FFXIV Closed Alpha/Beta Discussion (Cancelled for this week)

[Gokulo]

hoping it was just very smooth and bug free for everything everyone got to interact with.

Whaa? S-E aren't gods, they can't make impossible possible. :D
Anyway I know my friend that got to play EU alpha said he did encounter some quite fast so he had some reporting to do

[Charismatic]

Well, it's official.
Europe = Failrope.

Hopefully the NA test period isn't so fail.

[tripnotic]

Still unable to get in at all.

Same. 15min left. I fail.

[Fanfon]

Is it likely that a retail release might be pushed earlier if they encounter less bugs etc. than they anticipated? Or will they just keep testing until their projected date.

[Purrrfect]

They're either going to have to stack shitloads of stats in single gear pieces, somehow let us fuse stats from different gear together (or continuously customize it to improve it repeatedly, like what they seem to want to do with the Magians stuff) or do what WoW does and keep making older gear useless all the time. Without situational gear, it's a lot harder to have any interest in sidegrades; which means you'd spend a lot less time getting gear for any one particular class.

I wonder what they're planning to do about that.

The could still do sidegrades if they were to make some guildleves (or whole chains) have mobs that are weak to some effect that is buffed by gear from another set of guildleves. It would just be a case of using the whole gear set for a while guildleve, rather than being in a magic boost set up to the boss and switching to magic accuracy.

[millay]

is today the only day for the alpha test?

[loyaltrekie]

Is it likely that a retail release might be pushed earlier if they encounter less bugs etc. than they anticipated? Or will they just keep testing until their projected date.

It's very rare games get shipped before their normal date(the developers have planned) with the exception of costs and having to 'push it out the door'. They will just use the time to do some of the content that was on the side line. I highly doubt that would happen though - It's SE there will be gamebreakers from the day the game hits shelves. Then in 4 hrs when they got to patch it they will break something completely unrelated which will then lead to a whole week of mait.

is today the only day for the alpha test?

No, they are doing a 'block style' Alpha - a few hours(in this case 4 hours) for each region a few days a week. I'm not sure when the next day is though - but you'll see it around somewhere.

[Purrrfect]

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they sent out more and more invites for those in each group.

A small-middling amount for Japan, as judged by stable servers and low lag.
Middling-large amount for Europe, as judge by the servers kinda running kinda not.
Large-huge amount for NA, as will be shown by complete server failure (potentially).

Could just be that they haven't dealt with large-scale, long-distance connections yet.

[drwaffles]

I'm interested if anyone found any bugs yet, hoping it was just very smooth and bug free for everything everyone got to interact with. Servers being unstable is a given, hopefully Square Enix will make an extreme overhaul of the problems of people continuously being booted from the server for the next part of the alpha test.

Only major bug I found was when I logged back in after d/c'ing on a bridge, I ended up running waist-deep in the terrain for a little while.

[Kirb]

It being an Alpha with such a wide variety of machine specs, I'm honestly not really surprised that people are failing to get in, especially this is arguably the first test that involves mass long-distance connections to the server, which requires a lot of tweaking to get right. We really shouldn't base a few posts from people in BG as to the overall failure rate, either. It's not a good sample size.

But I gotta say, even with the medium-low settings with no anti-aliasing, the game (draw distance especially) looks pretty fantastic.

I can't wait to pump all of the settings up to max on this thing come retail.

[Cureslime]

Is it likely that a retail release might be pushed earlier if they encounter less bugs etc. than they anticipated? Or will they just keep testing until their projected date.

Game won't be bug free no matter how long they let people test it. If things proceed as expected they'll release it at whatever secret time they've already chosen. If they're crappier they'll push it back. We're still not getting it before late summer at the earliest either way.

[rufus9]

how hard can it be to upload the opening movie to youtube?

[drwaffles]

It being an Alpha with such a wide variety of machine specs, I'm honestly not really surprised that people are failing to get in. And we really shouldn't base a few posts from people in BG as to the overall failure rate, either. It's not a good sample size.

But I gotta say, even with the medium-low settings with no anti-aliasing, the game looks pretty fantastic.

Lots of people on the EU site were complaining about being booted constantly, pretty sure it's a universal problem.

[Sholin]

how hard can it be to upload the opening movie to youtube?

If you want to continue having access to the alpha, pretty hard.

[drwaffles]

Depends if it's possible to ArtMoney your name á la XI.

[loyaltrekie]

It being an Alpha with such a wide variety of machine specs, I'm honestly not really surprised that people are failing to get in. And we really shouldn't base a few posts from people in BG as to the overall failure rate, either. It's not a good sample size.

But I gotta say, even with the medium-low settings with no anti-aliasing, the game looks pretty fantastic.

The issue really isn't machine specs for users - it's what normal 'stress tests' are for; seeing how X ISP works with Y client - as well as normal game 'testing'. This test was successful in the sense that they found they have a lot of connectivity issues with mirrors in western European countries. Something that will probably be negligible on the next test date when they 'tighten the bolts'.

[bluefan]

It's very rare games get shipped before their normal date(the developers have planned) with the exception of costs and having to 'push it out the door'. They will just use the time to do some of the content that was on the side line. I highly doubt that would happen though - It's SE there will be gamebreakers from the day the game hits shelves. Then in 4 hrs when they got to patch it they will break something completely unrelated which will then lead to a whole week of mait.

So very true. I can name 4 MMOs off the top of my head where that happened...and now they're craptastic games on the market.

[Soap]

If you want to continue having access to the alpha, pretty hard.

Its not that hard.
1. Edit video to remove usernames with Final Cut or Vegas Pro
2. Create a new account
3. Post

How will they ever know?

[loyaltrekie]

Its not that hard.
1. Edit video to remove usernames with Final Cut or Vegas Pro
2. Create a new account
3. Post

How will they ever know?

>Implying that anyone that had access to the test block wants to do that much work.

It's infinitely easier to edit a still frame then a video - thus the reason there is an influx of pictures and not that many videos. Would you honestly want to do all that work for someone else? I'm not going to lie - I wouldn't; pics I wouldn't mind doing, but video is just too much time for me IMHO.

[Purrrfect]

Its not that hard.
1. Edit video to remove usernames with Final Cut or Vegas Pro
2. Create a new account
3. Post

How will they ever know?

Could be hard if you've never used those before and are actually trying to get into the game.