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What made FFXI so great?
tommygunzII
Member Posts: 321
One reason FFXI was so great was because of the people. A MMORPG with a great community isn't done by accident.
In my opinion the reason FFXI had such a good community was because the game promoted it. In the early days of FFXI if you were selfish, lazy, or inconsiderate you would have it alot harder than someone who was thoughtful, ambitious and easy to get along with. If you were going to run into beggars, thieves, trolls or the non-social solo type chances are you would find them in the starting areas. The Valkrum Dunes and the teamwork promoted there warded off alot of potential bad players. If you offended some people on Monday chances are that you won't find a party as easy on Tuesday. I could go on and on forever but you get my point.
Fast forward to the Abyssea age and the community is night and day. Nowadays any troll with half of a brain and poor grammar skills can not only survive in FFXI they can thrive, because the game promotes selfish solo type play instead of structured teamwork. The last time I played almost a year ago the people in Abyssea reminded me of Valkrum Dunes in the early days. Yelling, bickering, fighting, and acts of selfishness were more common there than anything I had seen in that game before.
That is what seperated early FFXI from all other MMO's imo. In order to succeed in this game you had to put on your work face and bring a positive attitude with you. None of that matters if you can do it by yourself.
I hope FFXIV 2.0 is challenging and based around teamwork like early FFXI was. It is essential for a great community.
Thanks for your time.
Comments
may i point out that in the past only those people played mmo who were mature ,good and looking for fun . now as everyone since wow has jumped on the band wagon . people are more meaner , selfish ,stupid . so i dont think it is game fault . it is just that people are behaving bad . reasons might be social pressures , recession ,climbing bills , imature mind such as kids who have been given no manners by their parents .
One of the things that really helped IMO was the fact that you were tied to one character instead of making alts to play variouse jobs. If you were a tool, you couldn't hide behind an alt. Reputation actually meant something and because it was a group dependant game, people didn't get away with acting like asshats or they found themsleves replaced by someone who was more pleasant to be around for the time spent in exp parties. I agree Abby kinda did a 180 on this and because of that, people didn't need each other the same way and the game suffered.
Another note, I made friends due to the crafting aspect of the game because the game also had one of the toughest, and most in depth crafting I have ever experienced. While the crafting itself wasn't conciddered deep to some, the overall system was and it was very grindy, yet very rewarding. Because the game didn't have BOP gear, stuff was always useful and I took requests for making gear on the server. Ah... good times.
Being group dependant has it's ups and downs, if only Square was able to make some tweaks to make LFG less painful then I would still be there. Even with Japanese players not willing to party with some of us Americans, the community was awesome.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
Abyssea did not ruin the game. It is the current generation of MMO gamers. Abyssea saved FFXI from impending doom and actually grew in subs after 8 years of being out (what other mmo can boast that today?).
Say what you want but if you play through Abyssea and get to the new content you would realize Abyssea is just an add on and is now pretty dead. The only reason I go there now is if I'm starting a new Emperian or helping a friend with something.
As far as yelling and bickering goes; it's obvious to me you never made it to kings because Abyssea looks like preschool compared to what used to go on at world spawns. Need I even mention sky?
Please just let it go and move on...