Pleasantly surprised.

[Moppet]

Hey all, I'd like to voice my experience with Adoulin so far.

I'm having a really fun time with it, and there are some particular points I'm really enjoying:

- The cutscenes seem to be more lively than usual with the PC interacting more.

- The idea of the coalitions visually upgrading as they grow is really neat.

- There is an actual tutorial going through the coalitions system.

- Despite the lack of a boat or actual travel to Adoulin, I thought the introduction with the PC rocketing into the jungle like a meteor was fun. (Makes me think of the secret of mana cannon travel)

- The city is actually a lot more unique then I first thought when seeing the screenshots. At first glace I was like "Meh, looks like a bunch of reused assets." but Adoulin actually has a lot of nice locations and feels like a tropical resort town. My favorite places are the docks and the statue of the goddess.

- The coalitions missions ADD to the rewards gained from participating in Rieves, they are not the sole reward. I feel like I can just explore the hunting grounds and still be rewarded to some degree for these activities.

- The quest NPCs give -much- better hints then they have in the past to find quest items. Often pointing out a specific position or what monsters the item can be found by. For the first time in a long time of playing FFXI I felt like I could figure it out without referring to a wiki.

- The chest guessing mini-game. I actually always enjoyed this guessing game, and it's a lot of fun. (Although it could use some better prizes)

- The new mobs are very nice looking and are well animated. In particular I like the new gator beastmen and the butterfly swarm.

- The way that the jungle starts off with mobs that don't aggro, but get more aggressive and dangerous as you get deeper in really reinforces that pioneering feeling, and I think is a nice touch.

- The rent-a-room looks very nice, and I can't wait until they add Mog Gardens.

- The fact you can jump into a Rieve just by moving near one is great.

- I was worried that the waypoint system would trivialize travel, but the size of the city has been scaled up, which makes it feel convenient without devaluing the need to travel.

There do seem to be a lot of areas or features that are locked off for now (such as the mog gardens) but overall I'm really enjoying it, thanks for putting it together SE.

~Moppet

[Mifaco]

1 HOUR REVIEW

Pros
- Logo is nice to look at
- Two new jobs that may or may not be useful, we'll have to see what the next fad is after they killed off counterstance zerked MNKS
-

Cons
- Twelve new areas. CoP, AU, and WoTG all had more than that at release. I fear for the future of FFXI if that's all we get in that huge expanse of nothing on /colmap.
- Corridor Fantasy XI. All the field areas are corridors corridors corridors, no big expanses with breathtaking vistas. Thanks PS2 players!
- All those pretty mansions.... with doors you can't open
- Another entirely forgettable female lead!
- Reskinned Campaign, except this time you have to work six times as hard to get full benefits from Ionis and the mobs actively block the way!
- Why did you take away my O and X buttons in AT?
- I get the jungle is a deathtrap and we're supposed to colonize it. But did you really have to put T mobs just outside the gates?
- Reskinned Phomiuna Aqueducts, this time with doors and IT mobs!
- "Nobody knows why, but we use this completely random currency instead of gil, despite the fact the merchants still deal in gil!"

VERDICT: 3/10, but SE has my money so they don't care

[Moppet]

1 HOUR REVIEW

Pros
- Logo is nice to look at
- Two new jobs that may or may not be useful, we'll have to see what the next fad is after they killed off counterstance zerked MNKS
-

Cons
- Twelve new areas. CoP, AU, and WoTG all had more than that at release. I fear for the future of FFXI if that's all we get in that huge expanse of nothing on /colmap.
- Corridor Fantasy XI. All the field areas are corridors corridors corridors, no big expanses with breathtaking vistas. Thanks PS2 players!
- All those pretty mansions.... with doors you can't open
- Another entirely forgettable female lead!
- Reskinned Campaign, except this time you have to work six times as hard to get full benefits from Ionis and the mobs actively block the way!
- Why did you take away my O and X buttons in AT?
- I get the jungle is a deathtrap and we're supposed to colonize it. But did you really have to put T mobs just outside the gates?
- Reskinned Phomiuna Aqueducts, this time with doors and IT mobs!
- "Nobody knows why, but we use this completely random currency instead of gil, despite the fact the merchants still deal in gil!"

VERDICT: 3/10, but SE has my money so they don't care

Oh hey... A snide, completely negative reply. What a shock.

I should just learn my lesson and stay away from these forums.

[Karah]

Oh hey... A snide, completely negative reply. What a shock.

I should just learn my lesson and stay away from these forums.

It's not snide if it's true.

and being negative is just a fact of life, better man up and get used to it.

[xiozen]

It's not snide if it's true.

and being negative is just a fact of life, better man up and get used to it.

Everyone has an opinion I agree... so let me state mine:

I am, so far, very happy with the release. SE could have continued to release mini-add-ons instead of a full blown expansion with brand new areas...something we were told years ago would not happen past Wings of the Goddess.

So I for one truly feel like this breathed new life into the game and, since I've been playing from April 2009, am very much looking forward to exploring the new content.

No negative comments from me.

[Moppet]

It's not snide if it's true.

and being negative is just a fact of life, better man up and get used to it.

Nope.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/snide?s=t

Snide has nothing to do with the truth, it has to do with how you're presenting it.

There is a big different between: "The boss is late today." and "Oh, what a surprise, the boss is late again, as usual." both are true but very different.

Also... "Being negative is just a fact of life"? What does that even mean? I guess it's a fact of life for negative people that don't have anything better to do then dump their negativity over everything they see.

Anyways, my intent in this post was to state -positive- things about the expansion. Sure there are plenty of things I could nitpick about, but there is -plenty- of that to go around right now.

Thanks all for your replies, it's nice to see some other people are enjoying it too.

(BTW, I think Petrified Logs drop off some common treant mobs http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Petrified_Log ...Seems pretty rare though.)

[Yinnyth]

It's not snide if it's true.

and being negative is just a fact of life, better man up and get used to it.

Being positive is a fact of life. I hope all this positive feedback does not offend you, but if it does, be comforted in the fact that you can always man up and get used to it.

[Losie]

Oh hey... A snide, completely negative reply. What a shock.

I should just learn my lesson and stay away from these forums.

You can't find anything on forums except snarky comments and know-it-all sensationalist cries for everything being awful and everything needing changing, even though they still pay for the game. Constructive criticism and well thought-out posts with information and calmly stated opinions are few and far between - it's all just "the sky is falling" about how this or that is the worst thing ever complain complain etc. If it was -really- a 2/10 or 3/10 then those people all would have quit already, they're just complaining. This is hard, this is new, waah. It's hardly even been a week!

[Kojo]

You can't find anything on forums except snarky comments and know-it-all sensationalist cries for everything being awful and everything needing changing, even though they still pay for the game. Constructive criticism and well thought-out posts with information and calmly stated opinions are few and far between - it's all just "the sky is falling" about how this or that is the worst thing ever complain complain etc. If it was -really- a 2/10 or 3/10 then those people all would have quit already, they're just complaining. This is hard, this is new, waah. It's hardly even been a week!

Alot of things ARE still broken. So we need to complain to bring them to the Dev team's attention. But I still say ATM we're basically beta testers for SoA. It's not finished yet.

[Volkai]

Alot of things ARE still broken. So we need to complain to bring them to the Dev team's attention. But I still say ATM we're basically beta testers for SoA. It's not finished yet.

When you play an MMORPG that has not reached EOL, you are always beta testing everything: nothing is in its final version until the game reaches EOL (i.e. no further version updates or non-emergency patches) or is shut down for good.