MrHappy's FFXI Event - March of Vana'diel

[Nebelheim]

I'll be thrilled to play it IF I don't have to read up on a decade's worth of lore from another game. If I do, then the raid is just fanservice for FFXI players, and not for me. I play this game for a fun story, not just nonsensical story with combat mechanics attached to them. But I understand that I'm not the only type of player, and that's cool. Not everything has to be for everyone.



And "comments like these" will always exist lol, you should know better than that. "What a terrible take" indeed.

They intergraded ff12 and tactics lore into ff14 well without needing to play those games and made those worlds feel apart of ff14. The only series that told a crap story that wasn't intergraded well was the nier raids. There is also plenty of lore videos for ff11 without the need to buy and sub to the game that someone is currently doing for ff11 covering every expansions story and someone else has done lore for all the beast men and other various lore.

[Silverquick]

Honestly I would I really liked the FFXI world and lore.

But that was a very complicated game to get started with and to play. While I loved the Skill Chain + MB method, I didn't necessarily like the setup time of having to create all your macros and such.

While the world and even graffics aren't nearly as bad as other games that old and they're actually surprisingly good, there's just a lot of stuff extra prep that came with playing that game. Not that I'm not considering it anyway.

[Renathras]

I really wish they'd do something about the install and launcher, and possibly a joint sub with FFXIV. I got it and played it a bit a year or so ago, and I enjoyed it...but not for the price of another full sub. Granted, Happy's promotion would solve the big problem I had - most of the people weren't interested in playing or leveling with a new player. I got a lot of - polite, but still - "Come back and talk to us once you're max level and have a relic set and we'll play with you" kinds of talk or "just level with Trusts, no one plays with other players for leveling anymore" stuff.

...but that aside, I tried Horizon for a few days. Playing with other people was nice, but good god, they have the installer STREAMLINED compared to the Play Online insanity (granted, I do like the PO launcher music still, but that's about it). Controller support was native and didn't require futzing with, and the entire experience was just so smooth. FFXI was designed in the early 00s when pretty much everyone playing MMOs were nerd computer techs or kids with too much time on their hands, meaning the installation and launcher stuff was just par for the course. While I can do it just fine today (I...kinda was one of those kids back then, too, lol), it's just OBNOXIOUS. It's like "Why are we still in the late 90s here?" dealing with it.

What I don't get is, if Horizon can do what it can with the launcher and controller support, uh...why can't FFXI? Or why hasn't it? "legacy code" stuff isn't really an excuse since they should have that on the backend and the installation and launcher stuff should be easy to adapt to the times.

[Kranel_San]

Man I can't say I'm looking forward to that alliance raid at all given how the nier/ivalice stuff went. Cause I sure as sh** not shelling out an extra $45 bucks so I can understand whats going on.

I understand what you're saying, but Ivalice collaboration was great. Unlike the Nier abomination, it actually blended into FFXIV lore and worldbuilding to be its own canon thing.

Ivalice helped with:
- Establishing Ivalician lore within the world of FFXIV
- Establish the near-east region of Dalmasca, Bozja, and Nagxia
- Introduce the creature Ultima, the High Seraph, which has blended into FFXIV lore and has ties in both ARR and EW certain raid series.
- Introduce Auracites, which could easily play a great role in an Ivalician expansion

If they're going to make FFXI collab similar to Ivalice in which it blends and gives life to the worldbuilding then I'm all in for it. Otherwise if they're going to follow Nier footsteps then please. I beg you stop the madness!

[VerdeLuck]

Man I can't say I'm looking forward to that alliance raid at all given how the nier/ivalice stuff went. Cause I sure as sh** not shelling out an extra $45 bucks so I can understand whats going on.

Same, Ivalice felt like a whirlwind of names and places just dumped on you through paragraphs and paragraphs of text, and then being shuffled through set pieces from Tactics and FF12 and feeling like you were supposed to know that boss or that thing that was just mentioned.

I'd rather have something like Shadows of Mhach where it's entirely new to the series but might have a reference or a character here or there, as opposed to Ivalice or Nier, where they just plop another game's world down in the ff14 setting and if you didn't play it you're just lost.

[Vyrerus]

I really wish they'd do something about the install and launcher, and possibly a joint sub with FFXIV. I got it and played it a bit a year or so ago, and I enjoyed it...but not for the price of another full sub. Granted, Happy's promotion would solve the big problem I had - most of the people weren't interested in playing or leveling with a new player. I got a lot of - polite, but still - "Come back and talk to us once you're max level and have a relic set and we'll play with you" kinds of talk or "just level with Trusts, no one plays with other players for leveling anymore" stuff.

...but that aside, I tried Horizon for a few days. Playing with other people was nice, but good god, they have the installer STREAMLINED compared to the Play Online insanity (granted, I do like the PO launcher music still, but that's about it). Controller support was native and didn't require futzing with, and the entire experience was just so smooth. FFXI was designed in the early 00s when pretty much everyone playing MMOs were nerd computer techs or kids with too much time on their hands, meaning the installation and launcher stuff was just par for the course. While I can do it just fine today (I...kinda was one of those kids back then, too, lol), it's just OBNOXIOUS. It's like "Why are we still in the late 90s here?" dealing with it.

What I don't get is, if Horizon can do what it can with the launcher and controller support, uh...why can't FFXI? Or why hasn't it? "legacy code" stuff isn't really an excuse since they should have that on the backend and the installation and launcher stuff should be easy to adapt to the times.

Man, when Horizon first came out there was like no way to get a controller to work with it. I tried it out, just because I was interested.

Then came the news that they basically were making THF and daggers OP and all of the team putting it out there's favorite jobs better. While bludgeoning staple jobs from back in the day with major or minor nerfs. Like they made Wasp Sting stronger than Tachi: Enpi lol

Like sure, it was easy to setup, but once you get through the setup for retail, you won't have to do it again (and if you, for some reason, do then you know how). And then, you won't have to worry about some weird devs taking money from that Ninja streamer banning you for complaining about their server. (Which they themselves exploit and cheat on)

[MonsutaMan]

Was originally on Bismarck, but went to Bahamut in 2018-ish when I returned to the game.

Very easy game if the story is your goal. Can solo pretty much all of it......Just keep a wiki open. Try campaign on BST while you are at it. Charm a OP mob running around the battle zone, and wreck everything and laugh.

You can also summon trust outside of dungeons. So, you can form a party with summon trust characters when you can't find ppl to fill roles (Still waiting for a Byakko trust tho...).

XI is also reeeeealy slow compared to something like XIV. So, if you are a mmo enthusiast or FF fan, you will like XI. Otherwise, you might wanna try the free trial, or stay with XIV. Just keeping it 100, there is no such thing as XI white knights....we gonna keep it real with you.

Try to get into it around December 22nd if you are interested because they are doing campaigns and the game only cost $9.99 for every expansion since 2004. If you think it sucks....you only spent 9 bucks....and can return it for full refund via Steam so long as your playtime meets criteria.

Also, you can "Glamour other job sets" with lockstyle..."Gasp"

Yeah, you can be a Samurai SMN......& SMN can use some swords.....& your summons are pets.....

Wanna see if I can finish XIV MSQ before then so I can get back into a XI groove before the campaign ends.

[Bellsong]

Lucky for you, people are already making FFXI story videos free of charge. So again, terrible take and nobody cares about hearing this opinion.

This is just for people who feel like wanting to try and experience FFXI's story firsthand.

Yeah, you tell em'! Don't let em' talk crap about multibillion dollar company and the content it provides! Gotta earn your Yoshi-bucks!

[Iscah]

They intergraded ff12 and tactics lore into ff14 well without needing to play those games and made those worlds feel apart of ff14.

I understand what you're saying, but Ivalice collaboration was great. Unlike the Nier abomination, it actually blended into FFXIV lore and worldbuilding to be its own canon thing.

Ivalice helped with:
- Establishing Ivalician lore within the world of FFXIV

As someone who has not played either of those games, the lore dumps did not feel like "making Ivalician lore feel like part of FFXIV", they felt distinctly like "we've brought so much of this other world's lore over into this story that we need to deliver a forty-point lecture about the history of royal alliances and betrayals", which I initially tried to pay attention to, couldn't memorise and then ultimately none of it had any relevance to the raids anyway.

It doesn't feel like integration, it feels like trying to paste a chunk of a separate game into FFXIV. In hindsight, I'm told that a lot of this isn't even directly copy-pasting from the original games but reconfiguring a new version of it, so what's the goal here? Pasting in a huge chunk of new history that isn't even really relevant, just so they can cram as much "Ivalice" into FFXIV as they can?

To be fair, the original CT raids sort of did this with lore from FF3 but there's so much less of it and it feels like it intertwines better with the original parts. No long lectures or character interactions that feel like they're only there because you should know these characters from elsewhere and care about them because of the elsewhere, even though they're totally uninteresting here.

NieR was bad because it didn't provide enough explanation; Ivalice provided too much but feels like it has the same basic flaw: writing from the expectation that the audience already cares about its key characters.

If that is not the case then it's all on the "gateway character" (eg. G'raha for CT; the dwarves for NieR) to make the story engaging, and again I think both Ivalice and NieR failed on that front. Ivalice doesn't have any strong contenders except Lina Mewrilah who has basically no personality; the dwarves are inconsistently characterised and never become properly likeable, ending with an unsatisfying conclusion.

[Nebelheim]

As someone who has not played either of those games, the lore dumps did not feel like "making Ivalician lore feel like part of FFXIV", they felt distinctly like "we've brought so much of this other world's lore over into this story that we need to deliver a forty-point lecture about the history of royal alliances and betrayals", which I initially tried to pay attention to, couldn't memorise and then ultimately none of it had any relevance to the raids anyway.

It doesn't feel like integration, it feels like trying to paste a chunk of a separate game into FFXIV. In hindsight, I'm told that a lot of this isn't even directly copy-pasting from the original games but reconfiguring a new version of it, so what's the goal here? Pasting in a huge chunk of new history that isn't even really relevant, just so they can cram as much "Ivalice" into FFXIV as they can?

To be fair, the original CT raids sort of did this with lore from FF3 but there's so much less of it and it feels like it intertwines better with the original parts. No long lectures or character interactions that feel like they're only there because you should know these characters from elsewhere and care about them because of the elsewhere, even though they're totally uninteresting here.

NieR was bad because it didn't provide enough explanation; Ivalice provided too much but feels like it has the same basic flaw: writing from the expectation that the audience already cares about its key characters.

If that is not the case then it's all on the "gateway character" (eg. G'raha for CT; the dwarves for NieR) to make the story engaging, and again I think both Ivalice and NieR failed on that front. Ivalice doesn't have any strong contenders except Lina Mewrilah who has basically no personality; the dwarves are inconsistently characterised and never become properly likeable, ending with an unsatisfying conclusion.

Except rabanastre and golmorre jungles from ff12 are official regions and city state of ff14 now and surrounding areas. It did a much better job of intergrading Ivalice lore then nier raids did and definitely better then myths of the realm which wasn't good for something that's meant to be an original story.