Preparation of FF14: ARR

First post? Yeah, that's true,ah, now i am eager to let your FFXIV playing more and more comfortable, making my first step worked well, then in the future it will let "worked" smoothly. 

Beta Phase 4 is an open beta and the data from that open beta will carry over to the August 27th launch. That makes Phase 4 a soft launch of the game. With that in mind, I would like to make a couple of suggestions

Firstly. Your names and character appearance will be effectively permanent. If you are looking to reserve some unique and potentially popular names for your server, make those characters fast and reserve those names. Since the Phase 4 servers are going to be the same servers for launch, those names such as Cloud Strife are going to get claimed in a hurry! Even if I don't plan to use any character other than Danforth Wright, I'm going to make a few alts on my destination server in order to reserve some names for characters I might play at a later date. Additionally, for those of you who played 1.0 and already have character data, you will be given a one time opportunity to change both your name and appearance.

Secondly. Decide if you wish to play on a Legacy Server or a New Server. There has been recent attention paid to this subject by MrHappy in a YouTube Video titled "FFXIV A Realm Reborn, Legacy Status Drama."

To be honest, the whole "drama" behind the Legacy Status and New Players is completely lost on me. MrHappy and many others have their positions on the subject and I fail to see any drama whatsoever. I personally had the chance to be a Legacy Player and simply decided that it wasn't worth the money after my own personal FFXIV 1.0 experience. I knew that I might, one day, regret passing on the Legacy Status. Now that the game is playable and I have great faith in Naoki Yoshida, I still don't regret my decision. My final word on the Legacy Status is this: Legacy Players are one of the only reasons FFXIV ARR exists today, I applaud their faith in a game that was essentially dead, and they deserve whatever epic pixels and pricing they get as a result of their faith. If you can't handle that fact, then you are going to have many bigger problems with this game after launch and I would recommend you not waste your money or our patience on this subject.

As for which server situation will be best? Well it's a very very subjective matter. I can confirm the existence of established RMT presences on every Legacy Server about to be reconnected. I can predict with reasonable accuracy that the established economies will be effected by the massive amount of gil and product already in the game at launch. As good as our community is, this will result in a steeper climb for new players -- it's an economic fact of life, but not a game breaker in my view. Other perks are having new friends with maxed out characters to help you from day one and established Free Companies clearing content way before FC's on the new servers. It's like comparing Coffee to Tea... it's up to you. Debating about the pros and cons is an exercise in stupidity.