Final Fantasy XIV just had a major patch come out today. For those of you who haven't played it yet - they've expanded the free trial to Level 60 and all the way through the first expansion. There's no time limit on that trial, either!
Other major features of the patch are the finale of the current expansion, a new part of the NieR Automata collaboration, and a heavy overhaul of A Realm Reborn (the base game) - less tedious quests, more experience and items, and adding flying to ARR areas.
So you can play the entire game for as long as you want for free, up through the first expansion, so long as your character doesn't pass level 60? How many hours of free gameplay does that equate to? Or am I misunderstanding and you still have to pay for the base game and it's just the online fees that are waived? Also I assume this is for PC?
I've never played FFXIV, but I guess I could give it a shot.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
So you can play the entire game for as long as you want for free, up through the first expansion, so long as your character doesn't pass level 60? How many hours of free gameplay does that equate to? Or am I misunderstanding and you still have to pay for the base game and it's just the online fees that are waived? Also I assume this is for PC?
I've never played FFXIV, but I guess I could give it a shot.
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 trials (The Warring Triad from FFVI)
- The Heavensward 8-person raid (Alexander)
- 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.
Last edited by Mazrim; 08-18-2020 at 11:25 AM.
Reason: Added Alexander.
The Following User Says Thank You to Mazrim For This Useful Post:
I got my first and second wins on Fall Guys today, pretty pumped! The second was on Fall Mountain, someone beat me there but botched the jump, and there was a guy jumping from the other side that must’ve missed by just a fraction of a second. What an awesome game.
Final Fantasy XIV just had a major patch come out today. For those of you who haven't played it yet - they've expanded the free trial to Level 60 and all the way through the first expansion. There's no time limit on that trial, either!
Other major features of the patch are the finale of the current expansion, a new part of the NieR Automata collaboration, and a heavy overhaul of A Realm Reborn (the base game) - less tedious quests, more experience and items, and adding flying to ARR areas.
This is the patch that reworked the entire leveling process through reborn right? I have been waiting for this to launch to start playing.
Ghost of Tsushima gets a free online co-op expansion this Fall! Whoa!
Quote:
Today I am very excited to reveal Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, a new online cooperative multiplayer* mode that will come as a free download for Ghost of Tsushima owners on PS4 later this year.
Legends is an entirely new experience — it’s a separate mode that doesn’t follow Jin or the companions from his journey, but instead focuses on four warriors who have been built up as legends in stories told by the people of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima’s single-player campaign focuses on an open world and exploring the natural beauty of the island, but Legends is haunting and fantastical, with locations and enemies inspired by Japanese folk tales and mythology and an emphasis on cooperative combat and action.
We designed Legends to be an exclusively cooperative gameplay experience. You’ll be able to partner up with friends or via online matchmaking and play Legends in groups of 2-4 players. Each player can choose from one of four different character classes: the Samurai, Hunter, Ronin, or Assassin. Each class has unique advantages and abilities that we’ll reveal in the future.
With two players in Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, you’ll be able to play a series of co-op Story missions that escalate in difficulty, building on the foundation of combat from the single-player campaign but with new magical twists that often require careful synchronization with your partner.
With four players, you’ll be able to take on wave-based Survival missions, fighting groups of the toughest enemies Tsushima has to offer, Including new Oni enemies with supernatural abilities.
If you can best the Story and Survival missions, you may be confident enough to take on the four-player Raid that will arrive shortly after the launch of Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, sending you and your partners to an entirely new realm to challenge a brutal, terrifying enemy.
It’s been so rewarding to see the amazing reactions from all of you as you play through Ghost of Tsushima. We’ve been watching so many of you stream your playthroughs, and can’t wait to open up this new way for all of us to play together! We’re happy to offer this mode completely free to Ghost of Tsushima owners as a thank you to our players, and we look forward to hearing what you think!
We’ll have much more to share on Legends as we get closer to launch, including details on character classes, customization, and more! Thank you to everyone for your support of Ghost of Tsushima so far!
As someone who got the platinum and is itching for more content, this is fantastic!
The Following User Says Thank You to OutOfTheCube For This Useful Post:
So my wife saw some people trying Fall Guys online - ended up getting the game for both of us yesterday, haven't heard her laugh this much from playing games haha. It was a fun... Couldn't get a win yet. Looking to get some of those crowns for nice costumes haha.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to steveo For This Useful Post:
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.
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.
So my wife saw some people trying Fall Guys online - ended up getting the game for both of us yesterday, haven't heard her laugh this much from playing games haha. It was a fun... Couldn't get a win yet. Looking to get some of those crowns for nice costumes haha.
Fall Guys is free with PS+ this month so hopefully you didn't buy it? or playing on Xbox/PC?
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.
Oops, forgot about Alexander somehow. Maybe cause I only find a couple parts of it (hello A12!) to be decent.
I've never seen someone get upset when someone offered a suggestion for improving their play. I'm not playing high end content though. However, I think the surge in former WoW players is definitely starting to have a negative effect on the game. People are generally less friendly than before, and I'm starting to see people leave if the group wipes, which is definitely something I saw all the time in WoW.
Overall, I'm glad to see that most people are still helpful when someone mentions they're new. Some people have fairly elaborate macros to explain fights too, which is awesome. One thing I really liked when I started playing was how helpful everyone was in the duty finder, so I hope mindset sticks around for a long time.
This weekend I did Alphascape 3.0 in roulettes which was a pleasant surprise. Three new players, and the group wiped because of the Starboard/Larboard wave cannons. No one left, and I asked for a minute to explain the mechanics. Not surprisingly we cleared it the next attempt. I don't think that would have happened that way in WoW.
Flying over downtown YYC in Microsoft Flight Simulator on 4K/Ultra settings. My poor PC was only getting about 15 fps during this, but it sure made for some nice screenshots. Spoilered for size.
East Downtown, Bow River, Centre Street Bridge, Prince's Island Park
Spoiler!
Central and West Downtown, Peace Bridge, Sunnyside, Kensington
Spoiler!
Saddledome, Stampede Park, Repsol Sport Centre
Spoiler!
The Following 9 Users Say Thank You to MarchHare For This Useful Post:
[QUOTE=MarchHare;7542224]Flying over downtown YYC in Microsoft Flight Simulator on 4K/Ultra settings. My poor PC was only getting about 15 fps during this, but it sure made for some nice screenshots. Spoilered for size.
I thought I pre-installed Flight Simulator but I'm waiting for it to download over 90GB before I can play. I know it's going to be worth the wait but it's still annoying.
