Final Fantasy XI

Originally posted by kitsunegirl

Why it wasnt the perfect MMO:

 

Badly ported from console.

The Best version of the game is the PC version, All you need is  a Pad and your set.

No UI to speak of, had to macro all your spells.

You dont have to Macro all your spells, it just made things easier. The macro system was pretty easy and intuitive.

Housing sucked.

I'll give you that, at leat it has housing. Also i heard they've updated it so players can invite other into their house.

Crafting sucked.

I'll also agree to a point, I like the fact that it was so fucking hard to level a craft to 100 that a random guy couldnt walk up and power level it in a day.

Fishing got nerfed so badly that it sucked too - so bad Id rather fish in EQ2, and I cant stand fishing in that game.

Theyve worked on fishing so it involes more player input, to try and get one over on botters.

Quests were hard to find... you practically  had to click on everything just to find one.

Agree'd

Zoning... as bad as EQ2.

Agree'd

Cutscenes.

I loved the cutscenes personaly, made YOU feel like a part of the story rather then having a lame scripted NPC that only one person could interact with at a time

Only those tribble things could be mages... loved them, but why? lol

Tarutaru's MADE the best mages, anyone could be a mage but just not as good as them. All classes were open to all races, just makes scense that the little guys would be better mages than a two handed sword wealding Dark Knight.

Those world codes, you had to know someone in a particular world just to get invited in... otherwise you got a random world.

Yea that was lame, theyve updated now thought so you get a world selection option at the start of character creation.

The airship between areas was annoyingly long.

They were fun but after the 100th time of you being in a rush somewhere they did get annoying.

Economy was screwed up.

Yes indeed, but as much as i'd like to talk bad about SE, they steped it up a notch and started doing something about it awhile back.

Graphics looked like they were filtered through a cheesecloth.

On consoles yes, but on the PC if you know what your doing you can break the graphics/res limit and run it higher. Theres even a downloadable tool called Mogs Tools (I think?) that would do it for you.

Originally posted by kitsunegirl

Why it wasnt the perfect MMO:

 

Badly ported from console.

Badly?  You can change so many more settings and force much higher resolutions and graphics with PC and make it look 100x better than console!

No UI to speak of, had to macro all your spells.

You did not have to macro anything, there are menus like any traditional FF RPG you could select everything from.  Macros helped though for quicker casting of certain spells and was well done.

Housing sucked.

At first yes, then they added all the nice elementals you could add to ur char to help with crafting, farming, XPing and even death.   ...and most recently they've opened housing to allow you to invite others in and show off what you've earned like nation flags for completing the storyies and sets of armor on display, furnishing or just a place to talk and have all other game chat nullified.

Crafting sucked.

Why cause there was no menu to select pre-made recipies from telling u exactly what you were going to make.  Thats the beauty of FFXI crafting cause you had to figure out what materials used to together would create what and then u had a chance of getting +1 and +2 gear that sold for millions more!  This is one the best crafting systems ever cause it was very hard and challenging and extremely rewarding.

Fishing got nerfed so badly that it sucked too - so bad Id rather fish in EQ2, and I cant stand fishing in that game.

Fishing got nerfed to combat gil sellers and its working very well!  The new way you fish with the stamina bar and having to combat the fish back in forth to wear it out before u can reel it in successfully made it even better instead of just standing there and waiting.  Not to mention the goblins they added all along coastlines to combat AFK fishing gil farmers.

Quests were hard to find... you practically  had to click on everything just to find one.

Another great option to the game, why is it so bad to have to go and talk to an NPC to see what they have to say instead of huge glowing ! and ? over their heads to lead you.  Its an adventure you as a player is playing, not the developers telling u exactly what and where u have to go and talk too.  Thats one of the major downfalls to MMOs these days is they're so easy and all u do is follow a path of glowing ! and ?

Zoning... as bad as EQ2.

Zoning is one of the major points to this game I love and without them everyone would be dying so much more than usual.  Enemies will chase you until u can zone out of the area{and yes they can hit and kill you during the initial zoning process} or they kill you.  So much better than most new MMOs cause all u do in them is run 15 feet away and even though the enemy wants u dead...it just gives up and returns to its spawn point...lame!  You have to pick the fights u think u can win and if not, hope you were near a zone you can get to in time if the enemy gets the upper hand, which can and does happen alot, since all enemies have varying ranges of difficulty and levels of defense and evasion!  Even though the next enemy you target looks exactly like the one you just killed doesn't mean its gonna be an easy fight too...

Cutscenes.

These are what define FFXI as one the best MMOs out there...they're telling a story and your character actively participates in each cutscene, more just on the sidelines and watching the events unfold, but still this is one the best things ever done in an MMO.  Yeah they aren't all super fun time flashy or has voice, but you can still make a very emotional scene with the chars and just text.  Personally I don't much care for voice...many times it ruins the scene and the characters.

Only those tribble things could be mages... loved them, but why? lol

I'm assuming you're refering to the Tarutaru, and no they couldn't only be a mage{They excelled at being mages} but any race could play and be very good at any job.  I've seen Tarutaru as Paladins and Samurai and Warriors and kick loads of ass sometimes even more so than other races.  Certain class and race combinations are alot harder to play due to the racial traits, but all are more than possible with the better pieces of gear.

Those world codes, you had to know someone in a particular world just to get invited in...otherwise you got a random world.

Guess its been far to long since you've played as the world codes are null and void now and you can select which world u want to play on.  The Gold World Passes however are still there for friends and buddies to reap the rewards from them over time if you want.

The airship between areas was annoyingly long.

3-5 min?  For an amazing view of Vana'diel  and a realistic time sink  which was perfect  to go grab a drink refill or chat it up with friends is not bad at all.  Again with the newer MMOs and the Quick Travel and Instant Warps everywhere is not fun and quickly became annoying if you can traverse the world in a few secs.  I love so much that in FFXI u can't get places very fast and you have to be an adventurer and hope you can make it someplace in one piece each time.  Why is all that content there in newer MMOs if you can just bypass it all eventually and never step foot in there again.

Economy was screwed up.

Key Word, "WAS"  Squares' Special Task Force has been doing a fabulous job at combating Gil Sellers unlike most all other MMOs that just kinda let them do what they want.  They report every 1-2 months with details of who/what/where/when/how much gil was removed from the game and they actively let us know what is being changed to combat returning gil farmers.  The econmy is still not back to what it was during launch months which it never will be, but prices have dropped over 3000% what they were with gil farmers running rampant.  Last time I played before these changes stacks of crystals were selling between 6000gil and 20,000gil a stack, now its amazing if you can get 400-900gil a stack, though that was 8 months ago too....could have changed!

Graphics looked like they were filtered through a cheesecloth.

Just need to change your settings in the config and in-game menus to max, and if thats not enough like I said above you can force much higher resolutions{like 100x better} via editing your hex codes which won't screw anything up if you follow directions, and you can find all that information here in this forums thread:

FFXI Game Setup/Tweaking/Optimizing Q&A

 

Macros :  FFXI has the best macro making system ever, not needed, it just makes you that much faster.

Airship times:  Sorry I didn't realize that you wanted to zone instantly from one side of the world to the other, If you look up in some zones you actually SEE THE AIRSHIP FLY OVERHEAD, tell me another game that  has that amount of realisim?

Player housing Is amazingly fun now, you can invite all your friends into your Mog house!

Tarutaru ARE NOT the only good mages, infact they make kinda poor black mages end game because they have such low HP and they die in one hit to most stuff.  The great thing about this game is ANY RACE CAN BE ANY CLASS EFFECTIVELY.

The UI is easy to learn and pretty easy to understand you just hit the - Key and the side menu comes up, very similar to City of Heroes.  Also you move just like most games ASDW, which is really easy.

FFXI is awesome on PS2 Xbox360 AND PC

I've played it on all 3 and each is unique but I prefer PC

Crafting in FFXI is the most unique out of any MMO out there, the entire game revolves around the crystal war and hence crafting.  It may be complicated and at times confusing but there are many MANY fan sites out there now that can help guide you.

Fishing got Nerfed....  NO NO NO!!!  Sorry it used to be that you'd wait for a chyme to sound and then you'd hit one button.....  That was REAL difficult, now instead you have to actually tire out the fish and do some work to reel it in, IMAGINE THAT, its realistic.

Quests are hard to find?  Um... Unlike WoW quests are not the point of this game, you do quests to get items not to get experiance, and if you have difficulty finding a quest perhaps you should use one of the many many many wiki/fansites that are out there to help guide you in the right direction, Sorry there is no GIANT EXCLAIMATION POINT over everyone's head.

Zoning does exsist in this world yes, but frankly every MMO has Zoning, even WoW.

Cut scenes ADD to the playability of a game in my opinion, why wouldn't you want STORYLINE in an RPG?

Tribbles?  Thats a small fuzzy thing from Star Trek that is like a foot in diameter, a Tarutaru is nothing like a tribble...

YOU MAY NOW SELECT WHICH WORLD YOU START ON.  World passes are a thing of the past.

The Economy WAS screwed up, now its possible to kill monsters for their items and sell them to NPC's to earn enough money to buy real items. I myself just farmed up a 250k item in a day killing Bats and selling their Blood to an NPC.

Cheesecloth?  Um ... somethings wrong with your eyes or your monitor, do you clean it with your hankee you sneeze in?

All your complaints are outdated or jaded or straight out lies.

Originally posted by Jerid13

All your complaints are outdated or jaded or straight out lies.

That was offensive and just unnecessary.

I lied about nothing, nor was it jaded. Outdated, yes... since the last time I played was soon after that platinum edition was released. It was also an opinion post. The OP gave his opinion as to why he thought it was the best, I countered with my opinion - even if it is outdated.

Cheesecloth: They had a forced res in the game, so everything looked fuzzy.

Also another thing I didnt like was clicking through several screens just to play a game.

Originally posted by kitsunegirl  

Also another thing I didnt like was clicking through several screens just to play a game.

You do that in every MMO!  Many times now click past the splash screen, then to the log in screen you gotta type in your name and password, then click ok, then select your chars and click ok.

So FFXI has a few extra screen to warn players of seizures to protect themselves since FFXI does have a ton of flashy spells, or to let players know not to play long bursts and ruin their lives or about updates to the POL system and game!

You know to this day FFXI has the best log-in system ever cause not one person has ever hacked it and made a private server.  There are none, and I applaud Square for their security and not allowing ppl to hack their game and make wacky servers and play as chars they're not supposed to ala WoW and many others!

You just want everything handed to you on a silver platter and don't have to do anything for yourself, why even bother to play a game if all you really want is for everything to be very quick and done for you basically, at least thats how you're coming off to me as that type of player!

yes ff11 have no private server at all..people have tried and failed

FFXI is a success in the way that no one's been able to hack it...

But as game, is too far from being perfect, when it was just released it was the best by difference... but now too much time happened and FFXI is just an slow mmorpg from the 2001 with ps2 graphics.

Partying system is fine... that's not the problem, the problem is you need way too much time to do anything, you can't have a normal life and success in FFXI.