[dev1228] Ain't no noob gonna know which of the 100 NPCs in the zone is noob helper.

[Raydeus]

Because running around an entire city talking to every NPC in case they have something new to say to you because your rep is now higher when you knew nothing about the rep system because the game never mentions it except for an oblique set of replies from the 'rep NPC' that totally make no real sense until you read about it on-line .. is a great way to play.

You found it 'fun' you claim. I suspect you did little of that and ran for the fansites like every other NA/EU player ever did.

Personally I find it fun to do to this day (I spent hours just running around and talking to Adoulin NPCs not long ago), but since I'm a quest/mission oriented gamer I never had to suffer with lack of fame so never had much use for rep checkers.

Although you are right, if you are new and only care about specific quests to advance then the fame system would be a complete wall for you. I assume it to be just poor localization, but either way Fame NPCs should be made more... famous around town. *ba dum psh*

FFXI fundamentally fails as a game since you can only really play it by reading guides, the fact SE officially published 'Brady' is testament to the fact it was largely unplayable using only in-game information. The tutorial NPCs already added to the game, the tutorial section of ROE etc. are evidence of this original failure.

There are brady guides or similar for most games though, this includes the modern hand holding games like WoW and XIV, and it has nothing to do with the game being playable or not, it's just that some people like buying guides for games.

Also, let's not forget Brady in particular has always been famous for it's extremely poor information and completely wrong directions and hints on a regular basis.

That said, I do agree that in many cases quests were too vague about the objectives you were supposed to complete, and NPC dialogue should've been revised to present the quest in a better way. BUT ! marks and handholding arrows on the map are NOT the way to do it. Just play XIV for a bit and you'll see just how much the world loses in terms of immersion when you do that.

Nearly every quest is totally devoid of any real hint of what you have to do, and many quests actually revel in their total obscurity. I defy you or anyone else to say with a straight face you managed to get very far in any of the mission chains, let alone side-quests, without running to FFXIclopedia or something similar.

I have for the most part. Yes, there are many quests that are way too vague to complete on your own, specially those that require some obscure item you really have no idea where to obtain or if it's even the right one if you obtain it because there is no log change nor any hint on the item itself.

But other than that I rarely use the wiki to "solve" quests themselves, and only use it for the aforementioned item quests or to cut search time of ???s in areas I already know. For SoA missions I usually found the places for the missions while exploring the areas, same with WotG and previous expansions before that. But I'm the kind of player that likes to explore areas so I usually know where the triggers may be once I need them.

I guess it depends on your playstyle, but at least to me the most important aspect of questing in XI is that I read every single line NPCs say, and I find it interesting. Which contrasts completely with almost all other Online games I've tried.

Take XIV for instance, I don't know what it was, but I found myself skipping 90% of NPC dialogue and just accepting quests blindly instead of actually bothering to read. Something I would never, ever have done in XI. And sure enough, the world became far less interesting as a result and I ended up not giving a flying damn about any NPC in that game. And barely remember the names of any npcs from the main story.

Whereas I remember almost all NPCs I've talked to in XI in one way or another. From the way Yoran Oran speaks to how silly the King of Fab is to how that taru girl Kipopo shred the handbag his father Hampu-Kampu had made in the war era.

And that is the definitive difference that separates XI from all the other games out there for me. Something that will be lost the moment you trivialize actually paying attention to what NPCs in the world say to you.

And really, if a player is going to skip it all they can just have ffxiclopedia open on their cellphones and be done with the quests if they really have to anyway.

No need to alter the way the game works, just need to revise and update the dialogue of the many quests that are way too vague to complete without wiki.

[Xysto]

They really need to do something with the npcs, there is so much random npcs are not labeled. i had a hard time looking for augs/key items/skirmish pop items/ delve pop item hp- byalds ect . because i'm a returning player and i really feel overwhelm

It's sad that people needs to google everything on this game to get things done.

[Pixela]

All that needs to be done is make the name of important npcs to a different color or add emotes to them, waving etc.

People who want lore can talk to them all, people that want a quest, utility or information npc can know which are which.

I've been playing FFXI for 8 years or so. I've done almost everything there is to do at endgame, leveled every job aside from the 2 new ones in that time, done all the content.

I also skip past almost all cut-scenes (not interesting missions but that's the minority), don't read most of the dialogue and only talk to npcs I need to for quests and missions. To say that people who don't talk to every npc aren't FFXI players is retarded, as retarded as saying people that don't like chocolate ice cream aren't ice cream people.

Remember FFXI is a game that needs new players more than new players need FFXI, especially now that Square has a new peacock MMO to preen.

[Lithera]

Too bad they already said they couldn't do the color scheme.