Hey there! ive beein playing MMO's for quite the time now, my most spent time in WoW, CoH/CoV, and AO. Touch-and-go games were AoC, EvE, GW, EQ2, SWG, LOTRO, and TheMatrixOnline. I've been looking at FFXI and Darkfall as canidates for a new MMO, since im so tired of the insane end-game epic Grind of WoW just to be able to feel like your getting powerful, the static feel of just sitting there mashing buttons for skills (tho i expect that of FFXI, but the great flexibility of their classes seem intriqueing), and inability to adventure and gain a decent portion of power solo (Only reason ive stuck with WoW for so long. most of the questing, if not all, were entirely soloable. the endgame content however ended my interest with the game, as most of the time you need a Guild in order to successfully Raid or do Dungeons. Again i expect this of FFXI, but i do not know the degree of how much Guilds are needed). So. Darkfall attracted me fot obvious reasons, for the sheer amount of freedom it offers for solo players AND guilds combined. But unfortunatly, the company is rather... 'Newb' to put it gently, and sales of the game are minisqule and poorly managed. And for FFXI? well, a change of scene and again, Flexability in classes draws my attention. along with graphics  . so i was wondering, is FFXI worth a look at for someone with my tastes? or is it better to wait for my chance to buy Darkfall for sheer freedom? Or, if anyone knows of an MMO that can quench my thirst of Freedom/Adventure/Soloability/Fun, please, LET ME KNOW!

A Thousand plus One thanks in advance!

In FFXI you can pretty much forget about doing anything on your own past a certain level. You'll need help for quests(like to get your subjob), you'll need a group to level(for most classes), and you'll need a group to do some end-game content.

The good news is that a lot of things you can do in FFXI don't require an insane amount of people to get accomplished. For some of the starter quests, one higher level character will be enough to get the job done. For instanced fights(BCNMs, etc), you'd normally take 3-6 people depending on how many people are allowed in.

Full alliances go as high as 18 people.

I've been trying to get my hands on Darkfall, myself, but they only sell copies once every now and then. When their shop is open the demand on the site is so high it always times out for me, and sometimes the shop goes down altogether.

If you want to wait until Aventurine's situation gets stable, you might like Darkfall better than XI as it's a more here-and-now MMO than FFXI is. It will take you several hours of gameplay to build up to the point where you'll start doing things other than grinding monsters for hours.

FFXI and Darkfall are really very different types of games. FFXI is very heavy PvE and group oriented, you can solo the beginning but you will need to do your homework to do so.  You WILL need a guild or linkshell as they are called, or you will find the game very difficult and lonely, no one talks in general chat.

Now I love this game, it's atmosphere is second to none, I am at a level where I can solo most of the time on a pet job. I can level by myself and do so, I can do all the little fame quests (they give you fame in the major cities and open up quests you need to do to get maps and items ect..), but I can't take down most notorious monters, I can't do dungeons and missions ect..

So while you can totally solo the game you will be missing out on many things, if you're okay with that, don't mind a challenge and looking for a linkshell then do give it a go. There's a lot of guilds that are purely social and I'd recommend one of those when you start out to get to know people.

Darkfall I don't know too much about, I know it is intensely PvP based and in that sense completely different then FFXI, I imagine the feel of the game will be totally different as well. So basically if you are a hardcore (and I say this mildly) PvE player go with FFXI, if you are a hardcore PvP player you might want to wait for DF.

thanks for the replys guys, and yeah darkfall is nearly impossible to get because of their lame account system and minimal number of copies they have to sell daily...ugh...i think i would like darkfall alot, because its not bound to holding still and clicking skills all day. but ive tried to take another look at WAR..not so good. it just seems so bland to me. i may give FFXI a look at sooner or later...well, back to playing Oblivion :D