In depth...Compare FFXI to WOW...Follow

Ok Now that I said IN DEPTH!

Can the Beta Testers tell me since Im considering to get this game soon, and if I really really like it I will leave FFXI since im getting slowly to the higher lvl's and slowly becoming a pointless XP grinding situation...

There are Certain "rules" in FFXI which the one I hate the most is lvl'ing... since the moment you come to the world and you start your journey there are already pre-determined lvl areas where you can go to lvl up ( 12-20 Valkrum Dunes followed by 20-25 Quifim Island and so on and so forth ), now, most of us here are currently playing FFXI...or something like it. I dont like the fact that if you dont go to this Areas you are considered and called a n00b and put down and everything, there is no freedom to take your 6 man group to anywhere you want to, because if you explore... you get aggro'ed, and you die, you de-lvl and stuff.

So without further blah blah blah, the real question is... Can you explore in WOW and not have this pre-determined areas to lvl up, and please if you can, expand this examples or comparisons between the 2 of them, what FFXI has that WOW doesnt, or the other way around.

Or if you wanna point a specific way or manner that the one of them is better than the other one please let us know, ( I think im speaking for some of the guys here too ) because if your as me and your relatively high lvl FFXI character you know your guetting bored and your choices of things to do is getting very very limited.

Please answer and thanks for the info.

I hate you so much for making this post, Jehuty. So much.

Jaefo has been a little bit testy lately, don't mind him and try not to talk about FFXI.

There are generally accepted levels for areas. There are some people who won't accept you below a certain level for groups going into dungeons. But there is no hard-and-fast requirement. If anything, the game sets certain limits to you by not giving you some quests before a "reasonable" level, and not giving you experience for quests and creatures after you have surpassed their level considerably. I wouldn't call it constrictive though, as it is plenty easy to run around and explore. Just don't expect to go into the Blasted Lands or the Burning Steppes at level 1 and survive. (or 30 for that matter.)

I'm just a horrible person on the inside. Oh, and this.

Well in my opinion, the reason that FFXI has specific areas to level up in is because japan had the game for a year or two before us. This means they have played the game and found the best possible areas to level up in. The best mobs to kill for the best exp. Im sure you could level up somewhere else but it probably wouldnt level you as fast, and you might die a bit more.

i went to eldorado. my school kicks your schools butt at everything...

Edited, Tue Jul 13 14:58:09 2004 by Alekan

Art institute eh? I could've sworn you were going to grammar college..

>There are Certain "rules" in FFXI which the one I hate the most is lvl'ing... since the moment you come to the world and you start your journey there are already pre-determined lvl areas where you can go to lvl up

That's not really true.

1-10 gives you all the just outside area zones (E/W ronofure, E/W saruburta, N/S gustaberg) plus a few lowbie dungeons, particularly if you group but

10-20 the most popular is the dunes, but a lot of people lvl in the plateau, highlands, the shakarmi maze, and the canyon as well.

20-25 qufim essentially rules king, but even here people lvl outside or in the tower.

25-30 kazham is the most popular, but I've also been out in battilia downs and the other jeuno surrounding areas.

30-40 is quite varied with use of crawlers nest, garliage citidel, and altep desert and a bit of the yhoator jungle.

40-50 is crawlers nest, garliage, quicksands.

50-60 is mostly kufkal, but also cape terrigan, boyhoda tree and the valley of sorrows plus a variety of places where people hunt coffer keys.

60-65 is more valley, the cape, and boyhoda, but also mosaic cavern.

Really, throughout the whole game there are options, and many popular options too. Only really 20-25 is so overwhelmingly popular that no others are seriously used.

One thing that sets WoW and EQ II apart from FFXI, is that the initial release will be in North America. It was hard for most NA's, especially those who waited for the PS2 release, to play catch up the whole time to a sea of japanese ubers. It was just really discouraging for the most part because a lot is in their favor. The NM's spawn timers were all set my JP players, not to mention having like a year and a half head start. It was this that made me realise im going to WoW.

There was nothing wrong with FFXI. Beautiful graphics. The AH was a great idea, the ability to switch your job whenever you want. Which actually kind of makes sense. Because if a reformed thief wanted to become a noble paladin, he could do it. Regardless, WoW will be a nice change. FFXI was good times though.

I can't speak for FFXI, but I like that the combat in WoW is a little more active than other MMORPGs. And while I like being IN a good party, I hate looking for them. Maybe you get a thrill out of typing /who 50 warrior and sending cold tells to round out your instance group, but doing that irritates me almost as much as sitting in a city auctioning things in the trade channel. There's downtime, and then there's wasted time. Now that I've actually been able to play a game that doesn't have EQ-esque waiting periods that I had grown used to, I'm able to appreciate how much time I squandered beyond simply participating in EQ activities.

And the grouping aspect is not missing; it's just not omnipresent. Whether or not it's as well "developed" I'm not sure. I tried playing an alt for a bit, and I was never quite sure exactly what I was supposed to do for roles when I was grouped with different class combinations. I think that's just a player familiarity thing though, because I generally know what I need to do on my main character.

FFXI has its downfalls, such as forced grouping and incredibly tight economic conditions and a huge discrimination barrier between japanese players and NA players. However, it is geographically the most balanced world i've ever played in, and considering i've been playing 3d mmorpg's since Meridian 59, (Meridian 59 - UO - EQ - DAoC - SWG - PlanetSide - FFXI) i'd have to say that's a feat.

DAoC had the best balance prior to FFXI, yet the game was geared toward hardcore gamers, and so much so that even semi-hardcore gamers (more than 3 hours a day) were falling behind the herd of hardcores. FFXI's world is so symmetrical its astounding. The graphics are incredible. anything from icy moutains to damp caves to lush jungles to dry beaches, FFXI had it all, except a way around the grind. FFXI cut out nearly any possible way of 'beating' the grind. They force players to group to gain any kind of experience, unless they are a ninja, redmage, or beastmaster. Certainly not good. However, unless WoW intends to implement so much content that it makes players ignore the hideous graphic limitations of WoW, i'm afraid WoW is doomed to have a subscriber base of warcraft cultists and leave alot of people unhappy at the way it turned out. I have scanned through over 150 screenshots only to be unimpressed with what i was expecting to be my next MMORPG. 3D models appear lacking in detail. The skins (textures) look incredible, however the models they are mapped to look awful. Beasts have fixed snarls on their faces...player's feet look so squashed they look like they got run over by a run-away merchant cart...chainmail looks stretched on some models, so much so that in some screenshots you could easily slide an axe in the hole of a single link. These are the screenshots that are supposed to sell me on the game? bah. WoW appears to be only marginally better than playing Warcraft 3 zoomed way in on one character. Not my idea of ground breaking, or lush graphics. If you beta players can post links to screenshots that you think look impressive, i'll be happy to review them, and post more impressive shots of FFXI.

i whole heartedly agree that graphics don't make the game, but they can certainly break a game. And WoW doesn't seem to be bubbling with story-line based content. It has plenty of mini story content with its quest experience system. It does however allow solo play, and that in itself says more than FFXI's combat system. I am torn, but i suppose unless i see vast improvements in either FFXI or WoW, i'll be looking forward to Middle Earth Online.

Well, I'll give it a try, and anyone that reads this forum knows I have played the beta.

The graphics in WoW don't bother me. I don't understand why everyone gets so uppity about graphics all the time. In my humble opinion, 9/10 of today's games weren't half the game Combat for the old Atari was...y'know, the one where you and a friend moved two tanks around to shoot at each other, or one giant plane against three little planes, or invisible tanks. That was the era when games were made to be fun, not to be a bunch of visually spectacular but ultimately disappointing crap.

And I don't think there's really anything to complain about with them, unless you want to nitpick. Maybe the creatures only have one fixed expression, but what do you want? The programmers are not going to work in algorithms for 18 different sets of unique facial movement. The beasts do actually bite when they attack. Players feet are flat? How many people sit and stare at their character's feet and think, "gee, this would be so much more satisfying a game if only the CG artists had used 57 polygons on my feet instead of 56."

There's more story-line content than you realize - ask anyone who's played in the human lands about the Defias and the "missing diplomat." Many of the quests are more than just mini-missions; they have a fully-explained series of objectives that are interrelated which other quests in the area, such as the plight of Jitters in Raven Hill, Sven camping out on the river banks of Duskwood, the worgen in the zone, and the missing priestess from Ashenvale. I'd like to see MORE of this, yes, but to say it isn't there would be lying too.


[quote]I have scanned through over 150 screenshots only to be unimpressed with what i was expecting to be my next MMORPG./quote]

I find it sickening that you even think you can make this kind of decision from *screenshots* -- and not regarding the interface, or some of the actual aspects of the game in the pictures, but just minor trifles regarding the art. Not one bit of your commentary except the argument that the storyline was lacking has anything to do with the actual gameplay. I personally put a lot of stock in the music in video games, something many people ignore or turn off, but I don't let it pick my games for me. If I did, I wouldn't have been playing Everquest for 3 years straight. Yes, graphics can make or break a game, but art isn't going to break WoW.

i'll put it this way...if FFXI and WOW were on beta at the same time, there'd be no comparison. FFXI's repetitive monster schema wouldn't be evident because players wouldn't see it so blatently just quite yet. but like many others have said, its hard to compare games that are still under development. that being said, a general guideline of how things are going to look, feel, and play out is being laid out every day of further development, and if you don't agree with that, you're being rediculous. I agree that FFXI's graphics, although stunning, get monotonous in regards to monster selections...but again, that why i said i'm looking forward to either a drastic change in either WoW's course of development, or FFXI's updates development.

Also, about the reference to the fun-factor of old atari games that didn't depend on graphics...i agree, but i'll strive to make the point that if games are made with simplicity, less complaints are going to be made. There's only so many things that can be unique about burglar, or tank blasting, or tank arenas. therefore, the floodgates of reality aren't open for the massive deluge of suggestions and complaints of players about certain aspects of how a certain system was implemented. for example, how many ways can you interface a system that shows two tanks blasting at each other? with complexity comes a more in-depth level of fun just because of so many either unknown factors, or just the sheer number of factors working against your success. I haven't thrown WoW out the window in my thinking, i just have serious doubts as to whether the game will meet the majority of MMORPG players' needs over the course of time. That based on graphics, quest and story lines, playability and ease of 'max'ing a character, and end game content. Before you bark, let me reiterate a third time that i'm aware content is still being laid out daily, but in the same manner, things are becoming more concrete daily as well. I look forward to seeing what kind of a product Blizzard puts out, and how the success of said product plays out against MMO titans. Dragon Empires, EQ2, FFXI, and the beginnings of Middle Earth Online.

/emote blows smoke off typing fingers.