Idleness
05-21-2015, 12:59 AM
Just thought I'd start a thread as I'm seeing a lot of new starters and returning players(I'm one of them, resubbed week before last).
Thought it might be nice for other returning players to weigh in with their experiences:
Character Name: Idleness (previously Ironwolf)
Server: Asura (previously Ifrit)
When did you leave? Just after release of Abyssea
What made you decide to return? I heard FFXI was ending (slight exaggeration, but it's defnitely winding down) and thought I would return to Vana'diel while I still could.
Impressions of the game:
Upon first logging in there were pangs of nostalgia as POL boots up followed by wry annoyance as the 9 hour update starts (I have a 17 mb/s connection...wtf).
Once I logged back into Ru'Lude Gardens I spent a few minutes getting my settings right before checking my friend list. Empty. Spent a couple of days wandering around Odin, learning what's changed - cheap, convenient transport, yay!, Trusts... wow! - and then getting overwhelmed with everything I have missed out on in my 5 years' absence. Skirmish? Baylds? Walk of Echoes? Procs? ilevels? Reives? Voidwatch? Plasmas? so many things to be unfamiliar with. It's disconcerting being a noob on a game you've played for 4 years.
The next thing to hit me was loneliness. All my friends seem to have moved on in my absence. Shouting for a linkshell in Jeuno a few times a day and receiving no responses was disheartening. Instead of giving up entirely, I checked other sources and found the reddit shell on Asura. One world-hop later and I'm on a server that's at least as busy as the one I left back in 2010 and in a shell that's so populated that half the time you can't log in because it is at capacity.
The FFXI community is still there, and still as awesome as it was before; there are offers of help, advice, practical tips etc. But the loneliness is still kind of there. Apart from a couple of worm parties where everything is silent and business-like, levelling is done solo. Quests are solo'd. Dynamis, solo. Nyzul, Salvage, all solo.
I still get pangs of nostalgia sometimes. Walking up through the tunnel at the start of Qufim and remembering the worm parties I had there. The indefinable sadness at walking through an empty Valkurm dunes or passing by an unclaimed Leaping Lizzy.
I'm sure the social aspect is still there in the more recent content, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I get there but, for a newly-returning player it's a bit like walking through empty streets you used to play in as a child; it's still there but you can't ever go back to how it was.
Thought it might be nice for other returning players to weigh in with their experiences:
Character Name: Idleness (previously Ironwolf)
Server: Asura (previously Ifrit)
When did you leave? Just after release of Abyssea
What made you decide to return? I heard FFXI was ending (slight exaggeration, but it's defnitely winding down) and thought I would return to Vana'diel while I still could.
Impressions of the game:
Upon first logging in there were pangs of nostalgia as POL boots up followed by wry annoyance as the 9 hour update starts (I have a 17 mb/s connection...wtf).
Once I logged back into Ru'Lude Gardens I spent a few minutes getting my settings right before checking my friend list. Empty. Spent a couple of days wandering around Odin, learning what's changed - cheap, convenient transport, yay!, Trusts... wow! - and then getting overwhelmed with everything I have missed out on in my 5 years' absence. Skirmish? Baylds? Walk of Echoes? Procs? ilevels? Reives? Voidwatch? Plasmas? so many things to be unfamiliar with. It's disconcerting being a noob on a game you've played for 4 years.
The next thing to hit me was loneliness. All my friends seem to have moved on in my absence. Shouting for a linkshell in Jeuno a few times a day and receiving no responses was disheartening. Instead of giving up entirely, I checked other sources and found the reddit shell on Asura. One world-hop later and I'm on a server that's at least as busy as the one I left back in 2010 and in a shell that's so populated that half the time you can't log in because it is at capacity.
The FFXI community is still there, and still as awesome as it was before; there are offers of help, advice, practical tips etc. But the loneliness is still kind of there. Apart from a couple of worm parties where everything is silent and business-like, levelling is done solo. Quests are solo'd. Dynamis, solo. Nyzul, Salvage, all solo.
I still get pangs of nostalgia sometimes. Walking up through the tunnel at the start of Qufim and remembering the worm parties I had there. The indefinable sadness at walking through an empty Valkurm dunes or passing by an unclaimed Leaping Lizzy.
I'm sure the social aspect is still there in the more recent content, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I get there but, for a newly-returning player it's a bit like walking through empty streets you used to play in as a child; it's still there but you can't ever go back to how it was.