YouTuber and Twitch streamer Preach Gaming quit World of Warcraft during the wave of subscription cancellations and after giving Final Fantasy XIV a try, he’s finally revealed his verdict.
With World of Warcraft’s popularity currently on the decline, many big streamers and content creators for the game have jettisoned the franchise for greener pastures.
Twitch star Asmongold, who was the biggest WoW streamer on all of Twitch, also moved over to FFXIV and hasn’t looked back since.
Preach has now joined the ranks of ditching WoW, and has begun his journey into Eorzea. He shared his thoughts on the positives and negatives of the game after his first eight hours of play.
Preach’s first FFXIV impressions
Preach’s feelings on FFXIV, after having only spent a short time with it, are mixed.
On questing in FFXIV Preach said, “It’s so much better than World of Warcraft. This is true, 100%, it’s very easy to see. The main story scenario questing is considerably superior. Your character feels like it’s taking part in something eventful.
“You are, of course, ‘the champion’, something of a meme in MMO’s done on all sides, but it kind of makes some sense. And the stories are also self-contained in little stories happening in the area. I can say, without doubt, I fully understand what’s going on in the zone I’m in.”
Timestamp at 4:25 for mobile viewers.
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Not everything was perfect in his first impressions, however.
Preach had some serious problems with the fetch quests the game still has in place for new players, saying: “The game is still woefully, woefully, and all MMO’s have this problem, and it really is a problem in my eyes, they are woefully desperate for a new style of quest that isn’t ‘collect five things.’
“And I think they are so aware that this system is antiquated, and every RPG under the sun that’s come out in the last five years have moved well past this of collect five barea***s. FFXIV, certainly in A Realm Reborn, still has that problem.”
While he isn’t in love with this old style of questing, there’s still some added polish added to the system.
He continued: “They’ve put a little twist on it (fetch quests), which is the menagerie system. Which is, that you can get the ‘kill three things’ quest without having to go to an NPC to pick up that quest, and there will be an icon above the mobs to say these are a new type of enemy, they’re part of the menagerie, kill three of them and we’ll progress you up to higher tier monsters, and we’ll auto-complete that quest for you.”
Preach leaned in heavy on the game’s combat, saying: “The gameplay is f**king awful right now, like, absolutely f**king awful… The story that’s going on is great, the actual gameplay involved in it is really awful, and I cannot wait for that to change at some point.”
While the creator is enjoying the more refined aspects that FFXIV, let’s hope the combat picks up the further he progresses into the game.