Final Fantasy Online
- Thread starter Legomyeggo
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Yep, I totally agree. I had a free trial on WoW a long time ago and while I don't have anything bad to say about the game overall (except that I maxed my gold in the first hour of play and couldn't get anymore - free trial limit)... I simply did not like the graphics and thus I didn't end up playing it on paying mode.
I might still get the game, I just wish it doesn't look the way it does.
Overall a pretty decent post. The selected paragraphs are interesting to me.
First of all, I do not think gaming companies in the states even try to look at women or girls as a target market when it comes to video games in general. There is potential to make things towards them that are not only disney adventures or barbie. A lot of us like a good storyline and probably take a more aesthetic view towards graphics.
Certain companies are very reluctant to do the research and effort it takes to acquire and retain a niche market. Decent research is costly (in house or outsourced) and knowing how to use the research effectively probably would require hiring someone specialized than just a developer engineer for more positive results.
I've heard and read some articles that women do most of the buying and a lot of mmo players are women in their 40's.
US companies do well in making pew pew shooter games, sports, and sometimes an rpg (rarely). Compared to some companies in Japan, there is more selection towards female interests (and other things that the US has not tried to do). For certain reasons, an overwhelming majority of them never leave Japanese markets.
The downfall to getting japanese only games is buying/modding the console to use it and then paying a pretty good price for the game (or download because the price/availability). Although this could be said for most imported digital media as well.
With that said, WoW and FFXI probably have some similarities in who their markets are as well as some major differences. Blizzard and developers had more prior experience to the online gaming experience with some previous games (Diabolo II?) where as SE was entering a new product and service when they released FFXI.
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Endgame
Both games: choose your endgame shell/guild wisely. If you do not enjoy the player base or if they are all kids who have parents paying for them vs. people who work; it will never work out. The kids whine to the working people that they do not get on enough while the working people most of the time prefer a set beginning and end time for all events. This could go for any mmo that has endgame.
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Job Versatility
To be honest, I like whm on FFXI and hated Priest jobs in most other MMOs (besides the fact priests wore ugly dresses for good gear). When I still played WoW, the jobs I enjoyed most were warrior, paladin, and lol resto druid (where the guild tabard on did not look like an apron to the dress like it does on a priest). Whereas warrior in ffxi is not my favorite job to play.
For the unbalanced jobs, check the WoW forums, like Deci said, there are tons of complaints about how a certain job is overpowered/underpowered/useless.
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PvP
Again, this issue is probably more about the company and their concept of the mmo. FFXI was designed for a slightly different group and on a multi regional base whereas as WoW serves one division for each region (NA, EU, Asia?). It's not carebear more than what is acceptable for NA/JP/EU as a whole. A company probably rather not have to deal with the repercussions of a bad decision that was viewed as too violent or unacceptable to one culture. The warcraft series is more natural in design to have a better PvP element for those seeking it.
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People
Besides language barriers, it really depends on who and how you interact. WoW is a great game where if you do not feel like saying a word to people, it is okay to say nothing and do stuff on your own. One disadvantage of the American culture is that other cultures view Americans to be selfish.
SE is Japan based along with the concept of FFXI: teamwork. A lot of other cultures are more team oriented and find it disrespectful to praise a certain individual in the team. That is probably why the majority of leveling and events are geared more to a 5-6 man party than soloing. Soloing is possible in the game but more of a challenge then in some other mmos. And sadly if you think the only place you will ever do teamwork is in an mmo... think again. A lot of jobs in the workplace (imagine hospitals without the dedicated team of nurses and clerical staff @_@) require teamwork or are in the process of adapting teamwork practices into the job.
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Not here to flame on either game but that is one perspective about it.
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- TheNameless
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I coulda sworn that in WoW ctrl+s = general say, ctrl+g = guild.. hmm or some key stroke similar to FFXI
I know hitting r replies. The chatting really isn't a problem at all I think. And ugly? hmm.. debatable. Different style, I agree, but it looks fine. Graphics a game does not make. You should know that playing on a system with inferior graphics to the others XD
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In response to deci's post, there's quite a few things I wanna point out about some points made.
Your chat system sucks.
FFXI Chat system is "OK" but WoW's is more familiar. Press Enter to start chatting and Enter again to send. Simple.
I really don't see any issues with either chat interface... you can MT just as easily in WoW as you can in FFXI
... the only issue with FFXI is that tells can be lost in zoning, but honestly is it that big of a deal?
Your auction house system sucks.
FFXI's system is "DIFFERENT" in that FFXI limits you to 7 items, but what I really think Neo is getting at here is what ties into the economy in general and that there is way too much supply which puts a stranglehold on the amount of stuff you can sell in a week. WoW allows you to sell as much stuff as you want at a time, charges you "tax" based on how long you want to list it and people simply don't goto the AH to buy many items. Anything thats of the lower two qualities (grey and white) are almost never on the AH unless they ar materials for popular mid/high-level synths.
It's not so much the AH system that sucks. I actually feel the way they have it done is good, when there's a large supply stocking a specific market, the price begins to be driven down as people ask for less and less to make sure they sell their items faster. It promotes deflation for the most part, but at the same time it can cause items to be inflated greatly. Limiting the amount of stuff being put up at once also kind of prevents people from overdoing this undercutting business, but not fully. Imagine if RMT could put up 1000 of the same item at once with no need for other chars to make AH space. And, from a business point of view, SE gets $1/mule too ^-^, so it is very substantial for them to do this in some senses. On the downside, most items are recyclable, causing a back-up of item supply sometimes as people buy things and sell them back later, meaning items never leave the economy, or enter states of disrepair, meaning the same 2000 sniper rings are still circulating throughout the playerbase, which also means eventually there will be problems when too many people are selling said items at once.
Alternativelylooking at WoW's AH system, you can see the names of who is selling what, you can choose which person's items you buy, leaving it open to people to charge what they want, without a sense of a need to undercut or "ruin" certain markets. You can put up as many items as you want at a time, meaning no need for mules, unless of course you need the extra storage. WoW, like FFXI has the tax system on selling to the AH, still, so both sides do somewhat remove gil/gold from the economy. WoW at least makes items bind on equipping them, meaning after they have been crafted/found/used, they pretty much are just NPC junk, meaning more of that item can be sold to other players or alts later down the line, preventing this recycling effect that FFXI suffers from.
I feel neither AH system really has enough ups or downs against the other to really warrant one being "better".
Your endgame sucks.
Neither myself of Neo has the capability of drawing a comparison to WoW in this regard yet. However I can safely say that FFXI's end game is quite dry in terms of "action packed gameplay" which is what most young gamers want. Maybe old people want to sit around at a camp and chat for 3 hours but real gamers want almost constant action or at least some involvement in real gameplay (I'm of course referring to instances and raids etc).
This is where my biggest gripe against FFXI is. The endgame is very shallow and lacks a lot of action. Deci describes it well here. Sitting around for 3 or more hours camping mobs and collecting pop items to spawn a boss in which you have people tank it, and the rest spank it... i.e. the term tank n' spank is a good way of describing a very unsatisfying playstyle. Of course, we continue to do this just because it is how the "phat lootz" are obtained in this game.
WoW's endgame really struck me as done well. In some cases, however, Blizzard clearly didn't put a lot of thought into some encounters, or left them buggy before releasing them, making it literally impossible to finish them until they decide to "fix/nerf" the boss. It's a common joke to say Blizzard cockblocks raiding guilds until they feel it's time to allow them to finish an encounter. Although I don't know how this trend has continued with the Burning Crusade, it was true for most of the raid dungeons in the past they released. Now. This is where the endgame for WoW blows FFXI out of the water. They used to start you out with the simple raid dungeon, ala MC (Molten Core) which was, essentially just a tank n' spank dungeon from start to finish, with some subtle details mixed up. Then came BWL (Blackwing Lair), in which the first encounter required a decent amount of coordination to finish, and actually required some puzzle solving when it first came out. In this instance, you basically have a dragon on one side of the room, a shitton of eggs sitting in the middle, and a mind controlling orb on the left side which, when touched, lets you control said dragon on the opposite side.
Of course, if you don't control the dragon, he runs around and owns your raid. With him mind controlled, you basically have to run around breaking these eggs in the room, and all while you do this, a flood of orcs and dragonkin spawn from every side of the room, literally swamping the room, meaning you need extra good teamwork from your raid in controlling them, and keeping them from killing the person on the mind control orb. Once the eggs are all broken, the room clears, and you have to kill the big dragon guy you were mind controlling. The only hard part is, you can't taunt him, so hate bounces a lot.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complexity of encounters in WoW. They just get more and more fun and challenging as the game progresses on. Usually when a new dungeon is released, guilds race to try and clear them before any other guild so they can both show off the new loot they got, and just for bragging rights. Though usually it is not long before the rest of the guild population catches up.
Now one problem I've noticed in WoW vs. FFXI is that there is a higher level of elitist attitude, and the endgame community is full of rivalries, anger, and jealousy of other guilds' progression, or achievements. I've found that most guilds that obtain shinies before the rest of the community tend to be full of pricks, and rarely is the newcomer welcome in these guilds: which, I can understand since these guilds want to continue to progress at the rate they do... but many friendships are lost in the process and people become so drunk with this idea that they are gods among men or something because they killed a monster. It's rather dissapointing that you'll rarely find a nice person once they have obtained a certain amount of epic gear in WoW. FFXI still seems to have a more friendly endgame community, though now a large chunk of the players in the game have reached 75 with at least one job. It's actually kind of rare to see anyone without a 75 these days, and without most Sky gear either equipped or in their storage.
Your level grind sucks.
I really doubt he means that actual leveling sucks. The problem is that in FFXI it is almost so incredibly linear that SE would have to make a whole new game to change it. In FFXI all you can do to EFFECTIVELY level up is party with 5 other people and find a very specific zone (there will only be a handful) and be at that zone with low competition (each zone or area can only handle a couple parties).
In WoW not only can you solo to Lv70 by grinding on mobs exactly like FFXI but you can join instances with a 5 man party, you can turn in quests for SUBSTANTIAL XP rewards (ex. In WoW around Lv45 it takes 100K XP to level, you get around 200-400 XP per kill which take like 10-15 seconds each, and each quest you turn in which you are completing while killing stuff will give you a bonus 3-7K XP and you turn in a handful of these each level).
Yeah, no comment here. Though FFXI has taken a turn for the better on the solo'ing bit after a certain level, and introducing more jobs that can solo somewhat, it's not quite as well done as WoW, which gives you the option to party (instance runs) which also reward you with gear that is useful, and plenty of EXP both from quest turn-ins. Deci pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Your quests suck.
I wouldn't say WoW's quests are any better. I'm almost Lv52 now and already getting bored of them. Although FFXI's quests suck for a different reason (no reward). WoW's quests suck for being repetitive (kill 10 of these, collect 5 of these... etc etc).
WoW: The quests aren't necessarily exciting, but they give a much more substantial purpose to finishing them, as well as better descriptions as to how they are finished. Which is a big plus.
FFXI: The missions add a great cinematic and interesting experience to the game I've never seen in any MMO. While some of the quests in the game have decent plots, there is rarely a motive to do them due to no rewards other than subtle gil increases or fame. Also the general lack of information given in most of the quests means without Allakhazam, you won't get very far =P. If nothing else FFXI definitely has WoW beat in cinematics.
Your job versatility sucks.
This is huge. In FFXI most jobs are used for very specific things and can't be interchangable in many situations. The most glaringly obvious of these is the White Mage. A totally underplayed job which is used only for healing. In WoW theres a job called Priest also a healer which is probably also one of the least versitile jobs but can be spec'd to do different things such as be an effective damage dealer. Any job in WoW can be effective solo or 1v1, or in group PvP and PvE.
One thing I have to rebut to that statement is "wait till endgame". Druids used to get shunned if they went anything but Resto (lolmoonkin). Priests had to wait a long time before shadow was even remotely useful in raids, and it wasn't really until "dicking around" was acceptable for the raid in question. Really, every job has their set purposes in the game, and usually have to be adhered to. Paladins can't really do anything but heal and cleanse in endgame either. At least in FFXI you can level every job class on a single character, saving a lot of trouble. While most job combos aren't acceptable, they are options, and the subjob system I feel still adds a degree of flexibility to the game that WoW lacks (Shamans are the only class that get a 2nd hearthstone ability, while in FFXI you can just sub BLM and warp yourself)... of course that is just an example.
Your zones suck.
Yes, they do...FFXI's zones (at least in CoP and ToAU) have very nice art in some places but FFXI lacks epicness! Theres no massive towers (other then crags) huge hills that you have to climb, no vista's and very little chaff. The FFXI environments are usually pretty plain and just scattered with mobs and a simple texture overlay.
I was always intrigued by screenshots of the endgame areas in FFXI. I wouldn't call them all plain. Many are, but they definitely made some areas extremely visually pleasing. The zones themselves are deceptively small though, and lack any real sense of exploration. I blame this though on the fact you can't swim.
Your economy sucks.
The supply and demand economy model is very broken. Things stay on the AH for way too long which leads to a lot of undercutting. In WoW the longest you can list something on the AH is 24hrs which gives everyone a chance to sell something. Also you cannot check price histories if you want to sell something and it has never been sold or you haven't ever seen it sold. So you have to price is based on how much you think it is worth, or even relist it a few times until it sells.
See AH argument.
Your events suck.
Haven't done an event in WoW yet but FFXI's have always been pretty boring. Too time consuming for crap rewards that are never used.
WoW events aren't anything special. Though it was fun flying around a noob zone biting flagged players as a bat during the halloween event ( '-')b
Your trade skills suck.
I don't mind FFXI's trade skills, in that I think Neo's complaint is the difficulty it takes to level them. In WoW you can level tradeskills with the materials you loot from corpses for the most part. Each item you can synth has 3 different level caps in which the chance for skillup deteriorates. But for the most part you're getting a skillup after every synth. Oh and you can break or lose materials.
FFXI isn't so much difficult to level a tradeskill, it's more the sense of utility in doing this. There's no "exclusive" recipes, meaning everyone at level 100, gets all the recipes handed to them automatically. You don't have to train in them specifically. And all it really takes to craft in FFXI is a lot of money input and loss... but the real gripe with them is that of course, everyone else can get everything you have easily just by levelling the same craft... which kind of makes tradeskills essentially worthless.
WoW, easy as hell to level, the challenge is in obtaining the rare and elusive recipes, some of which are even soulbinding once obtained, meaning you have to get them from rare spawns or raids, and often you'll see only one or two people on a server who have these recipes, meaning you can monopolize the demand for it on your server if you do get it. I don't care what anyone says in that game about any craft, they definitely made the tradeskill system better.
Your unbalanced jobs suck. Bad.
I think long time WoW players would argue that WoW has just as many balance issues with jobs. Ask Elemmire or something.
Yeah, neither game really benefits in any way here. In WoW's case, see Warlocks. In FFXI, see Warriors.
Your mounts suck.
Uhh yea... fuck breeding for 30 days only to get a subpar rental chocobo. When you're level 40 you get a mount that you can summon anywhere and get off and on as many times as you want without having to recharge some stupid whistle. Nevermind the fact that at Lv60 you can get even better mounts and again at 70.
Meh, FFXI mounts aren't really a necessity I'd say. You have outpost warps, crag teleports... was there ever any real need for mounts? The fact you can call a chocobo anywhere now if you breed one still seems like more of a convenience if you feel like doing it on the side.
Your same-skinned mobs suck.
I'm noticing the same thing in WoW so I'm not sure where this argument is coming from. It's impossible for an Art team to have unique mobs for every zone in a MMO. It takes rougly a month to mode, texture, animate a single model in my studio. Re-texturing can take as little as a day or two.
Any MMO suffers from this. Deci explained this perfectly. Next time you complain why a game isn't out yet, this might be why =P
Your PvP sucks.
I never understood carebears. I love PvP wherever it is. I also like to show some responsibility and not gank people who will give me no benefit. I also even let people go by who may give me benefit for killing but I feel it's not worth it to ruin their questing or whatever. Sure theres people out there who will just be total dicks but I just love the extra element of a possible fight starting out of nowhere. Also the battlegrounds are so fast paced and action packed compared to FFXI's ballista and such, it's no comparison, WoW's PvP completely trounces FFXI's attempt at inserting PvP into a game that wasn't designed for it.
FFXI totally wasn't intended to be a PVP game, but they added it for the people who wanted to PVP. Though like the rest of the game, they decided to make it a team-based activity. WoW is a game based on a franchise whose success was heavily influenced by multiplayer competition, so naturally, you'd expect there to be PVP. They made a good decision in making seperate servers for those who want to PVP and those who don't want to be harassed by gankers. I, myself, was fond of finding challenge in random world encounters with other players of the same level... I was NOT fond however, of encountering exceptionally higher level characters who were just looking for lowbies to harass. But yeah, if you roll on a PVP server you have to expect all kinds.
Your PvE sucks.
Well it's pretty much the same as WoW, except WoW has several more interesting ways to PvE. Also jobs in WoW are always active. There's no such thing as a job that you just hit Attack and forget about it like Warrior or Monk or something. In WoW every single job is using abilities every few seconds or so and fights are quick and lively then your on to the next thing. The Epic fights are saved for bosses (which are regular encounters not 3hr waits).
Um... Rogue is pretty bland most of the time. So is Hunter (lolautofire and go afk), Mage... Warlock... yeah. If you want jobs that keep you on your feet, play a Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Druid, or Shaman.
A huge chunk of people that play you suck.
I would have to say that theres sucky people in both games, it's just possible that since theres more people playing WoW and the game is indeed that much more "action packed" that people are forced to learn how to play their job or never have fun. People don't care as much about their reputation in WoW and will not give a second thought to kicking a slacking player... you don't see the same people twice very often for a instance or raid unless your in the same guild or running the same instance all day. With more accountability for your skill you damn well be sure you won't get your ass kicked from groups.
WoW definitely is much simpler in gameplay, thus you end up with a larger stock of crappy players, but a big chunk of the content in the game doesn't require much skill to do well at anyway, so it works out sometimes. I've run way too many crappy pickup group instances in WoW. Whereas in FFXI the truly crappy players either quit or don't progress very quickly since they either don't get invites, or they just suck that badly. I have to say though that FFXI is great training on "how to MMO", since a lot of the advanced players from FFXI usually turn out to be extremely well-versed WoW players in the end. It's just a matter of getting used to the way hate works in that game as opposed to FF, and all that other junk.
Your chat system sucks.
FFXI Chat system is "OK" but WoW's is more familiar. Press Enter to start chatting and Enter again to send. Simple.
I really don't see any issues with either chat interface... you can MT just as easily in WoW as you can in FFXI
... the only issue with FFXI is that tells can be lost in zoning, but honestly is it that big of a deal? Your auction house system sucks.
FFXI's system is "DIFFERENT" in that FFXI limits you to 7 items, but what I really think Neo is getting at here is what ties into the economy in general and that there is way too much supply which puts a stranglehold on the amount of stuff you can sell in a week. WoW allows you to sell as much stuff as you want at a time, charges you "tax" based on how long you want to list it and people simply don't goto the AH to buy many items. Anything thats of the lower two qualities (grey and white) are almost never on the AH unless they ar materials for popular mid/high-level synths.
It's not so much the AH system that sucks. I actually feel the way they have it done is good, when there's a large supply stocking a specific market, the price begins to be driven down as people ask for less and less to make sure they sell their items faster. It promotes deflation for the most part, but at the same time it can cause items to be inflated greatly. Limiting the amount of stuff being put up at once also kind of prevents people from overdoing this undercutting business, but not fully. Imagine if RMT could put up 1000 of the same item at once with no need for other chars to make AH space. And, from a business point of view, SE gets $1/mule too ^-^, so it is very substantial for them to do this in some senses. On the downside, most items are recyclable, causing a back-up of item supply sometimes as people buy things and sell them back later, meaning items never leave the economy, or enter states of disrepair, meaning the same 2000 sniper rings are still circulating throughout the playerbase, which also means eventually there will be problems when too many people are selling said items at once.
Alternativelylooking at WoW's AH system, you can see the names of who is selling what, you can choose which person's items you buy, leaving it open to people to charge what they want, without a sense of a need to undercut or "ruin" certain markets. You can put up as many items as you want at a time, meaning no need for mules, unless of course you need the extra storage. WoW, like FFXI has the tax system on selling to the AH, still, so both sides do somewhat remove gil/gold from the economy. WoW at least makes items bind on equipping them, meaning after they have been crafted/found/used, they pretty much are just NPC junk, meaning more of that item can be sold to other players or alts later down the line, preventing this recycling effect that FFXI suffers from.
I feel neither AH system really has enough ups or downs against the other to really warrant one being "better".
Your endgame sucks.
Neither myself of Neo has the capability of drawing a comparison to WoW in this regard yet. However I can safely say that FFXI's end game is quite dry in terms of "action packed gameplay" which is what most young gamers want. Maybe old people want to sit around at a camp and chat for 3 hours but real gamers want almost constant action or at least some involvement in real gameplay (I'm of course referring to instances and raids etc).
This is where my biggest gripe against FFXI is. The endgame is very shallow and lacks a lot of action. Deci describes it well here. Sitting around for 3 or more hours camping mobs and collecting pop items to spawn a boss in which you have people tank it, and the rest spank it... i.e. the term tank n' spank is a good way of describing a very unsatisfying playstyle. Of course, we continue to do this just because it is how the "phat lootz" are obtained in this game.
WoW's endgame really struck me as done well. In some cases, however, Blizzard clearly didn't put a lot of thought into some encounters, or left them buggy before releasing them, making it literally impossible to finish them until they decide to "fix/nerf" the boss. It's a common joke to say Blizzard cockblocks raiding guilds until they feel it's time to allow them to finish an encounter. Although I don't know how this trend has continued with the Burning Crusade, it was true for most of the raid dungeons in the past they released. Now. This is where the endgame for WoW blows FFXI out of the water. They used to start you out with the simple raid dungeon, ala MC (Molten Core) which was, essentially just a tank n' spank dungeon from start to finish, with some subtle details mixed up. Then came BWL (Blackwing Lair), in which the first encounter required a decent amount of coordination to finish, and actually required some puzzle solving when it first came out. In this instance, you basically have a dragon on one side of the room, a shitton of eggs sitting in the middle, and a mind controlling orb on the left side which, when touched, lets you control said dragon on the opposite side.
Of course, if you don't control the dragon, he runs around and owns your raid. With him mind controlled, you basically have to run around breaking these eggs in the room, and all while you do this, a flood of orcs and dragonkin spawn from every side of the room, literally swamping the room, meaning you need extra good teamwork from your raid in controlling them, and keeping them from killing the person on the mind control orb. Once the eggs are all broken, the room clears, and you have to kill the big dragon guy you were mind controlling. The only hard part is, you can't taunt him, so hate bounces a lot.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complexity of encounters in WoW. They just get more and more fun and challenging as the game progresses on. Usually when a new dungeon is released, guilds race to try and clear them before any other guild so they can both show off the new loot they got, and just for bragging rights. Though usually it is not long before the rest of the guild population catches up.
Now one problem I've noticed in WoW vs. FFXI is that there is a higher level of elitist attitude, and the endgame community is full of rivalries, anger, and jealousy of other guilds' progression, or achievements. I've found that most guilds that obtain shinies before the rest of the community tend to be full of pricks, and rarely is the newcomer welcome in these guilds: which, I can understand since these guilds want to continue to progress at the rate they do... but many friendships are lost in the process and people become so drunk with this idea that they are gods among men or something because they killed a monster. It's rather dissapointing that you'll rarely find a nice person once they have obtained a certain amount of epic gear in WoW. FFXI still seems to have a more friendly endgame community, though now a large chunk of the players in the game have reached 75 with at least one job. It's actually kind of rare to see anyone without a 75 these days, and without most Sky gear either equipped or in their storage.
Your level grind sucks.
I really doubt he means that actual leveling sucks. The problem is that in FFXI it is almost so incredibly linear that SE would have to make a whole new game to change it. In FFXI all you can do to EFFECTIVELY level up is party with 5 other people and find a very specific zone (there will only be a handful) and be at that zone with low competition (each zone or area can only handle a couple parties).
In WoW not only can you solo to Lv70 by grinding on mobs exactly like FFXI but you can join instances with a 5 man party, you can turn in quests for SUBSTANTIAL XP rewards (ex. In WoW around Lv45 it takes 100K XP to level, you get around 200-400 XP per kill which take like 10-15 seconds each, and each quest you turn in which you are completing while killing stuff will give you a bonus 3-7K XP and you turn in a handful of these each level).
Yeah, no comment here. Though FFXI has taken a turn for the better on the solo'ing bit after a certain level, and introducing more jobs that can solo somewhat, it's not quite as well done as WoW, which gives you the option to party (instance runs) which also reward you with gear that is useful, and plenty of EXP both from quest turn-ins. Deci pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Your quests suck.
I wouldn't say WoW's quests are any better. I'm almost Lv52 now and already getting bored of them. Although FFXI's quests suck for a different reason (no reward). WoW's quests suck for being repetitive (kill 10 of these, collect 5 of these... etc etc).
WoW: The quests aren't necessarily exciting, but they give a much more substantial purpose to finishing them, as well as better descriptions as to how they are finished. Which is a big plus.
FFXI: The missions add a great cinematic and interesting experience to the game I've never seen in any MMO. While some of the quests in the game have decent plots, there is rarely a motive to do them due to no rewards other than subtle gil increases or fame. Also the general lack of information given in most of the quests means without Allakhazam, you won't get very far =P. If nothing else FFXI definitely has WoW beat in cinematics.
Your job versatility sucks.
This is huge. In FFXI most jobs are used for very specific things and can't be interchangable in many situations. The most glaringly obvious of these is the White Mage. A totally underplayed job which is used only for healing. In WoW theres a job called Priest also a healer which is probably also one of the least versitile jobs but can be spec'd to do different things such as be an effective damage dealer. Any job in WoW can be effective solo or 1v1, or in group PvP and PvE.
One thing I have to rebut to that statement is "wait till endgame". Druids used to get shunned if they went anything but Resto (lolmoonkin). Priests had to wait a long time before shadow was even remotely useful in raids, and it wasn't really until "dicking around" was acceptable for the raid in question. Really, every job has their set purposes in the game, and usually have to be adhered to. Paladins can't really do anything but heal and cleanse in endgame either. At least in FFXI you can level every job class on a single character, saving a lot of trouble. While most job combos aren't acceptable, they are options, and the subjob system I feel still adds a degree of flexibility to the game that WoW lacks (Shamans are the only class that get a 2nd hearthstone ability, while in FFXI you can just sub BLM and warp yourself)... of course that is just an example.
Your zones suck.
Yes, they do...FFXI's zones (at least in CoP and ToAU) have very nice art in some places but FFXI lacks epicness! Theres no massive towers (other then crags) huge hills that you have to climb, no vista's and very little chaff. The FFXI environments are usually pretty plain and just scattered with mobs and a simple texture overlay.
I was always intrigued by screenshots of the endgame areas in FFXI. I wouldn't call them all plain. Many are, but they definitely made some areas extremely visually pleasing. The zones themselves are deceptively small though, and lack any real sense of exploration. I blame this though on the fact you can't swim.
Your economy sucks.
The supply and demand economy model is very broken. Things stay on the AH for way too long which leads to a lot of undercutting. In WoW the longest you can list something on the AH is 24hrs which gives everyone a chance to sell something. Also you cannot check price histories if you want to sell something and it has never been sold or you haven't ever seen it sold. So you have to price is based on how much you think it is worth, or even relist it a few times until it sells.
See AH argument.
Your events suck.
Haven't done an event in WoW yet but FFXI's have always been pretty boring. Too time consuming for crap rewards that are never used.
WoW events aren't anything special. Though it was fun flying around a noob zone biting flagged players as a bat during the halloween event ( '-')b
Your trade skills suck.
I don't mind FFXI's trade skills, in that I think Neo's complaint is the difficulty it takes to level them. In WoW you can level tradeskills with the materials you loot from corpses for the most part. Each item you can synth has 3 different level caps in which the chance for skillup deteriorates. But for the most part you're getting a skillup after every synth. Oh and you can break or lose materials.
FFXI isn't so much difficult to level a tradeskill, it's more the sense of utility in doing this. There's no "exclusive" recipes, meaning everyone at level 100, gets all the recipes handed to them automatically. You don't have to train in them specifically. And all it really takes to craft in FFXI is a lot of money input and loss... but the real gripe with them is that of course, everyone else can get everything you have easily just by levelling the same craft... which kind of makes tradeskills essentially worthless.
WoW, easy as hell to level, the challenge is in obtaining the rare and elusive recipes, some of which are even soulbinding once obtained, meaning you have to get them from rare spawns or raids, and often you'll see only one or two people on a server who have these recipes, meaning you can monopolize the demand for it on your server if you do get it. I don't care what anyone says in that game about any craft, they definitely made the tradeskill system better.
Your unbalanced jobs suck. Bad.
I think long time WoW players would argue that WoW has just as many balance issues with jobs. Ask Elemmire or something.
Yeah, neither game really benefits in any way here. In WoW's case, see Warlocks. In FFXI, see Warriors.
Your mounts suck.
Uhh yea... fuck breeding for 30 days only to get a subpar rental chocobo. When you're level 40 you get a mount that you can summon anywhere and get off and on as many times as you want without having to recharge some stupid whistle. Nevermind the fact that at Lv60 you can get even better mounts and again at 70.
Meh, FFXI mounts aren't really a necessity I'd say. You have outpost warps, crag teleports... was there ever any real need for mounts? The fact you can call a chocobo anywhere now if you breed one still seems like more of a convenience if you feel like doing it on the side.
Your same-skinned mobs suck.
I'm noticing the same thing in WoW so I'm not sure where this argument is coming from. It's impossible for an Art team to have unique mobs for every zone in a MMO. It takes rougly a month to mode, texture, animate a single model in my studio. Re-texturing can take as little as a day or two.
Any MMO suffers from this. Deci explained this perfectly. Next time you complain why a game isn't out yet, this might be why =P
Your PvP sucks.
I never understood carebears. I love PvP wherever it is. I also like to show some responsibility and not gank people who will give me no benefit. I also even let people go by who may give me benefit for killing but I feel it's not worth it to ruin their questing or whatever. Sure theres people out there who will just be total dicks but I just love the extra element of a possible fight starting out of nowhere. Also the battlegrounds are so fast paced and action packed compared to FFXI's ballista and such, it's no comparison, WoW's PvP completely trounces FFXI's attempt at inserting PvP into a game that wasn't designed for it.
FFXI totally wasn't intended to be a PVP game, but they added it for the people who wanted to PVP. Though like the rest of the game, they decided to make it a team-based activity. WoW is a game based on a franchise whose success was heavily influenced by multiplayer competition, so naturally, you'd expect there to be PVP. They made a good decision in making seperate servers for those who want to PVP and those who don't want to be harassed by gankers. I, myself, was fond of finding challenge in random world encounters with other players of the same level... I was NOT fond however, of encountering exceptionally higher level characters who were just looking for lowbies to harass. But yeah, if you roll on a PVP server you have to expect all kinds.
Your PvE sucks.
Well it's pretty much the same as WoW, except WoW has several more interesting ways to PvE. Also jobs in WoW are always active. There's no such thing as a job that you just hit Attack and forget about it like Warrior or Monk or something. In WoW every single job is using abilities every few seconds or so and fights are quick and lively then your on to the next thing. The Epic fights are saved for bosses (which are regular encounters not 3hr waits).
Um... Rogue is pretty bland most of the time. So is Hunter (lolautofire and go afk), Mage... Warlock... yeah. If you want jobs that keep you on your feet, play a Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Druid, or Shaman.
A huge chunk of people that play you suck.
I would have to say that theres sucky people in both games, it's just possible that since theres more people playing WoW and the game is indeed that much more "action packed" that people are forced to learn how to play their job or never have fun. People don't care as much about their reputation in WoW and will not give a second thought to kicking a slacking player... you don't see the same people twice very often for a instance or raid unless your in the same guild or running the same instance all day. With more accountability for your skill you damn well be sure you won't get your ass kicked from groups.
WoW definitely is much simpler in gameplay, thus you end up with a larger stock of crappy players, but a big chunk of the content in the game doesn't require much skill to do well at anyway, so it works out sometimes. I've run way too many crappy pickup group instances in WoW. Whereas in FFXI the truly crappy players either quit or don't progress very quickly since they either don't get invites, or they just suck that badly. I have to say though that FFXI is great training on "how to MMO", since a lot of the advanced players from FFXI usually turn out to be extremely well-versed WoW players in the end. It's just a matter of getting used to the way hate works in that game as opposed to FF, and all that other junk.
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Your /ja failed on me.
well you can't fix a failure D:
You're face is a failure. I'm witty.
Man, you so lose at the interweb! Just go
Well I have 2 bars and you don't!
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How about this:
All MMORPGs suck.
They are just games that so many game developers have jumped onto the bandwagon to produce. All of them have many flaws. Now sure, they might be harder to playtest than any other game, but what that means is, you better design a lot more carefully ahead of time. Just because they're online shouldn't mean you should rely on future patches to save you.
Producers notice the riches that can be made off MMORPGs, then pressure their development teams, whom rush through the critical design phase just to get to developing, which end up releasing the stupid things.
Really, we all know the gameplay isn't what draws most players.
All MMORPGs suck.
They are just games that so many game developers have jumped onto the bandwagon to produce. All of them have many flaws. Now sure, they might be harder to playtest than any other game, but what that means is, you better design a lot more carefully ahead of time. Just because they're online shouldn't mean you should rely on future patches to save you.
Producers notice the riches that can be made off MMORPGs, then pressure their development teams, whom rush through the critical design phase just to get to developing, which end up releasing the stupid things.
Really, we all know the gameplay isn't what draws most players.
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Great debate in this thread. Haven't seen people be inclined to make such large, good posts in a long time.
I like both games and always will. Their play style are so different they are not worth comparing.
I like both games and always will. Their play style are so different they are not worth comparing.
Getting a top notch riding chocobo isn't nearly as difficult as it seems. If at Day 30, the stats you're working on aren't in the better half of the rankings, you're doing something very wrong.
Getting one thats better than a rental however is much more work, but due to racing, easier to accomplish without breeding.
Compared to the time farming to get gold so you can get the best mount in WoW, the time required to get the best chocobo is a fraction of that. It's just spread out over many real days. It should take just over 3 hours of actual time spent raising a Chocobo to be max speed and time.
As for recharging the whistle, if you do Hot and Cold, you can get coupons to make it free. With White Mage high enough for all teleports up to Yhoat, it doesn't take much time at all to play.
Getting one thats better than a rental however is much more work, but due to racing, easier to accomplish without breeding.
Compared to the time farming to get gold so you can get the best mount in WoW, the time required to get the best chocobo is a fraction of that. It's just spread out over many real days. It should take just over 3 hours of actual time spent raising a Chocobo to be max speed and time.
As for recharging the whistle, if you do Hot and Cold, you can get coupons to make it free. With White Mage high enough for all teleports up to Yhoat, it doesn't take much time at all to play.
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LMAO Odon saw the hidden idea behind this thread and included a bonus that shows he's a long time player and pays attention to the community surrounding him. Decidence has changed for sure and what's that hidden idea?
Old players are growing tired of the same everyday BS.
ps. This ties directly into the longevity ideas I was commenting a few months ago. Who's in this for the long run and who's passing by? Only time will tell for sure and everyone that has been here up to this day after so many changes are sure winners. But, this next question goes for us longtime players...
How long will you last?
Until Warhammer Online probably.
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I've havent accomplished much but been here for awhile, I'll probrably quit after I clear my proposed main jobs to 75 and defeat each Maat version of their trials including Raudin(sp?)
not something I have to do but I'll do it
not something I have to do but I'll do it
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I was planning on making a thread about this (my very 1st ever), but I'll save that event for a very special reason. I didn't see anyone speculate anything about this and I think this fits in here perfectly.
Maybe they will fix some of the things Neo and us hate about this game, make definitive changes or announce a new expansion/mmorpg based on FFXI. But still It will be interesting for us looking for different things.
The Magicbox - A p r i l 7 - 8 said:
Maybe they will fix some of the things Neo and us hate about this game, make definitive changes or announce a new expansion/mmorpg based on FFXI. But still It will be interesting for us looking for different things.
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Someone made the comparison for wow vs ffxi being like mac vs pc.
Vanguard is the Unix of the MMO world. Extremely powerful, though highly unstable and still not quite ready for the market (even though it's out).
Vanguard is the Unix of the MMO world. Extremely powerful, though highly unstable and still not quite ready for the market (even though it's out).