Everything to know about FFXIV revealed around E3

We’ve been getting a lot of FFXIV news ever since the alpha started, it’s hard to keep track of it all. I’m going to try my best to summarize the most interesting details. There is a long list of sources at the end. The new known details mostly concern features that will appear in the beta, which starts globally by July at the latest. The first round of beta testers will only consist of the same testers from the alpha, but with time, new testers will be invited.

One of the more interesting points in my eyes has been this discussion of a “Company” system in addition to the linkshells. Not only will linkshells be a more fully featured communication tool, but companies will exist as groups of linkshells. When producer Horimichi Tanaka was asked of alternatives to FFXI’s Conquest system (the warring city-states and such), he mentioned the Company system, implying that companies would compete in a similar manner. He went on to compare those companies to guilds or clans. 1up managed to confirm that there will be shared housing (in addition to player housing) for Companies, and that they would be able to "level up." More details on this system will come at a later date. Linkshells will appear in the beta a little after it starts.

As mentioned in an earlier article, the battle system has been sped up significantly for the beta. You have three gauges - effect, TP, and MP, which dictate the types of actions you can make on individual timers. The effect gauge will always refill itself, in and out of battle, with the type of action you take affecting how much of the gauge is depleted. For a more powerful, constant attack, each enemy should be engaged with a full gauge. There are also going to be macros like the ones in FFXI that allow you to announce your attacks, or string certain abilities together. Of course, timing your attacks with party members will still be important.

Much more after the jump.

Another detail we never really heard much about formally concerns the leveling system. As we know from the alpha, each character has a physical level and a job level. As you level up your first job, the physical level increases as well, and you continue unlocking abilities as you advance the job. When you change jobs, your physical level remains, as do all the abilities from that other job - so you’re essentially just adding on extra abilities from a second job to your existing character, rather than starting from level 1 again. But, there’s a system of assigning active abilities to your character such that you can’t use every ability all the time, rather, you pick and choose whichever works best for your play style. More powerful abilities are weighted more heavily, so you can’t necessarily have all powerful techniques by leveling all jobs. By the end, it seems that each player will be defined more by their available abilities when it comes to party roles. Also, the ability to assign certain equipment setups to a particular class for quick changes has been removed from the beta version. I wonder if that means armor will be more individualized - just because you change a class doesn’t mean you don’t want the same equipment benefits.

Several minor features are also being added to the beta, including an item/equipment degeneration system. As you use an item, it will break down, requiring the service of a crafting class to be put back into working order. Players won’t need to leave their computers on with their bazaars open any more, as they can hire the services of a “retainer” NPC who will sell their items for them while they’re not in town or online. It’s still a bit unclear as to whether or not the retainer can be used at all times - cities would get a bit crowded that way. Surnames are still definitely required, but Tanaka has detailed the system by which they won’t matter so much. When you send a private message (a /tell) to someone, you can just type in their first name, then a list of all players with that name will appear, asking which you’d like to send the message to. From there, you can assign that player a nickname, either the person’s first name, or something else entirely (or so it seems). Every time you want to /tell them, you just need to type that nickname.

Players and linkshells will have a fair amount of online support in the form of personal webpages. From Tanaka’s description, it seems a player will have a page like that of a social network, with a BBS and details on their characters. I would assume linkshells and companies will get similar treatment.

Before E3, Before E3 even started, SE put up a video detailing character creation on their Youtube channel, which shows a WoW-like feature set for customization. In FFXIV, however, rather than just choosing a facial texture and other major details, you can choose specific noses or eyes or mouths, etc. Tanaka stated that the final release’s creation tool will be very similar to this one.

There has also been some talk about races - not only that all announced races will be in the beta, but it’s possible that female Roegadyn and male Miqo’te may become playable in a future update in the final version. For now, however, those options will remain unavailable until the game is finished and released. Tanaka was basically saying “if enough people want it, we’ll look into it.” He also mentioned that they would be adding more jobs after the game is released.

I’m always happy to see the producers continue to say they’ll be supporting cross-regional servers. If I end up living in Japan for some time, I would be upset if I couldn’t play the game with all my friends across the world. I just hope there will be Japanese text input support in the NA release...

Also, they're already working on an expansion called Abyssea. Crazy. (That's for FFXI) Addons may be supported in the future. Red Roegadyn can have dark hair. Chocobos have a "unique place" in the game. There will be Job-specific armor. INFORMATION EVERYWHERE.

Sources!
-Famitsu interview
-Eorzeapedia interview
-Dengeki interview
-1up Preview
-Massively Interview
-Zam Interview
-FFXIVCore