What game did you play before FFXIV and do you miss it?

[Malzian]

I've played a number before XIV, some things I miss more than others, so I'll list out all the ones I've played and my impressions of them, in somewhat chronological order of when I played them (some will be before and some will coincide with XIV)...

RFO (Rising Faction Online): My first actual MMO experience. Was pretty fun until you hit the lvl 30 zones (which were also the first of the open world PvP zones in the game) and would get repeatedly ganked by max level players whenever you were out of the hub zone and couldn't level anymore.

PSO: Not technically an MMO, but the first real game I put a LOT of time into, even on crappy dial-up on my Dreamcast. I do still miss it and the way the combat handled and am waiting to see if PSO2 ever gets a US release (I know I can play it with a VPN and the English patch, but I don't want to go through that hassle).

Guild Wars: Liked the game for the most part, my Necro was a force to be reckoned with, though the game did suffer from some issues. When you get to the end of the game and even overworld mobs are 2 or more levels higher than you can level to I kind of lost interest... The expacs didn't really bring much too the table either, just more of the same.

LotRO: I loved LotRO for everything it was pre-Helms Deep and the Hobbit segway stuff they crammed in there when the movie came out. The combat was fun and impactful, though skill bloat was a problem by the end, but their skill tree solution just gutted the whole experience. The social systems were great. The music system was fabulous especially since I was on (well... am on... Lifetime sub and all) Landroval which is the server that hosts Weatherstock, the in-game music festival. I miss some of the festivals as they always had interesting things. I miss the landscapes since visiting places from the books was always a thrill. PvP was actually rather fun and had a real impact on the rest of the game in exp bonuses that you could earn for the whole server by fulfilling certain conditions. There was a lot to love and a lot to miss, but it just isn't the game I remember from when I started so I don't think I could go back.

CoH/CoV: great fun playing the villains here, there was a lot of neat things you could do with it and building your home base was immersive for the most part. Being the first game that let you play with super powers made it unique, but that wore of quickly as the core gameplay really became stale in the long term.

Aion: Flying was an interesting concept, but the way it was implemented just didn't make it very worthwhile.

Rift: I really liked the combat in Rift, the way you could play one role in different modes depending on what you were doing made for some really interesting gameplay. The world was interesting and the public events were FAR better than FATEs in XIV. I left, though, when they reset my lvl 50's skill tree and I just couldn't invest the time to rebuilding and reoptimizing my skills for my playstyle... This also started my hatred of Skill trees.

Tera: Love the combat in Tera, the active system and the combos are well designed and thought out. Fighting BAMs (the acronym means what you think out does) was always fun and challenging, though that's been a bit muted lately and just Gunner can run group content solo on-level now which is kind of disappointing... but also nice in a way.

SWtOR: The first thing I can really say about this game is... Man it was fun playing my Sith Inquisitor. Not for the gameplay, mind you, but for the conversation pieces. There's something refreshing about playing a character that can be a legitimate snark and mouthy to the main story characters and actually says what you intend for the most part. And there were some genuinely funny opportunities to employ a little Force Lightning during some of the conversations that just had me rolling... But yeah, not for the combat...

GW2: Never really got far in GW2, it seemed overly complicated and didn't really have a good flow I my opinion. It's public events are also better than FATEs and the guest transfers (switch servers for a day!) were pretty cool. Would love to see something like that in XIV some day.

DCUO: I liked getting to play in the DC universe and engaging with the heros and villans. The power system was fun and interesting and I made some real unique character builds with it. Where it fell short for me were some of the core systems such as gearing and the monetary system (seriously, I can understand a currency cap on an F2P game, but escrow can go somewhere and do something with itself... needlessly complicated) and the zoning was terribly difficult to follow, especially when transitioning from one "core" zone to another, i.e.: Metropolis to Gotham City.

ESO: All I can really say about this is launch woes... The Elder scrolls combat system is fun, playing an MMO in that fashion is different and refreshing, but the implementation of it also with the instance zones, spawn issues and so many other things at launch made the game not fun. It's gotten better with age and some things have improved, but I still feel like it's a game that doesn't really have a solid indentity as an MMO or an Elder Scrolls game so it makes playing it feel really weird.

Devilian: Decent Diablo-esqe dungeon crawler with since interesting concepts but some of its systems are muddled and unclear. I had fun with it for the most part, but I feel like it takes too long to really get a handle on the systems to play effectively.

Blade and Soul: Good action combat and decent story, the aesthetic was fun too considering I do like the Japanese themes. Didn't care much for the faction system and it really turned into a grind fest at the end. Gathering and crafting was really kind of pointless in my opinion, especially since you didn't do any of it yourself.

Dragon's Dogma Online: Disclaimer: I LOVE Dragon's Dogma and Dark Arisen, so this is biased. So this was the first game I broke down and did a VPN and patch to play... The game carries so much over from the original version that it's an utter delight to play. It's not like playing some adaption of the game (there are some differences, of course, but core gameplay stays mostly the same) but rather playing an online evolution of the original. The graphics are fantastic for the engine it uses, the combat against giant creatures is challenging but manageable, even if you're way under-leveled for it and it all just comes together nicely. My only problem it's that the patch just doesn't translate enough for me to get really invested, but I can't wait for this to come to the US... I really, really hope it does.

That's about all I can think of at the moment, I may add more later as I recall them.