If you haven’t had a chance to visit, here it is!

Here’s the summary + Analysis of possible gameplay.

Intro

• Describes the 3 nation: Ul’dah (desert city with minerals and wealth), Gridania (nested deep inside ageless woods), Ishgard (atop of mountains)
• There are 6 screenshots, it seems like these screenshots (1, 2) are Ul’dah due to dessert / minerals. This screenshot is Gridania (deep inside woods, usually associate with magical energy). Last but not least, the Hilltop Nation of Ishgard with these three screenshots (1, 2, 3)
• Briefly talk about how these nation’s history.

World –> Story

• Talks about how conflict appeared. “Metal-clad Warrios”, “Behemoth Airships” that block out the sun for days, known as the Garlean Empire (from the East)
• Garlean Empire took over the mighty Ala Mhigo, a northern city state, then disappeared for good.
• The South (where the 3 city state are located), formed alliance, which is where you will be born.
• With Ala Mhigo taken over, all 3 nation took precaution and now have some form of military.
• Finally, leaders gathered, form network of guilds to provide these lost souls (you, the adventurer), the opportunity to redeem themselves by aiding others, where you’d provide hope when shadow of uncertainty loom closer!

World –> City State –> Limsa Lominsa

Limsa Lominsa will probably be the hub of FFXIV (Jeuno equilvalent in FFXI). They seem to own trade routes, where they can connect to the rest of the other nations. Talks about how sailors settled there, created a town where half of them are employed in logistics. Since a lot of their income comes from logistics, perhaps we’ll pay a lot of gils in transportation? *grin*

The other city state’s info box is pretty much “coming soon”.

World –> Races

So no male Mithras, no Gria. However, there’s high-resolution picture of the race.

• Elezen (Male, Female)
• Lalafell (Male, Female)
• Hyur (Male, Female)
• Roegadyn (Male)
• Myqo’te (Female)

Gameplay — Armoury System

Unlike FFXI or other MMORPG where you have to choose/pick a class. In FFXIV, equipping the proper weapon will determine your class. If you wear a shield/sword, then you are now a tank. Wearing a staff, you are now a sorceress. To clarify this flexibility of class/job change, Square Enix showed us a typical day of adventuring with “Leeroy”!

1. Leeroy was just slaying relentlessly on tiny wildlife, probably doing quests.
2. Friends invite Leeroy to adventure in a ruins, since all other have decently-equipped sword/shield, he took out his staff and now takes a role of “thaumaturge”, his advanced class. (hint), now spellcasting for his party.
3. Done with instance, he walks back to town. On the way back, he had the urge to fish, so he puts away his staff, takes out his rod and he is now the fisherman.
4. Back home, he puts away his fishing rod, head to the smith and now sharpening his sword with his “Blacksmithing” skill.

This is what SE describe as the “Armoury System”.

For those that played Final Fantasy XI, we all know inventory space is what limits your ability and your role. As a Red Mage myself, if I carry all healing gear, I would not have any more equipment to carry equipment to cast “damaging spells” or “nuking equipment”.

I believe inventory will be the major factor in limiting what you can really do.

Armoury System – Disciplines

Disciplines seems like the new Square-Enix’ apporach in balancing out crafting. You can’t specialize in both gathering and blacksmithing, but rather must rely others to do the harvesting, and you do the blacksmithing.

This system evens out the money-making opportunity to everyone, rather than having one person who also harvest as well as blacksmith. Square-Enix made it very clear, you can either have a specialization, or a jack of all trades approach, but not as good in everything. It is a very unique approach to crafting, and should be much more enjoyable.

Gameplay –> Guildleves

Guildleves is a new questing system developed by Square Enix. The “guildmaster”, the NPC that will provide you with different “leves” (or quests), taken from the guild’s stock (or what needs to be done). After weighting risks against rewards (probably because of your class rank), they can select which leves that they feel suit their needs (and also, allow you to progress in-game).

Guildleves are now share-able. Therefore, it seems like it’s basically a share-able quest system.

To me, this sounds like an expanded Final Fantasy XI campaign system!

Square Enix then describes the different “leves” that you can get, one of the 3 types are:

• Valor (Muster the courage to stand against those who would threaten the weak.)
• Diligence (Earn the gratitude of your peers by humbly accepting the task that others shun, and working earnestly to complete them.)
• Constancy (Focus your passion upon a single task, wielding your talents to aid those in need.)

Notice as you click page 4/5/6, it selects a card from a pile of “leves” at the bottom, meaning this is just one of the 3 “types” of leves you could get.

All these sounds like different style of quest. Some are just delivering or sending messages, some are slaying bosses or clearing instance, some are just simply grinding. Nevertheless, it is still too early to guess.

Gameplay –> Aetheryte

Aetheryte is one interesting concept. The Aetheryte is a teleporting device, a transportation backbone for all 3 nation state. Square Enix then went on talking about how it really works.

Now the last paragraph state a very interesting system. The frequency/usage of the teleport crystal.

Being broken down to the aetheric level can take its toll on one’s body, and rest is often required after several consecutive jumps, especially as the distance becomes greater. As a precaution, most city-states strongly discourage over-teleporting, as it can lead do irreversible damage…

Now as we all know, what determines how much you can do in a given day is how quickly you can travel from point A to B, get things done, and some requires you to come back from B to A.

It states, you need rest “after several consecutive jumps” and “especially as the distance becomes greater”. Lets say we have 3 monster, Fafnir, Behemoth and Adamantoise.

Everyone get 2 hops per day. Heading to Behemoth and Adamantoise is very close, takes 1 hop. However, heading to Fafnir is a little far, requires 2 hops.

For a casual player who only have so little time and want to slay some monster, they might pick slaying 2 monster with the 2 hops that they have (Adamanoise and Behemoth, each taking a hop), or just use 2 hops to slay 1 Fafnir.

However, for a hard-core player, they might use their 2 hops on Adamantoise as well as Behemoth, which leaves them being denied for further teleportation for the day. So… that means they got to walk!

To me, this sounds like how Square-Enix intend to enforce diminishing return when you do not have a variety in your adventuring (just slaying). This definitely sounds very good to casual players, at the same time allow serious players to still get what they want. The opportunity cost of walking for almost an hour just to slay Fafnir can be well spent on other activities such as taking another “Guildleves” or “crafting”.

I believe this system is very well designed, if it happens to be that way. A system that definitely distinguish itself from any other “level-based” MMO, offering a well-balanced gameplay for both serious and casual player.

More to come as they update!