I'm not sure what they were getting at exactly but what I think they meant was where are all these strange names coming from? I mean if this is supposed to be a FF why are we calling classes by these weird names. Why doesn't SE use traditional FF names. Like instead of Pugilist use Black Belt or Monk, or dragoon instead of lancer. I think they are changing the names just for the sake of change and to make it seem like it's not ffxi all over again. That's not necessary though because every Final Fantasy game before has re-used the same name and no one had a problem with it. Why do they think all of a sudden we will?

Is this some kind of joke question? I mean c'mon before WoW came out FFXI had at one point more subscibers then any MMO at that time. I think this guy must be kidding he has to be.

Yeah I remember when I first got the game and was still on dial-up. Was like 15 hours worth of downloads and that was pre CoP LOL.

A lot of the thing you guys have been talking about are very true. From my experience though for every messed up complete BS kind of thing that happened to me there were many many more good things that happened. I played the game for a really long time too and I am actually going to start back up here this week. (downloading the mIllion updates as we speak).

I think sometimes, as with most things in life, we tend to concentrate on the bad. Like I remember I joined a group to do a KSNM and all 6 of us were supposed to get orbs. Well as you know KSNM orbs are kind of a pain in the butt to get right? Can't remember which one it was but if I had been doing this with my LS and someone needed something from it we would just let them have it as long as they bought the seals. Everyone else would get to keep all ofher items and split the profits among eachother.

Well when you do this with a pickup group that can be kind of scetch right? Who wants to rely on someone they just met to make sure they get their fare share. So what we decided is for the battle with your orb you get to keep everything. This works kind of like scratch tickets because it's kind of luch of the draw. You might get the big spendy item it drops or you might get crap but either way stuff from KSNMs are normally worth something. Well not if this happens. So we get through the first 3 rounds right now problem got some decent drops and everyone was happy. Well 4th round comes around right and it's my turn to lot well then the 1st  and 3rd guy decide they have to leave. So I spent all those seals on my orb and helped those guys get junk and I get nothing. Not to mention the 6th guy was a friend of mine that I recruited so I feel like a jerk because he waisted his seals too.

It's funny how I can remember that so specifically right? Even for years when I ran into that 1st and 3rd guy I would tell people what a jerk they were. Well i haven't played for almost 3 years now but i bet I'd remember them if I saw them.

I have to admit though for everyon moment like that I had 10 moments of someone going out of their way to help me with even the most remedial tasked though that you need help with. Like people that helped me get my G1 items or AF equipment the first go around. A tons of other things like that. So with all the this negativety flowing about. Maybe we can stop look back and think about that kind of stuff even though it's so easy to rant and remember the bad moments. Now if those bad moments outweighed the good ones in your ffxi experience I have to say I am sorry for you and I wish I had met you so you could have joined my LS and enjoyed FFXI the way it can be enjoyed.

Well it's sad that this is how the community has turned out. I can understand though, this is a pretty freakin old game by MMO standards. I was thinking about starting back up but then again my character has a few lvl 75s and I know I have some friends still kicking away so it won't be a problem for me.

I can tell you why it's gonna be hard for new players though. I'd say 90% of the people playing ffxi right now have at least 1 job to 75. So in essence the vast majority of players are at the end of the game. So going back and helping John Q newb with things like getting his sub job or kazham keys and other junk that you have to do to get anywhere in the beginning is probably not even on their priority list or pretty much near the bottum. Does this suck for new people? Yeah. Does it mean the community is bad for this happening? I'm not too sure.

Let me ask you a question. If you had made it to the end of the and along the way helped god only knows how many people get there sub job, kazham, keys, G1 Items, and all those other little things that you do when you start out in ffxi, would you rather help people with that kind of stuff? Or would you rather do some fun stuff like, SEA, Ehinherjar, and salvage? I mean c'mon when I left even SKY seemed kind of "entry level". 

So I wouldn't really say this community is bad or mean I would just say that you joined about 3-7 years too late. There is some good news though, FFXIV is supposed to be coming out next year so look forward to that. By the time you get into anything cool everyone will be leaving for that anyways.

I for one think the community will be a very strong one. Sure you will have the occasional jerk or selfish person that comes along but here is why I think there are going to be fewer then in some of the games out there. In FFXIV like in FFXI you will be able to changee jobs and I'm sure there will be benefits for using one character instead of multiples in FFXIV like FFXI. This in return makes it so everyone knows you or pretty close and if everyone knows you, you'll want them to like you for many reasons. Think of it as a small town, which normally has about the same amount of people as a server does. In a small town you might not know every single person but you know a lot of them and odds are if you don't know someone, someone you know does know that person. This smalll town type of community "encourages" people to act with a little bit more sense and be a little bit more courtious then they might in other games because having a bad reputation can make your gaming experience in games like that miserable.

For instance there were people in FFXI on my server that were renouned for being huge jerks. I was actually friends with 2 of them. For a while it was a ok because only a small amount of people thought they were jerks but both of them ended up quitting not because they didn't enjoy the game but because no one ever wanted anything to do with them because of their reputation. This rarely happens in other games and in all honesty I'm sure those guys that are jerks in other games will just make an alt and play that character if they want to continue playing. Well looks like I rambled on enough but there is my 2 cents.

I have to say there won't be too much different this go around. I pretty much took my time with ffxi with taking a little more then a year to reach 75 all the way doing missions, quests, and getting into trouble helping friends as soon as I possibly could.

If I was to change anything though, I would start crafting or gathering closer to day 1. I was about lvl 55 in FFXI before I started any of that and I had to spend money to get to where I could make enough for my lvl. I think if I started off crafting or gathering from the beginning I could grow as a all around character instead of having to play catchup with one end.

I never understood the people that spent 90% of there time xp partying in ffxi and never did anything else unless they had to so they could keep xp partying. My favorite times in ffxi were going and getting things like af for me and my friends and completing the genkais, and there different storyline missions. I was all about the missions, CoP wasn't just about a silly ring for me but the experience of different areas, the story, and the comradery I had with the group of people I did it with.

One thing I also regret is when i finally got to endgame and my main LS kind of broke i got into this me me me mode and just wanted nothing but new gear and new bosses to kill. I think next time I'll focus less on that because in all honest I had a lot more fun doing silly things like getting my friend his g1 items and all of us dieing because we pulled to many mobs then doing Dynamis 1mil times and killing proto-omega for the thousandth time.

Yeah the bots are bad. I guess I shouldn't have expecting anything less though this is NCSoft and anyone who's ever played L2 knows bots are apart of the game. I don't like the constant spamming of gold selling either it's absolutely rediculous. The game does have a lot going for it though I will say that. For me though it just doesn't fit like I thought it was going to. Maybe after it's matured a bit more and people actually start doing major PvE content I'll start back up. For now though I don't think it's for me.

I have to agree 100% with this. I don't know anyone who doesn't. There are plenty of games out there with a decent enough system for them to jus rip off but why haven't they done it? I don't think anyone will complain about it if they did.

Here is what I got it's almost identical to the OP.

hola,

i was browsin 'round here, and I stumbled upon your profile. You seem to be a rather cool dude, but I'm somewhat new on this site, & don't really know my way around here. Don't they have some sort of chat thing here?? Well, i can't stand sending msgs 2 ppl, and sometimes never receiving a responce! Well, if u are interested in talkin' with me, u could catch me over @ date-bucket.org?id=3587 , my name there is sporty_chickadee.

So, ya, hope to see you. I'm always lookin' to meet more ppl.
Ariana Adams

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I find this hilarious because I looked at my profile. This person seemd to think I was a cool dude but what I had written was completely retarded and hadn't been updated since I was in high schoool.

The only thing my profile said was "I like pizza, soda and video games that aren't gay. I can't wait for UT 2004 to come out cause unreal tournament is the best fps ever." Yeah that's the profile of a cool dude for sure. I didn't realize what a tool I was back in high school until now lol. Apparently this spamer thinks i'm a cool dude though so it's all good. 

Bring up things they used to do in MUDs or still do in MUDs? MUDs are not MMORPGs they don't have the same parameters as computer games. So even though you once played a mud whre you could do some weird thing that really isn't even possible in a video game why do you feel the need to use that as a comparison. They are to completely different mediams.  This isn't a rant mind you just a bit of curiosity.

I noticed that people were describing the leveling in this game similiar to WoW. To be completely honest that's very dissapointing to here. I have this one question though. Even if it is viable to solo to max level is it necessarily the most efficient way to do so? Also in later levels are the quests still setup as kill this mob and bring back x amount of its teeth, fir, droppings or whatever? I really hate that stuff, I've always been one to like group oriented games and have no issues grinding away killing thousands of blue crabs as long as there is good company along the way. If there were quests with a little more story and involvement that aid in leveling and take groups to complete I would be all for it though.

But like somebody mentioned earlier I'm really able to put up with most crap in games as long as the endgame is amazing so if that's the case i'll probably do the Aion thing because most of what i've been reading has me very excited.

This precisely why I do not play either of those games you mentioned above. I never had an issue with the "grinding" in games like L2 and FFXI because when it came down to it you weren't by yourself. More so in L2 though because the people you grinded with were typically apart of your clan and you had to watch your back the entire time to ward off other clans. Either way though it's better then running around just looking for that dude with an "!" above his head and getting his 10 rat butts.

I used to play on Caitsith and I'm trying to get all my stuff back at this time. Was in Afghanistan for the last 6 months. From what I remember most of the people i played with were on the east coast. Even when I lived in Europe and the west coast most of my friends were from central or easter time. I don't know if there is anywhere to find statistics on that but maybe somebody else does.

Oh man I can't wait for this game to release in NA. It's gonna be sweet! I know people think it might flop like AoC or WAR but you forget this is an asian MMO with a dash of western thrown in. I think that's gonna make for a perfect combo with my tastes at least.

I think people put too much stock in character customization. When it comes down to it little issues like this are not gonna keep me from playing a game. Yes they're nice, but not really that important. I think solid gameplay, storyline, and community the main factors in a good game character customization comes way after all of those. I actually would put HUD setup, graphics, variety of monsters, and many many other things before character customization. When it comes down to it you're only gonna spend maybe 10-15 min tops on making your character when you first start anyway cause you're gonna want to get in and play your new game. People really only take time to use those features for re-roles/alts and if the game isn't that good you're not gonna re-role a character now are you?

I think most everyone is giving great advise on this topic. I know it sounds daunting when people say that you'll want to wait to start any of the expansion storylines besids CoP until endgame but it's probably the best way to go. I'll break it down pack by pack with my opinion and experiences.

Zilart is awesome but like many have mentioned you can't start zilart until you finish 5-2. Then I would say if you have some friends or a large group of people go ahead and try out some of the first missions as soon as you can. I wouldn't wait on this like many have said. I had sky access as level 64 at that's more then halfway done if I remember correctly. Back then you needed sky access to level 70-75 that has changed. So it is definetely do-able I know many that have done it.

When it comes to CoP start it as soon as you can which is level 30. See if you can get the missions and content done while leveling but this can be hard to do. CoP is a unique expansion with all it's level caps and was designed to provide content for all levels of players and to be finished when you're level 75.

ToAU the first bunch of missions is just running here and there so if you love storyling like I do get on that part as soon as you have access to the ToAU areas. Then I would say the first fight in the cemetary you will need to be higher level or grab a few friends to help. I'd say be well into your 60s by then almost 70.

With WoTG a lot of this starts out as running around so get on that if you wan. I don't have a whole lot of experience with this expansion though because I had to leave the game for shortly after it came out. It's actually the only one I haven't finished. So to be competely honest I don't know what a good starting level for this is but campaign isn't really viable until 70+ i'd say unless you're a support class.

I don't know I guess I just love fantasy games. Isn't a big surprise though I love fantasy novels too. Not a huge sci-fi fan but i read somebody mentioning something like a fallout3 MMO. I would be willing to try something like that out.

I don't think there is an age you reach when you're too old to do anything you have fun doing unless you're too old to physically do it. Like my grandpa couldn't go out and play basketball anymore so he had to pick up golfing instead. When it comes to video games though I think you'll see people of our generation still playing them well into retirement age because we grew up on them. On top of that I'm pretty sure when we reach that age we will make up a market share for video games and certain companies will make games geared towards us.

So no I don't think you're too old to play MMOs and I'm 23 just to let you know. I do find that with career goals, relationships, and that sorta life/growing up stuff the time I have to play is considerably less then when I was younger. So playing all hours of the night and all weekend long with no sleep was something I did a lot. Now I don't even really play on weekends ever unless there is absolutely nothing to do and i might play 4-5 hours 2-3 nights a week. Who's to say though you could be one of those cool 30 yr old dudes that lives in grandma's basement and works part time at the local gas station and has more time to play then not. That is always an option for some =P

The combat is not turned based. I don't really know any mmo out there that is turned based to be completely honest. There is an auto-attack  fuction if that's what you mean and it can be slow but at higher levels you will need this time to work together as a team.