Do Final Fantasy players feel threatened? LMAOFollow

[quote=Viniferis] What is going to seperate the hardcore gamers/ farmers/ crafters from the weekend players? [quote]

Out of curiousity, why does there need to be something to separate the hardcore gamers from weekend players? A player is a player regardless of how much time they have to devote. Someone who has limited hours to play should be able to accomplish the same thing as someone with almost unlimited hours, the difference being in the lenght of time it took to get there.

My biggest problem with FFXI wasn't the forced grouping, it was the time investment that forced grouping forced upon you. You couldn't play FFXI for just an hour or two and get anything meaningful done. Playing a session of FFXI was a committement, it was almost like you had to set aside time to play. It was like work.

Viniferis, it's actually pretty simple. If I played WoW for 5 months, I would probably enjoy a significant amount of the playing I did in those five months, if Stress Test was any indicator. Playing Stress Test, I think I experienced as much fun in those ten days than I did in the past two months of playing FFXI. Conversely, if I played FFXI for five months, a lot of that time would have been spent doing rather unexciting things (hooray for Genkai and camping overcamped NMs to pay for Snipers...). In a Fun:Time ratio (very unscientific, I know), I would think that WoW would beat out FFXI hands down.

However, if WoW really is that easy to hit cap (plus, we don't know when Hero classes, full raiding, and high level instances will be like), then I suppose yes, a lot of powergamers will get bored and go do something else. However, many people have other things to do, I for example have class to go to in university, and we simply can't afford to spend the immense time required to get somewhere significant in FFXI. (I usually tended to reserve 3-5 hour blocks of my time minimum for FFXI. This is obviously not possible during a semester.) I am aware that there are a lot of people whose goal is to hit cap and then to look back and see what their work has accomplished and how powerful they are now.

Conversely, there are people who don't have so much time in a week to hit cap in a realistic amount of time. What about them?

As for the comment about people who defend a game because of the time spent in it, they seriously have to consider how enjoyable all that time spent in it was. You have to ask yourself, "Out of the months I spent in FFXI to get to where I am, how much of it I thought was really fun, and how much of it was tedium?" If you can honestly answer to yourself that the majority of the time you spent in FFXI was enjoyable, then more power to you, for you have found a game that suits you. However, a significant amount of people had trouble giving a positive answer to that question, even higher levels (I don't even consider myself mid-level, more like, low-level, due to the fact that I lost interest in FFXI before picking it back up again... then losing interest again) have found the answer was not what they were looking for.

As such, I am looking forward to WoW to see if it can in fact give me an enjoyable experience for the amount of time I have will put into it. The Stress Test gave me a peek at what it would be like and I certainly liked what I saw, so I can only hope that WoW succeeds for me where FFXI did not. I cannot, however, say the same about what your preference is, or anyone else's. I can, however, expand my own opinion to include those who seem to have similar opinions to what I have.

Oh yes, and on a side note, please make paragraphs if your post is going to be long. It's hard to read one giant paragraph, people need to take mini-breaks while reading, you know. :D

Viniferis alot of us who are leaving(or already left)ffxi are people who just didnt have much time to invest in the game.

If we ever bash the game it will be for the things that made us leave the game because we could not invest alot of time.

I did enjoy my time in ffxi ut left for the time i really needed to invest just to get into a pt. Also i didnt find it "fun" to spend countless hours just to get 2 sniper rings, a hubergon and all that other nice stuff a drk needs or they will have a hard time getting into pts from lv 50+.

I do understand that being in a good ls can change dramaticly your playing experience. If the ls is a good one and is willing to help in every way, youll have a blast playing ffxi. However most ls are unorganized, selfish and unwilling to help lowbies.

One thing also people do forget about WOW, is that they say "its easy to get lv cap for hardcore gamers (people with more than 3 hours+ a day) However they forget that for each race in wow theres a diferent story so for each race its a different experience thus promoting longlivity of the game.
The story is different as the undead then as the nightelves.

Thats somthing that cannot be said about ffxi. You choose any race and can do every quest and as for the 3 nations, once you pass rank 3 (infact mission 2-3 is similar) every nation has the same storyline from that point on.

So if it takes 6 to 8 months for a hardcore gamer in ffxi to see the endgame and the story, it will take the same amount of time for them to see everything in wow.

in short.

ffxi: 5 races , 1 story
wow 8 races , 8 of em.

All i can say is that if ffxi had more options for those who can afford 2 hours a day and if money was easier to come by, many of us would have not even left ffxi.

I don't really see many posts from WoW dissing FFXI just for the hell of it. It seems to be more former FFXI expressing the dissatisfaction about the way SE has designed the game. Despite the title of the thread, I haven't seen many posts deriding the FFXI player-base.

This the whole reason I am leaving when WoW comes out. Other than that I don't have any problems with the game.

"Visit www.worldofwarcraft.com and sign up for the free open beta test TODAY."

hmmm i think ill do that now ( 28 days later)





OPEN BETA COMMING SOON!!!!!!!! but not for a while...

Thats the truth about every video game though.

No, I do not feel threatened...I do feel like it is rediculous to even start a thread like this.

Some FFXI players might feel threatened, and I did when I first started reading this thread as well, but you all have made me realize why I still enjoy FFXI.

I am in college/work etc... and this game is taxing. It is a drain...heck I should be studying right now, but I'm reading about it. But I enjoy the game. I enjoy it mostly BECAUSE of the sense of accomplishment you get when completing a difficult task. Yes, you may spend a month earning gil for a sniper ring, but doesnt it feel damn good when you buy it?

Yes, you work through a lot of crappy parties, and grouping does suck sometimes for most jobs, and soloing is not an option for most jobs. (You can play a few jobs solo...there are many feasible combos) But doesnt it feel awesome when you get a party that works great...

WoW seems to be the total opposite of FF.. Not even comparable... Some of you enjoy the WoW type, and some enjoy FF. It basically boils down to, "You probably picked up FF for the hype, and didnt have anything else to play" so you lvld, and now WoW is coming, so you can trash FF...

I am mad about the economy, and all that good stuff, hope they fix it, but oh well, Ill deal.

This rant is for those of you I see here with low lvl jobs. Those that chose not to see the game through, yet proceed to bash it. I if you dont like it...fine, dont say its a crappy game based on your uninformed opinions.

To those who have done all this, and bash FFXI, I respect your opinions completely. /bow.

Mad props to anyone like Kingjord from RDM and PLD forums, who actually PLAYED the game to a high lvl, got AF, got tired of the grind, and decide to try something new.

/respect

I now have to go lvl my sub.....AND HAVE FUN DOING IT!

I see that none of my post got to you. You obviously did not like the game. Fine. I did read all 90 something posts before writing this and frankly. The entire point of this thread sparked this debate, and ALL the posts have been about this debate. So Redmoon, dont you dare tell me not to ever say something because i am supposed to believe what you think. And dont attempt to quelch the debate when you say things like this:



You don't judge a book by its cover(Its a cliche because it's true), and you don't read half that book and then determine it sucks. The same goes for games. you don't play a third of a game and then review it. This is what you are doing. I believe my post was directed at you folks. In fact. I said so in the post.

I am glad you expect 100 percent for your game. But there have been few games in this world that were perfect. period. You must have a VERY small game selection. Setting such high standards will only lead you to disappointment. WoW is not perfect, nor will it be, so I am likely to see you post again with this same kind of crap in the future.

personally, i liked FFXI, i played a 73BRD/WHM in mdigard and had to quit recently due to school (haha my grades r still good). i must say that the beginning part of FFXI is horrible (cuz i hate soloing), but it becomes a lot more enjoyable at high levels when you can do more in LS, missions, dynamis, less bad PTs, etc. the economy of ffxi did get worse and i dunno how it is now cuz i havent played for almost half a yr, but i think that can happen to pretty much any mmorpg. then again this my own opinion, cuz i love the grouping/alliances (and i didnt really have to wait cuz i was a BRD). its all my own opinion tho, but yeah i didnt think FFXI wasnt that bad... WoW looks pretty interesting tho and im waiting for the open beta ;]

The problem is finding a balance between time invested and rewards. Lets look at some of the games leading up to where we are now:

UO : IMO the best MMORPG EVER! It allowed the most freedom, had free pvp, and though early UO took god awful long to GM a skill you were not useless until you did GM it. It had a completely player based econemy, grouping or solo both worked. You had status, bragging rights, and skill both in pvp and pve was a factor. Later on they sped it up to tailor to a younger audience which had no patience to spend 3 months to GM blacksmithing, if not longer.

EQ : Decent game, personally I am a fan of UO gaming style (later employeed by SWG but badly). Levels are ok but with such a large range of levels, especially for pvp, you were catagorized and then twinking became a major factor. Pvp was a joke it was built on a game not designed for pvp, thus no balance of any kind. Items you'd never lose (save RZ server), this was your reward for time spent. I liked UO's system better, it made it a player market that made tradeskills viable but you have to have it. Have to have something that says "Ive played this game longer then you and it shows."

SWG : Good concept, but the game moved TOO fast... there was no balance, UO type skill tree's (which I really liked it allowed no 2 chars to be the same) the problem was that there were super powerful templates (as is bound to happen sure) but there were too few of them. Only a few set templates really worked VERY well in pvp. You reached end game too fast (First month of game release I mastered armorsmithing and had way too much money, by 2nd month I was master doctor/swordsman and just about explored the entire game).

DAoC : This game at release was one of the WORST, I played Hibernia, and we didnt even have itemized dungeons beyond our first 2!! Realm balance was non-existant. They have gotten better, items are not permanent, but the end game ones you really worry about dont wear out fast enough for it to be a concern. My main qualm about DAoC as a pvper is that there is no risk to death, you die, you come back and have your buffbot rebuff you, run out and kill kill kill. UO you lost all on your corpse, EQ you had to CR which may take a while, SWG your items decayed alot unless you spent money to insure them to only decay a little.

L2 : Lineage 2 has to be by far the WORST game ive ever played, I admit I only played it for 2 months but its insane. The rewards for time spent curve is HUGE... levels take FOREVER to attain especially later on, the game is based on farming money to buy super expensive items that you can possibly lose when you die. Nothing like being a noob, buying my first Tears of Eva and then losing it to a bad pull 20 mins later... it was all my savings. The pvp is a joke and all about gank and oportunity. The farming is insane too, I would spend hours finding a group, only to get into one and find there is a group of adena farmers at our camp, mostly bots, protected by a few high levels. The ammount of adena farmers is insane at every level, I found some in elven ruins!!

WoW : I cannot comment on how the farming will affect this game, Blizzard has done a good job though of keeping the game smooth so far, im a lvl 20 warlock and must say ive not had to stop and farm money for long just to stay competitive. The quests are very fluid, and abundant, and useful. Ive yet to experience the pvp, and because I dont want ot invest alot of time in somethign that'll be reset at offical game release ive not tried tradeskills but they seem nice. I also like the talents, im not fully sure how it works or how many points you get how often, but it allows for some uniqueness.

Online gaming has come a LONG way since UO, I am that old vet who sits in his rocker reliving my glory days, and belive UO was quite possibly the best MMORPG ever made at its prime (after trammel it went downhill). :)

BTW, Books usually get good in the last half. ;) You must not read very much.