More detail on jobs, questing in FFXIV
Combine classes on a single character.
Following this week's revelation that Square Enix's MMO Final Fantasy XIV won't use experience points or a levelling system, more detail on its character advancement and classes has come to light.
A feature in Famitsu, ably summarised by 1UP reveals that the game will use an "armory system" with multiple sub-classes split into four broad jobs which, as with FFXI, can be combined on a single character: Fighter, Sorcerer, Gatherer and Crafter.
Example classes for each job, listed at Kotaku, are: swordsman and archer for the Fighter job, enchanter and warlock for the Sorcerer job, blacksmith and cook for the Crafter job, gardener and fisherman for the Gatherer job. It seems crafting professions, usually a separate advancement track in MMOs, are being integrated with the main combat system.
Changing your class is a simple matter of changing your weapon and armour, and you advance a class just by using the associated equipment. You can concentrate on one class, or create your own hybrid.
"The way I see it, the player can define how his own job works," said director Nobuaki Komoto. "For example, if you have the Swordsman skill, that's enough to let you play by yourself, but if you've also raised your Sorcerer skill enough to unlock that skill's healing magic, that'll make solo play a lot easier for you. You can carry enough equipment around at any given time to change your style freely, and the system makes this easy by letting you change sets of equipment all at once."
Questing involves visiting a guild and receiving work passes from a guildmaster. A single quest should take about half an hour, and there's a flexible system for determining how many players take a quest on. "You don't need a set number of people for each quest," Komoto said. "That you can work out by yourself with the other players in the guild, since they're all there for the same goal."
The Famitsu article also confirms the new names of old Final Fantasy XI races: Hume becomes Hyuran, the catlike Mithra become Miqo'te, the little Tarutaru are now called Lalafell, Elvaan are Elezen and the huge Galka go by the name Roegadyn.
Final Fantasy XIV is set, initially at any rate, on a small continent surrounded by islands called Eorzea. There'll be changing weather and a short day-night cycle, because "I want FFXIV to be enjoyed even by those who can play only a short time out of the day," says Komoto.
This is fast becoming one of the most exciting MMOs in development. Final Fantasy XIV is due for release on PC and PS3 next year. Square Enix will be discussing it further at this month's gamescom convention in Germany, and we'll bring you a fresh report then.
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Comments (21) Latest comment 2 years ago
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Interesting take on questing as well - although i hope its a bit more inventive than; "go kill X bring me Y". With crafting jobs mixed in it should make things a whole lot more interesting.
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I like the sound of doing something different from the traditional level approach but there is a reason it works, if i have no real level only skill with equipment how can i tell if i can challenge an enemy?
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Trying to?
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I didn’t get the impression that you were leveling a weapon? Just that using a weapon would increase your skill level in it – and probably unlock skills at key points – think of it like weapon skill levelling in wow (but on a much larger scale)?
If you think about it like that its stil EXP based, they’ve just moved it from a bar at the bottom to somewhere on your stats screen/chara profile.
I guess I was hoping it would be very similar to MH, where you get given a weak sword at the start – and then through hunting and questing you would be given a better sword. And that better sword would allow you to kill harder mobs.
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It's not like I need any more MMOs to be excited about, but this one appears to have wormed its way onto the list.
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Could make it the first MMO I ever jump into.
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Didn't they say they were scrapping the whole levelling thing though? Isn't this weapon thing just another form of levelling?
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Could make it the first MMO I ever jump into.
Bear in mind ALL MMOs try to make this claim. I bet somewhere on the line EVE will have tried this.
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Of course, in practice certain 'setups' are going to become the norm, like the talent tree's of WoW and the job/subjob combinations of FFXI before it. Sure, you could create a White Mage with Monk as the subjob, but why would you?
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1) Subscription cost? If any.
2) Cross platform play or at least cross platform usage of characters?
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Also, as someone pointed out, FFXI was extremely cumbersome on PC and consoles, as its compromises for one really reduced it playability on the other. This was one of the big problems for me, playing on the PC. it felt very counter intuitive. I hope they find a way around this.
More soloing would be very welcome too.
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The most important question is will there be a subscription charge(for PS3 most importantly considering online gaming is free).
If it's free I'll buy it on release, if not I doubt I'll buy it at all ...
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im a big fan off FF series but i still hold grudge after playing FFXI.
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I really dont play MMO's for PVP - but then I'm not a hormonal teen who feels the need to make themselves feel good by making someone else have a crap day.
And we've had many people come back into our Linkshell that were gone from the game for well over 90 days... Just because they tell you that's the limit before deletion, doesn't mean it's true...
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Nowhere have they said that crafting and gathering classes will have a role in combat. Perhaps it is more accurate to say, "It seems classes, usually restricted to defining one's role in combat, are being generalized to apply to anything you choose to do, be it fighting monsters or forging a sword."
As for the weapon system being another form of leveling, the implication for growth is different than with the typical level system. In the kind of system they are suggesting, character abilities are based on what you do rather than how many experience points you accrue against some target number (regardless of the means of success). I'm all for a system that diverges from the convention of character development achieved only through large, discrete intervals and a predefined set of abilities.
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If you are talented in writing, you could be a teen writer. And, you can get paid from magazines or websites. If you are not good at writing, you can practice writing. Write whatever you feel like writing, whether it be teen fiction or anything else. It really doesn't matter what you write, as long as you're writing.
How to start? You can try to start out writing for your school paper (articles, opinions or short stories). You could also try submitting to local writers' club anthologies & teen magazines often have a reader submissions section for poems, short stories, etc. These won't be paying summer jobs for 16 year olds, but they might get you noticed. Also, if you are good at basic copywriting & layout, you can get people to pay you to prep their resumes. You'd be surprised how many people can't manage that on their own.