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

[Argent_Wings]

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

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.

[Ralemont]

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.

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.

[Ryuko]

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.

[Malamasala]

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

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)

[Asiaine]

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).

[Grundy]

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

[charlemagne]

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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.

[roohan]

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.

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

[Andrien]

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

[Aegis]

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Anynone of you still play FFXI?

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.