As the first on this thread, a serious question...

[ShadowHeart]

even with the influx of new players i ran a naked mule from 1-10 in 47 minutes no ring naked with a sword only no pl or books. simple you say? lol so out of giggles before the level increase i ran a mule from 1-90 no sub job with capped h2h in under 2 weeks even has hand ful of atma and zone boss wins and af3 in that time.... what used to take us years to accomplish can be achieved in a few weeks . i have been playing since '05 and if i sat down grinded i could probably accomplish an identical char minus some of the gear in a few months with everyjob at 90 :s is it a farewell to ffxi ? is it a wow retake? some of us old timers get upset at watching noobs with equivalent jobs we worked years to get but others embrace the change as its a game and just fun to play but it all comes down to whther the game is still right for you or not i still enjoy helping new people and remember the day it used to be me . But the times coming where i dont have much left to do anymore because everything is being handed to us on a silver platter i have almost all 20 jobs at 90 now and almost every job has full set of af3+1 and working on +2 on some but where to next? even that is all low manable now

[Revalus]

even with the influx of new players i ran a naked mule from 1-10 in 47 minutes no ring naked with a sword only no pl or books. simple you say? lol so out of giggles before the level increase i ran a mule from 1-90 no sub job with capped h2h in under 2 weeks even has hand ful of atma and zone boss wins and af3 in that time.... what used to take us years to accomplish can be achieved in a few weeks . i have been playing since '05 and if i sat down grinded i could probably accomplish an identical char minus some of the gear in a few months with everyjob at 90 :s is it a farewell to ffxi ? is it a wow retake? some of us old timers get upset at watching noobs with equivalent jobs we worked years to get but others embrace the change as its a game and just fun to play but it all comes down to whther the game is still right for you or not i still enjoy helping new people and remember the day it used to be me . But the times coming where i dont have much left to do anymore because everything is being handed to us on a silver platter i have almost all 20 jobs at 90 now and almost every job has full set of af3+1 and working on +2 on some but where to next? even that is all low manable now

I think part of the issue is that people get so up-in-arms over it not taking as much time to "catch up," but many of them are not as willing as you to help new players. It took you a short period of time to run a mule to 10 not just because of the experience overhaul, but because you knew exactly what you were doing; you've done it at least 20 times. FFXI is a rather obtuse game when most of the new players are coming from the one-job-per-character-hotbar-hand-holding-quest-driven MMOs. That doesn't make it bad, but it is often perceived that way.

I returned a few months ago, and I'd love to find new players. (I'm on Sylph and share a name with my forum name.) About three of my friends have joined in the past two months, and it's been a lot of fun getting them through rank missions, doing sub job items, and the like. We've been doing roaming parties (as opposed to camping parties), and getting more EXP than our IT++ camping parties once did, and it's been a blast. Frankly, with the EXP update, we've found that our weird (and incredibly more entertaining) style of play has even become quite profitable. Here's to hoping you find similarly revitalizing methods of enjoying the game. (Also, congratulations on the utterly masochistic task of doing a subjobless run! I knew there had to be somebody that would try it.)