So far I've read those threads about the immaturity level of this game, how the community behave, and all bad stuffs that could happen on MMO. I want to share a bit of my experience during playing on server Garuda (JP). I picked this server because it was the only one that opened, I was actually want to join Tiamat/Tonberry where my most indonesians are, as well as many english speaking players but those two server was full. I can say 95% of players here are japanese, I saw english players here too sporadically.
The /Shout Chat
Shout channel here looks very clean no matter which zone I am. Except on market where there's usually some shouts here and there about FC recruitments, and people offering materia services. And mor dhona where many party invite shouts. No one overspamming the channel, they just /shout whatever needs to be shouted. There are no gill sellers spamming your shout every single seconds (There was, but only one of them and never see another one again), gill sellers are very rare, I guess they won't make any profit here where most of people don't understand english
Same thing on local chat, people doesn't seems to talk very much here. The only active chat I have is my FC channel, well I guess that's where people hang out.
Bots
I'm alchemist, I gather my own Water and Lightning shard. During chopping trees I never see gatherer's bots, that can insta teleport to nodes, and even go underground. There's many other gatherers but I'm pretty sure they are real people since they respond to my /poke lol. Then again, I guess shards sellers won't make much profit here, where most of people don't understand english
People from DF and PUG
It much faster to play with J highlighted on DF instead of just E. Unsure maybe because of player composition. So In the end I usually only picked J on most of my DF runs.
I've run countless time running Castrum, Ifrit HM, Garuda HM, as well as Titan HM (But always fail lol). One thing that I strongly notice is
- Upon entering the dungeon there always someone post this on party chat (If not half of the party members, all of them) 「よろしくお願いします」 "Nice To Meet You!" like a ritual that must be done. Something that I never have on English speaking party. I never encountered single JP party that didn't post this magic words.
- When someone make a mistake, that person usually said "I'm sorry" and the rest, never see things like blaming each others, cussing, or harsh words. Heck, there was even a case where it's fully my fault (DPS, and I dead) but the healer sad sorry in my stead. The rest of the party usually respond with 「どんまい」 "Don't mind about it", the rudest response I ever see is, no response at all!
- Upon exiting the dungeon there always someone post this on party chat (If not half of the party members, all of them) 「お疲れ様でした」 "Thanks for good work" like a ritual that must be done, even though we fail the dungeon, wiped, timed out, etc, this words always posted. Something that I never have on English speaking party. I never encountered single JP party that didn't post this magic words.
These little small things really make me feel being welcomed.
Never see people complaining about people watching cutscenes, "Hey are you newbie?" *then leaves*, and all that stuffs I saw on thread here. Up until now I haven't see people selling Titan runs on Mor Dhona.
Emoticons
I have my keyboard set to type in Japanese, but up until now I still don't understand how they type those weird emoticons like this ( ´ ▽ ` )ノ (づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ ヽ(#`Д´)ノ without using Copy-paste. Most of the chat overflows with these weird looking creatures, very hilarious. And this one that supposed to be a cat ヾ(⌒(_*'ω' *)_ one of my FC friend often use.
The People Are Generous
I have alchemist on my DoH. When I'm free, I /shout my materia attaching services. Never charged people money. And I usually shout something like this "Level 50 Alchemist here, offering services. You decide the price". My services never left unpaid, biggest gill I've received was 35k gills (where materia attaching here usually cost -+1-2k gills) for helping people with their relic weapon!
Overall people here are nice, I'm not sure what would be in the future, but I hope it stay this way. I was actually going to server transfer when it's available, but seems like I won't. I already hooked myself into a nice FC, and the community here seems healthy. That's it! I'm going to sub for next month!
TL;DR = I'm glad I choose this server, how about you?