Why was FFXI so great?

[OJtheLIONKing]

I'll break this into segments. Yay insomnia, allowing me to follow up my forum posts for once.

Do you not know what an adventure is? With FFXI you start your adventure as a nobody, literally, NPCs don't know you, people don't know you etc. You have to do quests to build fame which will cause NPCs to start recognizing you (even adjusts pricing as you get more famous, you know, how in real life people give celebs discounts and etc?) and you even start making a lot more friends as you are MUCH more likely to run into people on the same mission etc as you were (back in the day.)

I know what my idea of an adventure is. I was asking what you guys who thought FFXI was such a true adventure would define it as, and gave some examples of possible explanations.

As far as the fame system, they have that in a lot of games, including the big W. In that game, after reaching exalted status NPCs would actually single you out and physically salute you--I think that's pretty cool and I'd like to see that here. I do think FFXI's system was better, however, specifically because in general you wouldn't have to do dailies for a month to max it out, but rather got maxed out fame almost completely by non-repeatable quests (with some annoying exceptions). It's an example of how difficulty =/= tedium.

Fast forward you do the missions which introduces you to the world and underlying issues you didn't know existed before (unlike most MMOs spells out everything for you the second you start the game) and you get thrown into having to actually explore places, learn your way around areas and even start seeing the tiny details that made the world of vana`diel seem like an actual living and breathing world.

I don't understand, do you not think other games gradually introduce the greater threat? TOR, WOW, Rift, they're not all about the big bad and the big storyline the second you start--you work on smaller, local stuff first and work your way up to that. FFXI does the same thing, but it's in no way unique. That said, it has to be at least alluded to fairly quickly, as most people make decisions on whether to stick with an MMO fairly soon. That's why free trials exist.

As far as exploring, I'm all for that and the new maps in 2.0 will emphasize this, but there's a difference between that and fumbling around a zone like Yuhtunga Jungle because the map is completely inadequate. To say nothing of some of the idiotically time consuming ways you had to find maps for some zones. I will say that my sense of direction is not that great, but if I have to look at a 3rd party map site just to have some idea of where my party wants to meet up, I think something went wrong.

As far as map design, it was pretty good in large zones, but had the unfortunate and immersion breaking tendency to have 2 foot high insurmountable ledges bisect zones, making you take a much longer route. That's just using a cheap trick to make the zone seem bigger and it reflects poorly on the designers. I'm glad that the FFXIV team is taking a more realistic and smarter approach with the new maps being designed around jump. I also think they will put in more little details to make the world more alive. Having played a lot of games, though, FFXI had some details but not an especially huge amount for an MMO.

People who said they played FFXI..did you actually play it? I bet a lot of people who said they did play it still didn't know the moon changed colors with the day or that the rolanberies in rolanberry fields changed colors with the seasons. Though some people hate seeing others enjoy themselves in a game they didn't, and will cite "nostalgia goggles" etc all because they prefer games like this.

I played from 2004 to last year, thank you very much. And yeah, I enjoyed exploring in FFXI. I liked Vana'diel, and I loved the storylines of each expansion, and the different cutscene quests. I think there were some zones that perhaps were not as fleshed out as they should have been, but overall I loved the visual design. What I didn't like was not being able to walk through a lot of them at all since they were covered with super high level aggro. Talk about challenge all you like, but when a zone is completely deserted 2 months after an expansion launch like Arrapago Reef, something went wrong.

But I guess I can't be right since I'm not in lockstep with what you consider a "true" FFXI player right? I think you may want to pay a visit to this page on TV Tropes to see how that sounds. I refer to rose tinted nostalgia goggles because getting down to brass tacks with the reasons people give, nostalgia is at the base of all of it. Having to spend 2 hours looking for a party plus 6 hours in a party plus an hour looking for a replacement in your party just to level up may legitimately be a good time to some people, but I know that I only tolerated it because it was a means to an end. Whatever you guys may want to think, people who actually like that kind of thing aren't numerous enough to support a big, mainstream MMO like this. This was never meant to be a niche MMO, and neither was FFXI--it just sort of ended up that way because of design decisions. Unlike FFXI though, XIV has a huge 250-350 man development team that requires mainstream success, and a director with the vision to see past the veil of SE and FFXI nostalgia to look at what the game really needs. Really, the entire Japanese game industry could learn from Yoshi-P.

[Airget]

Here's something I don't quite get that I see a lot of people mentioning: what exactly is the "full adventure experience?" Is it sitting in a spot xping for 10 hours? Staring at a spawn point for many many hours in the hopes that you might get the spawn this time instead of getting it stolen by the RMT bot? Is it having to grind for 6 months to get a full set of situational, sidegrade gear?

Or is it exploring new landscapes, killing big monsters, getting shiny new gear, and experiencing epic storylines with your friends? (Although if you're a solo player most of the time and can only group up occasionally because you and your friends are busy adults whose schedules may not overlap, there's stuff for you too). I think it's the stuff in this paragraph, and I think that's what Yoshi-P and the dev team here are looking to create. All the adventure, none of the frustrating gristle that excludes everyone but masochists or people like me who stayed on at least partly to play with their friends regardless of how boring they thought the grind was.

This, it's really weird how people seem to want certain time sinks into the game that force them to do nothing for hours while they wait to do something, the only challenge in that is who has more time to waste lol. With the pacing on 14 they are doing a nice job in allowing for quick paced combat while sure it may take a bit to get certain events going, once they are started you are pretty much free to do them until the group decides to disband so the only time you're "time sinking" is putting a party together but after that you're off to complete your objective.

--
in terms of the OPs original question it's hard to say what made 11 so great but it could be that simply compared to other MMOs I had seen at the time the way the characters were represented felt more lively then the avatars you see in WoW or even everquest. I enjoy the fact that SE takes pride in creating realistic and fluid movements that deviate from the FPS mindset of moving and the environments offered within the game were nice to look at when they were first released.

The game evolved at such an interesting pace when the Americans started with RoTZ we had alrdy had the option to do +5 rank missions along with gaining access to sky. Doing quest and missions that required people to work together really uniformed people and created bonds, while sure it may have been frustrating after succeeding through the objective you felt rewarded for completing the task.

The other thing would be the community seemed very nice like since people knew what others had to go through at the start others were willing to help one another out. I think one of the most famous of this kind were helping the poor WAR nubs equip the proper main weapon rather then the sword they were given at the start lol. I was one of those warriors that when I first started to play I only used a sword since I didn't know any better. You can't really blame the user for using a sword when there isn't much data to look at and the game starts you off with it, but because of some basic flaws the community took it upon themselves to create a list of players on each server who would help warriors deviate from being tricked into using a sword thinking that it's their best weapon.

Off that tangent though what made 11 so "epic" was each area did have a unique feel to it which was completely lost in 14 since it was pretty much 5 territories mixed around like a jigsaw puzzle lol. 11 kept outdoing itself, til the release of WoTG where it started to lose it's vigor but CoP, ToAU were such amazing content for the time that they were released. CoP attempted at creating a story based arc in which you pretty much acted like you were progressing through levels as you went through the story, The investigation of the 3 teleport distortions began at 3 and when you reach the aqueducts you were lv 40. Sure it was hard as heck but they also added a very very nice reward at the end in terms of a zone with completely unique mobs and it's own dungeon to work with Limbus, as well as NMs.

Then we got ToAU even though it didn't always feel like it, SE did listen to it's players even before the forums went live, with ToAU we were given an opportunity to obtain xp in a different manner through a fight in which we defended the astral candesence<sp> from the beastmen hordes of another land. On top of that we became mercenaries working under a mithra which gave us access to doing Assaults which were fast paced (time wise) events that required at least 3-6 to do. Doing those allowed you to rank up and obtain access to even more missions then of course pankration which they pretty much threw out there and then integrated it without the camera NM system which name escapes my mind.ZNM I think it is, but ZNM allowed a means of fighting an NM without really having to wait for the respawn, of course the final NM in question is what lead to quite some controversy as reports of people getting sick over the long extended fight made news, which is prolyl what influenced 14 mainly to stray away from content that ate up a lot of time and rather focus on content that would be challenging.

Then finally there was the expansion of WoTG, offered a means of learning about the past as well as a war system in which battles would break out and based on said location you were on the offensive or defensive. The way things were set up it was always played out in which players had to work together even if they weren't communicating with one another but they knew that if they wanted to win they should give each other a helping hand. The only fault with WoTG in that system is the shadow lord fight was restricted to the one nation that claimed the territory which pretty much threw nation pride out the window lol.

Overall though before abyssea made everything obsolete, XI had so much going on Dynamis, King NMs, wide variety of NMs in general, quest required to unlock areas, MMM, Sky/Sea, Balista(before BLU kinda killed it lol), Besieged, Assault, ZNM, ANM, mythic/relic, einherjar, ENM, magian trials, merit points, pankration, Limbus, those other event added in WoTG and a lot of other things I can't think off the top of my head.

The reason why XI is so great is because of how much it offered and how each expansion evolved it even though midway through WoTG there was a lost of pride with the devs in a sense as they released the crappy story based addons and were able to redeem themselves with Abyssea to an extent.

The reason why people want to see aspects on 14 in 11 is because there are a lot of events in 11 that would integrate well into 14, while this isn't an event the MOST basic of things that wasn't in 14 which really caused quite an uproar was no personal house, 11 we had a mog house with furniture yet 14 a game that's suppose to offer more couldn't even offer a mog house like area.

It's just if you look at 11 you would see that there are a lot of things that were going for it, like farming Beastmen/Kindred seals to do special arena fights would be a good integration into 14 since the aspect of collecting the seals in an active activity. Um the missions/questline the areas in the game, there was nothing in the game that was unlock-able through progressing through the story, no area to unlock like sky or sea, it somewhat took away from the excitement of progressing through the story to reveal new areas to explore.

no PvP, 11 had ballista but 14 didn't even have a sign of any pvp, along with the fact that ability skills were skewed between each class the balance issues would be a nightmate unlike now since the skills for each class have been cleaned up nicely. The lack of magic classes from the previous 11 where we had BLU, WHM, RDM, SMN, NIN, SCH, and BRD. Instead we only have THM and CON lol. No pet classes 11 had DRG wyvern, PUP automaton, BST beast and SMN avatars all unique from one another, yet not a single concept was released at the start of 14.

It's not to say give us x job it's the aspect of having something similar to said class but when the pickings are slim people may find themselves not liking what is offered lol.

Basically while 11 had a large share of time sinks, it also had a lot of things that could be done while waiting for the time sink events to occur, Dynamis every 3 days? No problem you can still do limbus, einherjar, etc.

What did 14 have in release, guild leves. Hey I"m out of guild leves hm, guess I"ll do the main quest... I finished the main quest... I finished the leves ... Well then I guess the only thing left to do is grind on mobs... That's exactly what 14 was on released lol main quest, class quest, leves. When you got from a game like 11 with it's wide variety of events then go into something like 14, you expect there to be at least 5-10 different type of events to do not just 2, quest and guild leves lol.

So with that, that's what makes 11 great it felt lively and even though we had zones there was a lot to do in each area and each area served a purpose, 14 had areas that just acted as placeholders for future lv cap increases lol. There may be 60 areas to go to, but only 15 of them are of any use to the player, maybe more but upon released it was a small bit of area that was actually used by players lol.

I don't want a carbon copy of 11 but for those that did play 11 we know what concepts would fit perfectly into a new game and it's a shame they didn't attempt to add more events and just start with such a barren land lol. The Hamlet concept that's coming out soon (Hopefully) is a defense based event which will most likely take influence from besieged and campaign. Heck the 7th umbral event that's taking place in certain intervals between each nations is pretty much a simplified version of campaign lol, the enemy attacks, you call to arms, you beat the enemy and claim you reward at the end.

So ye know if you like the concept of the 7th umbral event you can thank 11's campaign for inspiring it.

[Rutelor]

Abyssea was the best thing to happen to FFXI in my opinion it brought life back into the game and I actually saw a lot of people that came back that quit FFXI. Why because gear you got 7 years ago still shouldn't be best in slot. Abyssea gave people a lot to do get new better gear and level up to 99. It was so unlike SE because they usually just gave us sidegrade stuff but these were actual upgrades and new AF3 sets to collect.

What most bothered me about Abyssea was not that it brought replacement for old and cherished gear. That seemed natural. What didn't seem so appropriate was the disproportion of effort. Gear that I accumulated over years of adventuring, and that always made sense in relation to that effort was, all of a sudden, superseded by stuff that you obtained without even noticing.

[Zaaku]

The text walls on this page are weapon's grade lol

[bobbygunz]

I also think that people on these forums are biased toward features from FFXI. The general MMO players all left and never looked back, and those that stayed are homeless FFXI rejects, so this forum is somewhat more rife with FFXI nostalgia than you would find on any other MMO forum otherwise.

[Eagleheart]

Do you not know what an adventure is? With FFXI you start your adventure as a nobody, literally, NPCs don't know you, people don't know you etc. You have to do quests to build fame which will cause NPCs to start recognizing you (even adjusts pricing as you get more famous, you know, how in real life people give celebs discounts and etc?) and you even start making a lot more friends as you are MUCH more likely to run into people on the same mission etc as you were (back in the day.)

Fast forward you do the missions which introduces you to the world and underlying issues you didn't know existed before (unlike most MMOs spells out everything for you the second you start the game) and you get thrown into having to actually explore places, learn your way around areas and even start seeing the tiny details that made the world of vana`diel seem like an actual living and breathing world.

People who said they played FFXI..did you actually play it? I bet a lot of people who said they did play it still didn't know the moon changed colors with the day or that the rolanberies in rolanberry fields changed colors with the seasons. Though some people hate seeing others enjoy themselves in a game they didn't, and will cite "nostalgia goggles" etc all because they prefer games like this.

No one hates seeing you enjoy yourself in the game, they hate that you are implying that Final Fantasy XI was some kind of gift to MMOs, and the implication that XIV needs to become like XI in order to improve.

Yes, I know the moon changes colors, yes, I know the rolanberries come into season. I also know that there was a single lily in Konschtat Highlands that floated six feet above the ground, south and east of Crag Demn about fifteen feet off the road going around said crag, and that they didn't patch it, from North American launch, til shortly before I quit last year. All this is the very definition of rose-colored glasses. You are glossing over the glaring inadequacies, never-addressed balance problems, and general gameplay tedium with tales of how beautiful the world and lore were.

FFXI's harshest critics will attest that the storyline was well-fleshed out, and full of easter eggs that have inspired lore fansites and a long-running thread on Blue Gartr about possible plot-holes, expositions on lore tidbits, and theories as to the nature of the world itself. None of that is in the equation here. None of that has to do with the gameplay inadequacies of XI.

XIV has, by necessity, been forced to put lore considerations and the nuggets of joy both you and I found in every corner of Mindartia and Quon, on hold while they save the very existence of the game.

Let me put it this way: This is Square-Enix. Gameplay considerations aside (being addressed, and we all have faith in Yoshi P and the New Dev Team to pull through here), Square-Enix has never failed to deliver compelling narrative, lore, and easter eggs in every Final Fantasy title. Never. Failed.

This is not a concern. o.o Do not fret, the good stuff is yet to come.

[Isaaru]

People enjoyed FFXI because there were actual rewards for doing something without much of a grind.

[Onidemon]

Challenge for everything.

There is a big difference between a challenge and being a masochist.

[Eagleheart]

People enjoyed FFXI because there were actual rewards for doing something without much of a grind.

That Final Fantasy XI must have been from the mirror universe. It certainly was not from this one.

[Elexia]

There is a big difference between a challenge and being a masochist.

Yep, not having everything handed to you in 10 minutes is your idea of masochism. You should probably look up the word.