose $30 and some time.

Edited, Oct 23rd 2013 2:10am by Pickins