Years ago, when ffxi came out, i really enjoyed that game. I loged in almost every single day to play it. I still have some fond memories of that game.

- Those all night xp parties i had, where id get to hang out with ppl and camp while someone pulled mobs back to us. Although there where a few times i got to pull as a bard, was pretty fun also.

- Those BCNM Fights, they were a reall challenge, and took group planning to achieve

- The journey just to get to 75, was memoriable. It was really well paced. I loved how at times i could just relax and stand around just enjoying the area around me.

I'm more into Challenging PVE, group based content, Slow paced, Simless world i can live in.

Ok now i'll compare my latest mmo "Guild wars 2" to my ffxi experiance

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So i basically played both about the same amount of time each day. In fffxi it took me over a year to achieve 75, i didnt rush there and really enjoyed the journey. In Guild wars 2 i reached lvl 80 in a month and a half. No ware near enough time to enjoy the journey to cap.

Final fantasy xi, i used to put my party flag up, and i would just hang around certain areas waiting for a party, or i could just go and watch some TV and check back during comercial breaks, which i didn't mind. Gave me a break from the game. Guild wars 2 i never used the LFG Tool, and never really spend time just hanging around areas relaxing. They were always throwing events at me.

FFXI i socialized with ppl, GW 2 i rarelly ever talked to ppl. FFXI i remember player names and the things we did together after all these years, but in GW2 I literally only remember a few names in my guild, and thats only because i would frequently look at the guild roster to see who was online out of habit.

After 2 months i stoped playing guild wars 2, was a really lonely unmemoriable experiance for me, but ffxi i played it every day for over 2 years non stop, exept when i was on vacation. 

Are there any games that would hook me back into mmo's like ffxi once did? Any in developement i should look forward to?

Originally posted by lotaparty
true .i enjoye playing ff11 . ff14 was and is a huge failure .took all fun out of the game is not a good idea 

Well ffxiv did fail but i wouldnt count it dead since its re-release is coming soon i wouldnt count it out yet

FFXIV had the story and party play by the time it finally closed it's doors, but as a whole it was indeed a poorly made game.  Hoping that the second incarnation will be worthy of creating great memories within.

To answer your question, I'm not really sure if there is a game like that now.  Though, as they say... home is where your family is; in this case, it's probably more like where your friends are.  Try to make friends first thing when you get to a new MMO and it will probably be almost as good as UO, EQ and FFXI were in their prime.

FFXI circa 2004 was when I started playing.  A GLORIOUS time.  You HAD to group at level 10.  Things like equipping a friggin' SWORD were kind of obscure, so you had to seek someone to help you.  There were lots of people in the starting areas that would cheer each other on as they fought hares and bees.  Pretty much every single accomplishment in FFXI felt like a huge reward because it was all so confusing at fist, but then you'd get the hang of it and you'd see the light... that FFXI is the single greatest MMORPG of all time!

Well, was, before the expansions started ruining it.

This really speaks to me, because it reflects my experience almost perfectly with FFXI representing the absolute pinnacle of my online gaming experience and GW2 representing a momentary burst of excitement followed (as of last night) with a fresh new wave of disillusionment.  That's not to say that GW2 didn't actually push the genre in a good direction, generally speaking, but while I think people will remember it for its content style, what I absolutely won't remember it for is its community focus.

FFXI really takes all on that front; it lives in an exalted place with EQ1.  I've concluded in my experience with this genre (and take that with a grain of salt) that the pinnacle of MMO design is forced grouping with exceptions.  By exceptions I mean particular unique class mechanics that allow a player to solo present on certain classes--but only a player who consciously chooses to prioritize his ability to solo.  Necromancers in EQ1 were the epitome of this (Druids, Bards, Shaman, and the Evel Knievels of the enchanter community to a lesser extent), and Beastmasters were the FFXI equivalent.

Soloing meant more in those games, though, because it was exceptional and a conscious decision.  More often you were actually grouping with people--and by grouping, I mean interacting socially with them over a meaningful interval of time.  I don't mean merely completing content cotemporaneously with them.  That's not the same thing, and besides, the content wasn't even the point.  I mean, let's face it, gang: in FFXI you were fighting the same fifteen mob types for the first sixty levels anyway.  It was lizards and crabs all the way up.  Snipper, Clipper, Nipper, Slasher, Cutter, Trimmer, Gasher, etc.  But it didn't matter!  They didn't even bother to palette-swap half the time, and it didn't matter because the mobs were incidental to the experience.  The game was about the players--and yes, of course people complained about seeing the same leeches twenty levels later, but at least we had people to complain to.

Now I don't want to paint the experience through rose-colored glasses, and I appreciate that part of my affection arises from my nostalgia-fueled recollection.  But I think it's important to evaluate the industry's milestones in light of it's successes, however minor or player-specific.  GW2 got a lot of things right--the guild system (in the sense that it was copied from FFXI's), the dynamic content, even the PVP to some degree.  But what they got wrong was a departure from the fundamental underpinnings of community-building, to say nothing of the recent abandonment of their erstwhile  itemization philosophy.  Community demands work, and that work has to have a reward attached to it--a reward expressable in game terms.  When you take away character inter-dependency, the work becomes unnecessary, so people don't do it.  It's the WOW Dungeon Finder problem.  Why waste time chatting with these strangers?  It's unnecessary in order to enjoy the game.  The result, unfortunately, is a game that encourages player cooperation while still remaining one of the most lonely online experiences to be had anywhere.  Frankly it's a little bleak, and while I hate to be maudlin about it, I feel like it's a symptom of the rising costs of development and the expanding waistline of the genre marketplace.  I know it's a little soapboxy to accuse everyone of expecting to be the next WOW, but unfortunately I feel like that boom-or-bust mentality is partly to blame for the bloat in development costs and the grotesque advancement of developer dissatisfaction with statistics that by any pre-WOW metric would show a resounding long-term financial success (e.g., COH).

As far as the OP's question itself, honestly, I don't know where to even point.  EQNext is on the far horizon as a contender, and the irony isn't lost on anyone that Smedley is the one championing the re-emergence of emergent gameplay as a cost-effective way to stabilize profitability in this market.  The man might be a crook, but he's a rich crook, and I can't say I ever doubted his business sense (well, except for that little NGE thing ...).  I'll gladly ride alongside a rich crook if the vehicle's going where I want to go.  Sandbox is where I want to go, and while it's entirely fair to say that EQ1 and FFXI were neither ever sandboxes in the same way that, for example, UO was, there's a line of demarcation that's pretty clear between where we are and where we've been.  A themepark-style game by today's estimation is a far cry from the term's originators.  Yes, of course I want player housing, RP support, and robust systems for player interaction.  But I think the growing desire among players for these things represents a more latent, subtle desire that the interaction they're supporting be meaningful.  Right now, flatly, it's not.  Here's a little secret, though:  A little forced grouping will get you a community just like housing will.  No reason you can't do both.

There's TESO, and then there's all the "we're going to be a sandbox!" MMO's that have been announced, in particular the Korean ones (which unfortunately is a scary proposition for reasons that I'll admit aren't entirely free of cultural bias).  The actual community of American vanilla FFXI, though?  Where did they even go?  Some are still playing FFXI, to be sure.  Some went to XIV and are now in the limbo awaiting with some trepidation the coming enlightenment/abomination that will be RR, depending on how things go, but I'm not sure if that's really a solution to the problem--at least, not if the game is exactly as billed.  I love the idea of FF, but even the videos, beautiful though they may be, frighten me that the game is based on a now obsolete model for progression, to wit, the quest hub model.

But right now?  Got nothing for you.  Hell, for all I know PS2 is what I've been waiting for all this time.  As far as I can see though, SWTOR is going F2P this week, and that's a good enough starting place.  I'm going to finish my stories over there because they were good, and then, to be frank, I'll probably bid that game adieu as well, because it's getting harder and harder for me to make an emotional investment in a game if I don't have a community to invest in as well.  That hasn't existed since FFXI, and while I remain hopeful that it will again, I'll believe it when I see it.

Originally posted by Azureblaze
I'd give Vanguard a try. It's heavy PVE focused, has an old school feel, a huge world to explore and grouping is the best way to go. It's free to play now too, heck if you wanted to try it I'd play again and show you the ropes. PM me.

I'd agree with this also.

While I know they've changed some from launch , I believe it's still heavily old school PVE group based.

Considering giving it a go again myself for a month to see the world again.

I actually been thinking about going to vanguard for a while off and on. A little while back i downloaded the game and installed it, but when i tried to set up my monthly payment for it, my bank kept blocking it :( Which is kinda weird because i used to play EQ 2 and never ran into payment problems with that. Then again ther's been alot of years since those 2 games, and been awhile since i tried to set that up. Maybe i'll try again, idk i started playing ffVI again and kinda hooked on it atm ^^.

PS, Didnt Vanguard go FTP? maybe i should try it out that way for awhile.

Wow you guys sound just like me, ffxi was the best mmorpg iv ever played iv been looking for something like it ever since i left.

Just wait a few months till ffxiv arr comes out it should be the closest youll get to how ffxi used to be.

You need to stop living in the past. Those games were great back then because our expectations were so low. we had little basis for comparison as most anything new was refreshing and exciting...guess what...those days are over. the market is hopeless flooded with all sorts of clones and duds. we, as mmo gamers, and the genre as a whole are doomed...forever

The only thing left to do is hook your big toe in the trigger of your 12 gauge and splatter your brains all over your computer room