Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazrim
There's a free trial account you need to sign up for. It's different from the regular game account and is totally free, but can be upgraded to the regular game account when you reach the end of the first expansion. If you hit level 60 before you run out of quests, you can keep doing the quests. You can also upgrade to a regular game account beforehand if you want access to a bunch of locked features like sending private messages, forming parties yourself (you can still queue for dungeons and raids in the Duty Finder), using the market board (aka auction house) and so on. It's available on PC and PS4.
I've been reading that the revamp of A Realm Reborn shaves about 25% of the quests off the main story, so you should be able to get to Heavensward (the first expansion) in about 60 hours. Add another 40 hours for Heavensward and 20 hours for Post-Heavensward content in the trial and you're looking at roughly 110 hours of content if you ONLY focus on the Main Scenario Quests and ignore all the side stuff you unlock along the way.
There's some great side content you'll miss out on if you do the main story and nothing else:
- A bunch of 4-person dungeons with their own stories (some good, some bad)
- The ARR 8-person raid series (The Binding Coils of Bahamut)
- The Gold Saucer, complete with Chocobo Racing, Triple Triad, Mahjong, and more
- The Heavensward 8-person raid (The Warring Triad from FFVI)
- The Heavensward 24-person raid (Void Ark)
- PvP, if you're into that.
The story in the current expansion has been really great, maybe the best of an MMO I've played, but Heavensward is up there too. I've enjoyed playing this game because your character feels more integrated into the world than other MMOs. From Heavensward and on, the game really solidified the feel it was going for. Fantastic music, amazing boss fights, flashy visuals (for an MMO), and an engaging story. It was really smart of them to include it in the trial.
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Minor correction. Warring Triad is the side story 8-main trials for HW (3 fights). Alexander is the raid series for HW (12 fights).
Otherwise, I also endorse picking the game up if you haven't. It's a lot of fun. My only complaint is the devs are very very anti-harassment which sounds good but has a bad side effect. They want to avoid the "elitism" that WOW has with DPS meters and shaming/kicking underperformers from groups. Instead, you get toxic casuals who won't or can't even do their most basic rotation because they know they'll get carried. The minute you try to suggest improvements, they'll cry "TOXIC" and threaten to report you. The one DPS meter around for the game is technically against the TOS, so you mention it in game and you can get banned. You probably won't notice it much your first several dungeons/raids, but as you play longer, you'll run into these people more and sadly, it's usually people that should know better, not new players. (As an aside, I have no issue with new players struggling, especially if they're open to advice.)
Also, don't get too down on the initial gameplay. Rotations are brain-dead simple up till about level 50, but combat gets so much better 50+ so give it a fair shake.