Nostalgia

[Aegis]

I think the Nostalgia word gets tossed around when people appear to generalize that FFXI is better than other games on the market because of things that weren't really true when you closely examined them. For instance, the community thread... it really does come off as a definitive "FFXI had the best community of any game".. when in reality, most (at least any I've played) have toxics and helpfuls in their communities. That experience will vary on the individual and shouldn't really be a generalized statement. When people say something like "FFXI didn't have the derogatory elitism that MMOs today have." .. that's not true, and that's probably nostalgia talking. Many people's experiences have shown that it did indeed have that, to a pretty good degree from the experiences I've read. A better way to word it would be to say that you were lucky you were part of LS/FC/group that didn't do that stuff.

It's similar to me looking back at Shadowbane (my first MMO) with fond memories.

Yes, I will agree that some people are taking their own experience and generalising it to everyone (on both sides, including you). But I will throw in my $0.02 and say that while their were elitist upper-tier endgame shells, they were, in my experience, drowned out by the JP player who helped our entire dunes party get their magicked skulls, the NA players who used to regularly join prommy shouts just to help players on their way through CoP, the guy who lent me a bronze bed for the mog house quest, the linkshell who helped me through my LBs... the list truly goes on. I think this kind of thing is what people refer to when they preach about the community.

Also, the elitism I experienced in XI upper-tier shells is no worse than you currently see in Mor Dhona shouts: "LFM Titan. Die and you will be kicked" sound familiar.

/I know, I know, damning with faint praise.

Colibri weren't the only mobs to exp. If people really wanted to do skillchains, or they were so much valid, they could exp on something like marids or diremites.

If exp were boosted by 100% for every step of a Skillchain/MB you could bet no-one would've done tp-burns. You can't base how much people enjoy a process on how many people are doing it when there is a competing system with better rewards.