After leaving the cluster@#%^ that was the original FFXIV, I decided this morning I woul dgive S-E a chance with 2.0.
So, I reactivated my account ( even upgraded to the CE for the hell of it ) and paid for a month of time.
So, my first impressions after playing for the last 5 or so hours.
On my pc, the original FFXIV was a slideshow even on low settings due to it's unoptimized nature and this was one of my major annoyances originally. However, after putting in 5+ hours of ARR at 1920 x 1080 full screen with max settings ( every option toggled on I could find ), the game runs smooth as butter. Blew me away.
Another major annoyance of the original was combat. I always felt I was fighting the game mechanics more than I was fighting the mobs. However, the combat now is smooth and fluid. Absolutely great. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, or even try to like the original ( the biggest flaw of the original combat system in my opinion ). It just works. It's great.
And now content. The original FFXIV bored me to tears after doing nothing but leve/leve/leve. There was no direction or purpose other than grind to the next cutscene. Now, I'm constantly doing something via the new questing. I haven't touched a leve, haven't even thought about a leve. And although they're mostly fetch/kill quests like every other mmo, at least they add a bit of story and purpose. They don't feel like "filler" where you just just skip the text and go-go-go.
Finally, weapons/items. I haven't even needed to look at the AH. Just buying "normal" stuff from the vendors to supplement quest items has kept me going nicely. I don't feel like I'm having to grind out gil for hours just to afford decent gear for one more level. Nice improvement.
Now, I'm only level 10 right now, so no idea how it gets higher up. But if the game is like this the rest of the way to 50, I may just have to send ol' Yoshi a bucket of champagne.
Edited, Nov 4th 2013 3:07am by Zorvan