It's been a bit over two week since the new Final Fantasy 14 expansion Shadowbringers hit; it really feels like it's been longer to be honest. Bear and I had some pretty large concerns going into the expansion, specifically with the skill pruning of the jobs, some major healer changes, and the development team replacing the individual job story lines for instead, four story lines associated to roles. We were so upset with the combined changes, we were even considering actually quitting the game for awhile. We ended sticking around in the end of course, thinking that if anything else, we'd probably enjoy the story. We loved the whole journey through the previous expansion thoroughly, even the side stories involving the return of Ivalice and the Omega raid, giving us no reason to expect less now, especially since one of the main scenario writers for this expansion is the one who did the Dark Knight and Azim Steppes story lines, some of our favorites.

So far, Bear and I've been having a blast with the story, it starts off strong almost right away and has continued to draw us in ever since. ^_^ I've been really loving the zone designs, I really do think they're getting better! All the zones we've seen feel like they have a strong character of their own and stand out amongst the others already present in the game. They feel spacious, and yet don't feel “empty” (which is kind of the opposite to how I felt about the areas of Heavensward), and have interesting layouts, sub zones and landmarks that switch up the terrain without making it feel claustrophobic. There are constantly little nooks around the maps that I am enticed to explore. They've also gotten a pretty good feeling of how to give some of the map a sense of grandness with structures and trees that would give awe to their size, something I've really missed and loved from when we used to play World of Warcraft.

The dungeons so far have been really pretty and unexpected too. I've only seen two of the new ones so far I admit, but they were both very enjoyable experiences and I'm looking forward to going through them again, hopefully with friends so I can take my time admiring the art. =D

I'm still upset about the changes to healers, Astrologian in particular. I'm hoping they'll change the job in coming patches, but I'm not holding my breath. ._. I feel it would have to be a pretty major change, not just adding or changing a skill here and there. I'm also concerned about the impression new players will have on the game since I admit that things do feel really slow in pre-level 50 portion of the game, possibly even more so now because of the skill pruning. I remember when Bear and I first started the game years ago when we almost quit at around level 17. ^^ There are so many great and awesome things to experience later on!

Anyway, I've been really looking forward to playing more FF14 lately; even though I'm moving through the story at a snail's pace and don't play every day. XD