Regarding Final Fantasy XIV:

I’m a little worried about the rate at which my character’s underwear is being damaged by routine timber harvesting and mining activities. None of my other starting gear got this ragged this quickly.

A few days ago I got myself the Final Fantasy XIV open beta client and brewed up a little Lalafell Gladiator to give it a whirl. I’ve found it to be rather sluggish on my old-timey Radeon 3400 graphics card, and a lot of folks have complained about frequent server downtime, but I’m seeing a lot here that reminds me pleasantly of Final Fantasy XI.

• Job Switching: You aren’t tied down to what you started your character as. If you originally made a Thaumaturge and would like to try your hand as a Gladiator, just get a sword and equip it. Voila, you’re a Gladiator. This is an improvement over FFXI where switching jobs was a bit of a chore, and a damn sight better than most other multiplayer games, which force you to create a whole new character.
• Crafting: FFXIV treats harvesting raw materials and crafting them into usable items as a series of minigames, providing a bit of interactivity to the process. Instead of telling the interface to turn a Willow Log into Willow Chips and waiting to see if it succeeds or fails, you have multiple opportunities to affect the quality and durability of your end-product. Success and failure at resource harvesting is partly reliant on skill and timing.

  Supposedly user-crafted items will be an integral part of the in-game economy, by which I mean that most of your good gear will be stuff you or another player created, as opposed to quest rewards or loot taken from fallen monsters. I seem to recall hearing this about most online games. Right now it looks like they’re living up to this pledge, but this may be a symptom of Square-Enix not having put out all the content yet. I’m taking this with a gain of salt, but the fact that harvesting and crafting skills are presented as full character classes is promising.

• Group Dynamics: This is part of the game that I really need to dig into further. I haven’t had a chance to explore the Battle Regimen system, but I understand it is at least superficially similar to the skillchain system in FFXI.
• Macros: I used macros a lot in Anarchy Online and Final Fantasy XI, and I expect to get some use out of them in Final Fantasy XIV as well. I currently use macros in the beta to switch between jobs. I currently have one macro for Gladiator, one for Miner, one for Botanist, and one for Carpenter. I’ll be brewing up another for Blacksmith next time I play. The following is what I use to switch from whatever I currently have equipped over to my mining gear:
  

  /equip main "Weathered Pickaxe"
  /equip sub "Bronze Sledgehammer"
  /equipaction 2 "Lay of the Land"
  /equipaction 3 Prospect
  /equipaction 4 "Wrist Flick"

  Some things I’ve found are that capitalization seems to count when writing macros, and any time you are selecting an item or action with a multiple-word name you’ll need to enclose the name in double-quotes (note that Prospect did not need the quotes in my example). Also, you cannot switch your gear when you are in “active” mode. If you have a weapon in your hand, you cannot switch jobs.

Obviously a lot of how a game like this will work depends on the release of full content, opening up all the playable areas, and the player community developing. This means I cannot make a strong prediction one way or the other, but my nostalgia for FFXI and the overall strength of the Final Fantasy brand has me quite optimistic.

Three years and two months ago, I was pretty stoked about the prospect of a Starcraft sequel:

Blizzard Entertainment has finally caved in to the inevitable, and in a bid to preempt military action by a rabid South Korean fanbase have announce that Starcraft II is far enough into development for a web launch.

Back in the stone age when the original Starcraft came out, my coworkers and I would stay late after work for multiplayer games, eschewing Battlenet and its uber-teenagers. I never cared for the Protoss and their rather impressive end-game abilities, preferring to get the fight started relatively early on. Sometimes this resulted in accusations of “Zerg Rush” cheapness, but really it’s just part of the game; I could never mount a credible defense against a well-built carrier force.

I look forward to seeing what they’re doing with the Terran and Zerg units. Blizzard apparently wants to trickle new information out on a per-faction basis, starting with my least favorite. I can wait, though.

I understand the need to dial things in. I understand that balancing accessibility and depth in gameplay was a key factor in the staying-power of the original Starcraft title. I certainly understand what a joy it can be to deny a friend or coworker that last deposit of precious Vespene gas and pulverize his bases with artillery fire. What I don’t understand is how people could still have any excitement for Blizzard’s new opus a full three years after seeing it demonstrated. Basically everything I’ve heard folks raving about regarding new units and game features were already on the table in 2007.

There’s an old saying that the worst thing a political candidate can do is to peak too soon. This should apply to pre-release hype as well. I said I could wait, and I did. Now that I’ve waited, I’m pretty sure I’ve got better uses for my $59.99. Maybe I’ll report back in three more years when the price has come down. It is truly a testament to Blizzard’s strength as a brand name that Starcraft II isn’t the Daikatana of 2010.