Oldschool = (Do It Yourself + Timesink)

[Ryios]

To me, all those frustrating components in ffxi, are what made it a great game. Having to wait on the fairy was fine. It gave the world a sense of realism. E.g. You knew you were waiting on it because it took 15 minutes to make a complete trip from mhaura* to selbina. So you might be waiting 15 minutes, or it might show up in 3 because it left a while ago... And then actually being on the fairy and having it get attacked by pirates was the most epic (albeit scary to a level 10) thing that happened in that game. One of my fondest memories was the first time I went to dunes and took the fairy. It got attacked by pirates and sea horror spawned and completely wrecked everyone on the ship. It landed and there was just this big pile of dead bodies at the zone out from the fairy. It sucked sure, but at the same time it was great. It was things like the fairy that made the world make sense, and you felt connected to it, like a piece of the puzzle.

Questing in FFXI was also great. Sure the UI sucked, and it could have had a better quest log (just so you remember what people said), but There were no markers on the map, there were no exclaimation points. You had no idea what quests were in the game and who gave what quests. You had to figure it out for yourself. Just talk to somebody and use it as a clue for who to talk to next.

Leveling in FFXI to me was the most fun of all. Leveling up required a party, and you could do skill chains and magic bursts to optimize exp per hour. It was so much fun. WHen the game first came out, it was fun exploring trying to find the best camps per level to exp with and the right class combinations per level to exp with. It took skill.

Imo, I didn't view anything in ffxi as a time sync except for crafting. Everything else was fun and I enjoyed doing it. Time syncs don't matter if your having a good time doing it. We all play games to have fun. To me it doesn't matter how much I get done in 4 hours, as long as I had a good time doing it.