Hello and welcome to the 34th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to look at something a few other MMOs have played with over the years: player-generated content. Typically when an MMO gives players room to create something in-game, it’s usually limited to something like player housing and crafted items, where the impact on the game as a whole is limited to the player themselves or at most a small group of other players. MMOs like Neverwinter and the now defunct City of Heroes took this to another level and gave players the chance to add more substantial and long-lasting content to the game.

Hello and welcome to the 33rd edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to try our hands at designing another job for FFXIV. Heavensward, the first expansion for FFXIV, has promised us three new jobs without base classes so far, but there are so many additional options we can bring to Eorzea, both for standalone jobs and for those with base classes. 

Hello and welcome to the 32nd edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going back to one of the main additions coming with the Heavensward expansion, flying mounts. In particular, we’ll be talking about the Free Company airships. As skeptical as I may have been about adding flying mounts to more MMOs, there certainly are some great things that could be done with them.

Hello and welcome to the 30th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’ve got more news to talk about. This weekend Square Enix held their Tokyo Fan Festival for fans of FFXIV. In addition to all of the concerts, costumes and other events for the fan, this weekend gave us another glimpse into Heavensward, FFXIV’s first expansion coming in Spring 2015. London’s fan event brought us flying mounts and the Dark Knight, FFXIV’s first job with no base class. What could SE have brought to the Tokyo event to top that?

Hello and welcome to the 29th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to be looking at FFXIV’s competition again. As many of you are aware, last month marked the release of World of Warcraft’s fifth expansion pack, Warlords of Draenor. Many have been claiming that this expansion is one of the best Blizzard Entertainment has ever released and the numbers support that: 3.3 million copies of the expansion sold on the first day, as well as bumping their subscriber count back above the 10 million player mark. Those are some fairly sizable numbers for a 10-year-old game, so they must be doing something right. Seeing as FFXIV is launching their first expansion, Heavensward, next year, it may be a good idea to take a look at WoD to see if anything can be learned from this successful expansion. Partly because it will help improve the game, but mostly because, barring any major shifts in the MMO landscape before Heavensward ships, this is the main competition.

Hello and welcome to the 28th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to dig into another one of the new features of the recently announced FFXIV expansion, Heavensward. Flight, new zones and increased level caps are all great features of the expansion, but the feature many players were focused on during all of the announcements was the addition of new jobs. So far we’ve just had the one reveal with the Dark Knight, but there’s something unique about this job: the Dark Knight is the first FFXIV job option without a base class. So what does this mean for the rest of the jobs Heavensward and any future expansions will bring us?

Hello and welcome to the 27th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we’re going to dig into one of the new features of the recently announced FFXIV expansion, Heavensward. In addition to all of the new zones, the Dark Knight reveal and the promise of more new jobs to come, one feature in particular caught my attention: flying mounts. What does the addition of flying mounts mean for this expansion and beyond?

Hello and welcome to the 26th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we actually have news to talk about. At their Fan Festival event earlier this month, SE announced FFXIV's first expansion, Heavensward. Currently slated for a spring 2015 release, Heavensward will bring Eorzeans an increased level cap, new zones, additional Job options and more. Since we've got at least five months till that spring release window, let's take a look at what's been announced and what features we'd like to see in the expansion.

Hello and welcome to the 25th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM’s column on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week’s column, we're going to be talking about the player's impact on the world around them. As with all MMOs there's a constant struggle between the RPG need for a world that evolves with the player's actions and deeds, versus the MMO need for a persistent world where you can interact with other players, help them with quests you've already completed, rerun dungeons, etc. However, FFXIV is unique for an MMO in that it's placed such an emphasis on its main storyline, tying it to most aspects of the game from unlocking features of the game to connecting the various dungeons to it in some fashion. How do we reconcile the need to have some lasting impact on the world with the other thousands of people playing alongside you, all wanting that same sense of progress?

Hello and welcome to the 24th edition of the Eorzea Examiner, ZAM's column on Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. For this week's column, we're looking at FFXIV's mobile extensions: smartphone applications. Unfortunately for all of us, there comes a time when we must step away from our PC or console and venture into the real world, be it for work, school or just to grab food. This may have been a problem with early MMOs, but these days many MMO players have a smartphone at their side. These mini-computers have the power to keep you connected to your friends both in the real world as well as your friends in Eorzea through web access and dedicated applications. The options available from Square Enix right now are a step in the right direction, but there's plenty of room for improvement.