I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[AppropriateName5786]

"Role Playing Games" are a longstanding culture dating back to the late 1970s when I was a kid and I was playing a brave knight in tabletop dice-n-books D&D, and RPGs are a not a passing fad or a gimmick label to tag onto products - RPG is a lifestyle, and a deep passion for millions of veteran gamers around the globe.

You may or may not need to get out more.

FFXI is the best open-ended RPG videogame online. No challengers come anywhere near to taking the crown from FFXI.

Get a dictionary, and check the definition of "fact" and "opinion."

Or you can RPG your character as with a death-wish person, somebody brave who takes risks others are unwilling to chance, because their family was killed by orcs and now they only seek death on the battlefield in the hopes of being reunited with their family in Heaven. Or a healer who feels victorious when the party survives, and weeps when somebody falls in battle. Or a thief who only speaks occasionally and watches everyone else with hawk-like eyes and ears instead. The option to play FFXI as a pure RPG *does totally exist* and it is entirely upto the user to provide the imagination and depth of personality that goes into the character - just like dice-n-books RPGs.

I don't drink much or do hallucinogens, but I'm sure if I did I still wouldn't begin to understand this.

Or you can play FFXI as a sort of basic arcade beat-em-up too, although this is not as rewarding as playing the RPG element.

Please check the right answer: The above statement is a fact. __ The above statement is an opinion. __

Re; the long drawn-out stuff. Again - if you remove the grind, you kill the game. Keep it lengthy and keep it challenging, thats the ticket.

Trust me, they could remove every expansion, every enm/bcnm/kcnm etc, every VW path progression, and this game would still have 10 years of "grind" if you put your mind to it. If you didn't have to fight the whole path to get to Qilin, you'd still be grinding him for weeks and months if you wanted a Coruscanti. If you didn't have to unlock Dynamis, you'd still have to grind for currency to get a relic. If you didn't have to complete CoP to attain 109 AF armor, you'd still have to get the original AF, grind the sparks/bcnm for chapters, then grind 20 merits per AA fight to get enough seals. And someone who isn't already in 119 armor will not get into a difficult/very difficult AA group, and can't grind merits as efficiently, so that all adds to the grind. Or you could just start a Mythic. The grind was never the issue, it's the roadblock leading to the grind.

[bungiefanNA]

What's the quick route to the Sacrarium? Only way there is a long trudge through monsters that don't even aggro you at the area's old level cap. Boneyard Gully? Again a long yomp, again aggro-free at the old level cap.

Long walks that exist for nothing more than the sake of being long walks, and continuing to be long walks.

It's ten minutes or less from the homepoint or outpost warp, especially with the increased movement speed they added at the end of the year. That's very quick compared to what we used to have. As I said, going anywhere is generally a 5-10 minute run from a transportation landing.

[Olor]

somebody with a Doctorate such as I've got

I don't care one way or another about your little spat, but come on...

[Raydeus]

Are you saying it is a bad thing to be educated? Or that you don't see the relevance of how being educated means that a person understands basic words like "fact" and "opinion" which was the point/flame I was responding to.

He is saying that using your title like that was petty.

I mean I don't actually disagree with your post about roleplaying (I gave it a Like), but that did make you look pretty bad. <_<;

[detlef]

That guy is just a troll posting on a mule's account. Just ignore him.

[Olor]

I was actually saying I can't believe anyone with a doctorate could write such a poorly constructed sentence. In addition, doctorate should not be capitalized.

You suggesting that somebody with a Doctorate such as I've got, doesn't know basic words like 'fact' and 'opinion' is also a gross personal insult, and again has nothing to do with FFXI or the subject at hand.

How about "Given that I have a doctorate it's ridiculous to suggest that I don't know the meaning of basic words such as 'fact' and 'opinion,' and it's also a gross personal insult that has nothing to do with FFXI or the subject at hand."

Raydeus is right though, it is also petty. At the very least, however, if you're going to brag about academic credentials, please take care to do so in a way that doesn't make you look ridiculous.

I do agree, however, that the person who was attacking you was out of line. I just shudder to see sentences written in the passive, poorly.

[Raydeus]

Did you read the troll post that followed my perfectly innocent and upbeat RPG post, in which I flamed nobody and did not insult anybody about their level of intelligence?

That troll post said I should "get a dictionary and look up fact and opinion." As I am a Doctor, I do not need to get a dictionary to look up basic words like "fact" etc. Me pointing this out to the troll-post writer, was not petty, it was just me stating "fact" - which is ironic under the circumstances. If they had not insulted me with their post and told me to look up basic words, I would not need to assert the fact that I know those basic words already, and in fact I know some very long complicated words besides.

I did read it, and I can see it got to you.

Which is precisely the point of making trolling posts like that, to get to you and make you rage about it. So the moment you took offense to a post from someone on the internet that's the moment you "lost", so to speak.

[AppropriateName5786]

Actually, insulting people was the last thing I wanted to do, Stompa. I agree that my tone may not have been the friendliest, but I merely tried to emphasize how ridiculous it was for you to state your opinions about the game like they were facts, and subsequently use them as a basis for your position on the topic (i.e. RPGs are a "lifestyle" to me, and, thus, every grind, regardless of how outdated or unhealthy it is, must be kept and the OP cannot be given any leeway). Also, a person's post count should have absolutely no bearing on whether they are heard or not. Using that as a measure of a poster's experience/worth/ability shows how truly subjective one's take on this topic is, and is also the reason I chose not to link my main character on this forum. I post when I desire to, which is not very often. Furthermore, I am not here to make enemies, and we're discussing a video game after all, so let's just leave it at that.

I'm not new to FFXI, so no matter what they change with content lockouts, 95% of it most likely won't affect me. I argue for the OP and against you in this thread not because I like him and hate you, but because I look at the logic of each post and argue accordingly. The fact is the OP is a new player who represents a typically silent population of new players (no matter how small it is, it is there) and the changes he asks for are reasonable and in line with the general direction that FFXI has been heading.

[Lithera]

No it's not he just said he wants to get rid of everything trivial. What is trivial to him most likely isn't to those who oppose him. Also where do we stop at if we did take out trivial things? It is a very slippery slope to where it's like stomps said it might as well be an app that allows us to put dogs in cute costumes.

[Demonjustin]

Because there are ppl that still enjoys FFXI/MMORPG as a whole, not FFXI/MMORPG with just jobs/battle/combat.

I want to play FFXI as a whole, including the running, long CS, "long journey to the end" feel. I want to feel like living in another world.

I don't want to play a MMO which I log on, hit cap in 2 weeks, and the only purpose of playing is to hit cap so I can do the "real content". I don't want to feel like I'm playing a game to beat a boss and get achievement.

Guess what, nothing that has been suggested would prevent you from it.

After all the crazy 30 pages I'm not sure why this still goes on. There are titles that feels like living in another world, with slower pace, more walking and more running/boring quests. Because the point of this kind of game, is to live in a virtual world and keep playing the game as another life.

There are also titles that focus on endgame and difficult raiding. With epic boss and loot, and complicated combat system. Everything from lv1~cap is meaningless. FFXIV/WoW is this type of the game. The point of this type of game is instant gratification.

I'm not sure why is it so hard to understand that everyone has different taste, and why do people like Demonjustin/Crevox continue to linger in FFXI, but hating FFXI for what it is.

I'm not sure why it is so hard to understand that everyone has different taste, and why do people like Afania continue to act as though other games like FFXIV and WoW are accurate replacements for FFXI when the gameplay is entirely different, and nothing asked for changes this game's gameplay or difficulty, only mediocre boring easy crap we don't find fun or entertaining in any way and want to cut out so that players can more easily enjoy the game?

I don't like WoW and FFXIV, I quit instantly because I know it's not my cup of tea. I don't yell on their forum, asking for the game to change focus. I don't "hate" every element in games like FFXIV. I love the boss mechanics in FFXIV, it's fun, but the lack of role playing element made me quit. I don't linger in FFXIV just because I like 1 aspect and hoping every other aspect to change to fit my taste too. Being an instant gratification MMO is part of FFXIV, it's just what it is. I can't have a game with fun boss mechanics AND a virtual world. I either play FFXIV for fun boss mechanics or quit for another MMO for virtual world.

Cool, you see, this is where we differ, you liked the FFXIV battle mechanics and didn't like the RPG aspect, I don't like the battle mechanics of most MMOs, in all honesty I hate most MMOs because the gameplay is so boring to me, and I would probably hate FFXI too if I hadn't played it nearly every day for the last few years. The thing is, I can't find another game like FFXI, and even if I could, I wouldn't have the same people playing it with me, which means either I try to change this game, I leave all the people I know and this game, or I sit here and do nothing, I pick the first of the 3, it seems the best, and if things aren't changed I lost nothing in the process.

So you like FFXI job/battle system? Sure. But just face the truth, a MMORPG is more than "log on and have fun beating the boss with a cool battle system". A MMORPG, at least this game, is everything. Walking, running, watch CS, make friends so you can do content, buying stuff and selling stuff, dealing with retards, grinding RME, it's all part of the gameplay. Something someone else enjoys. Maybe someone else who haven't finish everything also enjoys it, and now you're asking SE to take it away from them too

If you don't like grinding/walking/watching CS but only like the battle system, make a decision, leave and give up on the battle system, or stay but tolerate the aspect you don't like. I don't think I've ever play a game and found myself loving every aspect of it, there are always a few aspect I don't like, so what's the big deal?

Stop asking dev to change the game into another instant gratification MMO where everyone's only purpose is to kill boss, thanks.

No, I'm not going to stop asking devs to make changes to the game that I think would make the game better, that is the entire fkin point in having forums! What in the world do you think these forums exist for if not for feedback? So we can talk to people on other servers? No, because SE knows we have multiple sites like BG and FFXIAH for that, this forum was created with the idea of feedback, and yet at the same time what we seem to have right here is a bunch of people basically saying that feedback isn't allowed unless it affects you specifically(in the case of my arguing for the sake of arguing since I completed CoP and god forbid someone want changes to help others), it changes the game to be easier(because people misunderstand what difficulty is and think that doing CoP constitutes as in any way being difficult even though it's literally killing TW and EP mobs over and over), or if it changes old requirements for content that was created years ago and anyone with eyes, hands, a brain, and a character at 99 could curb stop on any given day of the week.

So, no, I will not stop asking Devs to change the game, be it your misguided vision on what I personally ask for or if it's what I really ask for, I will ask for whatever changes I please, and you are free to misinterpret them however you wish.