Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) can be played on PC, Mac, and PlayStation. There is also a free trial available here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com. In FFXIV you will begin your journey as an adventurer, and will travel about Eorzea helping others and saving the realm.

Worlds/Servers

FFXIV calls their servers Worlds. Once you choose your regional data center, you will be able to choose between several North American servers/worlds. A couple of them are also Legacy worlds, initially created for the players that stayed active in the original FF game while it was being re-designed. Their characters were placed on these servers to give the new players a chance to develop their economies.

Creating your Character

Elezen Character Creation by Jana Allmand-Zeman

You will be able to choose from five different races in FFXIV. You’ll need to determine your starting area, selecting between Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, or Ul’dah. You may personalize your character’s appearance, birthday, patron deity, forename and surname. Take your time in developing this new identity. Don’t forget to save your appearance data to use while creating your new character.

Limsa Lominsa                     Gridania                 Ul’dah                      

Marauder                               Archer                     Pugilist

Arcanist                                   Lancer                    Gladiator

Conjurer                Thaumaturge

Figure 2 Elezen Character Creation by Jana Allmand-Zeman

Gameplay

Once your character is created and your world chosen, you’ll be ready to start playing the game. You will see the opening scenes giving you a background story, and will enter the game. Pick up your quests, and you’ll be ready to follow your story and level up. In FFXIV you will have the option of also crafting and gathering jobs, and player housing. There is also the Gold Saucer where you can play games of chance like card games and chocobo racing. You can even get married.

FFXIV Communities

In FFXIV you will have the option of joining Free Companies (FC) that will usually have bonus experience activated. You’ll find some of them to be friendly casual players, whereas others are hardcore raiding companies. Some of the companies will also offer crafting benches to help speed up your leveling in those areas, and chocobo stables where you can feed your chocobos, helping them to level. You can also join Linkshells that allow you to talk to people that share the same interest, such as hunt parties, but are not in the same FC.

Another way to observe the communities is to find your way to one of the main cities for your faction and observe/participate in the chat. Enjoy your adventures!

Jana Allmand-Zeman
May 2016