How will we stand out?

[Preypacer]

I'm not so sure about the community of this game.
In XI, you where forced to play together, in this you can get to 50 without even touching a party or learning how to play your job. For all the flack the grind-heavy party-only nature XI had, it really helped to refine the community.
Some might have labeled XI as elitist, but if you where willing to play along and learn, you'd find a helpful, intelligent, and friendly group of people.

I don't think there was anything elitist about FFXI itself. I think there were a population of elitist people playing it, particularly at high level/end game stuff. But among the people I hung out with, there was very little elitism. If it were that prevalent in the game, I would never have stuck with the game at all, nevermind for over 7 years. I can't stand elitism. I find it ridiculous.

What I personally find to be the case is, while FFXI's party-centric set up was fine in itself, it was at odds with the very common "me first" attitude many Western gamers have. And I saw that attitude come out constantly. Daily. All the time. Even among people I knew and considered friends in-game.

I'd say 90% of the time I was unable to get help with things it was because people were more concerned with making progress on their own character, and felt that if they were spending the time help me or someone else, that they'd be "falling behind" on their own character. And, that's when that "me first" attitude would come to the surface.

Every time I ever took a break from XI, it ws due to being sick of the self-centered, "me first" attitudes of so many of its players. I'd spend time, happily, helping others out with tough or lengthy missions or fights they had to complete (Promys, major storyline missions, etc), only to have those very same people blow me off completely, or make a ton of ridiculous excuses, when I asked them for help later on.

A lot of people say "well that's because of how SE designed the game". No. I don't believe it has to do with the game design. It has to do with the attitude of many Western players clashing with that design.

Japanese players, in my experience, never had a problem with helping others. I've had them hang out for several hours, even through multiple wipes, to make sure someone completed what they needed. And they were happy to do it. Never a complaint. Never a concern. They were there to play the game and wiping and having to re-do something was just part of playing. That's the attitude I always brought to the game, personally.

So, I don't blame SE or FFXI for "forcing people to be that way". A game can't make people behave like self-centered, self-interested jerks. People (again, primarily Western folks) are already that way. XI's setup just brought it out in them, in the ugliest possible way.

People won't help others unless there's something in it for them. People won't help others because their own progress is far too important (to them) to ever put it on hold to help someone else out.

Sadly, from what I've seen in-game, and from remarks made here on the forums, it sounds like that attitude has already taken hold in XIV, and on a much broader basis. That's unfortunate.

By the by, I'm very much a "Western" player. Born and raised in the US, so it's not like I'm from some other culture, shaking my finger.

That said... What it would take for FFXIV to stand out is to bring that unique Final Fantasy flavor to the game. The FF Series has always had a bunch of quirks and qualities that made it stand out from other games. I mean in terms of aesthetics, topics, themes, etc. Not just the physical things like chocobos, Cid and moogles. There's always a certain feel to a FF game that, by itself, makes it feel different from anything else out there.

I would caution against people asking too much for "what's standard in the genre" - which is an argument I see accompanying a lot of requests from people for this game. "SE needs to do "x" in this game. It's the industry standard". It's a very "careful what you wish for" situation to me. Because if SE were to implement everything because it's "a MMO standard", in the end what you could end up with is simply another very standard MMO. And that's exactly what we don't want - presumably.