Fun Factor

k, so, what do u define as the fun factor

ive been playing for a long time, pre-wings/treasures(forget the year when i started)

im prolly biased so feel free to flame me, or berrate me, idc, this is what i find fun and entertaining about FFXI
and dont get mad at me if my (writing) makes ur eyes bleed, ima truck driver not a typist lol

i watched a friend play this game for a while, as well as UO and EQ. never had any desire to play WoW, looked neat. but the appeal wasnt there. ive played and beaten FF1 and FF8, played and never beat(close tho) FF7, couldnt afford 9, didnt wanna play 10, was doin other things in RL.
so the day came when i decided to play FFXI, i bought the ps2 +HDD installed and did the long update, then entered the world. now after years of playing, xpin, questing, i quit. the RMT situation was real bad, and i couldnt stand the fact that i had to farm/craft of weeks/months to get 1 weapon that was considered at the time "one of the best". the other reason i quit was because the job i did limited the amount of time i could play, which took all my ability to commit to the schedule of an endgame LS. and it litteraly felt like having a second job, having to work days on end for what i considered to be a small gain in progress.
a few months ago, i decided to come back due to reading about the changes. mainly the lvl cap rise and the ability for me to solo ALOT more things then previously.

so on to the point.
the main appeal i have with FFXI, as opposed to WoW, or some of the other MMO's is the ability to have all the jobs on one character. WoW and the amount of alts, um...no thx. the other is the lvl of customization of the job/sub combo gear/wep + situation, love that.
the following is my take on whats fun - TO ME, dont care whats the best or whats better, and of course this is all situational, if im main/off tank, pure DD or solo
I am 90WAR/90THF/60PLD/57DRK/50BST, but main will always remain a Warrior!
WAR/SAM- prolly the best way i can do alot of dmg fast, hasso, med, sekk for warfragmaatbash, base stats, etc
WAR/DRK- yea mp sponge, but the sole ability to raise natural attack, coupled with last resort and souleater, neat
WAR/DNC-mp sponge meet healer, i can solo EM YAY!!! also to mention with some very nice def gear, i wonder if it's possible to blood tank effectivly on certain things, gonna test it, and prolly die alot lol
WAR/NIN-k, so, i never liked this, except back in the day for dual-wield. War's have the EVA of a concrete pole, even with ALOT of EVA+ gear, i still find that the shadows drop far too fast to be effective, although, per situation, stopping that fireV from hittin u in the face is nice, hehe.

im also having fun playing rdm, its mid 40's now, and im subbin drk for the attack and later for stun lol
can change sub later for /pld, flash, shield bash!
mnk/drk, mnk/sam for dmg, anything /dnc for soloing
pld/war is obviously for main tanking for major hate spike of provoke and the added def boost of defender, but why not /rdm? stoneskin, en-spells, refresh(now), maybe blu for some added buffs and w/e

so whatever job/sub u choose, obviously some combos are better than others, some require support, others dont. but i find it ALOT of fun to go to places like top floor castle O and wipe everything, or roam through a high agro area and kill anything that attempts to stop me.

the question has been asked, "When uve done everything, missions/quests, acheieved all the best gear, maxed merits/lvls, what will you do? will you quit?"
my answer is NO!!!
ima switch around job/sub and go play, have fun dwindling the populations of the beastmen hoardes with extreme prejudice, do some bastion battles, wipe entire zones, get a bunch of friends together and just smash.

thats what i find fun, exploring the world, adventuring. as well as the climb to top lvl, and capping skills, getting gear, etc.

so what do you define as fun and entertaining?

The small defining moments made the game fun for me.

- I found that beating things up with a lance and proving that I wasn't a lolDRG pretty fun and entertaining. I had to really grind that weapon into the disbelievers' head to get them to admit it though.

- I was doing a CoP mission in Pso'Xia, and our party caught a link. I kept hate on the original monster, moved into Cover Position, and took the damage of both enemies. We lived, and the THF that got aggroed called me a hero.

- I solo'd all the lv20 avatar fights and was making new time records. That made me feel good inside, even if I was probably the only SMN doing it that week.

- I helped my linkshell friends get to Floor 100 Nyzul and Captain Rank. Because of that, my bond with those people has grown into calling them family.

- I love games that revolve around a good story, and FFXI has multiple great stories.

heres another reason i play, cuz ppl make this
so good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd1Ej...eature=related

the rich story lines too, forgot about that one

I generally play FFXI Mainly because of the Community (not so much these days) but back when i first started playing people around you shaped you and molded you into the roll you needed to play and if you didnt have something you were gimp, People would level their jobs to 75 and shout in Lower J 75 w00t or you would see 1000 shouts a day saying Maat dead!. I'd like to think the Community surrounding FFXI is so much more mature and contained more so then say WoW where your 1 Character on here whatever u do directly effects you whereas on WoW you can Make another Character straight away give it a month and be back to where u were.

i find that going out and fighting new things with friends is far more fun then the same repetetiveness of dynamis and limbus and such. i'd rather go out and get our asses handed to us on a NM we never tried then go dick around in dynamis for 3 hours and watching gear noone needs anymore hit the floor. Sad when Duelist hat goes free lot.