Final Fantasy 14 launched this week for people who bought the CE, and I’m really digging the game so far. It’s way different from WoW, so that’s a nice change of pace, and it seems to fit in perfectly with my casual attitude towards the game. I can jump on for an hour here or there, do some guildleves, harvest some minerals, or just explore, and I feel like I’ve made some progress.

A lot of the performance issues I noticed in the open beta appear to be gone as well. Lag is rarely an issue, except occassionally in very crowded areas. The hardware mouse support seems to have finally been added, making playing with the standard keyboard/mouse combo a viable option. Still, I’m sticking with my 360 controller. It’s more comfortable, and once you get used to using it, it’s just as easy as a mouse and keyboard.

I wish that I could say communication was as easy. How they neglected to include a /reply function in the game is absolutely beyond me. I really hope they add it in a future patch, because as it stands juggling a number of /tells is an annoying proposition.

Update: Apparently you can hit Ctrl+R with the chat bar open to /reply. Better than nothing, I suppose. Thanks for the tip!

That said, if you want to shoot me a message, I’ll certainly do my best to fight the obnoxious chat system and run some guildleves with you. I’m on the Kashuan server, around the Ul’dah region right now. Character name is Kel Adranaryn. Feel free to say hello if you see me online.