..and 18 hours later, it's pretty bleah. Bland I guess.  The graphics hasn't aged well, but I love the music. I guess it's expected of all FF games, but not in MMOs. Most MMOs I play, I just turn off the sound within an hour or two. FFXI, after 18 hours, I still have it on.

Which brings up the game's "Time played" option. Great feature to have, and should be in all MMOs.

With only 18 hours, I'm still near Bastok grinding on Guadavs and... bored. I don't see why an average RPG can be so entertaining in a short amount of time, and MMOs require so much time. Most RPGs are about 60 hours, but I haven't even scratched the surface of all the contents in FFXI when I'm about 1/3 of the way through an RPG... uh that wasn't worded well.. What I'm saying is, after 18 hours, why am I still doing worthless menial stuff? I guess that's just MMOs.

I'm worried about FFXIV.. I pre-ordered the CE the moment it became available for pre-order. But from what everyone's saying about FFXIV being a near carbon copy of FFXI, it doesn't look good.

Maybe I just picked the wrong server or joined in too late. I've only met one other player during the whole 18 hours I've played.. and we only had one exchange: I asked "How do you do emotes?" and he answered " /? " that was it. .. For an MMO, it's dead empty.

Yeah, I joined too late. For all the good things people had to say about the game, it's dead. I still got about 27 days left on the free trial, though, so I'll play around until FFXIV comes out. Hopefully XIV will be fun since it's new and there will be lots of people. As for FFXI, I'm not subbing. Nuh uh, Square can't trick me into paying for FFXIV and FFXI, the perks and discount isn't worth it right now.

I'm on the fence about cancelling my pre-order, but I'm going to stick around FFXI for a bit to see if it's my cup of tea.. I like the class system.. but.. it's still the same old boring grind X mobs, run here do that, etc. LOTRO has it too, but it had lore.. a real story, and it's very very shiny..pretty. If I have to choose between paying for a grindy game or not paying for a grindy game.. well I'd pick not paying.

ugh.. maintenance until 31st.. I picked a bad time to start. Well.. going to try EQ2 extended.

I hopped onto LOTRO for a bit today, and got one of those "Ohhhhhh" moments.

The scenary on max settings are so beautiful. I love the weather effects too. Sound isn't exactly the same as the movies, but it's still celtic-ish. Think my pc overheated after three hours or so.. not sure why but the nvidia graphics driver stopped working and game crashed.

Still, so far having fun in the Shire :P (don't mess with a hobbit hehe)