I agree with everyone here.game doesn't suck but a whole lot different than eq.first thing you will notice,that no one here mentioned,is that the user interface does totally suck,until you get used to it or buy a gamepad.
alot of people don't like the char development.first you pick your race and job,(jobs are what they call classes).now you level that job to 18,then you start another char that compliments your first,say your first was a warrior,a good compliment would be a monk.monk is called your subjob,you should raise his level to at least 12.then back to your main,finish leveling him to 30,then you quit your main and make another main which is called an advanced job.now your old main the,warrior is your subjob.see how easy this is! :)
in ffxi you basically get one char,that one character can go back to his little apartment and change to any job he wants at anytime.you always have your main job and a subjob,the main gets some of the skills of the subjob.so basically you start out by having to go back and restart the whole game 3 times,killing the same rabbits,sheep,birds whatever.then throughout the game you always have to go back and keep your subjob up to half of your mains level,so your basically playing two characters all the time.
some people have said that they wouldn't do all that.those people never get groups because they are no where as powerful as the one who have done it.your jobs show up in a lfg search.oh and to get those secondary and advanced jobs,you have to do a quest first for each,those quests are going to require you to seek the help of some pretty high level players because for the most part,they are not soloable.also you have to do quests to advance beyond certain levels,like 50 ,60,65 etc
i made a warrior to start,got him to 18,then did a monk sub,took him to 14,then made a paladin as my advance,he is currently 30.well was... found out at 30,groups are for the most part immposible to get,ive tried logging on at all different times of the day.your search list shows 30 people lfg,25 of them are japanese,majority of japanese will not group with you nor will they even talk to you.language barrier is unbelievable.they have what they call a translator,it's clunky hard to use and they will still not communucate with you.you can expect to be lfg alot.
doesn't sound like i have a lot of nice things to say does it? :) i liked it because it was a change of pace,not really any flagrant bugs,the auction center was ok,sure would be nice to have something like that in eq,imagine the bazaar not having anymore traders or just a few.i'm sure there are way to many more items in eq that would allow them to be able to have a system like that.graphics were great.
the bad,
poor user interface
releveling char from level 1, 3 times
forced questing for the advanced jobs
forced questing to gain higher levels
language barrier,i never got over the feeling,that it was an us against them.
lack of groups
every chacter of same class/job looks the same,wears same armor
hmm maybe i didn't like it that much after all...