FFXI or EQ? Need some help!Follow

To be honest, you'll probably advance less slowly in FFXI with your schedule. Soloing in the game past lvl 15ish or so is much more difficult than it is in EQ (assuming you pick a class that can solo) and the grouping limits are within a couple levels instead of the wide level band EQ uses. Oh, and at least half your server will speak Japanese, so you've got that going for you.. heh

Oh, to be fair, I enjoyed questing in FFXI much more than in EQ. FFXI also has a much nicer auction system and the graphics were a nice change of pace. Subclassing is a nifty idea. In short, I won't say the game sucks, because I don't think it does, but I preferred EQ and I don't think you'll progress very far or have as much fun in FFXI if you have such small play windows.

First off i played eq for a few years when it first came out, was highly addicted to it, but at the end i was sick of being a lvl 55 twitcher (necro) cause the kept nerfing my class to uselessness. Anyways i went to the store contemplating on whether or not to buy the Lucin expansion and left with DAoC instead. Played this for about 6 months and it sucked. Then I played Shadowbane, again, played for about 6 months and stopped cuase it really sucked. Then i played FFXI and that is what i am currently addicted to.

Okay Pros :
-Unique job advancement. Sure you have to level your character 3 times to be any good, but one job you only have to get to about 10 which takes a whole 2 days! As far as the ADV job goes. I soloed all the pre expansion quests no problem (except summoner). Now the Zilart expansion adv job quests you need help with (Dragoon, Ninja, and Samurai.)
-STORY LINE!!!!! through the forms of missions. Now you dont need to do these but i find them fun and interesting.
-I love the battle system, beats Everquest hands down.
-NOT ONE NERF YET! Playing EQ I dreaded every patch...... what were they going to nerf next.
-Auction house/bazaar is awsome, no more shouting for hours trying to sell your wares.
- Intricate interface, takes a little custimazation and a little getting used to but the macro system is awsome and very effective.
- Graphics are just plain beatiful.
- You lose exp when you die, but not your items, no 6 hour corpse retrievel in POG.
- Decent "looking for party interface" making it easy for group leaders and group starters to start a group.
- Game has been out over a year in japan so all the bugs and such have been pretty much worked out.
- Interesting Conquest Point System. You get signet and you go kill. For every monster you kill your nation gets certain points in that region. For every time you die they lose points. If your nation takes control of a region you get certain benefits while fighting in that region.

Cons :
- This is a very time consuming game. You can not solo (except for beastmaster) past level 12-15 effectively.*
- Can be difficult to find a group sometimes if you are certain classes. IE white mages (clerics) and Paladins (uber tanks) can be hard to find while warriors and dark knights area a dime a dozen.*
- You have to level your character 3 times making for total number of levels your character has to gain at say about a mininum of over 100+ levels (max level is 75)
- Quests for rare drops can be a pain.*
- Userface will take a while getting used to.
- Japanese players. I have grouped with them before, and its interesting to say the least. I hope soon that they either come out with a)Dedicated English/Japanese servers or b)give the translator a serious overhaul.
- Japanese players have had this game for over a year so they have a serious advantage over us.
- The game itself is almost 7 Gig.
- Wierd crappy exp split algorithms make grouping with anyone higher or lower than two levels than you has a serious impact on exp.
- Game has only been out for a few months in the US so all the power gamers are having a hard time finding english groups till people catch up.
- Costs a dollar more per extra character you want.
- PlayOnline is confusing at first setting up your account.
- Tetra Master (dont play this anyways) costs an extra dollar a month and is not part of the FFXI universe (different game basically).
- Need Worldpass if you want to play on the same server as your friends otherwise you get assigned to a random server. (Get worldpass on that server by buying it with gil from specific NPCs.)

* I have found this also to be true in EQ from my personal experience. I would always have to beg friends for a group in Sebiliss(55 necro) and even then i would rarily get a group. I spent my last days with my necro farming Ice Giants to twink my Enchanter. I also remember spending a week straight camping Ancient Cyclops for Journeyman Boots. How i also spent an entire weekend in PoA for a piece of my epic that never dropped....

I have tried to make this post as objective as possible for you to decide by listing the pros and cons instead of just bashing on how much Everquest sucked like the other posts did to FFXI.
If you loved Everquest and are scared you are not going to like FFXI then just go with what you know.

I enjoy FFXI and will be playing for some time to come. Its not perfect but no MMORPG is.

Soulcleaver
39PAL/18WAR
Leviathan Sever

*sniff* I even said FFXI didn't suck.

But the OP was specifically asking which game would give him better return for his short play time. I have to give that to EQ hands down. Can't find a group in FFXI? You're pretty much screwed. On the other hand, when your necro couldn't find a group in Sebilis, you always had the option of soloing somewhere. Maybe soloing wasn't want you wanted to do, but soloing with an LFG tag is more productive than sitting around wishing the Japanese players would let you join their reindeer games. You can get further in EQ with a limited playtime if you play a soloable class (necro, druid, bard, beastlord, enchanter, ranger, shadowknight, etc) than you'll get in FFXI trying to one day unlock the beastie job so you can solo effectively past lvl 15.

FFXI was a steaming dung pile. Out of every MMORPG I have tried to date (and I have tried just about all of them) FFXI is the only game I cancelled and uninstalled while I was still in the free 30 trial period. That should speak volumes.

When you have to go out of your way to buy a USB PS2 controller adapter to make the game even remotely controllable and playable, that is a problem. When you a join a game that has been "in progress" in Japan for a year before you even stepped foot on the server (yes there were no new servers for English speaking folk) you can envision that problems.

Let's leave out the fact that the majority of players are Japanese and either A) Don't want to talk to you or B) Don't understand a word you are saying to them. I'll leave out the part about the "translator tool" which more than likely makes you sound like a 5 year old when trying to speak to a Japanese player.

The game has BIG problems. I can't believe it even was released in the States. it should have stayed a Japanese release only. EQ has so much more on FFXI it isn't even funny. Don't waste your money on FFXI.

I currently have accounts in both. My highest are a 51 DRU in EQ and a 9 RDM in FFXI. I've played EQ for a little over a year now, and started FFXI about 2 months ago.

The Graphics in FFXI are amazing, its very pleasing to look at. EQ is really just falling behind in the graphics game.

The quests in FFXI are well thought out and are few with good rewards for their levels, unlike EQs 1 Gazillion quests 5% which are worth doing.

The interface in FFXI is awfull, very clunky, not enough info, and pretty much 0 customization. Thats compared to EQs fully customizable interface, There are hundreds of custom UIs available and they can be easily customized with a little bit of XML knowledge. There is also very little keyboard customization you can do with FFXI. Damn near anything can be mapped to shortcut keys in EQ.

The Charactor models, races, and classes are very limited in FFXI. There are only 5 races to choose from and 2 of those are gender specific. Basically everyone looks the same.

Much of the community feels that classes are out of balance in FFXI right now with warriors being overpowered.

Equipment is very limited and expensive in FFXI. Spells are expensive and hard to come by in the auction house. You only have 30 inventory slots and this counts your equipment. Stacks are limited to 12 items, and you can only sell quantity 1 or 12 in the auction house, nothing in between. I prefer EQs bazaar system to FFXI's auction house but thats a matter of opinion. If you do not have broadband you may actually prefer the auction house as you don't have to stay online to sell your wares.

Experience is slow in FFXI and the Death penalty is high. You can only group with people your level or a level above/below you without taking a serious XP gouge. Lets say it takes 2200 XP to gain lvl 10; grouped with someone 3 levels higher than you your looking at about 3 XP per fight compared to 50 XP Solo.

Rezzes at lower levels are non existant. You don't have to go find your corpse in FFXI which is a time saver. There are very few zones and they are very large. With no movement speed boosters at low levels travel is very tedious. During the Xmas rush the newbie zones were very overcrowded but this is starting to even out a bit at least on my server.

In short FFXI is a nice break from EQ if your tired of the grind and want to try something different. It's very pretty, and has a bit more storyline than EQ. Unfortunatly, I was hoping FFXI would be more Final Fantasy and less full time MMORPG. It tries to be as difficult and immersive as EQ with far far less content. It also seems to attract a less mature player base, which can lead to a very irritating /shout channel in the cities.

YMMV