Friendly reminders for the FFXIV: Heavensward Early Access/Launch
There’s less than a week until Early Access! But, as excited as you may be, please keep the following in mind…
For the love of Hydaelyn tag your spoilers, and be kind to your Free Company/Linkshells and be careful about them in chat. Don’t complain, just do it. Don’t be the jerk who ends up spoiling some awesome twist or emotional moment or amazing boss fight. To which end…
People are going to want to run things blind. If someone asks to, and you’re already at the point of revisiting content, please respect that. Let people enjoy fresh content, let them fail or succeed on their own surprises. There are not many chances in XIV people have to do exactly that. Let them.
The servers are going to suck. This isn’t even Square’s fault - it’s common with every major MMORPG, both at launch and at expansions. Generally, more people are going to be playing immediately following a release/expansion than at any other time in an MMORPG’s lifespan. Prepare yourself for that reality. You will probably get more lag than usual due to massive network activity. You will probably get login queues. You will probably get 90k’d (or people you’re doing dungeons with will). Brace yourself.
There will probably be an Emergency Maintenance at least once in the first couple weeks. This is simply inevitable, for hotfixes, server maintenance, etc. If this happens during the time you’re able to play, sorry. Remember that when they have to do it, it’s going to suck for someone - a different time just means a different group that gets angry.
Going to make an Au Ra (or any) alt? Make them NOW. Before EA starts. Why? Because player volume is going to soar. And the character creation lockouts on servers are (at least theorized to be) based on active population, so you’re probably not going to be able to make a new character on the server you want. If you’ve been around for a while, you should get that first Veteran reward Fantasia right away - you can use that to swap into an Au Ra once it’s enabled. But make the character now, because I can almost guarantee you that if you’re trying to get on almost any heavily active server, you’re going to be SoL (Especially Balmung or Gilgamesh)
You don’t have to do it all immediately. The developpers have already confirmed that, while Soldiery and Poetics will be phased out, the new Tomestones for endgame content will be staggered out over the first few weeks after launch. This also includes the new endgame raid, Alexander (and even later than that, Alexander (Savage)). You don’t need to be running the final dungeon today. You can take your time. Remember this when servers are unstable or maintenance is going on.
People are going to suck at the game again. Sure, many players out there are fantastic. However, there’s a lot of people who are used to massively outgearing the content they’re tackling - which is already stated to be something that’s going to fall off pretty quickly; and their carelessness is going to bite them in the ass. Others will also be trying to get used to new techniques/classes and make mistakes because of it. Have patience.
The things you worked so hard to get aren’t going to be worth as much anymore. That max melded Forager’s gear? That crafting Lucis? That Zeta weapon? Those Dreadwyrm pieces? Be ready for the fact it’s not going to be the best anymore. Expect the costs and efforts involved in even making those from now on to sink as well. You should be somewhat used to this from patches as is, but the gap’s going to be even more notable. Don’t get angry that your stuff’s been replaced; you’ve got a huge leg up as you step into the new stuff with it anyway.
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