Small TR:
It's beta and they are adding more stuff obviously - people have found more classes in the .dat files than are available ( Muskateer, Arcanist, etc ).
How classes work:
You can level all classes on the same character.
eg I have my hand 2 hand weapons on and am a Pugilist, I exit combat and switch to my Wand - I'm now a Conjurer ( healer/buffer/debuffer ).
Additionally - my pugilist was level 6 and had second wind from that level. I can now switch to a spear ( Lancer ) and use Second Wind on my Lancer. ( or any class I have at 6+ ).There are a few minor exceptions but most abilities will be able to be used cross class like this.
The depth this is going to present for potential encounters later is pretty exciting - because the potential to have a multitude of classes levelled and have the potential to beat encounters with much fewer people than needed was one of the best things about FFXI.
Additionally your class level isn't your only level.
Each class has a seperate level but you have an overriding physical level.
For example I level my pugilist to 20 and my physical level is 25.
This means my pugilist has access to all level 20 abilities - but my physical stats are level 25 - giving me more HP/MP/str/agi/dex/int/mnd etc.
I can switch to my level 1 conjurer and my physical stats will remain 25 and I will get the FULL stat benefit of that.
When you level up your physical level you get points to spend on your core stats - str/dex/vit/mnd/int/piety ( hmmm pieeeeeee ), so if you're a caster you can obviously ignore str/dex/ completely - but given the class system making a more balanced character is probably a good idea.
Combat:
If you've played rogue the mechanic will be familiar.
There is an action bar but it might as well read energy bar.
Every move you perform gives you Tactical Points ( pretty sure TP has been in almost every FF? ) once you have enough TP you can perform special moves.
Interaction is required from an early level - to take pugilist as an example you have heavy strike and light strike - heavy strike is your normal smash stuff button but light strike does reduced damage - but gives you on hit increased evasion and accuracy so you need to make sure you keep it up and the kind of cycling any wow/ffxi endgamer is used to is there from an early stage.
Pugilist also gets haymaker ( cheap attack available after you dodge ), Seismic Shock ( Conal elemental damage off an awesome backflip/jump animation ) , Featherfoot ( buffs your evasion significantly until you dodge an attack ), Taunt ( I unlocked this and wtf'd
) seems like Pug is going to develop into an evasion/counter tank.
You can also precommit to an attack - this is nice because it counters any server lag. As long as you have TP and the ability off cooldown - immediately after you start one abilities animation you can press the button for your next ability and it will perform it when you have enough of an action bar.
This is really nice because it means no more manic button spam to maximise your DPS/etc.
I'm not level 20 yet so I havn't unlocked most of the abilities/etc ( the beta cap is 30 ). I got a good 15 hours in though before the servers went down ( back tuesday/wednesday probably ).
Guildleves
The **** is a guildleve you say?
Well you know how most "quests" in other MMOs are not really quests but skinnerised grinding mechanisms and the quest factor tends to be picking up the quest, ignoring the page of written dialogue and just looking at the objectives? FFXIV says **** that ****.
You pick up guildleves , and then go to a base camp ( Aetheryte Crystal ) somewhere in the world and start it - you then pick a difficulty from 1* to 5* - 1* is for solo and the higher difficulties are for more people in the party. ( More gil/exp as the difficulty goes up ).
All leve mobs are instanced to the participants - so your mobs will never get stolen and you will never have to compete. Non participants in your leve cannot touch your ****.
These reward all participants the same ( except only the initiator gets armour reward - everyone else gets gil/exp rewards ).
Objective is usually go kill x/y/z but if you're a crafter you can get crafting versions that require you to make stuff, or go gather materials for something.
They have a 15 or 30 minute time limit also so no slacking.
Quests + Cutscenes
Drop dead amazing. ( they look truly awesome ).
Exact same style as FFXI cutscenes.
Uses game engine w/ some blurs/extra effects and strips the interface away except for the chat box which is used for the dialogue.
From the get go you know this is the FFXI cutscene team and you will love it.
There is some emotional range to them and I expect the main story arc of quests/missions to be ****ing epic **** based on the few smaller quests I've done so far.
Any Q's outside of that people want answering?
Oh and there is an armory equivalent - it has your character info and all that jank but also has blogging built in and they are polling beta testers atm to see what other stuff people put in - but from the new PS3 update that let's you upload pictures to flickr/etc I really wouldn't be surprised if you see that kind of functionality.