question for current ffxi players

[Welsper59]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/van...wcb/index.html It's free for one more week if you want to go poke around

I was gonna post that, since I was surprised no one mentioned it.

Word of caution/advice to anyone who has not been around the game since Trust NPCs and the ease of travel. You may have heard about Abyssea or played it, and found out how easy it is to level and do things back then... forget about that, because you're going to be absolutely lost if you start playing now lol. The game has made huge changes in the last couple years, alongside those things like Trust NPCs, which is saying a lot due to the massive changes that happened before with Abyssea. Home Points, for example, are now treated like Aetheryte here. You can teleport between the HP crystals for free if it's within the area/city or for a small fee if it's not. If you played during (at least) the golden age of Sky, imagine being in San d'oria at a home point. Next thing you know, you're in Ru'aun Gardens (Sky). In addition to that, they added HP crystals to almost every zone and "dungeon" area which you need to activate to use. It's an absolute dream. It'll take you forever to go through all the additional content lol. I've never been so intimidated by my return to a game I thought I knew very well. I gave it an honest go last night though, and I have to say... I'm really liking it again.

[Xanikk999]

I played FFXI for one year starting when I was 16 years old. I was forced to quit during Chains of Promathya because my account was hacked and the hacker changed my secret question and all my details. My mother was on the phone with support and none of the new details added up with ours so they told her they couldn't restore the account. I cried so much that day. I never got my account back and starting playing WoW 2 years later which I still play to this day.

Now for my question. How much of the game has changed since Chains of Promathya? I remember when I played it was MANDATORY to level as a group past level 15 as the mobs because way too hard to solo unless you were a beastmaster. Is this still the case?

What else has changed since then? I might be tempted to try it.

[Talraen]

I think some of the FFXI vets here are remembering the game with extremely rose-colored glasses. Yes, FFXI is awesome, but it wasn't even a remotely accessible game, and really still isn't. Sure you can level like crazy, but good luck actually doing anything without consulting a wiki or two at every step. The game UI offers an absolute minimum of help, especially for older quests and missions. Almost every modern MMO nicety that exists is in direct reaction to games like FFXI (specifically EQ, but the two are very similar in this regard).

Similarly, no one ever talks about how impossible it was to actually get anything done back in the day. There was no reward for replaying old missions, so you could only get help if you happened to find a full party who needed it, had friends who were super nice, or (more likely) had friends who needed to get you through that mission so they could help you with the one they were stuck on. If you wiped on a boss and couldn't reraise the party, you'd have to start the whole dungeon over, so no one EVER tried to learn fights the hard way. Everyone would read and memorize the entire dungeon and boss from old strategies, and god forbid you wanted to veer at all from the established path. If you think the "go watch a video" culture of FFXIV is bad, it had nothing on FFXI.

So yeah, I highly recommend playing FFXI, but realize what you're getting into, and realize that the people evangelizing FFXI are the small few who had the resources to fully enjoy it back in the day. Games have become much friendlier in the interim because at some point someone realized "hey, we can make more money if the game is actually playable!"

/rant

[Shuon]

sounds great. definitely more adventures available in ffxi, and since it is now solo-able with trust npcs i.e. no more waiting time, it will be heaps more enjoyable today.

[Kotemon]

I want to go back just to finish rhapsodies. I only made it as far as that Xol BC in the waterways in the last expansion . No idea how far you need to be in that last expansion anyway, but once you get to level 99 and I lev to around 114 ish. You can complete nearly all the main expansion stories solo or with an npc party ( if its available for them).

[Shuon]

ok i have a few questions now that im about to jump back in (2 more min before update is complete).

I know i can get trust npc at lvl5 in all startign nations but how do i get to other nation without getting killed lol they are such a hike at lvl5 (i guess oil and prism eh?)

I have also been advised to get through RoV as soon as possible to get the insane exp bonus - but to do that i need access to Norg, which requires kazham airhip pass, which requires blablabla - so its not something i can do off the bat is it?

[Talraen]

If you leave town at level 5 for another town, and fight mobs on the way, you should be about level 30 by the time you arrive. There's plenty of legwork you have to do to unlock everything, but 'not being high enough level' really isn't going to be an issue for a very, very long time.

[Magis]

You can also get 4 trusts doing a Record of Eminance under Tutorial -> Basic -> Alter-Ego ~~~~ (forgot name). Every time you complete one, you get a cipher and the next record.

I think it's 4 of em in total.

[Skivvy]

ok i have a few questions now that im about to jump back in (2 more min before update is complete).

I know i can get trust npc at lvl5 in all startign nations but how do i get to other nation without getting killed lol they are such a hike at lvl5 (i guess oil and prism eh?)

I have also been advised to get through RoV as soon as possible to get the insane exp bonus - but to do that i need access to Norg, which requires kazham airhip pass, which requires blablabla - so its not something i can do off the bat is it?

For better or worse, you still have to do the hike. lol. I'd recommend leveling up just a tiny bit so you can at least survive some hits if you do get some aggro. I had to do the run on one of my mules recently, and I totally blanked on bringing any oils or prisms. It is doable, just have to be slightly more cautious

I'm a little fuzzy on this, but I THINK the quest line may warp you to Norg? Don't hold your breath on this one though. D: There will be a lot of stuff to unlock (just like it was ages ago), which does take a bit of running around, but at least now you can level up pretty quickly and just steam roll the early content to get it all done.

Which server did you end up on?

You can also get 4 trusts doing a Record of Eminance under Tutorial -> Basic -> Alter-Ego ~~~~ (forgot name). Every time you complete one, you get a cipher and the next record.

I think it's 4 of em in total.

You can actually have 5 trusts out down the road (Rhapsody bonus)

[Magis]

You can actually have 5 trusts out down the road (Rhapsody bonus)

No, no, I mean you can get 4 free trust ciphers using Records!

So you can have 6 party members in total? Cool!

And yes, after you get three bee pollen for the Mayor of Selbina, Gilgamesh tells you someone is looking for you in Norg and you get a free ride there. Make sure to use the homepoint crystals for ez teleports.

(I don't know what the Mhaura equievelant is but probably the same).

And just an update on easyness of leveling, yesterday night I got from 24 - > 41 farming in Qufim, Yhutunga Jungle, Yhoator Jungle, and doing two sets of GoVs in Crawler's Nest before logging.