Will SE Refund a Pre-Order?Follow

No, this is not true at all. I was in the swtor beta, and from closed beta to open beta they made some pretty big changes, including completely changing the equipment system, crafting, and many of the ability mechanics. From what I've heard from everyone else, ARR has had some pretty sweeping changes from beta phase 1 to now as well. When we hit open beta, I agree that there aren't going to sweeping changes other than adding additional content like you mentioned. But from 1 beta phase to the next, there can absolutely be sweeping changes. Heck, they've almost completely changed the battle system in ARR twice since beta phase 1.

Edited, Jun 17th 2013 10:56am by BartelX

Actually I feel six has a point about GCD, to a point [sorry about the pun].

As a CNJ, stone has a 2 second cast time. This is a lot slower than, say, some other unnamed and very popular MMO, but is largely accepted in the FF universe. That's fine with me, I like a more tactical and slowed down combat engine.

But then I sit there through a 2 second GCD. I don't even know if it's two seconds, but it FEELS like it. So you press a button and then wait 4 seconds, all the while doing absolutely nothing.

Now, I'm not saying take GCD completely out. With the way they have the HP/MP regen and TP @ 1k setup, it makes sense to artificially limit the speed at which one can "spam" abilities, but I should be PLAYING the game more than I'm simply WATCHING it when I'm in combat. In FFXI, as a caster I could chain cast until I burned through my mana, which was easy enough to do that I had to pace myself, which artificially limited my damage "uptime" in order to be ready for the next pull. It also, however, gave me the OPTION to go all out and burn something down in the event of an emergency [links, etc] that is simply impossible to replicate in XIV [The links still happen, of course]

I didn't rush to max level in one weekend, so if it adjusts at higher levels someone let me know. I was busy experiencing the ARR changes and wasn't in a hurry, especially since I thought SE actually wanted beta feedback. I wasn't aware until Sunday afternoon that it was simply a 72 hour sneak preview.

All that said, combat system timings SHOULD be fairly easy to adjust. While I might not have made a pre-order commitment like Six did, the current incarnation of ARR isn't so broken that it can't be fixed with a few simple tweaks. I can't even be sure it doesn't "fix itself" later on in levels.

But if you're looking for feedback from 1.0 players as to how ARR is Six, let me offer you this:

I never paid for a single month of 1.0. It was so bad I took the disc out into the back yard, shattered it, and urinated on the pieces. Where I threw those pieces, the ground has become blackened and dead. Around them NOTHING will grow, and pasing animals tend to go rabid and contract mange. I wasn't looking for a beta key to ARR. I didn't CARE. I figured "what the heck, it's free" and had so much trouble navigating through SE account management to D/L the beta client, I almost said to heck with it.

But out of sheer boredom i downloaded the client anyway, if only to see what sad and pathetic adjustments the new development team had made, and while I didn't want to even acknowledge it at first, my opinion began to change.

I spent a casual weekend just "feeling" this program out: I didn't grind hard, I didn't explore. I simply put my fingers on the keyboard and felt: Felt the character movement, the combat system, I felt the UI, and I kept getting drawn into either another well placed Cut Scene or a very comprehensive tutorial.

I began to be impressed in spite of my. . well. . spite ;)

Is it worth paying a monthly fee to play? THAT ONE I'm not sold on. They've come a long way since 1.0, but I'm still not sold. Had the beta been a 3 week server stress test and bug shakedown, had they given me the time for me to feel everything out without feeling constrained or rushed it would've gone a long way towards winning me over. As it stands, I'm still skeptical of SE's motives and their business practices. I can still feel the arrogance of SE corporate towering over every fascet of FFXIV, and it concerns me.

the Dev team, however, have done an amazing job though. If ARR DOESN'T make it, it won't be because they didn't put forth 120%

The point is these are not things you should be hoping to get in a limited beta phase. ZAM is running around with one of the few linkshells in Beta III because we already knew each other outside of the game. Everyone else is desperately trying to grind as many levels as they can in the 48 hour window we had over the weekend.

Yep, Ultros server. I think there's about 10-15 of us. It was nice to be able to talk to some players outside of /shout about the game. It will be even better this weekend when more of us are able to partake in dungeons and guildhests.

Yeah, I was just part of the rabble that mindlessly leveled.

Side note: Tomahawk throw is nearly as awesome as Shield Lob.