I might get hate or banned but hey w/e

[Charlayy]

Nothing like seeing a group of voke bots camping NM"s. You were not safe in areas of that game which kinda made it thrilling. Going into places like eldimie necropolis for your coffee key nothing but undead enemies in there. Best part was if your group is fighting mobs and you're in yellow hp any close undead will sense your weakness and chase you. And the elementals in that game were no joke like xiv.. Aground to magic and casting very hurtful aoes.

[Evangela]

what killed XI was Abysea, its fine if you never experienced how great it was to begin with but don't hate it due to your lack of knowledge and there of the game and its community.

Making a thread like this is how you make people hate on FFXI.

Have you ever seen someone goes on FFXI forum and make a thread about how XIV is better than XI? If someone does that, they'll be called a troll, or a rude person.

[Khalithar]

It was a good article and I really enjoyed reading it since FFXI was the very first MMO that I ever played. I have a lot of fond memories of XI and the victories I worked towards with my various linkshells and friends such as beating the various Dynamis, adventuring with Prishe and defeating Promathia, cruising through Aht Urgan, just sitting in the forests of Ronfaurre enjoying the scenery, and reaching max rank in my home nation and reaching the end of that storyline. Those are all precious memories and I will never stop treasuring them for how much hard work and effort it took to accomplish defeating that content (which I did at 75 before the level cap went up and before the nerfs).

However I also have a ton of bad memories of constantly waiting for a party, never being able to accomplish anything on my own, getting hated on because of my favorite job (Drk), and never being able to get any end game gear because of rampant cheaters and botting. Knowing that I needed hours if I wanted to accomplish anything, having to lose exp when you die and having to run all the way back, giving up because you stayed dead if you were defeated in an instance and had to respawn, and all the little nitpicks about the game from how difficult making money was, the inconvenience of travel around the world, the entire HNM system, and the extremely unbalanced classes.

FFXI was also the game that pigeonholed me in to the tanking role, I got tired of hours of waiting for a party invite or hours trying to make a party with no success so I finally decided to level a tank and I was constantly getting invites whenever I put my flag up. Not to mention, there were so many bad tanks that I realized I could do it better myself and once I rolled a tank I forced myself to get really good at it. After that, I always tanked in every MMO I played simply because I always got invited and people always wanted me in their groups. In games like WoW and FFXIV that have the whole group finder system, I never have to wait for queues as they're instant 99% of the time. In retrospect, I'm glad I made that choice, had I never picked up FFXI, I do believe I would have gotten in to MMO's eventually, but I probably would have never picked the tank role.

[Rufalus]

Nice article, I didn't know Kotaku still had good writers. I think XI - XIV comparisons miss the point a little. XIV is certainly more solo-friendly than the early days of XI, but it's a different kind of game and some people prefer not being so dependant on other players to do anything.

I think there's still a niche for early XI and XIV v1 type gameplay which could be fun. Just give us one large open-world field zone which is very difficult and dangerous to traverse no matter how high your average item level becomes, with hotspots worth seeking out far away from any aetheryte and no way to fly there.

[Warlyx]

FFXI nowadays is a shadow of its former self , i know i played last weekend (free log in campaing) ,i leveled some jobs with my trusts , soloed adoulin (last expansion ) content , and even did Ambuscade (think bcnm) with my trusts.........AS SAMURAI , not even bst/rdm/blu/pup/dnc , best solo jobs , trust make melee dps good solo , u dont need a pet if u have a trust tank , its true that they can agro in AOE (provoke is single and hast cd) , but healers IA is good , they "esuna" everything in 0.3s top , they keep buffs up (haste ) , melees trust will skill chain with u (randomly but usally go for light or dak ) and support jobs will buff u with +acc + haste if mobs are high lvl or attack haste if mobs are even or lower.

The AI is good enough that hell , they can create FFXI OFFLINE already.

and if finally lights turn OFF ,i hope SE will let players play a offline version of it , with trusts u can really solo tons of content

Reisenjima is awesome btw :3

flying PIGS!!! LOL



and yeah we are warrior of the crystal in FFXI too!



soloing T6

[Blackcanary]

This was my FFXI experience.

I started as a WHM, because I wanted to heal. I played, for what felt like a long time, and finally got to 20. My friend, who was the reason I picked up the game, helped me do the quest you needed to pick a second job. Then he tells me that I need to pick BLM (I think that's what he said) so I changed, and started leveling that, and made it about 2 levels before I went "Wait.... so... basically I am expected to always keep this sub-job leveled up as I level up my 'main' job... so I am FORCED into leveling 2 at the same time, because being a lvl 40 mage without a subjob at 20 would make me a slacker." and I logged out and never logged back in.

It wasn't so much that I disliked the idea of subjobs and how that whole thing worked, it's just that you couldn't be a "real" WHM without also spending an assload of time leveling up a subjob that, frankly, I didn't give a crap about at the time. It felt like a really artificial way to keep me playing.

What made me stick it out with the sub jobs was the fact that you could use the ability's of that sub job and that the stats of that sub job contributed to ur main job. I think that's what XIV was trying to do with Classes minus stats of that class effecting the main job in anyway. All we got was the ability to use actions that are available when using cross class system.

[Blackcanary]

The day FFXI gets shutdown I'll have a small party with some wine and snacks. If it's that great, people should go play it.

Unfortunately a lot of the main reason why people no longer play FFXI is because of the ABYSEA expack. When that ex pack out in my honest opinion it killed the game big time and a lot of people that I spoke to agree with me. My level 70 WHM and Level 60 SMN is still on my account. But because of that exp pack i will never go back to that game. Also since i don't think my iMac is up to pear with what you need to run. I play FFXIV on my PS4.

I think if SE did a reboot of FFXI keeping the main core of the game that made it so popular and also what made it win so many awards. Add a graphic upgrade and make it so everyone can teleport to the crystals. So also change how often the airships and boats would arrive so they are more recent and less like real life. I do believe that all the old XI player base would go back to that game.

Also Abysea would need ether a complete remake or just be deleted in my mind. And the game would have to come out on the PS4.

[Blackcanary]

Mhm. This is what turned me off too. I like having the option to group, not be forced into it for any meaningful progression. Probably has to do with having played mostly single player games.

That's the funny thing you didn't have to be grouped. There where jobs that was made for soloing.

[Blackcanary]

I also think people remember it with a rose tint.

One of the big drawbacks of XI was that it took you hours to do ANYTHING progressive. You were so dependant on the community.
Nothing is perfect. I remember some amazing TP burn parties, but I also remember hunting/fighting the claim bots for that 8 legged bastard for my Husbands Joyeuse.
My favourite was soloing the SMN fights. These fights seemed to make everyone heart beat increase when soloed XD

I disagree with you about the rose colour tint glasses. I believe people just really like the game and that those problems where things that they learned to just deal with but it didn't spoil the fun they had in the game.

I do agree that something did take a long time to do, but there was so much to do and the world out side the city's was so alive. Look how long somethings take to do in FFXIV only problem is the online community complain so much that everything ends up being nurffed in the end.

[Sparktacus]

Unfortunately a lot of the main reason why people no longer play FFXI is because of the ABYSEA expack. When that ex pack out in my honest opinion it killed the game big time and a lot of people that I spoke to agree with me.

Also Abysea would need ether a complete remake or just be deleted in my mind. And the game would have to come out on the PS4.

I'm really not sure why Abyssea was so hated but I know its a popular opinion. I rejoined after a big break right into Abyssea and I loved it. It finally made things easier to solo, AF3 was reasonable to achieve, and there were so many fun items to hunt for so when I logged in I had plenty of stuff to do. Though VW was there too and, well VW was amazing in every way.