i dont think ill ever buy another game..

I agree, very addicting...

I found FFXI to be extremely exciting at first. But when I could not commit as much time to it I found it harder and harder to get decent parties. I played for over 2 years and then decided it was time to move on. Rather disenfranchised with it now. However, even after leaving and deciding to not play it anymore, I still find myself thinking about certain zones or scenes at random, and I have not played it for three months. Talk about a long term addiction.......this must be how a drug addict feels when kicking a habit.

I find FFXI to be a very good game. Like any other there are some faults of course. However, for the 12.95 a month + all the expansions, i believe the players should have more of a say in what is done gameplay wise. I have plenty of hours played, on and off for months. Recently i just stopped playing because of FFXII. To me, FFXII is gift from the almighty god of ivalice him/herself. Its like an offline FFXII. Its great, all the "NMs" / raregame. Its amazing. I just wish it was online Co-op somehow. That way me and a friend could team up and take on all the NMs.
But anyway, back to FFXI. It is a great game, but some factors play into why people tend to either hate it or love it. A lot of it is based on your interraction with other players. Some may be...rude to say the least. Other factors such as the end game play a huge roll. With Real Money Trading (RMT) ruling the "economy." SE says they delete a lot of accounts, but many GMs do not uphold the rules and code of conduct you must agree to in the beginning. Its a shame really. Such an amazing game is ruined by other people.

Another thing is the leveling. Talk about grinding away for hours to achieve 1 level. SE tried making the leveling a little easier to deal with for the lower level players with the use of items that increased the amount of exp you received. This however does nothing but take away what would be 10-15 minutes of fighting later in the game. Now i have a 75 blm and its fun with a good group of friends to do missions and quests. But even then theres only so much you can do to keep yourself occupied. Everyone has a set way of playing. A prerequisite on how you have to do your job and go about the game. So theres not a lot of freedom if you want to get anywhere. Oh well thats just how it is. When your waiting there for hours for an invite to a party to level up, you wonder to yourself, why cant i level on my own, that would be pretty fun? Who knows what the answer to that is. To me, guild wars had a really good idea. Forget about the leveling, its all about your skills and how you played your job. Then again GW is heavily PVP based. FFXI is more of an on and off thing for me. I like the game a lot, but the fact that i have to rely on other people tends to bother me. Even now at 75 (the max) i only strive to make money to buy the best equipment, or go out and fight the monters to drop the equipment i want. The story is great, however, there are so many tedious things that must be done.

You need to achieve so much experience to level, that the monsters that you find that you CAN safely fight to gain xp, are not worth it. You don’t get enough fast enough. More effort should be put into the ability to solo on the developers parts. It is really tiring sitting there for hours to get a party that is unreliable.

Players should not have to rely on others so much to move on in the story/leveling

While they might be true, who really wants to spend that much time leveling up? I do agree that it benefits SE when it comes to raking in the money, but at what expense? I for one hate sitting there looking for a party, which can easily go on for hours (Especially for some jobs).

I understand that making it party based brings people togther, its just not as practicle. All the fun is taken away from partying if your not with the right people. And it only takes one person to ruin it all.

Its so repetitive when you level, nothing much changes from level to level to make a big enough difference in how you gain your xp. A while back in fact, they changed the amount of experience it took after level 60 to get to level 75. That was a great change, especially since i just reached the late 50's at the time. But even then, it was difficult to assemble a party that could actually be worthwhile in gaining xp. I guess what im getting at, is if the end game of ffxi is so great than why not let the players achieve that point qucker? It sure would be much more enjoyable. And its not like the levels before it would be pointless. You learn a lot, but come on, youve basically learned it all by 60. Oh well, its still a great game, ill probly always go back and forth from it and any other time consuming activity i can manage to indulge myself in.

i sold my account at IGE....