I been playing FFXI since release, I have seen so many changes in this game. Some for the better, some for the worse. Everything was epic to the game until WOW came out and then something happened. This is not a WOW bash thread however it is a huge change I seen in the MMO community after its release. For me there was good & bad in WOW 1. The good it was easier for casual gamers to make some head way, have fun and look etlitest 2. The bad, very bad... It was to easy, a brainless effort of zerging.
Here we are today in FFXI, all these jobs, weapons, spells, quest, eppic music, missions so much to do in this game. We have had all these things for almost 10 years and still people have not figured it out. Remember when RDM was fun ( for those who liked to play the job)? Want to know why it was fun? Because people actually had roles to play! Each job had its own function (role) in the PT, which made the game REALLY fun. Now it seems everyone just wants to be a elite zergest, not to mention putting the carriage before the horse.
So what changed? I have said this so many times.. The Player changed, while many of you will argue the content forced the player to change but that argument is mute once you set back and look at the big picture. No one has fun LS anymore, not on average. Everyone LS hops to get what they want, no friendships, family type structure in LS anymore. Everyone just wants to be ubber.. I understand this is the goal of every game & it should be, after all its why we are playing the game, right? But its how we get there..
People have no structure anymore, no sense of how to play each job. We need to bring back those players who had 1 job and loved playing it and knew their role in and out. Zero foundation in this game anymore.. Its the way we play this game now...
We have always had elite weapons, armour, missions, quest in the game.. Always... So what changed about all of this? The players attitudes toward each other and the way they play the game. There are WAY more casual players than Elitest, SO TAKE YOUR GAME BACK. Form a LS or a small group of friends who you get along with and let those "OMG you dont have the best wep so your not invited people to my party people" let them starve.
People need to stop LS hopping, stop being greedy find you a job you really like playing, form a nice LS and KNOW YOUR ROLE. When you do this, trust me the game will be more complete & fun again, cause your doing something you actually enjoy doing because you like your job. Not only that but your competing less against drops. This can open the door for so many better things...
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Yeah, except each party consisted of a Tank (Pld or nin), Healer (Whm or rdm) & Support (Brd or Rdm). And the other 3 spots were up for grabs between 12 different jobs. And don't forget about the 2 jobs nobody wanted to party with who were doomed to solo. Yup, the good ol' days.
Edited, May 19th 2013 10:26am by TikkaofLakshmi
Edited, May 19th 2013 10:26am by TikkaofLakshmi
You sound like a princess brd (rdm in this case)trying to make some sort of a stand while the other jobs around you were getting sh*t on. And have been getting sh*t on since the beginning. Where were you 6 years ago? Oh ya you were on rdm getting invited to parties while /anon. It must suck being in the same category of suck as all the other jobs you stuck your nose into the air at all those years ago.
Edited, May 19th 2013 9:33am by Telaki
Edited, May 19th 2013 9:33am by Telaki
There is a lot of truth in what you are saying, but by the same token, you are offbase as to what causes the issue you're talking about. If you look at the expansions, and their relative endgames, you will see that SE has truly helped to force this model into existence. Let's break it down by expansion.
Vanilla FFXI and Rise of the Zilart
The original content here was primarily leveling with roadblocks for progress that required assistance to surpass. For example: The 2-3 rank fight. The fight itself could be done by two or three people at this time if they were prepared, but did not require a whole alliance. The game was also new, so a lot of the population was on the leveling treadmill, and that required socialization as you could not solo easily or at all on most jobs. This forced socialization led to the formation of most of those family-esque linkshells. Most events were designed with parties and grouping in mind, from Garrison to Eco-Warrior to even some quests. It made you meet people and get together to work for a common goal.
Zilart's Sky, the first real big endgame area, is where you see the need for certain roles being filled. This is, however, when things start to break down. Whole alliances were working to gear a handful of people based on randomly dropped items. Because you could not necessarily earn a reward every visit, people began trying to find the most effective, efficient way to repeat this content quickly. That led to the concept of minimum risk of failure for maximum reward. Here is where we broke down as a community, because for our gear to progress, we would either have to wait in line patiently and hope or become greedy and take what we want. Dynamis was much the same as above, except requiring even more at this time since gear wasn't like it is today.
Chains of Promethia
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
- A grind for money/skill to obtain the new gear
- A grind of EXP to get the "best" job for each capped area
- A grind of the content itself to farm items for each of the events
The roadblocks were made worse with the fact that there was literally no incentive to backtrack to help a friend. Originally, there were no ENM fights for added treasure. There was exp loss when dying in the fight. You had to mule or keep gear for the jobs you would be helping on. The zones were true sight for the first tier, and after that featured enemies that were very powerful and capable of killing players easily. That turned any small mistake into a run from hell.
The changes shook the community, creating two classes of player: Those with Sea access, and those without. It was really the first time you saw people just give up and decide to quit. Sky access and Dynamis access took time, but with a few dedicated friends, they were very doable. CoP required a balanced party of competent, well geared, and well prepared players to even attempt. This led to more people wanting to horde items and grab what they could when they could. People had to abandon their friends at times to get their own progress done.
If that wasn't bad enough, the content seemed to have an even worse drop rate endgame than before, and required more farming than before to obtain items. Today, duoing Limbus and getting 50 coins will net you gear fairly shortly. Back then, those coins would either be carefully parceled out or given to "those who need it." This pushes the player to look after their interests more and more because spending 2-3 hours playing with only lost exp as a reward feels like a defeat, not a victory, even if it was "for the good of the LS."
Treasures of Ahut Urghan
The first time the content itself showed pushback against player strategies. Yes, it's the Colibri thing again. This is also the era where we saw the game become Final Melee Fantasy. Originally, magic damage was a great way to blow through enemies, and skillchains were a great way to make that magic even more effective. Now, leveling and meriting could be done with only a healer, no need for magic, and in fact many enemies were either magic resistant or mimicked magic back. But then, enemies were more physically weak, allowing melees to burn them down much faster.
Endgame content here tried to give rewards to all, but in reality, it was again nothing more than blind luck. Yes, there were some earnable rewards for the first time, but the very best items were random drops. And with ZeniNMs, now you had farming of points to do and randomly accessible progress, as you didn't always get your next tier pop as you got higher up the ladder. And, again, the final boss of that string only dropped a small item pool to be distributed among a large group of people.
Sure, you could help people do assaults, but why? With only 1 tag per day max, you were wasting a run just to help. And tying Nyzul to the same tag just left you with more of an issue. And, of course, Salvage requires points from assault, so there's another reason to not "waste" a tag helping because you need those points. Sure, Einherjar only took gil... and Odin kills.. and had a timer...
You see, the content was more and more timed roadblocks, more and more rarely dropped or hard to gather gear. The Mythic weapon is the ultimate example of this. Even more than Relics before them, Mythics had a ridiculous number of requirements meant and intended to force you back through all the content when you wanted one, and force you even more to grind certain events to obtain the item. However, the amount of grind was too much for most, hence why Mythics are some of the rarest weapons.
Wings of the Goddess
And now the biggest sh*tshow arrives in town.
Server-wide requirements for endgame content to be unlocked? Completely random weapon augments? I honestly don't even want to go into it. While I was a fan of the storyline, and enjoyed the drop-in battles of Campaign, the endgame for this expansion was utter, total, and complete garbage. It was the exact polar opposite of the more accessible endgame just one expansion ago. Pretty much everything this expansion did, it did wrong.
The Add-ons
SE's first true attempt at making content repeatable. This stuttering, shambling mess of shoe-horned content, much maligned for several reasons... is why we got Abyssea. For the first time, SE played with the idea of making content that could be repeated for additional rewards for everyone. For the first time, people could even help if they were not even on the quest. Sure, the rewards were random, and mostly crap, but there was always the random augment lottery (I actually have two really nice pieces from this I still use on some jobs). It wasn't perfect, but it showed promise. Now helping your buddy could reward you both!
Sadly, the first boss fight set the tone and left a bad taste in most player's mouths. Also, the loss of KI on failure often left people reluctant to risk their hard work often on less than ideal setups. In the end, however, this content was far better designed than any endgame content was so far.
Abyssea
The grand reset button. This content moved away from the requirement of large LS's with deep ranks, and instead offered the opportunity for smaller groups to band together for their farming of endgame items. Sadly, by this point, after countless me first expansions, Linkshells were largely ghost towns or dead. The smaller group format allowed for something not seen a lot on the game, pick-up parties. PUGs were never really a thing for endgame content. The risk/reward before Abyssea was too great. Sky farming could take hours. Sea farming had time locks. So did Aht Urghan. Risking pops was just not done.
Abyssea rectified that by making pops easy to obtain for base level mobs, and harder but not impossible for mid to end game. For the final boss, it only cost a low entry fee of 10k of points you can earn fairly easily. They even gave the option for those who repeat to use an item that, while expensive, all but guaranteed a win.
Abyssea bosses were designed with multiple rewards (Atma/Abyssites for everyone, collectible items for armor and weapons, actual gear drops). Drop rates were not truly awful, and actually were controllable to some extent. The revolution was here, and it was glorious. Progress was something achievable. You could set a goal and arrive there.
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
VoidWatch
And here we see both the worst and best design decisions blended into a disgusting stew. A return to form for SE, the rewards from VoidWatch are not earned. Rather, they are randomly dropped. Yes, you can control them (sort of) through the bastardization of the Abyssea proc system, but it is still random. You cannot earn rewards here. You just have to grind the content till you get lucky.
But it is not all bad. As I said, there is good here. The individual loot system is probably the best idea out of VoidWatch, even better than Abyssea's something for everyone. Sure, the items inside might be mostly garbage, but the idea is much, much better. It makes me wish this idea was around back in the BCNM days to some degree, even if the seals mechanic worked well. Also they allowed you to buy entry into the event as well, with the advent of Voiddust. This allowed you to be able to attend runs and get rewards even if you were "out of tags".
And one of the biggest points was no loss of stone or cells if you lost. You just tried again. Literally the single best concept in this. Now there was no risk at all. Just lost time, that's it. That means that you could wipe as many times as you needed to sort out the strategy. This is something that would have saved the game even if nothing else were changed to the original expansions.
================================================================================================
As I have said though, all of this is, in essence, too little, too late. Linkshell drama destroyed a lot of the community feel. It is coming back, slowly. Hell, last night I got a pearl to a VW shell, offered after joining a shout group. But with the new content returning to an old paradigm of catering to the elite becoming more so, and not allowing for failure, you will see that even if the content is well designed otherwise (earnable rewards, individual loot chests), those KI kill parties will be a rockblock, a knife in the heart of the community rebuilding.
Edited, May 19th 2013 11:33am by Pawkeshup
Vanilla FFXI and Rise of the Zilart
The original content here was primarily leveling with roadblocks for progress that required assistance to surpass. For example: The 2-3 rank fight. The fight itself could be done by two or three people at this time if they were prepared, but did not require a whole alliance. The game was also new, so a lot of the population was on the leveling treadmill, and that required socialization as you could not solo easily or at all on most jobs. This forced socialization led to the formation of most of those family-esque linkshells. Most events were designed with parties and grouping in mind, from Garrison to Eco-Warrior to even some quests. It made you meet people and get together to work for a common goal.
Zilart's Sky, the first real big endgame area, is where you see the need for certain roles being filled. This is, however, when things start to break down. Whole alliances were working to gear a handful of people based on randomly dropped items. Because you could not necessarily earn a reward every visit, people began trying to find the most effective, efficient way to repeat this content quickly. That led to the concept of minimum risk of failure for maximum reward. Here is where we broke down as a community, because for our gear to progress, we would either have to wait in line patiently and hope or become greedy and take what we want. Dynamis was much the same as above, except requiring even more at this time since gear wasn't like it is today.
Chains of Promethia
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
- A grind for money/skill to obtain the new gear
- A grind of EXP to get the "best" job for each capped area
- A grind of the content itself to farm items for each of the events
The roadblocks were made worse with the fact that there was literally no incentive to backtrack to help a friend. Originally, there were no ENM fights for added treasure. There was exp loss when dying in the fight. You had to mule or keep gear for the jobs you would be helping on. The zones were true sight for the first tier, and after that featured enemies that were very powerful and capable of killing players easily. That turned any small mistake into a run from hell.
The changes shook the community, creating two classes of player: Those with Sea access, and those without. It was really the first time you saw people just give up and decide to quit. Sky access and Dynamis access took time, but with a few dedicated friends, they were very doable. CoP required a balanced party of competent, well geared, and well prepared players to even attempt. This led to more people wanting to horde items and grab what they could when they could. People had to abandon their friends at times to get their own progress done.
If that wasn't bad enough, the content seemed to have an even worse drop rate endgame than before, and required more farming than before to obtain items. Today, duoing Limbus and getting 50 coins will net you gear fairly shortly. Back then, those coins would either be carefully parceled out or given to "those who need it." This pushes the player to look after their interests more and more because spending 2-3 hours playing with only lost exp as a reward feels like a defeat, not a victory, even if it was "for the good of the LS."
Treasures of Ahut Urghan
The first time the content itself showed pushback against player strategies. Yes, it's the Colibri thing again. This is also the era where we saw the game become Final Melee Fantasy. Originally, magic damage was a great way to blow through enemies, and skillchains were a great way to make that magic even more effective. Now, leveling and meriting could be done with only a healer, no need for magic, and in fact many enemies were either magic resistant or mimicked magic back. But then, enemies were more physically weak, allowing melees to burn them down much faster.
Endgame content here tried to give rewards to all, but in reality, it was again nothing more than blind luck. Yes, there were some earnable rewards for the first time, but the very best items were random drops. And with ZeniNMs, now you had farming of points to do and randomly accessible progress, as you didn't always get your next tier pop as you got higher up the ladder. And, again, the final boss of that string only dropped a small item pool to be distributed among a large group of people.
Sure, you could help people do assaults, but why? With only 1 tag per day max, you were wasting a run just to help. And tying Nyzul to the same tag just left you with more of an issue. And, of course, Salvage requires points from assault, so there's another reason to not "waste" a tag helping because you need those points. Sure, Einherjar only took gil... and Odin kills.. and had a timer...
You see, the content was more and more timed roadblocks, more and more rarely dropped or hard to gather gear. The Mythic weapon is the ultimate example of this. Even more than Relics before them, Mythics had a ridiculous number of requirements meant and intended to force you back through all the content when you wanted one, and force you even more to grind certain events to obtain the item. However, the amount of grind was too much for most, hence why Mythics are some of the rarest weapons.
Wings of the Goddess
And now the biggest sh*tshow arrives in town.
Server-wide requirements for endgame content to be unlocked? Completely random weapon augments? I honestly don't even want to go into it. While I was a fan of the storyline, and enjoyed the drop-in battles of Campaign, the endgame for this expansion was utter, total, and complete garbage. It was the exact polar opposite of the more accessible endgame just one expansion ago. Pretty much everything this expansion did, it did wrong.
The Add-ons
SE's first true attempt at making content repeatable. This stuttering, shambling mess of shoe-horned content, much maligned for several reasons... is why we got Abyssea. For the first time, SE played with the idea of making content that could be repeated for additional rewards for everyone. For the first time, people could even help if they were not even on the quest. Sure, the rewards were random, and mostly crap, but there was always the random augment lottery (I actually have two really nice pieces from this I still use on some jobs). It wasn't perfect, but it showed promise. Now helping your buddy could reward you both!
Sadly, the first boss fight set the tone and left a bad taste in most player's mouths. Also, the loss of KI on failure often left people reluctant to risk their hard work often on less than ideal setups. In the end, however, this content was far better designed than any endgame content was so far.
Abyssea
The grand reset button. This content moved away from the requirement of large LS's with deep ranks, and instead offered the opportunity for smaller groups to band together for their farming of endgame items. Sadly, by this point, after countless me first expansions, Linkshells were largely ghost towns or dead. The smaller group format allowed for something not seen a lot on the game, pick-up parties. PUGs were never really a thing for endgame content. The risk/reward before Abyssea was too great. Sky farming could take hours. Sea farming had time locks. So did Aht Urghan. Risking pops was just not done.
Abyssea rectified that by making pops easy to obtain for base level mobs, and harder but not impossible for mid to end game. For the final boss, it only cost a low entry fee of 10k of points you can earn fairly easily. They even gave the option for those who repeat to use an item that, while expensive, all but guaranteed a win.
Abyssea bosses were designed with multiple rewards (Atma/Abyssites for everyone, collectible items for armor and weapons, actual gear drops). Drop rates were not truly awful, and actually were controllable to some extent. The revolution was here, and it was glorious. Progress was something achievable. You could set a goal and arrive there.
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
VoidWatch
And here we see both the worst and best design decisions blended into a disgusting stew. A return to form for SE, the rewards from VoidWatch are not earned. Rather, they are randomly dropped. Yes, you can control them (sort of) through the bastardization of the Abyssea proc system, but it is still random. You cannot earn rewards here. You just have to grind the content till you get lucky.
But it is not all bad. As I said, there is good here. The individual loot system is probably the best idea out of VoidWatch, even better than Abyssea's something for everyone. Sure, the items inside might be mostly garbage, but the idea is much, much better. It makes me wish this idea was around back in the BCNM days to some degree, even if the seals mechanic worked well. Also they allowed you to buy entry into the event as well, with the advent of Voiddust. This allowed you to be able to attend runs and get rewards even if you were "out of tags".
And one of the biggest points was no loss of stone or cells if you lost. You just tried again. Literally the single best concept in this. Now there was no risk at all. Just lost time, that's it. That means that you could wipe as many times as you needed to sort out the strategy. This is something that would have saved the game even if nothing else were changed to the original expansions.
================================================================================================
As I have said though, all of this is, in essence, too little, too late. Linkshell drama destroyed a lot of the community feel. It is coming back, slowly. Hell, last night I got a pearl to a VW shell, offered after joining a shout group. But with the new content returning to an old paradigm of catering to the elite becoming more so, and not allowing for failure, you will see that even if the content is well designed otherwise (earnable rewards, individual loot chests), those KI kill parties will be a rockblock, a knife in the heart of the community rebuilding.
Edited, May 19th 2013 11:33am by Pawkeshup
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
How a game is designed will influence our behavior. Some people may be predisposed toward certain things given their own attitudes as an individual, but it's pretty much a guarantee that the "harder" something is to accomplish, tolerance for failure diminishes. In MMO terms, that difficulty tends to manifest via grinds and controlled drop rates. Sometimes mobs are legitimately difficult, but there are also times where mobs are only difficult because they're cheap (AV, for example).
For example, in another thread there was someone who mentioned getting Abyssea clears just by going to the various zones and asking people they saw fighting the mobs. This worked because:
1) The mobs weren't rare like HNMs were back in the day, minus related timed mobs for KIs.
2) You did not need a full alliance of people, let alone an alliance of optimally geared players.
3) Nothing was lost with the party inviting the stranger for the clear.
4) Your time limit to kill them wasn't tied to the mobs themselves.
Now, #2 is obviously a snag in difficulty if you design something for 6 people, but 18 are capable of fighting it. You'll have those who will whine about the mobs being too easy because of that even though they have the choice of engaging these mobs with a party of that size or even less. And even if they do fight it that way, will tend to look down on those who maybe did it with the alliance. Of course, the concept of dynamic scaling is probably lost to SE. With #3, getting a clear or KI was basically no drama since it really wasn't subject to RNG or player politics for lotting rights. This exists for Delve via its own KIs and plasms, but the real snag is #2 and #4. Would people be as unhappy if the depop timer was 30 minutes instead of 20? How about 45? Honestly, I'd prefer no depop at all, but SE seems disinterested in allowing multiple pops in the field again. Regardless, all these points of Abyssea come together in encouraging the players to be more generous because they're not competing over a rare resource that's difficult to acquire.
This isn't to say Abyssea was perfect, but it was simply more pick-up-and-play friendly. And sure, encouraging people of like minds to band together is all well and good, but that's basically a case of easier said than done. Let's say I'm able to play from 5-10pm on weeknights. Over time, I have made 5 friends with following schedules:
Friend A) 3-7pm on weeknights
Friend B) 7-Midnight all week
Friend C) 6--9pm on MWF
Friend D) 3pm-4am all week with random breaks to tend to a baby
Friend E) 4-6pm Tuesday, 12-6pm Weekends
Gathering all these people together for my sake is tricky before even accounting their own interests or random RL intervention. Times where getting 2-3 together shouldn't be too hard, but forget about getting all of them. This doesn't make them bad players, either. "Find more people who play from 5-10pm, then!" Again, easy to say.
When you escalate things from friends to larger groups like linkshells, things like conflicting personalities or even cliques can also become an issue. Without things like unbiased in-game point systems, we're instead left to the whims of leadership to track who deserves what when things drop, or maybe even what content to do in a given evening. These groups, in turn, tend to have probationary periods to help weed out unsavory recruits, but this can also work against a player if they find out 2-3 weeks later that it's probably not going to work long-term because of poor leadership, not falling into a clique, or just simply not doing content you want/need. So, without that in-game system, you can argue that linkshell-hopping serves as a perpetual reset button since points you make in LS A mean jack in LS B or C. If you get stuck in this loop, feeling like you're not having fun can come on quick.
This is pretty much the point where I feel having multiple paths to the same destination is a must in an MMO. You'll have your elites that feel they're only ones who deserve elite gear for doing elite things with a bunch of other elite people, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking a lot of players out there are innovators of strategy. A lot of times it's just following a wiki written by someone else to the letter, too often scared to deviate because failure isn't an option. This translates to things like the RME Onry mentality even if it isn't actually a requirement. In the end, I'm of the mind doing the hard stuff should get you to the best stuff most quickly, while someone could take a soloable route that'd get them there eventually, but reasonably. And no, 3 months of daily grinds for a single item isn't reasonable, but again you'll see contention here because some have tricked themselves into turning entertainment into obsession... which is also why I'd say things like RMEs are bad for the game even if some feel they're "needed" to maintain the economy. FFXI's sh*tty economy is its own can of worms, there.
I'd like to take a moment to share a statistic from Rift and correlate it to FFXI here. Rift has a system called Planar Attunement, which is basically merits. Every so much EXP after level 50, you get a point to allocate to a cell on a number of grids with their own tiers. To unlock the next tier, you have to complete the prior. Now, if you visit their forums, you'll see people claim "Everyone's maxed PA by now anyway, so it being a requirement to get into a guild is no big deal..." and such irritatingly too often. Well, 0.03% of Rift players have max PA as of last Friday. Meanwhile, in FFXI, not everyone is going to have capped merits, all jobs at 99, or perhaps the more notorious, "Everyone has at least one RME by now." In that jump from entertainment to obsession, some have unfortunately lost touch with the majority of their peers. Heaven help you if you try to remind them of that. And if this is the crowd SE wants most, well, I hope they're not surprised when they find out that crowd isn't terribly big... or profitable.
Edited, May 19th 2013 11:17am by Seriha
For example, in another thread there was someone who mentioned getting Abyssea clears just by going to the various zones and asking people they saw fighting the mobs. This worked because:
1) The mobs weren't rare like HNMs were back in the day, minus related timed mobs for KIs.
2) You did not need a full alliance of people, let alone an alliance of optimally geared players.
3) Nothing was lost with the party inviting the stranger for the clear.
4) Your time limit to kill them wasn't tied to the mobs themselves.
Now, #2 is obviously a snag in difficulty if you design something for 6 people, but 18 are capable of fighting it. You'll have those who will whine about the mobs being too easy because of that even though they have the choice of engaging these mobs with a party of that size or even less. And even if they do fight it that way, will tend to look down on those who maybe did it with the alliance. Of course, the concept of dynamic scaling is probably lost to SE. With #3, getting a clear or KI was basically no drama since it really wasn't subject to RNG or player politics for lotting rights. This exists for Delve via its own KIs and plasms, but the real snag is #2 and #4. Would people be as unhappy if the depop timer was 30 minutes instead of 20? How about 45? Honestly, I'd prefer no depop at all, but SE seems disinterested in allowing multiple pops in the field again. Regardless, all these points of Abyssea come together in encouraging the players to be more generous because they're not competing over a rare resource that's difficult to acquire.
This isn't to say Abyssea was perfect, but it was simply more pick-up-and-play friendly. And sure, encouraging people of like minds to band together is all well and good, but that's basically a case of easier said than done. Let's say I'm able to play from 5-10pm on weeknights. Over time, I have made 5 friends with following schedules:
Friend A) 3-7pm on weeknights
Friend B) 7-Midnight all week
Friend C) 6--9pm on MWF
Friend D) 3pm-4am all week with random breaks to tend to a baby
Friend E) 4-6pm Tuesday, 12-6pm Weekends
Gathering all these people together for my sake is tricky before even accounting their own interests or random RL intervention. Times where getting 2-3 together shouldn't be too hard, but forget about getting all of them. This doesn't make them bad players, either. "Find more people who play from 5-10pm, then!" Again, easy to say.
When you escalate things from friends to larger groups like linkshells, things like conflicting personalities or even cliques can also become an issue. Without things like unbiased in-game point systems, we're instead left to the whims of leadership to track who deserves what when things drop, or maybe even what content to do in a given evening. These groups, in turn, tend to have probationary periods to help weed out unsavory recruits, but this can also work against a player if they find out 2-3 weeks later that it's probably not going to work long-term because of poor leadership, not falling into a clique, or just simply not doing content you want/need. So, without that in-game system, you can argue that linkshell-hopping serves as a perpetual reset button since points you make in LS A mean jack in LS B or C. If you get stuck in this loop, feeling like you're not having fun can come on quick.
This is pretty much the point where I feel having multiple paths to the same destination is a must in an MMO. You'll have your elites that feel they're only ones who deserve elite gear for doing elite things with a bunch of other elite people, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking a lot of players out there are innovators of strategy. A lot of times it's just following a wiki written by someone else to the letter, too often scared to deviate because failure isn't an option. This translates to things like the RME Onry mentality even if it isn't actually a requirement. In the end, I'm of the mind doing the hard stuff should get you to the best stuff most quickly, while someone could take a soloable route that'd get them there eventually, but reasonably. And no, 3 months of daily grinds for a single item isn't reasonable, but again you'll see contention here because some have tricked themselves into turning entertainment into obsession... which is also why I'd say things like RMEs are bad for the game even if some feel they're "needed" to maintain the economy. FFXI's sh*tty economy is its own can of worms, there.
I'd like to take a moment to share a statistic from Rift and correlate it to FFXI here. Rift has a system called Planar Attunement, which is basically merits. Every so much EXP after level 50, you get a point to allocate to a cell on a number of grids with their own tiers. To unlock the next tier, you have to complete the prior. Now, if you visit their forums, you'll see people claim "Everyone's maxed PA by now anyway, so it being a requirement to get into a guild is no big deal..." and such irritatingly too often. Well, 0.03% of Rift players have max PA as of last Friday. Meanwhile, in FFXI, not everyone is going to have capped merits, all jobs at 99, or perhaps the more notorious, "Everyone has at least one RME by now." In that jump from entertainment to obsession, some have unfortunately lost touch with the majority of their peers. Heaven help you if you try to remind them of that. And if this is the crowd SE wants most, well, I hope they're not surprised when they find out that crowd isn't terribly big... or profitable.
Edited, May 19th 2013 11:17am by Seriha
Violence good. Sexy bad. Yay America.
Telaki wrote:
You sound like a princess brd (rdm in this case)trying to make some sort of a stand while the other jobs around you were getting sh*t on. And have been getting sh*t on since the beginning. Where were you 6 years ago? Oh ya you were on rdm getting invited to parties while /anon. It must suck being in the same category of suck as all the other jobs you stuck your nose into the air at all those years ago.
Edited, May 19th 2013 9:33am by Telaki
Edited, May 19th 2013 9:33am by Telaki
Me RDM? Never in a million years.. I invited them though cause they were vital to a party. I have literally played drk and nin the whole time I have played.
You were supposed to say something like "I'd never be caught red handed playing rdm", ninja guy. You missed an easy pun.
6 posts
Seriha wrote:
"Everyone has at least one RME by now." In that jump from entertainment to obsession, some have unfortunately lost touch with the majority of their peers. Heaven help you if you try to remind them of that. And if this is the crowd SE wants most, well, I hope they're not surprised when they find out that crowd isn't terribly big... or profitable.
Edited, May 19th 2013 11:17am by Seriha
This is the sad truth.
It's another reason I loved the gear resets every expansion in World of Warcraft. Sure you lost all of your progress but it meant that if you left the game (for an expansion) you wouldn't have to do old content to be caught up or get items that are still top tier. And even if you did miss a major update mid expansion they had ways of catching up gear wise (thinking of Badge of Justice's, or what ever their current incarnation is).
Quote:
Chains of Promethia
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
I didn't view this as a roadblock to prevent burning through the storyline as all. I actually see the level caps as a way to progress the story as you are leveling. If you are starting from scratch, you can be a contributing member as soon as you hit level 30. Now, the answer seems to be get to cap, then touch the content. I've seen people not wanting to help with nation missions because the person asking for help is only in the 70's. Since this was all viable at 75 (and I don't think I ever had a party of more than 4 people for any of the fights), it seems sad that help wouldn't be given because they aren't 99 when they want to approach it.
xantav wrote:
Quote:
Chains of Promethia
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
I didn't view this as a roadblock to prevent burning through the storyline as all. I actually see the level caps as a way to progress the story as you are leveling. If you are starting from scratch, you can be a contributing member as soon as you hit level 30. Now, the answer seems to be get to cap, then touch the content. I've seen people not wanting to help with nation missions because the person asking for help is only in the 70's. Since this was all viable at 75 (and I don't think I ever had a party of more than 4 people for any of the fights), it seems sad that help wouldn't be given because they aren't 99 when they want to approach it.
Then, in your case, their tactics to get you to perceive it as something other than a content hurdle worked.
Realistically, they had two ways of dealing with a server loaded with high levels to slow progress, allowing them to fix issues and introduce each section of the content. The first was to make it all level 75 and require some form of time delay. The other was to level cap the content and allow the cap to be the control.
Don't believe me? Scan through the CoP mission structure. There's only one I can think of that had any form of time delay.
Next, look at Aht Urghan. 7 midnight waits, and two separate hour long waits. No level-capped areas.
In both cases, they are controls on the content.
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
Pawkeshup, Averter of the Apocalypse wrote:
xantav wrote:
Quote:
Chains of Promethia
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
The greatest bottleneck of FFXI's history happened right here. CoP promised a rich storyline, but to prevent burning through the content, SE set up roadblocks in the form of level-capped areas. Now, at launch these areas would strip any gear that was not of the correct level. They did introduce new gear for these levels, resulting in three forms of grind.
I didn't view this as a roadblock to prevent burning through the storyline as all. I actually see the level caps as a way to progress the story as you are leveling. If you are starting from scratch, you can be a contributing member as soon as you hit level 30. Now, the answer seems to be get to cap, then touch the content. I've seen people not wanting to help with nation missions because the person asking for help is only in the 70's. Since this was all viable at 75 (and I don't think I ever had a party of more than 4 people for any of the fights), it seems sad that help wouldn't be given because they aren't 99 when they want to approach it.
Then, in your case, their tactics to get you to perceive it as something other than a content hurdle worked.
Realistically, they had two ways of dealing with a server loaded with high levels to slow progress, allowing them to fix issues and introduce each section of the content. The first was to make it all level 75 and require some form of time delay. The other was to level cap the content and allow the cap to be the control.
Don't believe me? Scan through the CoP mission structure. There's only one I can think of that had any form of time delay.
Next, look at Aht Urghan. 7 midnight waits, and two separate hour long waits. No level-capped areas.
In both cases, they are controls on the content.
See, I still see it in 2 different ways. Aht Urghan is get to level cap, then go through the story, getting stopped by midnight waits. Not a friendly method for new players. CoP is a newbie friendly expansion, where you can mix leveling with story. Level to 30, missions up to the promyvian fights, level to 40, you're ready for Riverne and P. Aquaducts, get to 50 and you can do Simulacrum.
When did you start playing, again? I started in mid-08 and got CoP done just before level caps were removed. (someone else was determined to do it, I rode his coattails) So I got to see at least some of the "old days".
It was "Newbie friendly" if you had newbie gear, but if someone who has been playing higher level content wanted to help you, they had to maintain a set of gear for that level cap. (Level sync/gear sync didn't happen until Sep '08) And then they could lose exp, too. Also, the level caps were such that if you didn't have a full party of six who knew what they were doing (5/6 had to be on their A game, the sixth could mess up a little) with level-appropriate gear, you had trouble winning. And while you didn't have to have a perfect job mix, you still needed to gather up a proper tank/healer/DD mix. If they were doing nothing but grinding meripo on colibri, you were SOL.
And then there was the airship battle. It wasn't that it was hard to win, it was hard to win within the time limit. Most BCNM record times were 1/4 of the limit or less. But I never saw airship battle record times less than 1/2 of the 45 minute limit.
It was "Newbie friendly" if you had newbie gear, but if someone who has been playing higher level content wanted to help you, they had to maintain a set of gear for that level cap. (Level sync/gear sync didn't happen until Sep '08) And then they could lose exp, too. Also, the level caps were such that if you didn't have a full party of six who knew what they were doing (5/6 had to be on their A game, the sixth could mess up a little) with level-appropriate gear, you had trouble winning. And while you didn't have to have a perfect job mix, you still needed to gather up a proper tank/healer/DD mix. If they were doing nothing but grinding meripo on colibri, you were SOL.
And then there was the airship battle. It wasn't that it was hard to win, it was hard to win within the time limit. Most BCNM record times were 1/4 of the limit or less. But I never saw airship battle record times less than 1/2 of the 45 minute limit.
Quote:
Also, the level caps were such that if you didn't have a full party of six who knew what they were doing (5/6 had to be on their A game, the sixth could mess up a little) with level-appropriate gear, you had trouble winning.
...
And then there was the airship battle. It wasn't that it was hard to win, it was hard to win within the time limit. Most BCNM record times were 1/4 of the limit or less. But I never saw airship battle record times less than 1/2 of the 45 minute limit.
...
And then there was the airship battle. It wasn't that it was hard to win, it was hard to win within the time limit. Most BCNM record times were 1/4 of the limit or less. But I never saw airship battle record times less than 1/2 of the 45 minute limit.
When did challenging fights become a bad thing? You only have to beat a mission once for yourself and then you have it beat forever, so I'd hope that it would put up a fight and not go down too easily.
I lost EVERY BCNM IN COP before I won any of them. Yes, including the "you'd have to be trying to lose" final fight. But I can remember our victories with clarity, because our eventual triumphs were so overwhelmingly positive that they stuck in my mind, long before I decided to do any of this CoP guide nonsense.
I could tell endless stories about our victories... Having 5/6 of my party dead or asleep in Promyvion - Holla, with me still alive on black mage, both me and the boss at a sliver of health, it closing in on me but that final nuke landing and the shouts of joy in both english and japanese as we got that final cutscene... The 5 or 6 frusterating losses against the Snoll Tzar where I felt like dead weight as a WHM... the airship battle where I ordered my ENTIRE PARTY INTO BATTLE AGAINST ULTIMA WHILE WEAKENED because I knew seconds mattered, us firing off abilities and weaponskills and heals and 2-hours like the most coordinated group of FFXI players you've ever seen and all of us living and winning with less than 30 seconds on the clock (they were STILL telling stories about that one even when I quit, years and years later)
Can I remember any BNCM victory after CoP this well? Not really, cuz they all kinda went down without barely a fight, other than ToAU's final boss which had some fangs. But beating him didn't really unlock any areas or anything so even that victory felt a bit empty.
I missed losing. I missed dying. I missed being prepared, having the right jobs, and still struggling. I missed the challenge of this game being in combat, not in motiviating myself and my friends to bother to show up for the same damn farming event for the 100th time when we knew we were going to walk away with nothing.
http://ereblog.livejournal.com/
Erecia and Ereblog are BACK, baby!
Erecia and Ereblog are BACK, baby!
Pawkeshup, 100% smack on!!!
absolutely, positively , without question, 100% hit the nail on the head.
/clap
Quote:
Abyssea
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
absolutely, positively , without question, 100% hit the nail on the head.
/clap
http://i.imgur.com/FokEtHo.png
xantav wrote:
See, I still see it in 2 different ways. Aht Urghan is get to level cap, then go through the story, getting stopped by midnight waits. Not a friendly method for new players. CoP is a newbie friendly expansion, where you can mix leveling with story. Level to 30, missions up to the promyvian fights, level to 40, you're ready for Riverne and P. Aquaducts, get to 50 and you can do Simulacrum.
However, look at the bolded item in the quote.
No, CoP was anything but newbie friendly. The concept of newbie friendly is actually more along the lines of teaching someone the basic mechanics of the game, slowly easing them along and taking the training wheels off when you feel they are ready. See: Any tutorial, ever.
CoP was a ball buster for veterans at times. The first set of promies were extremely rough until the community worked out some solid, tested strategies. And even then, as Elwyn said above, that team best be firing on all cylinders or it would go wrong very quickly. Tanks needed to be well-geared and good at holding hate. Healers needed to bring meds and be ready for anything. DD's needed to watch their hate gain, and know when to go guns blazing. It also required a lot of research and preparation, things newbies don't generally do or were aware of. Remember, this isn't WoW. And NPC didn't just flat out tell you "Farm this trigger and it will weaken the boss". Hell the item itself doesn't say it. Literally if you didn't go back and talk to that random guy in Ru'Lude, you'd never have known.
You see, you're problem is that you are looking at the finish product, and assuming that it was seamlessly woven together in concert. It likely was not. Likely the mechanics came first, then the sketch of a story, then logistics like the new zones being designed... Really there's more to this than the simple "Well it was a storytelling tool."
And, let's back that up for a second.
Where, in FFXI, does anyone ever mention your level? Correct me if I am wrong, and I might be, it has been years since I saw the first cutscenes, but did they ever mention being "lowered in power" upon entering? You might balk at this, but for Abyssea, they do mention your improved strength as you gain Atma.. And Maat's entire existence is predicated on breaking your limits on your level, and his character does appear in the past. Yet, where else is level mentioned, ever?
You see, that's the difference between a mechanic, the need to justify mechanics within story, and storyline elements centered on a mechanic. So while your perception of the facts allows for your interpretation, you are not considering the broader perspective on how a game is actually designed and made.
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
Allestra wrote:
Pawkeshup, 100% smack on!!!
absolutely, positively , without question, 100% hit the nail on the head.
/clap
Quote:
Abyssea
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
I argue that, honestly, had all the previous content used this model, FFXI would be one of the premiere MMOs, sporting membership in the millions. This "rewards for all" concept was a master stroke for the game.
absolutely, positively , without question, 100% hit the nail on the head.
/clap
Agreed.
I'd like to make a slight adjustment to the verbiage though:
Rewards for all *(with the speed of acquisition determined by an understandable, accessible, and fun trigger system that could heavily influence the "drop pool" lottery).
*and*
"ultimate" Weapon upgrade systems that were nearly perfectly established all the way through the level 90 versions.
Once the "level 95" stuff was introduced, the trials for upgrades and focus of the game shifted away from "accessible" and into as much the opposite of it's original intent as possible (largely due to Tanaka returning and being "pissed off" that all "his" creations had been steamrolled in favor of a new playstyle with new content). Suddenly we saw the "push back" from development that, I believe, "killed" this game for many people (no FFXI isn't Dying, but to many, the game is undoubtedly already dead).
- Trashing repeat visitors and interest in Abyssea by nullifying the original intentions via stifling "growth" of gear.
- Severely altering the course of progression by force-feeding VW as the only real "go to" event, and then introduce godawful drop-rates to keep people there. (It's like he took plans for a future event that could have been really amazing and **** all over it on purpose)
- Reviving his old "babies" in the form of new "Neo" versions of the events (that to this day, almost no one 'enjoys', they just want rewards from the events).
Suddenly here we are.
I had really hoped that the "new development direction" of FFXI would take an 'Abyssea-like' focus through new lands and events, but I think at this point unless they mimic the original formula with VERY little deviation (would be nice to see some minor repairs to the proc system, to allow a couple more jobs to have their moment to shine) I don't see this game ever having that HUGE influx of players we saw just a few short years ago. I honestly never met so many "new" players that were just having the time of their life as I did a few years ago, it was... Refreshing.
CoP was as much newbie friendly as a blender is a marital aid.
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
Erecia wrote:
When did challenging fights become a bad thing? You only have to beat a mission once for yourself and then you have it beat forever, so I'd hope that it would put up a fight and not go down too easily.
When you had to get five other people who already "beat it forever" to care enough to help you through once the content wasn't new anymore. Like I said, I started in mid-2008, and didn't reach Sea until a few months before the final nerf, and finished only a few weeks before, and that was only because I followed along with someone who wanted it badly enough.
The problem wasn't with the fight being "challenging", (though as I said, the airship fight record time being so high showed that the time limit was definitely lower than it should have been), it was the challenge of finding five other people, two expansions later. The problem was also with level capped zones that required you to spend two hours just getting to the BCNM fights. (Because when you have six people, someone is always going to lose their sneak/invis at the wrong time. Or their internet will break.)
Oh yeah, and that bit about story content being blocked behind excessively difficult content. It's all the same arguments that have been rehashed about 65535 times by now.
Erecia wrote:
I lost EVERY BCNM IN COP before I won any of them. Yes, including the "you'd have to be trying to lose" final fight.
My point was that calling CoP a "newbie friendly expansion" was completely stupid, and you hot-buttoned about the dead horse stuff that I was using to show that it was not newbie friendly. The fact that you had to keep going back multiple times to win and had to make a guide so others could finish it is the proof right there.
xantav wrote:
See, I still see it in 2 different ways. Aht Urghan is get to level cap, then go through the story, getting stopped by midnight waits. Not a friendly method for new players. CoP is a newbie friendly expansion, where you can mix leveling with story. Level to 30, missions up to the promyvian fights, level to 40, you're ready for Riverne and P. Aquaducts, get to 50 and you can do Simulacrum.
Pawk's recap is spot on pretty much. When the risk is too high the playerbase adjusts by shunning a LOT of the game's workings, as players tend to lean towards efficiency if the stakes are high. That level of intolerance takes the fun out of the game, IMO.
Edited, May 25th 2013 6:32am by Ruisu
Quote:
Where, in FFXI, does anyone ever mention your level? Correct me if I am wrong, and I might be, it has been years since I saw the first cutscenes, but did they ever mention being "lowered in power" upon entering? You might balk at this, but for Abyssea, they do mention your improved strength as you gain Atma.. And Maat's entire existence is predicated on breaking your limits on your level, and his character does appear in the past. Yet, where else is level mentioned, ever?
Not sure about the other areas, but I remember them mentioning that the aquaducts had a seal of something limiting the power of the monsters inside. I've always wondered if they even bothered to remove that bit of text after the level caps were removed.
As for saying newbie friendly, that probably wasn't the best choice of words on my part. And I was looking at it as a finished product. I think a better way to phrase it (hopefully) is that you didn't have to be 75 to be a contributing member for those fights. If your highest level job at the time was 35, but you knew the ins and outs of your character, there was nothing stopping you for joining a group to get those first few CoP missions completed. ToAU however, I don't think 35 is going to get you anywhere. (75 not required though. I made it up to the Black Coffin fight solo as a mid 60's bst)
I might be biased though. I personally feel the Promyvian area are some of the coolest looking zones in the game and was actually masochistic enough to solo for xp on the first floor from time to time instead of seeking a party.
And because I always have to be right, I think the guy without the 75 job has the advantage going into a level capped zone/fight. First time I attempted 5-1, we headed to the boss and I was like "Oops, I don't have F. Rip anymore. I can headbutt or cocoon." Yeah, I wasn't really pulling my weight there since trying to remember and set a spell list I hadn't used in 25 levels while under attack isn't the best course of action. :)
Edited, May 25th 2013 6:50am by xantav
#22REDACTED,
Posted: Jun 25 2013 at 6:30 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Damn, got tricked by the excellent rating in the top. Not to self, stay away from Pawke's posts. Add-on scenarios being good content? What are you on? Seriously? It was a lousy attempt from SE to keep us happy during the non update years. Content that could easily be cleared in what? 5 hours? Crystalline prophecy was awful. Mog and Shantotto's were fun storylines, the repeatable content was utter "insert bad swearing word here". CoP content had a clearly distinguishable line between hardcore players and casual players. Was not the best for the casual crowd, I agree, still I liked it very much and yeah I got through it. Couldnt get my casual friends through though. WotG, campaign? Seriously? Fun? You gotta be kidding. It was ridiculous. Everyone /brd singing songs to maximize the AN rewards. Abyssea, yeah, good content for the casuals. See what I did there? Best content? Are you kidding me?? Complete reboot and instant quit for most of the remaining hardcore ls. What the hiatus of good content did during WotG for HNMLS, Abyssea kicked the remainder out. Oh wait I forgot, grinding for Empyrean weapons, so much fun. HMPs come to mind. Oh wait, that's also Casual content. Repeated indefinately. Dont get me even started about Logwatch. Oh Aht Uhrgan you said? Yes meriting shut out a whole lot of jobs, I even leveled a DD job for that. Still it was ok. Oh and your comment about ZNM content. Brought back every job to Aht Uhrghan, literally all jobs were wanted. Dont know about you, but that was some good content. Imo Aht Uhrghan is the best add-on to date overall. The Fact you needed Magic casters for the last fight was reason enough to make some friends with Blm main players. Timed Roadblocks? I agree, but it wasnt a very bad thing unless you wanted to do everything at once. There was lots to do and Besieged was pretty fun also. I got a soft spot for CoP, imo the best add-on for me personally, at the hardest difficulty of course. You could do CoP missions once you got to level 30, 40, 50. Best reason to level for me at that time. I had something to strive for, every 10 levels new storylines, new CS and a new area to boot. Wow....
CoP level caps were pure crap. Most people didn't even start doing CoP till they were at level cap and still had to level many jobs just to have a shot at finishing it. Really how many people would take someone on their fist job at 30 into a promy fight, or their first 40/50 into a hard fight. Having a job at capped didn't mean much but it was much the same thought as the R/E/M of to day.
RavennofTitan wrote:
CoP level caps were pure crap. Most people didn't even start doing CoP till they were at level cap and still had to level many jobs just to have a shot at finishing it. Really how many people would take someone on their fist job at 30 into a promy fight, or their first 40/50 into a hard fight. Having a job at capped didn't mean much but it was much the same thought as the R/E/M of to day.
I did take people on their first jobs through promys, helped about 100+ parties through there on Kujata. Even taught a guy from my social to kite on smn during the mammets fights. Loved it. I went through there on my first job as Whm.
Yeah, I never even got to sniff even a little bit of CoP before the level cap was lifted. Heck, I had more fun with campaign at level 35 than CoP... was it rewarding? No. But it was fun to raise people, toss out a cure or two, or whatever. I really liked it. It was happening.
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