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Finally decided to give it a shot...already dissapointed...
SuprGamerX
Member Posts: 531
Well for a few years now I've been holding back on buying this game. I always thought that a FF online would be dull. After 2 hours of install/patching and another hour of playing I found the experience pretty poor and here are the reasons.:
-I tried for a while to have a better minimap then the useless bleu mini circle in the bottom left corner without success.
-Movement with number pad is completly new to me,I've been playing with either a mouse or arrows for the past 13 years.Been trying to change the settings but gave up after 20 minutes.
-Quests,there's like 200 NPCs walking around and the mini map doesn't help much on marking the NPCs with quests.
-Been walking from map to map for 45 minutes,trying desperatly to get my first kill without success.
I should of listened to my instincts and leave the game on its warm shelf. Now it has a new home in my closet. 
PS: The PlayOnline Viewer is pretty sweet to play with it,I'm having alot more fun with the viewer then the game itself. Just tried it out again,finally got onto the battlefield,died against a savanah rabbit. Went back,went up against a tiny mandragora,killed it but got 6 MP and 6 HP left,doesn't regen overtime,the potions are pretty expensive...Was fun while it lasted and I can now brag that I actually tried FFXI 
... have fun all!
Comments
Well, it's been awhile since I played, but:
WASD and mouse movement is easily setup through the menu. Don't know what you screwed up there.
Took me all of 10 minutes to find the open fields and start kiling things.
Health does regen, you have to meditate ( sit down ).
scrap the mouse - play with only the keyboard. Get used to it, love it.
I was wtf'ing at first at the controls, but eventually adapted to the compat keyboard controls (wasd = movement, arrow keys = camera control) and I love how I never have to touch the mouse really.
About the rest, well yeah - it's a pretty hardcore game, nothing is handed to you on a silver platter. No "!" above NPC heads for quests, no minimap that will tell you where everything is, etc.
Iwinbutton.com | Gaming / MMO Blog
Also this isn't a quest driven MMO...you don't get XP for quests, only fame to unlock harder quests and sometimes an ok reward, though some have really good rewards and gil!
Every point of XP you earn you have to get yourself by killing monsters by either solo play or in basically forced grouping eventually!
No need for a mouse. Use WASD, its great.
FFXI was the last of the old school MMORPGs. It dosent hold your hand all the way through, therefore your map isnt going to tell you where to go. You have to use clues given to you by NPCs. You have to talk to people. You have to explore. You have to remember things, possibly keep notes. Sounds familiar...oh yeah! It sounds like any other final fantasy game : ) (and a good mmo)
I dont play anymore but just thinking about having to ponder quest routes, puzzles, and outcomes makes me want to come back. Not to mention the cut scenes, the awesome music, the fun classes...etc etc. Good stuff. Give it a week at least.
playing: darkfall
waiting: earthrise
It was the dull fighting and lack of any skills that finally killed the game for me, what a yawn fest during battles - it might get better later on but I couldnt stand it enough to keep playing. I could handle grinding xp on mobs alone if i could do anything but a lame skill and wait for a threshold to build to do another lame skill, the excitement of getting a skill every 10 or 15 levels to augment my two lame skills wasnt enough to keep my attention. Ive played muds with more class intrest than this.
All the complaints have been the usual things that can easily be solved with actually taking some time to learn the game. They do have tutorial NPC's now for newbies to teach you about the game too. No !'s over quest givers heads. You have to actually just find them by talking to all of them. Of course you could check the stickies at the top of the forum for links that would be of interest and help. When things are handed to you on a silver platter, it's a lot different...isn't it?
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
I kind of agree about the combat, at least while leveling. Being lvl 12 and still only having 2 things I ever use in combat besides autoattack is kind of sad. Being a thief it's just wasp sting (my dagger skill) and steal every frew minutes, which usually fails, so it's really only 1 special attack I can throw in for the last 12 levels.
But yes, give it a few more days. If you're only argument is the combat, I can kind of see where you're coming from - but I'm still in the first chunk of levels myself, so I can't speak for the higher levels.
Iwinbutton.com | Gaming / MMO Blog
I kind of agree about the combat, at least while leveling. Being lvl 12 and still only having 2 things I ever use in combat besides autoattack is kind of sad. Being a thief it's just wasp sting (my dagger skill) and steal every frew minutes, which usually fails, so it's really only 1 special attack I can throw in for the last 12 levels.
But yes, give it a few more days. If you're only argument is the combat, I can kind of see where you're coming from - but I'm still in the first chunk of levels myself, so I can't speak for the higher levels.
The game becomes very different as you level up. The early levels are intended (at least for a new player) to learn the basics, get navigation, fighting, questing, etc down; to learn your chosen job, or try a different one if you don't care for it.
Around level 10 (or sooner or later, depending on your job and/or your preferences) you start grouping up. This becomes a sort of "2nd phase" to learning the game, as now you take what you've learned about your job solo and learn how to apply it to a group, learn group dynamics, skill-chains, aggro control and so forth...
And the game just continues to expand from there. Knowledge builds on knowledge. By the time you reach the high-level content, it almost feels like a different game entirely sometimes.
Not only does it open up in terms of combat, but the options available to you increases drastically.
As has been said, FFXI is not your typical "post-WoW" MMO where quest NPCs have ! or ? over their head, or there are map markers showing you exactly where to go. With the exception of the New Player tutorials added recently (which do a great job of teaching the basics), the game does not hold your hand, at all. You create your character and then seek to develop it and make your way in the world.
It's a RPG in the truest sense in that it requires the player to explore and figure things out for themselves... or, ideally, interact with other players to get the help they need. SE is *very* big on community building in FFXI. This shows not only in the group-centric nature of much of the game, but in the way many of the in-game events are set up.
I tend to tell people not to approach FFXI as a Final Fantasy game shoe-horned into a typical MMO template, but more like a typical Final Fantasy game put online. It is every bit as much based on story and character development and team-work as any Final Fantasy title.
It is not about "racing to the end-game". It is most certainly about the journey... and there is *plenty* to do along the way.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
bye
Having started my online gaming in text based muds it wasnt the graphics or quest helpers etc that had me give up it was the grind with one skill and one special attack that got really boring. Its good to see that the game opens up to something interesting later on but I have no idea how people surive the grind to see it. I dont mind the lack of quests (everquest you leveled on grinding rather than questing) or the features of wow, I wouldnt expect that FFXI would be like wow - that would be dissapointing however I think they need to look at their first intro levels and work out a way to make the game accessable to more people if they want new blood to come fill the gaps of the retiring people (everyone gets burnt out)
I tried a thief and found it painful with 1 skill and then tried a white and red wizard and found them a bit more fun but still very limited when it came to cool ablities.
I'm happy for it to be a group based game, I started to loose interested in eq2 when they made it solo all the way thru to 80 and the thing I hated about AoC was that dungeons were able to be solo'ed so you never needed to group up.
I bet this guy only play games for first 10 min and post his experiences on the board and say "Hey i played this game for 4 years and it sucks, don't play it"
Seriously, are the RPG games now a day all this dull? Making new players stupid and dumber?
If you can't play FFXI, you won't have any luck with any Final fantasy titles, because any past FF titles never give you the game on a silver plate unless you are go on gamefaqs and got a walkthrough.
He is just a troll. Move along.
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The game has maintained ~500k players for years now... even with their monthly bannings of thousands of RMT/botters, etc.
And this is from before they recently added new player guides to introduce players to more of the game - including leveling, crafting, etc.
So, there are plenty of people who stick around. I think those people just have a different approach to the game. It's not a "grind" to me, for example, because I split my time up between different things. Questing, crafting, leveling, exploring, goofing around, etc.
Gaining job levels isn't the only form of progression in this game and I find that many (not necessarily you) who call it a "grind" did nothing but level all the time 'til they burned out.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I never had problem with how the game began, so was the 1 million + subscribers. Even with 500k players left from 6 years. The game was never even hard to begin with.
The only reason most people fail at beginning is 2 thing:
1. They never ask for help. There are always people in your area, always someone moving, why can't you ask for help? Simply enough?
2. Read and research. How hard is it to just type in FFXI wiki in google.com? How hard is it just to read whatever NPC say? You don't need to read it again forever after once, just READ.
Of course, if any player fail to do the 2 above thing, they should never play MMORPG to begin with.
What is a MMO and what is a RPG? MMO mean mass multi player, not single player, you have to TALK eventually, you have to communicate eventually. If you can't do it, buy a console and play single player.
what is a RPG? Seriously, RPG involve talking to NPC, i haven't see one RPG that NPC doesn't talk and you know what to do. Because RPG mean you are playing a ROLE and inorder to success in the role you MUST communicate with environment that assit the ROLE to successful.
Seriously, gamers these days are just dumb and stupid. Who should we blame? Blizzard of course.
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You sound like someone who asks for directions when their lost or goes to autozone and has them test their car for them.
Real MMORPG gamers don't ask for help, they figure it out for themselves.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
that's what i said.
My second point said "read and research"
so basically my 2 point just syaing, if you don't want to figure out yourself, ASK, if you can figure out yourself then READ and research, if you still can't understand, ASK.
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This game is hard to get into, but once you do you will be playing what I believe is the best pure PvE MMO on the market. There is enough content in this game to keep you busy for months or years, the community is one of the best I have ever seen in any game, and it has one of biggest feelings of accomplishment. I have quit this game and came back to it at least 3 times now, and while I currently do not play it, I have a huge amount of respect for this game and the people who chose it over what else is out there i this genre.
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This is my experience almost word for word.....After all I had heard about FFXI I thought it was going to be really good......I too was very disappointed......I played around with the graphics for several minutes and it still looks terrible...You have to be a foot away from a NPC to see its name.......One of the starting cities was so huge that after 45 minutes of running non stop I still had not found the way out.......My overall impression was that maybe the game was great when it first came out but for 2009 it rates very poorly.....Heck it doesnt even compare to the f2ps like Runes of Magic, Perfect World, or Atlantica.....Maybe if I had started in it from day 1 when there werent alot of other games to choose from it might have been OK but I dont see why anyone would start with it now, especially having to pay for it........
This is my experience almost word for word.....After all I had heard about FFXI I thought it was going to be really good......I too was very disappointed......I played around with the graphics for several minutes and it still looks terrible...You have to be a foot away from a NPC to see its name.......One of the starting cities was so huge that after 45 minutes of running non stop I still had not found the way out.......My overall impression was that maybe the game was great when it first came out but for 2009 it rates very poorly.....Heck it doesnt even compare to the f2ps like Runes of Magic, Perfect World, or Atlantica.....Maybe if I had started in it from day 1 when there werent alot of other games to choose from it might have been OK but I dont see why anyone would start with it now, especially having to pay for it........
Seriously, I'm sorry to hear that.
This is my experience almost word for word.....After all I had heard about FFXI I thought it was going to be really good......I too was very disappointed......I played around with the graphics for several minutes and it still looks terrible...You have to be a foot away from a NPC to see its name.......One of the starting cities was so huge that after 45 minutes of running non stop I still had not found the way out.......My overall impression was that maybe the game was great when it first came out but for 2009 it rates very poorly.....Heck it doesnt even compare to the f2ps like Runes of Magic, Perfect World, or Atlantica.....Maybe if I had started in it from day 1 when there werent alot of other games to choose from it might have been OK but I dont see why anyone would start with it now, especially having to pay for it........
You most likely didn't do the graphics right, there's a guide on how to make it look really amazing. the graphics in this game are much better than the f2p games you mentioned : and it sure as hell competes with newer mmo's. Like i said, you most likely didn't set the graphics correctly.
This game doesn't really pick up till level 10-11 and that's when you start forming parties. levels 1-10 like some people have mentioned are learning points. You learn a tonne of information within those first 10 levels.
The main problem with this game is, many who come from FPS / WoW don't give FFXI a proper chance, they quit way too early because they assume the whole game will be the same. To be honest, most players consider this an upside to the game, hence why the maturity level within FFXI is much higher than fps games and/or WoW, All the kiddies find this game too challenging
The problem is that the game is harder than what you are used to.Why do you need a minimap?trust me ,you learn your surroundings MUCH faster by seeing first hand than constantly looking at a minimap.There is a large map anyhow,that allows you to see the over all terrain/surroundings.
I would agree that there could be a better design for NPC's and questing,perhaps like EQ2's,but it is a hard one to debate.Some do not want the hand holding and lines or arrows showing you exactly where to go,the whole FFXI setup asks for you to learn your surroundings for yourself.After a few months in,you will know EVERY nook like the back of your hand,then you will relaize,those hand holding ideas were not needed.
Combat is quite hard for a noob,without his/her sub job,you are a lot weaker.Starting out as a taru whm or BLM is very difficult,you have very low hp ,therefore you will die much faster.Their are tricks to combat,that i would have to say are NEVER figured out by noobs and i mean NEVER.It seems to take players awhile to figure out the efficient way to play.
Example,first thing to do is ALWAYS draw your weapon into combat mode,so that you will get a hit soon the mob gets near,do not wait until after you cast your Dia spell or paralyze.That brings up another aspect,KNOW your casting times.It is MUCH harder to cast PAralyze after the fight starts than before,easier to cast DIA after fight starts.If you are a new player with the ability to use a BOW or Xbow,USE IT.This will give you the initial damage before the mob even thinks about attacking you.There is a reason the guides tel lyou that MONK is the easiest and best job for a new player,because it is lol.Monk offers more HP,very good early game damage and a powerful 2 hr ability.Monk also has decent defense when compared to a mage,actually i believe MNK is the best def at starter levels,has the most vit also.
There is a lot to know and understand in FFXI,it is actually a complex game,tackling it yourself would be extremely hard,albeit you will learn each part of the game better as it would take you longer to grasp.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't think FFXI has seen 500k subscriber base in quite a few years. At it's current state, I doubt it has more than 150k subscribers. Which is still very good for a game as old as FFXI. Don't let your phanboi glasses taint the world a rosey color for you.
Fuhyo
Has nothing to do with fanboyism, it's fact. They do a census every year and it has been around 500k every year.
To be the best, you must help each other become the best.
FFXI Character: Satimasu
FFXI Server: Valefor
FFXIV Character: Tamorae Fonteil
He doesn't need facts, he gets his numbers from his gut. Guys like him, they don't have "sources" or anything like that. They don't need them. Did you know that the gut has more nerve endings than the brain?
You're probably saying "No, it doesn't. I looked it up." Well, you probably looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut.
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Made a new post on my response, check here!
Seriously, you can count. a normal FFXI server have almost the same amount of a WOW server every day.
I didn't count but roughly there should be 4 time more WoW servers then FFXI, there should be 2.5 millions of WoW players for NA. (i say a lot less now) and each WoW server can only house 2-3k players ONline (and there will be a queue if more.
If 2 million WoW subscribers in NA, then FFXI would get 500k.
Anyway, if you think WoW have more player then FFXI, that's fine. But server wise, its the same. Asura get 2k-2.5k on Peak hours. On Blackhand, i see 2k-2.5k on peak hours as well (wow server)
That is my guts telling me... i guess my gut is more correct then your guts.
For more Accurated data just hit www.ffxiah.com, it is a site that TRACKS Auction ususage on REAL time directly from server on second base. So their data should be more correct.
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