I’ve been visiting Eorzea since 2010 and playing regularly since Naoki Yoshida announced the game relaunch in October 2011. My main character is max level and still doing stuff although not so much in the last few years as my age is catching up to me. Raiding isn’t something I can manage any more, and sometimes even content in the main story can become something of a hurdle as I struggle with fast-paced, heavy action fights that require a lot of movement and speedy reactions. I’m lucky that I have a great group of friends whom I’ve known for years that are very patient with me.

Thanks, guys, love you loads!

But FFXIV is a great game with lots to do, and Yoshi P does take on board the fact that a lot of casual players - who do form the bulk of subscribers - want to have fun and not feel stressed or pressured by content. These issues can sometimes be caused by other players, which is unfortunate, but it is one of the aspects of an MMO that needs to be taken into consideration. Still, there are lots of fantastic people out there in Eorzea who will always be willing to help or guide you so, if you’re interested, give it a go.

There is an amazing free trial of the game currently available that offers you all of the below:

• Two hundred to three hundred hours of main scenario quests and side content that includes all of the base game, A Realm Reborn, and the three expansions, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers
• No level cap until level 80 (the current max level is 100)
• No time limits. You can play as many hours as you want until you buy a copy of the full game, at which point you will need to pay the monthly game subscription.

There are a few restrictions on what you can do in game, however:

• You can’t trade items or gil (the ingame currency) with other players
• You can’t use the ingame Auction House to buy or sell anything
• You can only have up to a maximum of 300k gil
• You can’t make your own party to do dungeons or other activities, but you can be invited to someone else’s party as long as they are a subscriber to the game, and you can use the Duty Finder system to find people to run content with. You can also use the Duty Support system which allows you to run a lot of content with NPCs instead of players (but it is not available for all MSQ content)
• You can’t form or join a Free Company (the ingame guild system), and you can’t use the /yell function or the /shout function in chat.

But despite these  - minor - restrictions, the free trial is still a great opportunity to try the game out and see if it’s for you.

Over to You!

Have you tried the free trial recently? If so, what did you think?