Update: A winner has been picked. Thank you all for participating. The turn out was great!

Another giveaway, same deal, send an e-mail me Tramella1 -at- gmail dot com letting me know which giveaway you want to be a part of  and the best way to reach you in case you are one of the lucky winners. This can be a twitter handle, dummy e-mail, anything you feel comfortable with. If you are coming here from a social media site, you can leave a comment with the same details on the post and that will also act as an entry to one of the two giveaways.

On Saturday, March 30, 2013 around noon time, I will draw names from a hat for each prize.

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Ever since the poor release of Final Fantasy XIV back in September of last year and the restructuring of the team, there was constant talk of a revamp for the game dubbed Version 2.0. It wasn’t long ago that Square Enix released new screenshots of Final Fantasy XIV version 2.0 to the public shortly after E3 to start the PR hype for the rerelease of the game that will transition in beta sometime in September. With the release of the new trailer, a proper name has been given to 2.0 in the form of, A Realm Reborn.

A trailer and screenshots can be found below showcasing some of the new CGI being made for the game. I’ve also included some of the screenshots showing off the new engine, monsters, and UI features found in the new version of the game.

For current players, a new blog post was added today detailing some of the discontinued features that will not carry over to a Realm Reborn. The item to summon a legendary Goobue mount will no longer be available. Guild Marks will be cut from the game as well as, some achievements, character history on the lodestone and reviewing current cutscenes.

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It has been a while since I’ve spoken about Final Fantasy XIV. Ever since they announced they were making major changes to the game leading up to version 2.0, I decided to watch from the sidelines and monitor the progress of the game.

For a while now, they have been introducing a lot of content to the game. This includes a healthy amount of quests, so players did not have to grind it out in the wilds since there was nothing else to do once you completed the daily quests from the levequest system. On top of that, they introduced dungeons for mid and high level characters; each has their own story to tell. Notorious Monsters have made a comeback and drop unique loot. Also, avatar battles are in the game. So far, it is just the Ifrit and Moogle fight, with Garuda on the way. A number of quality of life adjustments have been made to the game.

Players can now have their own personal inn similar to the mog houses of old as well as, an armoire to store gear and the marketing system is drifting closer to that of an Auction house. The retainer system is slowly becoming an element of the auction house.

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Recently, President of Square Enix Yoichi Wada and Producer Naoki Yoshida introduced to the world their plans for their ailing MMO, Final Fantasy XIV. In short, they are going to completely revamp it and start fresh with what they are calling ‘Version 2.0’. To coincide with the revamp, they will also be releasing the PlayStation 3 version. However, before all of that comes to fruition, there is a lot of work to be done to reach that point.

I said revamp, but what exactly did I mean. For starters, they are replacing the existing engine with a new one. They are breaking down the huge zones to create more unique environments. That change will result in losing that seamless experience for a more dynamic environment. Building from the ground up, they are creating a new server system to increase speed and performance. Introducing new unique user interfaces that support the keyboard and mouse, and a gamepad. As an added bonus they are creating new sexes for the existing races e.g., male Miqo’te, female Roegadyn and female Highlander Hyur as well as, bring back some of the classic Final Fantasy classes. Their plan is grand.

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Today, Square Enix held a live Q&A livestream for the anniversary Final Fantasy XIV. We all know that the game isn’t doing very well but the new team has made great strides to making the revisions needed to make the game a success. The trend continues with Producer Naoki Yoshida(Yoshi-P), answering fans question about the upcoming patch, game mechanics, and future content.

Q: Will you make it possible to remember the set actions when switching classes?

A: In an interview the other day I mentioned it would be during 1.19, but it seems like it just barely won’t make it and it is planned for 1.19a.

Q: When will the map will be renewed for XIV? I’ve been waiting for long time…#XIVLive

A: We’ll answer in next live event we hold! However, let me show you something as we are on Live. This is the dev. document about Gridania. As you can see, it’s a very major change! In any case, let me give you more details in the next live event!

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In preparation of Patch 1.18 which is planned to be released July 22, we’ve talked about conceptual ideas, overhauling combat, progression changes, and content additions. The steady flow of information continues. This time we take a look at addition adjustments; removing the new with the old, simplification of the repair system, and Grand Companies officially being introduced bringing faction grinding to the world of Eorzea. Follow along after the break to see what Yoshida and Co. have in store for us.

Miscellaneous Adjustments

Seeking to improve the quality of life within Eorzea, the Fatigue System is being abolished. A system put in place to prevent players from playing one class to long. While the PR spin was that it was put in place to encourage players to try different classes, I interpreted it as more of a anti-gold farming system since the it was a major problem in FFXI until Square Enix invested a lot of money in quashing it. Perhaps it was in place to control players somewhat(bad move), but at least it is being removed.

With the introduction of Raids they have taken a look at the death penalty system. Functioning much like its predecessor you’ll be debuffed when you die. Weakness will reduce your HP and MP by 25% for a few minutes. Now if you die again while in a weakened state you’ll be debuffed again with ‘Brink of Death’ which will further reduce your HP and MP as well as reducing your statistics across the board such as attack power, physical and magical defense, and so on and so forth. I’m cool with that; I believe in having consquences for dying and the best way to penalize is affect the player’s time.

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The Lodestone has been updated today with a sneak peak into one of the dungeons, Dzemael Darkhold. Initially constructed to combat the dragonkind but recently there have been reports of foreign troops occupying the Darkhold for unknown reasons and from the video it looks like it up to the players to find out why. Video below the break

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The information is steady flowing for the upcoming 1.18 and 1.19 patch. This time we get some more meat on the auto-attack implementation. Being introduced for the Disciple of War and Magic only (The Hands and Lands will still be reduced to throwing rocks ), the auto-attack system will remove the stamina gauge and adding recast times to skills across the board. Some basic attacks will be removed such as the Pugilist’s Heavy strike and the Gladiator’s Light slash as these were the basic attacks and are redundant while some of the secondary basic attacks like Broad Swing for a Marauder will have recast timers like all the other skills. Along with skill reductions and recast timers, some effects will perform differently such as Speed Surge from the Lancer will decrease the auto-attack delay where as previous it increased your stamina gain. The one change that caught my attention was that the basic attacks for the mages will have a recast timer applied to them and even though I don’t really play a mage that often, I hope that doesn’t mess up their solo routine or gimp them in some unforeseen way.

Going forward with the 1.19 patch and beyond they will keep implementing new tweaks, changes, and revisions. Some of the features and changes that are on the table are animation tweaks, new algorithms for attack delay and further tweaking and development of some of the skills obtained via quests and guild marks. Attention to details is always important when you are working on something the player is going to see every waking moment. I would love to see some new visually stunning animations for some of the skills and if the Auto-Attack video is any indicator I can’t wait to see what they do to visually improve combat. Also I’m curious to see what they do with the skills obtained via guild marks and quests because those skills are different forms of basic attacks and I wonder how they are going to fit it in especially since some of those skills define the class; What would a Maruder be without Broad Swing that had the ability to AoE at will or Pugilist without Light Strike to keep their evasion up. As usual everything remains to be seen until they stop talking ab out it and release the patches to the masses.

Source: Battle Reform: Auto-Attack (06/30/2011)

In the latest Letter from the Producer XII post, Yoshida touches upon some of the balancing reforms that will be coming along with the ‘game changing’ 1.18 patch. The post revolves around putting the guildleves in its proper place, to provide an avenue for quick solo content consumption. Previously it used to be a central part of FFXIV gameplay but with the constant addition of quests and other content it no longer fits its previous role in which it didn’t do particular well at. In my opinion having Guildleves serve that short solo content role is a way better fit and a function of what I always thought it should have been. Now, having a new place in the FFXIV world means there needs to be tweaks and balances done to the quests but unfortunately some of that will have to come in a later patch since the primary focus of 1.18 is the raid and dungeon content but he does touch on how they are adding some ‘spice’ to the system.

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Another news drop from the Square Enix team on FFXIV. With the mega 1.18 patch comes new battle content in the form of raids. Yes, raids being introduced in an indication of how far of a leap SE made when releasing the game back in September but regardless let jump into what we know about them. There are two areas being introduced, The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak and The Dzemael Darkhold. The Thousand Maws is an abandoned dungeon that use to house notorious criminals but was closed down three decades ago by Grindania when they deemed it barbaric and unworthy. Now the native life has moved in and the players will have to navigate the endless cells and combat feral beasts to figure out what lies in there. The Dzemael Darkhold is an expansive system of natural caverns turn into a defensive stronghold against dragonkind. Recent word however, is that foreign troops have seized occupation of the Darkhold for an unknown reasons.

The Thousand Maws is designed as mid-level content for a party of four and The Darkhold is being designed for max level players for a full party of eight. The time limit for them is sixty minutes and each one requires you to have a specific quest activated. As with raids they tease a variety of rewards and the way you earn them peaked my interests. You can earn rewards from naturally defeating foes, meeting certain conditions within an area and looting various treasure chests you find along the way. It reminded me of the endgame in FFXI where the way you played and what you had to do change between the events. One example is from endgame event called Salvage where you had to do certain things within a map to pop a certain monster or unlock a certain perk and I would love to see this implemented in the raids and other endgame content they offer. Like they say variety is the spice of life and I would like to see more than your standard progression dudgeons found in other MMOs in FFXIV.

Source: FFXIV Raids Unveiled