As a game portal editor, I've been paying attention to FFXIV (Final Fantasy XIV) since last year. The FF series can be said as a miracle in the game history. Since the first title was released in 1987 (more than ten years ago), the FF series has moved countless gamers, and attracted tens of millions of gamers from around the world. Thus, Square Enix (SE) made a great stir when announcing to create a FF-based online game on the platform of PC, i.e. FFXIV. FF fans also went crazy upon the news, and thought the interactive world based on FF should surely be fantastic.

Though SE's console MMO – FFXI was not as satisfactory as had been expected, gamers didn't care at all, and believed that SE would learn much from it and better develop FFXIV. I used to think so naively and give SE continuous support even when serious bugs were encountered in the past several tests and FFXIV was in danger of being started over again. I just thought SE's technical power was great enough to solve the problems and bring gamers a satisfactory FFXIV.

I once felt sorry for the failure to get qualified for FFXIV's test because of the busy work and language barrier, but later, my friends who'd tested the game came to tell me that FFXIV was just "a piece of shit" successively. If only one person complains to me, I may think that he/she is not suitable for the game – someone doesn't like slow actions, but many people prefer casual RPGs that lay more stress on interaction to fast-paced, exciting games. And if 2 or 3 or more persons come to complain to me, I'll start to suspect.

Then came the game's presale and official release, and finally, I was disillusioned.

First, I'll show you a screenshot of something in the so-called collector's edition!

A moldy cup:

The cup's humorous instructions:

The bold Japanese words on the instruction manual mean: please don't fill the cup with any liquid or solid matters like the following stuff in case of unknown damages: beverages with salt or other solid stuff, carbonated beverages, milk, milk drinks, juice, etc. Well, so funny! This is really a "water cup" that can only hold water.

MADE IN CHINA

Then at the bottom of the cup come several words in bold – "MADE IN CHINA".

It's still unknown whether FFXIV will have a bright future or not. September 30 is just the game's official release date. Let's just wait and see!