Random Passing Thought...

[Lorielle]

Glad to know I'm not really alone in that sense. FFXI has its faults in retrospect, but it was still fun given the time put into it. The grinds were long. They were tedious. They were hard sometimes. But some good friends were met there and even more. Challenges were presented and effort to get everyone through to reach the end, getting that satisfied feeling of triumph each time. For my actual first MMO that I played and dedicated a lot of time to, it would definitely be sad for me to see it go. But all things come to an end eventually!

I feel like I would find myself just ending my time there whenever it happens standing in Ru'Aun Gardens.

[Quixotica]

Glad to know I'm not really alone in that sense. FFXI has its faults in retrospect, but it was still fun given the time put into it. The grinds were long. They were tedious. They were hard sometimes. But some good friends were met there and even more. Challenges were presented and effort to get everyone through to reach the end, getting that satisfied feeling of triumph each time. For my actual first MMO that I played and dedicated a lot of time to, it would definitely be sad for me to see it go. But all things come to an end eventually!

I feel like I would find myself just ending my time there whenever it happens standing in Ru'Aun Gardens.

Oh there's no denying FFXI had problems. It had a lot of problems. It had volumes of problems. Truth be told in many ways it was not a good game. I played on PS2 initially and eventually on 360, it was a terribly janky game. What it did have however was a really good story (one of the only MMO's I've ever played that actually does), a substantial amount of depth in every aspect of it (something I miss in many ways in FFXIV which has removed a good deal of that depth), and a great deal of charm.

Most importantly XI had probably the single best player community I have ever had the pleasure to be part of. My first day logging into Windhurst, a random Tarutaru came up to me, showed me around the city, showed me how the AH worked, suggested where to level, gave me 2,000 gil, a stack of crystals to sell and suggested what to farm for money. He never asked for a thing and this was long long before the Mentor system existed. Just a random guy deciding to be nice to a newbie.

People casually tossed you heals and buffs while passing you in the world, mages would come out of their way to res you if you died somewhere nasty. I'll never forget doing my first Limit Break at level 50, shouting in Jeuno for help farming my items. I offered gill, but not a single person took it. By the end I had assembled a full alliance, some were people who also needed LB quest, most were people that had nothing to gain from it. Took several hours, some people left and others joined. It was the kind of thing you would never see happen in another MMO in a million years.

Then there was the day they released the companion quest to get your adventuring npc. People formed an orderly line and waited their turn to farm the mob for the quest drop. holding conversations with strangers as we waited. Sure it had it's share of bad apples as any game does. Early on Japanese player xenophobia, if not outright racism, was a real issue and the douchebaggery associated with HNM link shells was notorious. But for the average player, the game was simply a pleasure as far as fellow players were concerned. Even the newbie Pug nightmare that was Valkurm Dunes wasn't so bad compared to other games.

I think a lot of that was simply due to the games mechanics being so entirely group dependent, ontop of the fact your character was not disposable. It took a lot of time investment to bring up a character, if you developed a bad reputation on your server your progress could well and truly be screwed.


Also, and I know people would never tolerate this in a modern MMO, but in some ways I miss how difficult travel was in XI. While it is unquestioningly more convienient to get around in XIV - the world feels so much smaller and so much less.. real for want of a better term. I had numerous "war stories" that ranged from hilarious to terrifying just from taking the ferry to the Dunes thanks to pirate attacks and kraken spawns.