Just a reminder to everyone that if you've been sitting on your beta code for some reason and not actually playing (who would do that??) then you have only a few days left to get that code registered before it becomes unusable.  If you haven't received a code yet and would like to participate in the Phase 4 beta, you need to get your application in if you haven't already!

This last weekend Square Enix added in the Duty Finder to the Closed Beta for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, allowing players to queue for dungeons, four-man guildhest quests, and Trials from anywhere in the world. I decided to spend most of that weekend trying out the various dungeons to see how well they stacked up compared to what's available in other MMOs. Well, that and because I was tired of being stuck on the "Finish the Sastasha dungeon" part of my main story quest.

When I left off yesterday, I'd switched to healing as a Conjurer due to lengthy tank queues (yes, I know DPS have it worse) and proceeded to clear the first two dungeons ARR had to offer. I was impressed with how good the dungeons looked, both in terms of general appearance and the cutscene tours leading in, and the side chests littered across the dungeon helped provide incentive to explore rather than just riding the loot train in a single linear path like I'm accustomed to with many MMOs. Unfortunately though these two dungeons are meant as starter dungeons, so the mechanics never got complicated enough to make me feel like my abilities were being taxed. They're a good warm-up for inexperienced players and someone who might be a bit rusty, but I was looking for something a little more interesting than "occasionally summons adds". Time to see what else ARR's Duty Finder has to throw at me with the next few instances.

Over the last couple of weekends the writers here at ZAM, myself included, have been trying out the remake of Square Enix’s second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Corey gave his early impressions of the game’s mechanics, questing, etc. I focused on crafting and gathering for that early weekend, but followed up later with my own impressions of the rest of the game that I’d experienced up to that point. While I covered most of the areas I was interested in during those first two weekends, there was a fairly glaring hole in my coverage; other than participating in the open world FATE events I ran across, I did not participate in any group content. With no grouping tools other than yelling in General chat and an apparent abundance of Gladiator and Marauder competition for tanking roles, I focused on solo content and story until I ran into a wall when my level 15 main story quest was “Go clear Sastasha, the first dungeon”. Sure I was still content to work on crafting/gathering and there were other classes to work on for my cross-class skill slots, but I like running dungeons so I was somewhat disappointed I couldn’t cover that content.

Thankfully that problem was rectified, as this weekend’s build included a new feature for FFXIV:ARR: the Duty Finder. With that major hurdle taken care of, the goal for this last weekend became clear: run everything I could with the Duty Finder, see what group content is available, and find out.

Come join in on the fun in the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta!  All you need to do is reply to our post on Facebook asking what you would like to see implemented the most in Phase 4 to test out before the game is released and you could win a PS3 beta key, courtesy of Square Enix and Zam!

Obviously, this Elezen can afford to be smug, he's in the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta, after all. Having played ARR myself I can confirm the buzz around the game: the improvements since 1.0 are wildly apparent throughout.

But why take my word for it?

Thanks to Square Enix and ZAM you have the chance to see this exciting new world for yourself.

For the last couple of weekends, the writers here at ZAM have been taking a look at Square Enix’s remake of their second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. After our first weekend with the game, Corey gave his general impressions of the game while I posted a mountain of text about crafting and gathering. Now that I’ve had time to see a bit more of the game (that and I’ve managed to make myself do something other than mining and goldsmithing), I’m ready to give my early impressions.

With the rerelease of Square Enix’s second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, a few months away, a few of us here at ZAM have had the chance to try the beta and see what’s changed. We all tried out the combat and looked at some of the major system changes and you can find out more about those in Corey’s post. While I put in a good amount of time questing and fighting like the other writers, it wasn’t my primary focus this time around. What I wanted to know was this: did Square Enix finally give me full-fledged crafting and gathering classes like they were promising when the first version of FFXIV came out in 2010?

When Square Enix originally started talking about its second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, one of the points it kept bringing up to show its game was unique was that crafters and gatherers were now true player classes. Players that wanted to dabble in crafting or gathering could still do so on the side, but those who were primarily interested in finding/selling crafting materials or in turning those materials into equipment and supplies for other players now had full-fledged classes to specialize in. There would be actual abilities you used, gear with crafting/gathering specific stats to get, and technique to learn beyond just clicking on an ore vein or hitting Create in a crafting window. When I played the open beta for v1.0, I was… well, I had a lot of less than kind things to say that are unfit for print, especially about crafting and gathering. Fast forward almost three years and a remake later, it was time to find out what had changed and if it was for the better.

Dating back to Final Fantasy I, II, VI, VII, VIII, IX and some of the more recent titles, Final Fantasy has always held a special place in my heart. With its great stories, tactical combat and mystical environments; it was like a series that could never be tainted. Then came Final Fantasy XIV.

Greetings adventurers of Eorzea! This week at E3 Squre-Enix released a sleek new trailer, detailing the newly revealed Class and Job options coming to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. On top of that, Game Director/Producer, Naoki Yoshida accompanied by Toshio Murouchi from the community team, have released yet another Developer Commentary Video outlining the FATE system in Final Fantasy XIV. Let's dive in!

Square Enix has been getting ready to relaunch their newly redesigned second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, with the release date of August 27th fast approaching. Fans of the series have probably already picked out whether they'll be going the PC route or if they'd rather use a PlayStation 3, but what about that other Sony console that might have been mentioned in the news a bit the last couple days? Square Enix has confirmed at E3 that FFXIV:ARR will be available for PlayStation 4 users and is slated for release in 2014.