Are you surprised? I know I am

[Shu]

Now I haven't played FFXI in about a year or two, but I will say I'm very surprised this game has lasted as long as it has. I mean the game itself was very unique in ways of tying the combat system together and group interactivity. There of course was only 2 solo classes, and for the rest you basically had to have a group at all time.

Now this game has been around since 2003 in America (PC) and back then the large number of players who played this game was crazy. Even today though, if you log on there is still a relatively big following (not as big). It seems the longer people put it out there for this game, the more rewarding it became.

Most anti-FFXI fans were always commenting on how this game was compared to WoW. When certain expansions came out on WoW, they said this game would sputter out and lose all it's fan base.

Here are a few comparisons..

Relic (FFXI) vs Epic gear (Pre-BC WoW)

1) Relic gear itself takes around a year and a half to get a full set.
2) Epic gear could have taken just one trip to ZG/MC or just PvP for it. This would only take anywhere from a day or two or further.. so epics were free hand outs basically.

Traveling - Chocobos vs Mounts - Zepplins/Trams vs Boats/Airships

1) FFXI used Chocobos, in which you had to be lvl 20 in order to attain as opposed to lvl 40. You also had to do a 4-5 hour quest, but at the same time you didn't have to be in game all these 5 hours.

2) WoW you just needed to be lvl 40, and have around 100g to buy the skill to ride and the mount itself. This was only a 60% speed mount.

3) Zepplins/Trams took maybe 1-5 minutes of waiting on them to get to you and about 5 more minutes to go your next destination.

4) Boats/Airships took forever in a day.. I waited probably 12 minutes for a boat from mhaura to Selbina and then had to ride another 12 minutes in order to get to selbina.


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With more MMORPGs coming out the top complaint is traveling and why? Well it seems that you are traveling 30% of your time in game. That means if you play 3 years and pay monthly you are paying $410.63 dollars just riding around via flight paths or mounts or zepplins/trams. So Blizzard sympathized with their audience and gave their loyal fans reduction in mount prices as well as you could learn to ride them faster. (60% riding mount lvl 20 as opposed to 40 and 5g as opposed to 100g)(100% riding mount lvl 40 as opposed to 60 and 100g as opposed to 600g)(150% flying mount lvl 60 as opposed to 70 and 600g as opposed to 1000g)....

While as SE didn't do a single thing about their chocobos or boat rides or airships rides. Here is the major problem... so in retrospect you are paying a lot more to play a game that is already too slow for most people and doing nothing 35% of the time waiting on boats to get to their port.

So in my opinion this game will not last much longer... but what do you think? Do you think FFXI will be overtaken here pretty soon or do you think it doesn't really matter since FFXIV is on its way? I'm just suprised this game has lasted this long without reducing traveling time and such..

 

[L]

Now I haven't played FFXI in about a year or two, but I will say I'm very surprised this game has lasted as long as it has. I mean the game itself was very unique in ways of tying the combat system together and group interactivity. There of course was only 2 solo classes, and for the rest you basically had to have a group at all time.

Yeah, I've seen a few people on the Warcraft forums criticize kids who cry a lot for saying that WoW is a difficult game and tell them that Warcraft is complete ezmode in comparison to Final Fantasy XI.

1) Relic gear itself takes around a year and a half to get a full set.
2) Epic gear could have taken just one trip to ZG/MC or just PvP for it. This would only take anywhere from a day or two or further.. so epics were free hand outs basically.

I don't really think it sounds as bad as your description is making it sound lol.

getting full-endgame epics in a pretty average guild in Warcraft takes about an equivalent amount of time, or at least half as much time; being as getting full-endgame requires you to do 25man raids...

But if I recall correctly.... wasn't MC a 40man back in the day when Warcraft was actually a difficult game?

Takes long enough to gear in a 25 man Guild, I can't imagine how insane it must have been when Paladins were 'buffbots'.

Giving out 39 blessings (not including yourself) Greater Blessings did not exist back then... YES, they were ALL 10 minute buffs that you had to individually buff on each target in your raid group.

shit would've made me cry and reroll lawl.

Progression isnt always easy tho... I don't like people who have to watch a video to learn everything... They claim to be 'good' but just leech off of someone else's sucess and claim it as their own.

I don't mind having a little bit of insight on something, but I know how to read Deadly Boss Mods and watch other people who use video tutorials on boss fights as crutches just fine.

3) Zepplins/Trams took maybe 1-5 minutes of waiting on them to get to you and about 5 more minutes to go your next destination.

4) Boats/Airships took forever in a day.. I waited probably 12 minutes for a boat from mhaura to Selbina and then had to ride another 12 minutes in order to get to selbina.

wow, thatd totally make me punch holes in the wall... missing the zepplin every time I get to the top of the tower pisses me off so bad... I don't think I could be arsed to wait 15 minutes for it to come back...

With more MMORPGs coming out the top complaint is traveling and why?

I suppose because people have things to do and want to get them done fast, as a game should not take priority over your life if you have more important things to do like go to sleep so you can get up at X time to get to X on time.

So Blizzard sympathized with their audience and gave their loyal fans reduction in mount prices as well as you could learn to ride them faster. (60% riding mount lvl 20 as opposed to 40 and 5g as opposed to 100g)(100% riding mount lvl 40 as opposed to 60 and 100g as opposed to 600g)(150% flying mount lvl 60 as opposed to 70 and 600g as opposed to 1000g)....

I'll tell you what.... that pissed me off so much. Even though the Riding Skill DID come with the Paladin's Charger mount, it doesn't change the fact I spent nearly 1k Gold on mats for completing the quests...

to make the Charger trainable and only cost 50 gold to use... Man, FUCK my life. T-T

FUCK THE FAKE PALLY REROLLS >=(

at least I have my Charger - (Feat of Strength) achievement!

So in my opinion this game will not last much longer... but what do you think? Do you think FFXI will be overtaken here pretty soon or do you think it doesn't really matter since FFXIV is on its way? I'm just suprised this game has lasted this long without reducing traveling time and such..

I'm not really sure.... Haven't had much insight on the game myself, have wanted to check it out, but the traveling rate you've described are pretty discouraging, despite the fact I really want to try out the 10-day trial...

 

[Shu]

Yea it seems that FFXI rewarded all their loyal lvl 75's (max lvl) by giving them more goodies, but never really looked at the lower lvls.

While vise versa for WoW.

I mean here's the difference, although FFXI did give newer players stuff like EXP rings (200% for 2000exp/ reusable every 16Hours) but the leveling speed in the game is suppppper slow compared to WoW.

WoW they made it so 1-60 is a freakin joke! I created my account way back in the day with my shaman (2 months after the official WoW release) and it took me 8 or so months to get to 60. While when I came back to WoW right after BC it took me 8-12 days to get my mage to 70.

In FFXI it would take you... at least 3 months and that's if you have good groups there for you every time. At max it could take you over a year!!! There is no way to solo (unless you are a beastmaster or puppet, which are both only attainable once your main job reaches 30 (a month or more) .. and the quests don't reward you exp.

So what does that mean once you hit 30 with say a warrior? You have to restart your job to lvl 1 with beastmaster or puppet and jump through the hoops again. At least though you have enough conquest points to buy exp rings.

I would say if you have a lvl 75, you should at least be able to start at lvl 30 with any job.. like Dark Age of Camelot did for their characters who reached 50 (prior to expansions). Also WoW gave people the ability to start death knights at 55, which are still holy crap powerful even with the nerfs.

FFXI is doomed and if FFXIV has any sense... it will learn from FFXI's mistakes.

 

[DarkClaymore]

I like travelling for a long time in games, it gaves me the feeling that I am actually travelling as in real life trips are usually too long.
Even though I really hate travelling in real life

But I stopped playing FFXI before I even had a chance to really travel somewhere. I can't say I am surprised that the game lasted so long as there seems to be people who like it. I never played WOW and I'll probably never play because I don't really like MMO RPG.
I prefer regular RPGs because it allows the player to control more than one character. So I can't compare it to WOW.

But I still have my own reasons to hate the game:

1) Battles are too repetitive and you can use skills once in 2 hours or 10 minutes and such. I never found that fun. Only annoying and frustrating.

2) The job system is stupid and probably that's the main reason I hate the game. If the character had it's own level, aside of each job's level, then this game could be MUCH better IMO.

3) The fact you can't run away from monster, as they can hit you from any distance even with a melee weapon, is really a joke!

4) Leveling up is, as mentioned, awfully annoying.

5) And as I already said, I hate playing with only one character ond relying on partying with other players. Rather have at least 3 characters.

 

[Shu]

2) The job system is stupid and probably that's the main reason I hate the game. If the character had it's own level, aside of each job's level, then this game could be MUCH better IMO.

The job system was taken from tactics, and is actually a pretty unique way of creating an RPG. Aside from having set linear characters (white mage, black mage, warrior, thief..) You have the choice of actually switching to any of these as long as you have leveled them up. You can also have a subjob in which allows the person to beef their stats up as well as use abilities from the subjob (passive and active).

That is one of the main things this game had going for it. WoW on the other hand... you only play one character, unless you create another. You can change your talents or how you specialize your character..

For example: If I'm a Healer class Shaman, well I can respecialize (respec) him into a ranged damage dealer, sort of like a mage... or I can respecialize him into a Melee VEEEERY hard hitting damage dealer. He can't tank though nor wear plate. If you have spirit wolves though, you might as well be a tank for a short time, but that's another story all in itself.

 

[Localus]

hmm why complaining about travelling time when u didnt mention the outpost warps? i have my home point in bastok and can move to newhere in no time with nejob, u just picked the worst way to travel in ffxi and compared it to WoW. I havent used a single airship or ferry neither rided a chocobo from stables in last two years, i dont need em anymore, for ur information ffxi has alot of ways to travel more then the ones u list.

About the job system its a pretty good system AND if u wanna start a new char to play another job well u can always do that tho u must pay $1 extra.

About the solo experience its now added to ffxi with "field of valor", have friends that leveled a job 10->75 soloing in 4 months tho i still prefer to pt.

About the time and effort to obatin an epic gear..., well if its not hard whats the point to get it? WoW make easier and easier to achieve nething w/ every update and u talk about ffxi going down? WoW seems to be desperate w/ the IQ of its players going down and down with the time. In the last maybe will add a patch to obtain a single good piece of gear just to keep happy mom's kids.

FFXI is dying aswell of WoW and its cuz everything has its time and both games had it and its ending but while SE is developing a total new game Blizzard is maybe making what? another WoW expantion or maybe oh god... a second WoW2 what will be like a big expantion of 1st game...

I agree w/ u there are a new generation of mmorpgs are coming out soon like TERA and Blade & Soul, both looks pretty good just hope its not just big talk. Aion is a WoW copy but doubt a copy will last long.

So in the end we will have a FF online among the next generation mmorpgs and not a single real word of a WoW there.

 

[Shu]

Well the outpost warping comes later, you have to travel to those places first. You have to get the Crystals from the teleports as well, in order to get around. To be quite honest out post warping is lame because you can only get that outpost when your allegiance has the beastman territory claimed.

Did I mention the travel time in the past? (past meaning you go through a Maw and then have to creep around with sneak and invisible on and hope to go you don't run into a mob with true sight or true sound).

This game is VEEEERRRY rewarding for people past 70, but you have to scrape and grind to that lvl. To get artifact gear it takes... ugh.. You have to farm the coffer keys for one, and that can take anywhere from a second to 40 minutes. Then you have to find the coffer chest.. which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to.. 2 days or more. It really all depends how many people are trying to find them.

In whitegate you still have to use a chocobo for the most part even at 75 (max level) and to top it off the chocobo trainer is sometimes abducted. So you gotta sneak and invis everywhere else.

The difference between WoW and SE customer support.. is.. ungodly in comparison.

WoW considers the players needs about every 5 months, which sometimes is bad because stuff can either get too easy.. or just annoying.. but most of the times they reward their players..

What does SE give them? Pandemonium Warden and AV ... god.. people have literally spent their lives away at these two. WoW at least you can get take your breaks.. come back and try again. (Raid instance ID)

So in my opinion SE better step it up for the next installment online, or it will be a bust for the new gen RPGs. Aieon is about to hit.. and they have air to air combat. WoW is doing just fine, because Cataclysm is in the works and finally they fixed the instance problems.

Lineage 2 still has a vast following.. as well as WarHammer. So FFXI literally has its veterans left...

Oh and why do most people complain about FFXI on their consoles? Because from our experience it is the xbox360 killer. you have to save an image of the game on your console.. then it is very possible you will get a red ring of death due to the heat sync needing resodering. I've heard of similar issues with other systems.. but I haven't confirmed anything for those.

Anyway.. Let's see what happens.

 

[L]

About the time and effort to obatin an epic gear..., well if its not hard whats the point to get it? WoW make easier and easier to achieve nething w/ every update and u talk about ffxi going down?

The only thing that gets easier with every patch is putting up with everyone else's bullshit.

WoW seems to be desperate w/ the IQ of its players going down and down with the time.

Kettle.
Pot.

Which one would you like to be?

It's just as easy for me to call you a moron just because you don't play the same game that I do.

Every game has stupid players; the games you play are no exception.

 

[Localus]

I did play WoW for almost a year and quit 3 years ago, i must admit its a good game, has good PvP, nice intances and endgame had cool gear back then, dunno much new gear since my leave. Have alot of friends still playing it and ready to jump another game, most of them with 6-7 chars lvl80 or close, in my time it was only to lvl70. I enjoyed it, then got bored and quit that happens to any game, i can understand why ppl plays WoW and no FFXI and why ppl run back to ffxi after some months of WoW, even if both games are mmorpgs they are very different.
The thing i cant stand is why some ppl is in such of a hurry to kill ffxi... the game is good, if u dont have the patience to play it then chose another game and yes WoW is the best choice out there now, tho if u have a pimp machine maybe u would like to try AoC.
There are still ppl playing Ragnarok, UO, LII why the hurry to see ffxi dead? and yes ffxi will be dead after ffxiv launch, just can be save if ffxi turns to be free to play and doubt that gonna happen.
And for the comment of players IQ going down and down i didnt say it like players get dumbers, try to point that u can see more kids playing it, actually my friends have their 8yo and 10yo kids playing it and 1 of em is already warrior 70ish last time i check, the other have problems being rouge.
About the new WoW expansion my only comment gonna be: Blizzard should think in a better race then goblins next time...

 

[Shu]

Well that might be true about the 8 and 10 year old, because lvling in WoW is a joke overall, but that does not make them a solid player when they hit 80. When they hit 70, they have the same option to grind out those lvls by doing quests in WoW, but it is much more rewarding to do the instances rather. You get better gear updates, it takes only around 45 minutes per each instance provided you have a solid tank and heals (fill in dps where ever). The instances take precision in order to take down these high end bosses, and as well pvp with organized groups.

FFXI is good, but the main point is, is that after all these years of the game being out SE has only made minor steps of improving the game for players. I mean I've see the SE convention for it, and there are solid followings for end game material, but these people have to spend... HOURS just to be able to take down hyper notorious monsters. Also they have to record time of death in order to know when to come back the next day to camp it. Otherwise some other group will take it.

Let's take in mind Serket. Serket is a huge Scorpion who is at the bottom of garlaige citadel. His timer is 22-24 hours and he drops a ring in which is pretty amazing for a caster. With a decently played Ninja people have no problem tanking this mob. I have seen people solo it as well due to the fact that the poison is removable. The problem is though for such good loot, it is always camped by someone.

While in WoW stuff has instance ID's in which make it so that you can do stuff in the real life and come back whenever. It allows for people to break off from the game, while FFXI on the other hand (whether they advertise it or not) makes people devote SOOOO much more time in order to get anywhere in game. While I've seen the community better in FFXI and the game play flat out amazing, it still has too slow of a style for all these new gen RPGs.

This game is not friendly at all to the people starting up. While people are using the lvl sync system and such, it is still hard to get a good sense of community when you first start the game. People are trying to lvl their subjobs via their main jobs and most don't have time to teach people the ropes out in Valkurn Dunes. Also not many people take people without subjobs in their groups, and most people have no idea what a renkei skill chain is yet either. The learning curve of the two games is drastically different, but that's because at one time FFXI had a HUGGGGGE community and many people were learning at the same time. Now a days.. if you are just starting, you are primarily on your own.

 

[chengxuvin]

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[Shah Tsubasa]

If you ask me FFXI smoke check WOW anyday, baby...