The Resonance of Eorzea

Friday, August 21, 2009

My avatar

Nothing major... just a couple quick sketches that I made to use as an avatar on various ffxiv related websites.  Hoping there will be at least some shoulder length hair styles in the character creation menus so i can look something like this...





I'd also seriously like to be able to see a feature that will gradually age my character into something like this...



Also found this (image below) on neko-sentai.com...btw, it's an excellent site for FFXI and FFXIV fan art, so please be sure to visit there and compliment the hundreds of artists on there!
And now for a collection of my latest screenshots of my Aion character... I add them here because I might doctor them later for avatar use and yada yada. 

BTW, graphically, Aion ultimately looks like a very well "polished" Lineage II with aerial flight. Yes, it's quite beautiful to look at... and yes, under full resolutions, it is stunning. However, compared to the few graphics that FFXIV has promised to deliver, Eorzea looks and feels very much more realistic. I mean... freaking hell, if I look at the charcaters on FFXIV, I can actually see the detail of the threading inside the fabric.


Server and gameplay assesment: It's bad enough that the 'weekend betas' that NCSoft held were exactly that: a beta duration spanning between Friday to Monday morning. It was amusingly irritating when you had school ssignments/projects or work and therefore couldn't make it.   Yeah... that was quite annoying.

Secondly, there were the players who would purposely sit and afk right at the teleport gates in Sanctum (the Elyos capital) with their bazaars up, and literally lag the hell outta your game unless you turned down your resolutions etc.

Then of course, you had the annoying loot system; which was not only a drain on your time and efforts but also on your farming... don't even get me started with how it works. Yes indeed, the battle system can be fun... it IS fun... but something about the whole 'timing of keys to unleash yada-yada-skill" just wore me out.

That said, I give them some measure of kudos for trying to create an interactive system of combat but because they geared the game a little too rigidly to the Korean market, it ends up being tiresome; hence a ridiculous amounts of keys to hit. I too played the Assassin class during closed beta and although it was fun, I ultimately found it boringly annoying because of the excessive focus I had to place on timing my skillchains.

I tried sooooo much not to be too disappointed in the game and even tried out the Spiritmaster and eventually tested out the Gladiator class (speaking of which, below is the latest screenie of my newest charcater). But I just couldn't capture the same sense of engagement that FFXI gave me. And depending on how much I get myself to get involved in playing Gladiator, I might soon try out Templar as a last ditch effort to try and "reconcile" myself with the dynamics of the game.

BTW, yes, there are a ton of quests, but they all have the same principle: Go fetch me ten tails from xyz animal... go kill the abc creatures eating the crops on my masters farm... go protect that lake and bring me back five skins as proof... and yada yada yada.

Anywayz, if you want something to pass the time pending the release of FFXIV beta, it's not a bad game by a long shot... and I do like the billing system: pay monthly or up to three or six months.  And now, some screenies... (yes, we like piccys around these parts xD)
















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