to Yoshi P. (Please read)

[Zoltan]

Another thread born of FFXI nostalgia driven mumbo jumbo. You don't have to be so limited you know. You can either wait til this game goes to Pay to Play or keep playing FFXI.

I will have to say, when you're expecting this game to become your favorite MMO from a previous installment, you're never going to be happy with it. You were younger then and you had a lot more fun. This is the problem that SE is going to have for a long time. A lot of FFXI fans who had a very long and close relationship to the game who are looking to get that feeling back. It's impossible unless they directly copy the game's systems. Which is not innovative and unimpressive to me or others who don't have the same ties to FFXI as you do.

FFXIV isn't going to be as good to you as someone who isn't FFXI nostalgia driven. Tis the way it always works. Things are always better 10 years ago. It doesn't matter who you're talking to or what you're talking about. People will always latch onto what they had fun with way back when.

It's not nostalgia at all. Its a simple fact that some mechanics like looking for friends and finding a group to XP with was easier in FFXI.

It has nothing to do with storyline. It has everything to do with the fact that many things just don't work as they are now.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

It's not nostalgia at all. Its a simple fact that some mechanics like looking for friends and finding a group to XP with was easier in FFXI.

It has nothing to do with storyline. It has everything to do with the fact that many things just don't work as they are now.

This is in response to the OP. Who is absolutely driven by getting the feeling they had playing a game 10-6 years ago. Which is impossible unless you go back in time.

Basic systems such as party recruitment are of course not connected to FFXI. This is a poor point against what I'm trying to say. Actually, this is a separate thing entirely to what I'm talking about.

[Zoltan]

Ahh, you were responding to the OP. I get it.

My point is an excellent point. The fact is that many people, like yourself instantly try to pull out the FFXI vs. FFXIV card and say that its bs.

I was simply pointing out that not all comparisons are invalid when referring to basic mechanisms that worked in a previous version yet were mysteriously changed or corrupted into a non-working state.

[Madruk]

I'm not so sure I'd want to go back to the HNM days. I poopsocked in EQ1 for years as the top guild there and it quite frankly sucked for pretty much everyone else on the server as we got 95% of all raid targets. If you're at the top it's great, if you aren't it sucks ballz.

Don't get me wrong, DMZ is retarded and I hope it's just group content and not what's in store for actual raids. There are other ways to limit content so you get that feeling of accomplishment. People can throw in challenge all they want but honestly there is always a gimmick and strategy to every raid and once you have that down it's easy mode. The only way you could make it a challenge every time is to somehow randomize it, and that can bring in a whole new level of frustration for some (I wouldn't be against it but that's me).

EQ2 did something I enjoyed where you had instanced tiered raids, but also open world targets that dropped similar loot with an occasional unique drop. Those that chose to do both instance and open world competition could gear out their players that much faster. The open world targets even had hardmode versions you could spawn that dropped even better loot.

As much as I enjoyed the good old days the reality is there are too many options out there for people now to stick with one game. FFXI in its heyday had very little competition, hence why people stuck it out in the beginning even when it was so terrible. If you can't appeal to Joe Casual your game will be niche at best, and dead at worst.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Ahh, you were responding to the OP. I get it.

My point is an excellent point. The fact is that many people, like yourself instantly try to pull out the FFXI vs. FFXIV card and say that its bs.

I was simply pointing out that not all comparisons are invalid when referring to basic mechanisms that worked in a previous version yet were mysteriously changed or corrupted into a non-working state.

This has nothing to do with any of the FFXI nostalgic driven players. At all. Party recruitment, if needing to be fixed, is a separate issue.

Also, I don't know if you know this, but party recruitment works. It's just not what the community likes. In fact, when this game launched and people started PTing to 50. Everyone used the party recruitment to gain members. Everyone. It was only when Tanaka changed the SP system that people stopped using it. The game, for a while, became Doblyn Fantasy XIV and party recruitment was long forgotten.

Now, does that mean it should stay the same? Not really. It could absolutely use some improvements, but it works. No one just thinks of starting a recruitment or checking to see if any are open.

[Zoltan]

Well, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think of nostalgia as being a longing to the way things were. Like when my friends say: "aww man wasn't it great in FFXI where you could search for your friends and see where they were?"

Not all people who say that they should do things like they did in FFXI are like the OP. That's my point.

[Jynx]

I can almost guarantee that when FFXIV goes to pay to play, the only people who will be thinking that will still be the FFXI nostalgia driven players. :P

FFXIV will never be good enough til you let FFXI go. Sorry, but that's a fact.

FFXIV has a long way to go before they hit anyone with a sense of awesomeness and scale, especially when they seem concerned about destroying any sense of scale wherever they go.

I let FFXI go when Abysea came out, hell long before that. It doesn't mean I don't know what makes a good game in my eyes. Saying that people are blind because they enjoyed XI is just asanine XIV has tons of potential to be greater than XI. If your trying to argue that just because I played XI 7 years ago that it's why I think it was a great game you are wrong.

Ultima Online was my first MMO and it was terrible compared to XI, Everquest was even worse. Someone doesn't need to be blinded by nostalgia to think that XI did alot of things right.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Well, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think of nostalgia as being a longing to the way things were. Like when my friends say: "aww man wasn't it great in FFXI where you could search for your friends and see where they were?"

Not all people who say that they should do things like they did in FFXI are like the OP. That's my point.

It wouldn't make a difference. Party recruitment would need changes regardless of if FFXI existed or not.

[Jynx]

As far as the /sea ____ function goes I can't see many more ways to refine it besides allowing for more search paramaters. It was used far beyond party invites.

"I wonder how many people are camping LL today"

/sea all Gustaburg

20 people over lvl 30 eh? must mean I'm going to run into some competition today.

"Oh cool a party invite, lets see how crowded the area they want me to go is"
"I wonder where ___ is?"
"I wonder if Campaign will be busy"
"I wonder Who is camping ___"
"I wonder how many people are in ___"
"What the! Why is there a lvl 1 monk with no subjob in Khazaam!"

It really was a great system that spanned far beyond it's original use.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

FFXIV has a long way to go before they hit anyone with a sense of awesomeness and scale, especially when they seem concerned about destroying any sense of scale wherever they go.

I let FFXI go when Abysea came out, hell long before that. It doesn't mean I don't know what makes a good game in my eyes. Saying that people are blind because they enjoyed XI is just asanine XIV has tons of potential to be greater than XI. If your trying to argue that just because I played XI 7 years ago that it's why I think it was a great game you are wrong.

Ultima Online was my first MMO and it was terrible compared to XI, Everquest was even worse. Someone doesn't need to be blinded by nostalgia to think that XI did alot of things right.

But FFXI shaped what you feel is a great MMO. Without FFXI you wouldn't be so critical and make so many references to it. This is evident to the fact that you can't bring up a dislike for one of FFXIV's systems and compare it to FFXI.

In the redevelopment process it's more productive and rewarding to be forward thinking. I'm not saying that FFXIV is definitively forward thinking, but also at the same time it doesn't do anyone any good to go backwards.