This seems like GREAT timing....ok, not really.Follow

Pretty cool that if you come back through that program, you basically get a free set of i120 gear.

So players get rewarded for not subscribing? I think I'm starting to change my mind about this game

Actually, that doesn't make any sense to me. The timing of the trial makes sense, but since they're already having server issues it's probably not a great idea to complicate that any further.

It's only one data center, but it houses the 2 most populated NA servers in Balmung and Gilgamesh. It then indirectly hits the smaller servers on that data center. I couldn't get on last night from 6-10pm EST, so I just gave up. Seeing reddit and the official forums, it was the same for a ton of others.

Things were going pretty good on Friday, but as the weekend progressed it just turned into 2.0 all over again for Aether. You either 2002, manage to get into the data center, only to have the queue count down to 1 and stay there indefinitely, or count down and 2002 again. So sure, the incentive is only i120 gear, but it's still probably enough incentive for a ton of players to go, sure I'll give it a go again. I'm terrified for tomorrow with Early Access over and a possible influx of old players returning.

Weren't people saying the reason HW was gated was because of i115 gear? Now they're tossing 120 at some people? (or was that just a theory?)

That it does. It's been the cause of some anger for some players. Some feel they should have access to the new areas without completing the MSQ. It was brought up the reason that there was no access (among other things) was the fact that i115 gear was immediately available upon entering Ishgard. Most FF expansions of the past gated much content prior to having finished X quest in the previous expansion.

Sure the launch is great. Rainbows and roses, but you acknowledge that there are issues caused by congestion. Allowing a trial period during a time of already high congestion is just going to pile on to the problem, regardless of how many or how few people it affects. We also know that players don't really have a problem hopping around as there were quite a few NA players rolling on JP servers at initial launch just to get their time in. If one DC is having issues, it's almost certainly going to lead to more traffic on the other DC and increased load there.

I only have four friends who have actually ponied up to get back into HW. Of those, only two have been able to get in consistently so my feedback from them is somewhat limited. Aside from the queues and errors there is only really one thing that they all agree could be better so far, and that's leveling speed. The main concern seems to be that encounters with normal mobs are taking quite a bit longer than they should. I thought this was going to be related to the slower battle speed when compared to other MMOs, but they're saying the mobs are too resilient. Either they have too much health, the players don't do enough damage or some combination of the two.

Personally I wouldn't mind longer battles if the system is enjoyable, but the indication is that the time spent isn't rewarded with enough experience to make it feel like it evens out. Curious what people's thoughts are on this. There's no 'fight is too long' if you're really enjoying it, but does it feel like the pace of battles has slowed compared to lower leveling?

Ahh, ok. Well hopefully I can hurry up and get the MSQ done then, before the leveling craze dies down....

Can't start until Tues or Weds tho, because the thing specifies that characters must not have been logged on between 4/1 and the 23rd? or 22nd? I forget.

EDIT: Nevermind, I mis-read... it says 4/1 - 6/7. And according to Steam, the last time I logged on was 3/2. So yay.

Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 12:08pm by Lyrailis