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Originally Posted by
Arcon
I can't speak for the others, but for me it's two things. First of all, personally, I like the exclusiveness of rare items. That's also why I went out of my way to camp very rare NMs/drops, because rarity is something that excites me. I like being rewarded for dedication. It's why I wasted 80M on KB and it's also why I still camp Noble Mold. I don't think a Rain Hat will do me much good at this point, but I still wanna have it. I like possessing rare items.
I can appreciate the rare item sentiment but yet again world spawns aren't needed for this and at least to me, collecting a bunch of rare items from around the world to do battle with a badass monster that has a rare drop is in every way superior to sitting at a spot, waiting days on end for it spawn only to lose it to the guy running a bot while he's asleep.
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Secondly, I like competition. I know it sounds weird, especially because I hate it in other places (like Dynamis for example), but there is a reason behind it. I like feeling like I'm chasing something big and the feeling when I win against others is great. And I am fully aware that it doesn't have anything at all to do with skill but just luck. But that's always a factor. It's like hunting for a treasure against others, and someone just gets a lucky break and finds it first. That doesn't mean they're more skilled or anything, but that doesn't make the chase any less fun, it doesn't make the thrill go away. The feeling when you get a claim is really rewarding, even if it was just luck and nothing else. I'm sure you'd enjoy winning the lottery as well, even if you know there isn't any skill involved.
There was very little 'competition' at Kings by the time programs took over the claiming processes on most servers. Your lottery analogy works in RL because everyone has a fair (albeit microscopic) chance of winning but this was not the case with the competitive aspects of FFXI. Would people be so eager to put down money in RL if the odds were not only microscopic but it were known that certain people had higher odds through seeing some of the numbers prior to a drawing? There was very little luck here, just guys desperate enough to pay good sums for bots that gave an advantage over others and worse, SE couldn't/didn't do a thing about it.
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And I also must admit that I enjoy the occasional HNM drama, although I know that people will tear this statement apart, but whatever. I liked people raging over a flailed Fafnir, accuse others of all kinds of shit when they lost claim, or wasting everyone's Chainspell by pulling one Knight Crab out of range and holding it. In before "that says all about you as a person", like I care. It was good times and I enjoyed it.
I too enjoyed drama to some extent (nerdraging over losing Sandworm because hes a slow POS, claiming Dark Ixion and holding him on solo RNG while my guys poured into zone, enjoying the LS vitriol when someone CFH'd Aspid at 2AM standout) but at that point my enjoyment was coming at the expense of the game as a whole. The game shouldn't have been for only a handful of people and by '09 this game was in a crappy place because SE built the entire game around that core elite event that became infested with people so desperate to 'own' that the worst type of people became internet celebrities while actual players were left with three choices: