[[ Why do we miss the old FFXI community ]] What made it special ??

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Originally Posted by Delorean

still retains a lot of the great things about oldschool MMOs that made them great

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I must confess I don't see any oldschool elements in XIV ARR (except for quest grinding which is older than mob grinding).

When I think old-school I think open world dungeons, open world grinding, roles more diverse than tank/DPS/healer (think dedicated buffer, debuffer, crowd controller, soloists), competition for resources, PK'ing, craft-led economies etc

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Originally Posted by Aegis

I must confess I don't see any oldschool elements in XIV ARR (except for quest grinding which is older than mob grinding).

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I think she means old school as in WoW. All the new school mmos are action mmos.

The only "community" from FFXI I cared about - my core LS members - are playing alongside me in FFXIV, so as far as I'm concerned the community is great.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

No, Ifrit server.

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It was not that way on Fenrir.

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That they could have been competitive and screwed each other over, but instead they worked out an equitable system between themselves so that everyone got a turn at a congested event. That's an example of an excellent, functioning community, was my point.

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Which is funny, as I was about to post, on my server time stealing happened ALL THE TIME. There was one NA LS in particular that would visit the schedule site and grief another LS that angered them in some way by camping the zone. All but 1 JP LS also completely ignored it. My favorite was when we had to stop using the bazaar method of distributing hour glasses because we had an entire run griefed. That was the best day ever.

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Well, JP/En only or whatever exists even more in this game. Not even did they split up the servers, they also gave people the option to choose never to play with JP/EN/DE/FR through the Duty Finder options. As far as camp compeition went; it was very heavily frowned on to camp over other parties so people found alternate camps. Remember sending people to scout Bhaflau (or was it Wajaom?) to see if any of the Colibri parties were clear? Or the Puk/Mam/Dragon camp? If they weren't clear, people didn't go.

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You were too late then to watch someone take your KRT bones party, or massive MPK trains if you were in "someones spot" in Garliage's basement. Or even just random Grief trains in Crawlers' Nest. I remember going down there on my DRG to clean out a train and getting angry tells from the BST that was doing it. He was planning to shut the zone down the whole night.

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Party composition favouritism is an area I kind of agree with you on, having said that, my first job was DRK, followed by THF and BLU none of which were FOTM in the entire time I was playing and I kept up with my friends just fine. Probably because (perhaps I flatter myself here) I built up a reputation as a solid party member, always using food, keeping gear up to date etc. Being able to build up a reputation as competent was one of the benefits of having a functioning community.

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One of the few things you've said where I've had similar experience.

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I certainly never saw it in 4 years of endgame in Sky/Sea/Ein/Nyzul/Dyna/Salvage. In fact, the memory that stays with me the most strongly were times when players who willingly gave up lots on gear they needed to help gear the less well-geared members out in dynamis. And a THF not lotting on Homam pants because they were more useful to the PLD even though the Thief had lotting priority. Even in Sky there was a spirit of friendly competition, /cheering on other linkshells when they got claim before you (while preparing to take claim if they wiped).

I remember when camping Charybdis (after getting ToD from a competitor), losing claim to a NIN+BRD duo, /cheering them as they fought, taking claim when they wiped after only knocking Charby down to 85%. Did they rez, come back and cuss me out as I killed Charby? No they /cheered as I fought too.

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My LS had times like this too, but that was only in our insular group. It was ALWAYS need before greed, and we always passed things to people that would use it the most. The problem was never with ourselves. When that LS dissolved (Mostly because we could not stay competitive enough to maintain an endgame presence, and we kept losing members) was when I found the majority of endgame linkshells were not anywhere near as co-operative.

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I remember the JP player who switched to 75 WHM after dunes exp party and got all of us our magicked skulls.

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I always did things like this myself. If I had a dunes party dissolving and there were members that needed SJ items I'd switch over to DRG or PLD and Farm them up for them.

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I remember the NA player who lent me a Bronze Bed to start the mog-house quests and taught me about the secret exit quests.

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I did this until one newbie I knew walked off with my Bed.

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I remember the NA players who would donate hours of their time to help complete strangers through Prommies just to help them get tavnazia access.

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My LS had weekly Promy runs to help people get caught up. I was always a staple as I had leveled SMN just for doing them.

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I remember my linkshell helping me through Genkais, AF fights, attestation farming etc and me paying it forward to newer members of the shell.

Now I'm not saying my experience is any more or less typical than yours, but when someone tells me XI had a toxic community it absolutely jars with what I've seen. When someone tells me XI's community was the best they have ever experienced they almost always have stories similar to mine.

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Everything you've experienced when it comes to low level play, Helping others with missions or quests or items, was pretty common. I don't know how many times I helped people with advanced job quests, and I know most people have done similar. But that content isn't competitive. If you were in a high traffic leveling spot, doing anything HNM or endgame, It was like a bunch of jackals. the harder core the content, the nastier things got. Perhaps I landed on a bad server, but I KNOW what happened on mine was not unique. When I changed servers to play with other friends, they had the same stories.

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Late Edit: I just remembered another good community thing from XI which I know existed across servers: The BST code.

BST used to share a lot of camp sites near where parties used to exp (sometimes the same site even). The code was simply that you would put where you were and what you were fighting in your /seacom and whether you were amenable to grouping up. That way, when parties or other BSTs /sea the area (remember doing that so you didn't overcamp people? Good times) they knew whether or not the camp would be free and if they could party up with the BST if they were free. Overcamping was strictly verboten.

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If there was a lone BST in a camping spot "for parties" 9 times out of 10, the got steamrolled out. on my server there was a BST linkshell that basically worked like the mafia. if you were a BST you would join and they would "help" you in situations like that. Usually by showing up in force to move the party. There was a "gentlemans agreement" between the server and the BST LS. We didn't bother them, and they didn't take prime party spots.

Overcamping, however, was a source of CONSTANT drama on my server when it came to lolibri camps. I had a lot of playtime as I was in college at the time so usually I would be in one of the first groups to arrive. by the time primetime rolled along there would be 4 or 5 groups camping in each spot, and verbal fights broke out ALL THE TIME. Not a lot of MPKing as this was well after they fixed that. it was ugly, and I was very glad I could do it earlier because after about 9pm it just wasn't worth it anymore and I'd go do LS things.

I enjoyed my time in FFXI, until my good endgame LS dissolved. but I encountered, over and over, the worst the game had to offer. It was extremely toxic. I have never encountered worse, and certainly have not in XIV.

I miss the Pre-abyssea FF11, when the game was still balanced and fun. Honestly, mmorpgs are finished.

I feel like they are only gonna keep getting more like WoW each time another one releases... im honestly supprised they didn't just name this one

"Final of Fantasycraft"

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Originally Posted by DwightParkman

I miss the Pre-abyssea FF11, when the game was still balanced and fun. Honestly, mmorpgs are finished [for me].

I feel like they are only gonna keep getting more like WoW each time another one releases... im honestly supprised they didn't just name this one

"Final of Fantasycraft"

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Fixed that for you.

Honestly, DP, why are you even still here with as much hate and vitriol you have for what the Genre is currently?

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I miss the Pre-abyssea FF11, when the game was still balanced and fun.

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Balanced? Do tell.

In any case, no thanks. Abyssea was the pinnacle of Final Fantasy XI, where groups both big and small could accomplish quite a bit on their own time, where jobs could exp without discrimination and black mages once more partied with physical DD jobs, where multiple NMs dropped the same seals - thereby alleviating clustered pops...you get the picture. HNMs are gone, and good riddance.

Yea, Abyssea was clearly the best part of FFXI. Before it I had 1 alliance exp party in the jungle that quit after it was bad exp, and never again did I have a fun alliance exp group until Abyssea.

I like MMOs, which means playing with others, and it sucked the entire design of FFXI was "the more you are, the less exp you get". This is why Fate grinding is so awesome because it is fast to join, always a big group.

I still remember having to skip doing Assault, because the groups where "full" at 3/6 because 4/6 would not give enough points for salvage entry permits. Great design to prevent people from playing with their friends. (Unless you are in that clique of 3 people)

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Originally Posted by Machazareel

Word. I gave up a Ridill. A fucking Ridill, to a WAR who was in my linkshell. In hindsight it was a bad move, though, because he quit the game a month later, haha.

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I never gave up anything ever if it was my turn to lot on the gear, screw that.

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Originally Posted by SynMaris

I never gave up anything ever if it was my turn to lot on the gear, screw that.

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Iv given up loot to someone who is less fortunate than me BUT a Ridill? Thats cray cray

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Originally Posted by SynMaris

I never gave up anything ever if it was my turn to lot on the gear, screw that.

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Same. I've lost Byakko pants to more WARs, NINs and SAMs than I can count. Some people leveled those characters JUST to get pushed to the front of the line and never used them for raiding. The "multiple jobs on one character" model left a bad taste in my mouth after that.

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Originally Posted by Argent_Wings

Same. I've lost Byakko pants to more WARs, NINs and SAMs than I can count. Some people leveled those characters JUST to get pushed to the front of the line and never used them for raiding. The "multiple jobs on one character" model left a bad taste in my mouth after that.

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If I came to every event, on time, and was always on target there was NO WAY I was passing gear to someone "Less Fortunate" they have to earn their keep just like I did.

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Originally Posted by Argent_Wings

Same. I've lost Byakko pants to more WARs, NINs and SAMs than I can count. Some people leveled those characters JUST to get pushed to the front of the line and never used them for raiding. The "multiple jobs on one character" model left a bad taste in my mouth after that.

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What job were you on where you wanted to roll on that over those jobs?

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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Originally Posted by realmreborn

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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Stopped playing in 2009.

I also stopped playing around 2009-2010. ToAU was the beginning of the end of that game for me.

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Originally Posted by realmreborn

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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I quit shortly after the most recent expansion. I had quit once before, in the middle of ToAU, but came back on a brand new character during abyssea. Aby was fun, I liked being able to lowman everything with my closest XI friends. Adoulin took that away :(

On the topic of the Ridill again. The dude was a WAR main, my WAR was just for xp, he showed up for stuff all the time, and he was a pretty nice dude. Still, if I had known he'd end up quitting so soon, I would never have given it up. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.

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Originally Posted by busta

I also stopped playing around 2009-2010. Abyssea was the beginning of the end of that game for me.

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Fixed for me

There now monstrosity ppl say it's fun

I stopped playing FFXI due to my job and not having alot of time to play. Somehow the game didn't feel good anymore with just a few hours a week. That's why I like 14 now. I can accomplish something everytime I log into the game. Abyssea was a disappointment for me. I loved the story in FFXI but SE started to release lots of mini expansions with no real story and missions. Abyssea was the worst. Same areas as before with red light atmosphere.

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Originally Posted by Tazo

What job were you on where you wanted to roll on that over those jobs?

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MNK. It was a main and outside a few god drops, I was 100% geared to handle any content on it at the time(Sky, Dynamis, etc). I don't like "alt rolls" which is essentially the same thing when people grab for gear just because they have a WAR, NIN, SAM on the way to 75. If you aren't already bringing it to end game, I don't think you should be able to gear it ahead of others who can use it immediately.

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Originally Posted by roohan

Abyssea was a disappointment for me. I loved the story in FFXI but SE started to release lots of mini expansions with no real story and missions. Abyssea was the worst. Same areas as before with red light atmosphere.

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The end of the Abyssea storyline is the moment that sticks out the most to me when remembering FFXI's story.

But besides that, Abyssea was not billed for its story; that was WotG, which finished about the same time Abyssea's third expansion hit. I finished WoTG at the same time I blue'd all my jobs, and it was as close a feeling to completeness that I've had in an MMO. I took a break, read about the godawful-sounding upcoming VNMs, and quit permanently.

Abyssea is the endgame progression that FFXI always should have been.

People are influenced by the system them are put within. FFXI had a system that sort of 'forced' people to play nice.

1) Almost everything required a group. If something didn't require a group, it was made a LOT easier by getting a group. Level cap unlocks, Storyline dungeons, experience parties... all required people.
2) The server population was a lot smaller. You had a reputation. People knew who you are. If you did something nice, people remembered you as a nice person. To this day, I still get random messages from people I apparently helped get Fenrir (as a SMN I would get bored and build Fenrir parties for low level people... it made their night). If you were a jerk, it spread like wildfire. I remember the name of every single person I ever witnessed ninja an item in FFXI -- even if it didn't happen directly to me.
3) Even selfish people realized the benefit of 'working together'. You were expected to pass if something was not yours -- and MOST people did. Ninjaing an item usually meant that you would never have an endgame LS ever again. Many endgame linkshells didn't get along, but if it was public knowledge that a person was a ninja, that person likely wouldn't get invited to any of them. So, even if you WERE the type of jerk that would want to ninja an item... you knew better.

Don't get me wrong. There were exceptionally nice people in FFXI... but the system put in place by FFXI forced you to work together by necessity. It deterred jerks from being jerks because no one wanted to play with you if you were a jerk... and THEN you couldn't get anything done in the game.

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Originally Posted by Ralemont

I took a break, read about the godawful-sounding upcoming VNMs, and quit permanently.

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Yes the VNMs where such a step backwards to the old boring game that it is probably the reason I stopped caring as well. (Though more accurately it is because SE kept saying "We are working on new summons, then it takes 3 years to make the abilities and add it because PLD, WAR, BLM etc updates had higher priority. Always fun playing the bad job that not even SE prioritize)

It's not nostalgia.. forget every game aspect, and I remember this:

I met only a few mean or rude people.
The vast majority of people I met were polite or helpful.
I do not remember a single incident of 'rage quitting' (I did not know what this was until I came to ARR, did not even see it in 1.0).

Back then: 99% of conversations with random people in parties was positive and enjoyable.
Today: 1% of conversations with random people in parties is positive and enjoyable. (And sadly, those nice people I meet are from different servers, so can not even keep in touch with them!)
(side note: Even in 1.0 the conversations with random people were more enjoyable and positive than they are today).

Reading my old sky linkshell forums some people have now quit with the new update, apparently the criteria to get the new weapons is tougher than the plate stage for Emp Weapons, and they are pretty disappointed with the content in general.

Having not played the game for a few years I have no idea what that means. :s

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Originally Posted by realmreborn

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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I quit when 1.0 came out but rerolled for a while between 1.0 and 2.0. Anyone who still has love for xi, even if it is just nostalgia, shouldn't go back. The negative aspects of the xi community have got worse and the great aspects have diminished.

Was the xi community was better than the ARR community? I think even the 1.0 community was better than the ARR community. The game design isn't as sociable as either xi or 1.0. I think the df means we gives people more license to be horrid and that their attitude has rubbed off on some players who otherwise would have been fine.
I think the ARR community needs something that encourages some of the socialisation that we remember from xi, maybe one piece of content that is slower paced somehow with more time to chat between button mashing. The ARR community is just as nice as the xi community ever was, they just need the same opportunity to interact sociably.

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Originally Posted by Ralemont

The end of the Abyssea storyline is the moment that sticks out the most to me when remembering FFXI's story.
But besides that, Abyssea was not billed for its story; that was WotG, which finished about the same time Abyssea's third expansion hit. I finished WoTG at the same time I blue'd all my jobs, and it was as close a feeling to completeness that I've had in an MMO. I took a break, read about the godawful-sounding upcoming VNMs, and quit permanently.
Abyssea is the endgame progression that FFXI always should have been.

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For me it's chains of promethia BEFORE they made it easy mode.

i miss all the copy/paste zones in wotg and abyssea, and the reused skins for weapons and armor. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Cailae

You were too late then to watch someone take your KRT bones party, or massive MPK trains if you were in "someones spot" in Garliage's basement. Or even just random Grief trains in Crawlers' Nest. I remember going down there on my DRG to clean out a train and getting angry tells from the BST that was doing it. He was planning to shut the zone down the whole night.

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Yes, I joined at 360 launch. MPK trains had been removed (you could still MPK but you had to be damn creative about it). So I never experienced this directly. A lot of LS mates told me about legendary mob trains though from people fleeing a wipe that helpful 75s came in to clear.

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Originally Posted by Cailae

Everything you've experienced when it comes to low level play, Helping others with missions or quests or items, was pretty common. I don't know how many times I helped people with advanced job quests, and I know most people have done similar. But that content isn't competitive. If you were in a high traffic leveling spot, doing anything HNM or endgame, It was like a bunch of jackals. the harder core the content, the nastier things got. Perhaps I landed on a bad server, but I KNOW what happened on mine was not unique. When I changed servers to play with other friends, they had the same stories.

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Originally Posted by Cailae

I enjoyed my time in FFXI, until my good endgame LS dissolved. but I encountered, over and over, the worst the game had to offer. It was extremely toxic. I have never encountered worse, and certainly have not in XIV.

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I think this is the crux of it. We both had great experiences of non-endgame content. And for many people non-endgame content was the vast majority of what they did because levelling took so much longer than it did now and people levelled second, third, fourth jobs etc. (I had 8 capped jobs when I quit).

However, when we got to Endgame is where I think we differ. I did Sky with an EST/EU shell, Dynamis/Sea with a primarily JP shell, Nyzul/Salvage with a static of NA/EU and Limbus with an NA shell. I had no bad experiences with any of these (the JP shell was moderately corrupt, but they got stuff done. I could put up with us not getting the correct amount of gil from the run in return for getting my D-Ring).

The worst I saw personally in XI was when parties would not scout levelling camps first and then overcamp the people there. As soon as it became clear the leader would not change camp, I (and others in the party) would leave, because that was rude. People didn't do that. There was some tension at camps that could sorta support two non-optimal parties when people would be rushing to claim mobs, but even that never lead to the kind of insults that are commonplace now.

I am curious, though: I've been in parties in levelling dungeons (Halatali, Brayflox) where people are ranting at each other, swearing blind, issuing death threats and MPK'ing each other. I've seen people drop DF WP/AK runs because others aren't relic/full DL so they won't get a speed run. I've seen people that needed win get booted from Titan parties just because the leader's ls mate can come and help and he has relic +1 dontcha know?

Competitive, bitchy endgame is one thing. Vile, hostile people in levelling content and gearing content? I'd take XI's community in a heartbeat.

In fact, you don't even need to go so far back as XI. XIV version 1 had a much better community, it wasn't particularly great, but it wasn't actively bad like this.

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Originally Posted by realmreborn

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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I played XIV/XI concurrently for a while, but my wife's 360 broke and when I replaced it, I couldn't find another copy of the WoTG expansion for 360. Without that, my wife couldn't play the content anymore so she moved over to XIV with me. I'll be honest, Abyssea was killing it for me anyway. Ding 30, go to Abyssea, collect keys (i think, my memory is hazy) for 8 hours then walk out at cap.

Mob trains in Garlaige Citadel was the best. I remember seeing Serket at the entrance a few times. Training Tonberries to Kazham was fun too. My apologies to all exp parties that wiped.

It's not that people was special back in FFXI, it's more because you needed others peoples for almost everything you wanted to do.

You want to XP, do quest, endgame content, CoP, Zilart, WSNM etc..? You need other people (from your server, so you'll likely see those peoples again).

This is something that we can call natural selection.

There was trash talking, ninja looting, jerk, bad players etc... But once you encounter this kind of player once, you know you won't invite him again. And you're likely to spread the word to your friends/LS.
Or the other hand, if you play with a really nice player, you're likely to befriend him/her and try to play with him again.

If you don't need other players for content, there is no community, so nothing special to remind. (a lot of MMO lately)
If you need other players, but it's randomized with other servers, you're less likely to talk/create bond with those player. Because even so you do that, you cannot befriend them, you cannot /tell them, and you cannot ask them to join your party for something else. (Duty Finder)

That said, I think the community of FFXIV isn't that bad. I've had some nice party, even with DF, and meet some nice people from my server.


ps: Pardon my english, not my native language.

Honestly... Think about it.

If FFXIV was a single player game, and the only online parts were the DF fights(add in hydra, chimera, and BC obviously) and the market.

How would the game change?

If every player had their own private server, except for the dungeons. What would you really be missing?

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Originally Posted by Kazamoto

Honestly... Think about it.

If FFXIV was a single player game, and the only online parts were the DF fights(add in hydra, chimera, and BC obviously) and the market.

How would the game change?

If every player had their own private server, except for the dungeons. What would you really be missing?

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White Knight Chronicles was like that. Awesome game.

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Originally Posted by Kazamoto

Honestly... Think about it.

If FFXIV was a single player game, and the only online parts were the DF fights(add in hydra, chimera, and BC obviously) and the market.

How would the game change?

If every player had their own private server, except for the dungeons. What would you really be missing?

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With DF as it is, and often times no talking at all, it feels as if it's Single Player with NPC/AIs.

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Originally Posted by roohan

For me it's chains of promethia BEFORE they made it easy mode.

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You mean the difficulty it always should have been? Sure. Anyone who calls it "easy mode" has sour grapes that they completed it while it still had inane preparatory conditions. There are only one or two fights themselves that were actually changed at all, and other fights were buffed. The main change was how you acquired key items/fight items/pop items.

It was true before the CoP changes and it was true after, since this fight wasn't nerfed at all: If you beat Airship you deserved Sea.

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Originally Posted by Orsnoire

Fixed that for you.

Honestly, DP, why are you even still here with as much hate and vitriol you have for what the Genre is currently?

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lol no, mmorpgs arent just ruined for me, they are ruinned for everyone. so your telling me people only want to play world of warcraft a million more times with different skins slapped on?

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Originally Posted by Ralemont

You mean the difficulty it always should have been? Sure. Anyone who calls it "easy mode" has sour grapes that they completed it while it still had inane preparatory conditions. There are only one or two fights themselves that were actually changed at all, and other fights were buffed. The main change was how you acquired key items/fight items/pop items.

It was true before the CoP changes and it was true after, since this fight wasn't nerfed at all: If you beat Airship you deserved Sea.

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No... easy as in they removed the level caps for these zones.

The level caps in CoP were stupid anyway when we didn't have level sync at the time and the closest we got to that was a stupid ring with a limited number of charges on it. Having to carry around low level gear and then the pain of having to rebuy it to help someone later after you thought you were done with that nonsense made CoP a terrible expansion compared to Zilart and ToAU, imo.

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Originally Posted by Argent_Wings

The level caps in CoP were stupid anyway when we didn't have level sync at the time and the closest we got to that was a stupid ring with a limited number of charges on it. Having to carry around low level gear and then the pain of having to rebuy it to help someone later after you thought you were done with that nonsense made CoP a terrible expansion compared to Zilart and ToAU, imo.

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Content for level 30 players capped at lv30.... the horror.

You're one of those 'must have relic+full DL to be in my Sastasha party' people aren't you?

I demand to to Halitali as it is now with a group of lv50s. Nevermind its designed and balanced for a group at lv20.