Complaints.. Complaints...Follow

I pretty much agree with what you had to say. I'm not playing the game to level, I'm playing the game to play a full game.

That being said, I do set goals for myself. It's always good to look forward to and accomplish a goal. I'm not necessarily in a rush to accomplish them, but I do want to get them done.

Accomplishing things like getting to level 18 for the subclass, or level 20 for a Chocobo, or (like I'm working on now) getting to level 30 and advanced classes are all nice benchmarks to work toward and feel a sense of accomplishment about. The purpose of the game to me, however, is not a headlong rush to level 75. It's about enjoying the ride there. I don't mind if I don't get a level a day. If I had fun, it was a success.

Yesterday I decided I was going to get the air pass. I had one key already, and needed two more. I got lucky and found another key on the first try. I headed to Giddeus for the third key and probably would have been upset at the time it took to get it...but instead, I had a great time partying with a Japanese player looking to do the same thing. It was rough communicating, but we got the job done and even took down a couple of NMs that popped up. I think we ended up with maybe 1000 experience for the entire time we spent there, but we had a really good time working with each other. Not much of a disappointment there.

It's just my opinion, but the game's not about level 75. It's about the trip there.

Jannor
26 WAR/12 MNK
Siren

My goals seem to change from day to day. One thing that remains though - and that's to put fun first. I don't bother with the levelling grindmill, simply because that's not the game I play.

However, some people do enjoy doing just that. Amassing a large amout of gil, tradeskilling, levelling to 75 asap, etc etc. Some even get the ol' calculators out and go stat maxing.
What you must remember,is this - Vana'diel is a macrocosm of real life. There's so many different personalities out there, with all different aims, objectives, desires and goals.

Embrace the diversity of it all. And as long as what you are doing is what you consider to be fun, carry on. You have the game down to a tee.

I agree with most of what people said..

But I still hold to the belief that being able to lose levels is a step backwards as far as games go. Losing is exp is fine yes, but losing levels.. It just seems to detract from fun, and an unnescessary "feature."

Well I have to sympathize with the power-levelers a bit on this.

But before that I'd have to object on EQ being a solo game. No, EQ isn't a solo game. It just isn't. At certain stages and certain classes are more viable to solo for xp, but pretty much for anything other than xp and farming you aren't soloing. I haven't heard of any solo raids.

Ok back on topic. I will first say that I love all that this game has to offer. I love the quests, I love partying, I love making gil, I love the economy, and I love all that Square-Enix has done for this game.

With that said, there are things that I CAN NOT DO unless I am high level. And this isn't just "me" per se. This is "me and my group of friends and their group of friends". "Being able to kill everything alone" and "having huge amouonts of cash at their disposal" would be nice, but I don't see how that relates to leveling like mad.

Even if you level like mad there are still things that you must do as a team. This is what attracts me to want to level fast as I want to tackle what people say is "the real challenge" of this game (the high-end encounters). Also in the process of power-leveling I believe these people are challenging themselves more than the groups that just take on Decent, Even, or Very Toughs. Why there are groups of 6 killing Even or Tough monsters over and over is beyond me. It's much more worth your time to take on Very Tough and lower level Incredibly Toughs.

But back to my point. People power level so they can do more of what this game has to offer. Most people aren't power leveling so they can do this all by themselves.

Especially with the fact that this game was marketed two years ahead of time at JPN. I don't know how you feel but it PAINS me to see high level JPN running around. It drives me to want to hurry up and "catch up". Seeing them being able to do all the cool stuff at the higher level and me not having that option is just very painful.

I feel leveling like mad is a justified course of action. I still am adamant about believing that this game, for us NA players, would have been 10X as fun if there were new servers that characters could NOT have transferred to and we had a more leveled starting ground (JPN who started here would still have the advantage of knowledge, but that's not as great of an advantage as knowledge+2 years time spent on said server).

Would have been great to have to figure things out ourselves.

~Nall

Alright here I go...

I played EQ..for 2 years. Now I did everything possibly wrong that I hope no one would ever want to do in this game. I got a Froglok (right when they came out the most popular new race) and I rushed my character to level 50. I was the highest level Froglok, everyone like me, everyone knew me. But wasnt enough, I made a all froglok guild, (which would never work), and bought Plat on-line. I spent 50 DOLLARS To get alot of platinum. Now think about that. 50 REAL dollars I could have spent on other things, but spent it on a game, for fake cash. Ok back to the topic. Now with all that money, and my fast leveling, I bought myself a gigantic lizard to ride, decked my self out in all golden armor with expensive dyes, and was sitting on my high horse. Now this is where things went down hill.

I was popular and all, but I had a weak guild,my armor was next to useless, since it rounded out my leveling gaps, not strenghed them. I was begining to lose popularity because whenever I got into a group, (if ever) I couldnt pull my own weight, because my skills were rushed. Soon, I was stuck at 51, with no groups, trying to solo cyclops's. All this time the game gave me an easy ride, I helped DESTROY the economy,led a bunch of players to believe I could make a guild work, ignored my family, gained weight, and so on. Now this is why I quit the game. I was trying to FIGHT corruption in guilds, when I helped put the basis for it. I started a whole gang of Plat buying players,power levlers and people wanting my position in my guild. I told about 50 people to BUY PLAT, and then it hit me, How much of a corrupt, horrible, player I was becoming. I had virtually lost everything in my game and most of my familes trust in me. Its sickening to see players spend money on a game, power level, rush through a game,and other things. THIS GAME IS MENT TO BE LIKE REAL LIFE, NOTHING COMES EASY. But I understand that people will always want the easy way out. "Its only a game" Well friends, a game can ruin your family life. It took me 3 MONTHS to repair all the damage I did to my family by not spending time with them, and wasting their money on a game. ENJOY THE GAME,HAVE FUN, dont try to cheat the system, it will only unbalance and ruin you in the end. It may not hurt your family like it did me, but I said when i got it "it was only a game", and I didnt live up to that.

And it is just that "A GAME" but its meant to be hard. You'll only be left with a shallow nothing, when you are getting easy money and have uber weapons. Life isnt easy, and neither is this game, get used to it. Stop trying to break the system. I'm just warning any of those people who think that this game is meant to be cheated. It ISNT thats why square made it hard. Dont waste months of your life and money on something you just want easy. Go work on your real life and make some real progress, being good in a game quick usually means you have nothing better to do. Sit back and spend time with your family and look at your life, before you decide to ruin or waist your time on a game, thats just for fun, I hope this has been a lesson to anyone who wants an easy way out, cause there aint one.

~ Taru Invasion

*bump*


Another thing that amazes me is that most people seem to think that JP or even high level NA players OWE them something. That just blows me away.

Thanks for the rate up, whoever did it, and even though I seem to have a different enemy, I appreciated the above 4.0 for the little while that I had it.
::switches to off-topic mode::

Vince, did you ever beat the game? I only got to about the 25th floor before I built the Casino and I decided to overwrite my file. I think I'll pick up my other file when I get my PS2 back.