Originally Posted by
Kraggy
FFXI has been like this ever since release, inscrutable clues at best, hell you needed the cheat book even to be able to begin to progress through the starter cities due to the moronic rep-gated quests in a game where there is ZERO indication rep. EXISTS from the game itself except for the inscrutable rep. NPCs which a newbie would have no idea WTF is going in with!
The vast majority in quests in the game give no clue as to where one needs to go and often little idea of what to do .. an no, that's isn't 'exploration and discovery' that are the basis of RPGs, it's simply hugely aggravating and frustrating. FFXI IS UNPLAYABLE WITHOUT THE WIKI which is a damning indictment of the game's design IMO.
I just don't believe people who say they play it without reference to fan sites or data mining, it isn't possible!