FFXIV new Beta info! (9/28 GW interview)

[Tezz]

Eorzeapedia.com just released an interview with new information from the TGS.
They actually got more Beta info. at the bottom of the page.

The Beta
Can you believe it? GAME Watch got actual information about beta testing! The first round of beta testing will be done with a relatively small group and be conducted worldwide. It won’t be a continuously running beta test but broken down into small 3 or 4 hour tests held at different times. They plan on doing very detailed testing on FFXIV so users will see how the game develops over time. At the beginning, tests will only be conducted with the Windows version. From the initial 3 or 4 hour tests they will expand to daily or weekly beta tests that run for 24 hours a day. After that comes stress tests which will require a lot of people. Tanaka says it could start with 10 thousand people and go up from there to 20, 40, and 80 thousand people. Finally, there will be a free open beta. Originally he thought it would take half a year to go from a development build to the open beta, but he now thinks it will be shorter than that. The interviewer guesses at a summer release based on that and Tanaka says it all depends on the feedback they get from players during the beta testing. It doesn’t sound like the development build he is referring to is the same demo shown at gamescom. He says whether or not a development build is made by year’s end will depend on the developers.

The interview ends with Tanaka saying things will be different from how FFXI started because they will take action against RMT from the very beginning this time around. People will also be able to use the security tokens and one time passwords. Komoto says visitors to gamescom were able to try out the game first but for people in Japan to please be patient because it will be awhile longer before they will have a chance to play it. Tanaka laughs and says he’ll be lighting a fire under the bums of all the developers.

Looks like next Summer or so till the bulk of people will be experiencing it.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Exciting news . I don't even know if my system could handle a beta test for that level of game though so I shouldn't get my hopes up. The rmt enforcement from the start part is good to hear.

[Kawfee]

Weird how the beta test would be limited to such a low number of hours at first. I wonder how that would work? Just testing individual guildleves, or something, maybe?

[Tezz]

Weird how the beta test would be limited to such a low number of hours at first. I wonder how that would work? Just testing individual guildleves, or something, maybe?

Yea i know, i've never seen anyone test that way, but you could, likely, assume that the number of testers would be very small and wouldn't last that long.

The "stress testing" into open beta is where it's at.

[Kawfee]

Also of note from the Game Watch interview:

If a player wants to be an attacker, they can set more abilities suited to that. However, if their party needs a tank, they could set abilities for tanking instead and switch roles without switching classes.

Kind of excited about this if implemented well. FFXI (or at least the Brady guide) tried to do this with certain jobs, ie Warrior tank or DD, or Ninja tank DD / Caster DPS, and failed pretty horribly. Games like WOW do a decent job of it through 'respecing' your abilities/job traits where you can drastically customize whether you're a tank or a DD on the same job/class.

Also:

The enemies can also be in parties so you have to take that under consideration as well. This was something they wanted to show with the guildleves made available at gamescom. In FFXI, players primarily pulled back enemies one at a time and thought about how to do that without nearby enemies linking. For FFXIV, however, you have to think more about how to deal with an entire party of enemies. If you pull one, then many times the rest of them will come to fight as well. You have to learn how to deal with “many-versus-many” type fights. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you can just pull one enemy though.

Already have seen this in trailers, but just some confirmation of it.

[Cutriss]

Weird how the beta test would be limited to such a low number of hours at first. I wonder how that would work? Just testing individual guildleves, or something, maybe?

It's probably targeting certain things that they'd need to down the server to change and then reload.

[Gulkeeva]

Yea i know, i've never seen anyone test that way, but you could, likely, assume that the number of testers would be very small and wouldn't last that long.

The "stress testing" into open beta is where it's at.

Wow did testing like this, where they opened only "certain areas" and let you only do stuff there for a few hours. Namely the "ulduar raid" and the "tournament raid".

It was mainly times where the Developers/GM's/etc can sit and watch you play, and see if anything breaks, or not working like they want it too... or you seem to be struggling with (like maybe how well you fight a mob, or quickly learn to play the game, or if you spend time reading anything a npc says).

Worked out pretty well for blizz I think as on launch there weren't many issues (for the raid instance anyway)

[Kurokikaze]

"And I jizzed in my pants."

The wait is killin me. Omg..