Quote Originally Posted by Kiote View Post
Sometimes you want to play together. Sometimes you want to play alone. But you always want to get more powerful. How you do it should be up to you. But they should not ruin everyone else's experience just so you can play the way you want.
This has been my point since forever.

In many regards, leveling WAS content in FFXI, because there was no mid-level distraction to take you away from leveling. Story missions and quests don't count either, because most people always waited to come back to these after they got to cap; especially after killing Shadow Lord. I'm willing to bet that most of the time, when people weren't leveling, they were trying to make money for their next upgrade or grinding rep for whatever it was that they needed.

The fact of the matter is that, if the devs don't drop the ball, there will be plenty of real content to tackle WHILE you level, rather than some arbitrary task you have to perform while you can't find a group to level with or (god forbid,) you need to accomplish before you can even continue to level. I'd like to see some hardcore aspects injected into the game, I just don't want to see FFXI-2; it's not conducive to a good business strategy.

Also, "Why Play MMOs?" is not a valid question to ask just to excuse arbitrarily forcing you to group with other people. It's a fantasy game; there's nothing heroic about 4-6 people standing in a circle punching bunnies in the face for 6 hours.