those screenshots look really cool. if i started playing this, would it be easier to get into than someone new to ffxi?

Yes Armani but mostly because you can solo to the max level. Outside of weekends you;ll probably find the lower level areas fairly sparsely populated. Not unpopulated mind since lots of people raise up alts, but finding a group for an instance or the occasional tougher quest can be difficult.

Luckily you don't *need* to do any of that stuff often, but like most mmo half the fun is meeting people and such, and so you might be a little bored if you can't make any acquaintances as you level up.

You know I think you got a crush on madi, i'll let you take me out 1 time if you stop being an asshat for no reason to people lol likeeeee up there, where you took a jab at anitha for no reason

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No sig because 3 sigs in a row people make me change my sig and I refuse to have a pony sig!

There are people working on beating Salvage as well and the gear is arguably better because nobody has a full set of it yet lol. We don't know how good the set bonuses are and that is what is dependent on the set being better than what is currently available. Right now we know several of the pieces from Salvage basically make some Zilart gear obsolete. The problem with FFXI is that Absolute Virtue is basically unbeatable again. Since they ninja-patched him a few months ago, nobody has won a fight against him. Well previously people were using exploits to beat AV anyways lol. People are working nonstop to clear Salvage and beat AV, just that those are almost impossible at the moment. Salvage limits you at the beginning (think FFTA but worse... no weapons or magic and negative stats to start lol) which makes things very difficult at the start and limits what jobs you can bring.

The torques in sea (CoP) are awesome and AV and JoL drop some decent gear as well. CoP though has a problem with difficulty and that the rewards do not reflect the difficulty. The problem is you fight Tiamat for 1.5 hours and all you get is a fire crystal rofl. Jorm is worthless and a hassle to get to and Vrtra is a big pain in the ass (need more than 20 usually). ToAU is pretty sweet and Cerberus and Khimaira drops are decent, Hydra though is worthless lol. Besieged is fun, but really laggy. Walahara Turban is a great head piece for almost all jobs and easily available. ToAU is the best expansion reward wise thus far, much better than Zilart considering the way the 3 kings are vs Salvage and Assault. FFXI's real problem lies in that it would break the game to raise the level cap (80/40 BLM/RDM lol) so they artificially raise the cap via merits (new job abilities and stat raises etc). SE has dealt some major blows to RMT and hackers alike recently and seem to be at least more aggressive towards those types of players. They have been pretty active with the banstick.

WoW is supposed to be all about the PvP but world PvP in WoW is pretty crappy (see Lineage II for world pvp done correctly). It is broken and really has never worked correctly as envisioned originally by Blizzard. Instanced Battlegrounds PvP is great now with less queue time, but it gives the game less of a MMO feel. Almost like a FPS that is determined more on gear and level and not so much on skill. PvE instances are cool and interesting so far, but they are cleared rather quickly and become farm status so damn fast it is hilarious. Add in the fact that people have hit level 60 in less than a month regulary and some guy went from level 60-70 in less than two days and that is a major LOL. Leveling in WoW though is fun sometimes due to the quests (some are repetitive as hell). The biggest draw to WoW is the ability to level solo, but that takes away from the MMO experience and people level in WoW without making any friends. My friend Nate is a 60 something warrior and he has not attempted to make any friends, because he did not need any. Plays the game like it is a single player game. The graphics are complete crap and the character designs look retarded as hell for the most part. There are some exceptions, but the majority of the game is either extremely ugly or really generic in looks. WoW isn't all its made up to be, it is considered better than it is due to its popularity. It is popular because it is accessible.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

I agree a lot with what you have to say but theres so many more reasons why FFXI is a horrible game than there are for it being good. Perfect example Valkurm Dunes. It takes a good 30 minutes to run there from your home town because SE refused to implement a freaking moogle in selbina. Boats are retardedly long, outpost warps are annoying. Fuck, i have to open a coffer just to get a map for a zone. Have to wait hours for an exp party unless you feel like begging every bard online to party if you want to start your own. The only instanced zones can only be entered once a day (assault) or once via beast seals that are few and far between. Stupid things like that are reasons why i dont want to start over in FFXI anymore because 90% of the game is just mindless work.

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Agreed that it is way too much time investment to get anything done. That is what makes it harder and when you actually get somewhere in the game you have more of a sense of accomplishment. Everyone and their mother can get a job max level in WoW... most people don't have the patience and insanity to level in the original EXP grind of FFXI (it has been changed to be easier admittedly). The genkai limit breaks were also much crazier back then too. Transportation is a big ass problem in FFXI... no moogle in Selbina is one thing among others. The problem is only noobs level in the dunes lol.. Maze > Korroloka Tunnel ftw. Even then you are arguing time sinks and every MMO has them, that is what makes MMOs suck ass lol. WoW has its own timesinks that keep players playing beyond what they should. There is no reason to help people in WoW and it is rare for it to happen, in FFXI it is almost essential that you help others.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

From playing wow coming from ffxi you realize how much time ffxi wastes, lol.

The mobs take a shit ass longer time to kill in ffxi.

so much time spend around just waiting waiting waiting for other people to help you get shit done. Its really gratifying to be able to log onto wow, get some great solo exp by myself, farm some gold, kill some hordies, all on my own time, no waiting around for other people

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No sig because 3 sigs in a row people make me change my sig and I refuse to have a pony sig!

Yeah LFG in FFXI is the worst part for sure.. that and organizing runs. That also makes the game more social and forces people to make friends. WoW might as well be Diablo in that regard.. its almost a fucking single player game. Well aside from PvP ganking haha. You are paying monthly fees for WoW so that they add new instances to make your best gear become obsolete. Other than that the game is a fancy chatroom... which is what MMOs are kinda lol. FFXI forces you to be social, while WoW doesn't.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

hay maybe thats why madi likes it.

What is the point of a MMO if it doesn't rely big time on social aspects? Otherwise its a glorified single player game. WoW is Diablo with montly updates so you can never beat the game. You of course pay them for this content and for server upkeep. Trying to differentiate it from something like Guildwars or PSU is lol. If I want to play by myself all the time, I would just play a single player game. Those are usually 10 times better anyways.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

MMO = Massive Multiplayer Online. MMO's need not force you to interact with people to be an MMO. WoW is more casual about this while FFXI basically makes you rely on others 95% of the time if you want ANYTHING done. Even if WoW does not force you to meet others you still get to know people on your server because your bound to run into them over and over again just like in FFXI. Either way after seeing more videos of Age of Conan I have to say both FFXI and WoW are horrible compared to it. It just looks so amazing and fun.

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http://ctprofiles.net/3208744

You run into people all the time in Guild Wars and PSU lol. Those are just multiplayer games, not real MMOs. WoW is barely a MMO. Age of Conan looks great graphically, and there is a build of it optimized for DX10 (first DX10 MMO). That game will also be out for Xbox360. I don't know much about the gameplay or other aspects of it though.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

eh, as it is, i can't play on the weekends, and my dad's being bitchy about it. i have two friend's birthday's coming up, so i prolly can't get it this week, or if i do, no expansion.

if i can't meet people while leveling up from 6-10 during the week, then I would really be interested. i met people everywhere on ffxi, only my guild people on guild wars, and nobody on effin psu. guild wars you can mostly solo with NPCs, thus making it a single player game which you can invite people to come with. theres no fee though so its ok. psu you can solo all you want, but theres a monthly fee and the content isn't available like it is in japan.

This is a pointless argument. At this point it is just a matter of semantics on which game, WoW or FFXI is closer to each person's definition of "MMORPG."

I think everyone knows the good sides and the bad sides of each game, that's been made clear more than enough times the past 3 years on these forums.

But if you want the true end-argument statement, just look at the sales difference between WoW and FFXI, and more importantly, how many of those sales kept memberships for more than 1 year.

Sure you can say that FFXI's more "difficult" status makes it more superior, but even after 1 year, people will have reached the "end-game" and they clearly didn't stay with it. And in the same way, WoW subscribers have easily reached the level cap, but there are more subscribers that stay with WoW. They have done SOMETHING right. (maybe its subliminal advertising on login screen :P ).

By that logic you'd be saying Madden is one of the best games out right now. Or that pokemon is the best RPG of all time. lol.

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Ultima Online > All

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FFXI - Yurichan: 75THF(Ret) / SC2 - Lawncare / XBOX - Zombie Sharks / PS3 - Zombie_Sharks

I enjoyed FFXI's community, art style and gameplay (strong storylines), and I'll say this now before someone else does, no, I never did endgame.

WoW is a better-crafted, more polished, and more detailed game surrounded by a much, much weaker playerbase. Naturally, because the game is warcraft and thus PvP, people's worst sides will be present and because it's just so populated I never really felt in-game friendship with anyone (maybe I wasn't trying because I played with two other people I knew IRL). Still, WoW is constantly evolving and become even MORE polished, and the amount of fine tuning and tweaking to get it to where it is now can't be understated. It's just no surprise it's the biggest video game since Pacman; despite being warcraft, it's just a meticulously crafted game.

edit: And eternus to say WoW is barely an MMO and like Guild Wars is really ridiculous.

lol no way WoW is the 2nd comming of pacman. doesnt lineage have twice the subscribers?

edit: i could have sworn that i read on a lineage II box that they had 14 million.

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I am really enjoying WoW in my off time, i can only sit in Boyahda and farm my coffer key so long, or LFG as NIN, but i can always gain atleast one level a day in WoW if not more!

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75THF 75RDM 75BRD 70BLM
LS: SPQR


WoW
70 Druid Night elf Boulderfist

No. Lineage One had like 4 million in korea at one time.

and thats not saying much

That was huge before the age of WoW

Both games are time sinks. It's really just a matter of what you enjoy doing. I've bounced back and forth between both games twice now. They both have their pros and cons.

My biggest complaint about WoW was that there wasn't much I enjoyed doing end-game when I first tried it out. My biggest complaint about FFXI was the Time = Difficulty falacy that haunts that game. I don't like having to spend four hours to take a shit, or whatever. (three of the four hours being spent finding 5 other people to help, of course).

When I came back to FFXI for the second time, though, it wasn't the same game. The economy was shot to hell, since it's completely driven by players with no price regulation. And all the fun stuff that I did enjoy doing (Fishing and saving newbies from trains) were nerfed to hell and thus unenjoyable.

I'm now playing WoW again for the 2nd time. Thankfully I still have my characters. I play while I exercise though, as I gained a bunch of weight from playing MMO's over the last few years. I've lost 20 pounds since Jan 1st, though, so yay. haha.

Who knows how long I'll keep playing WoW, though.

I do agree with the idea of wanting to play an MMO that was a combination between FFXI and WoW. I like FFXI's community, but I like the versatility of WoW and the freedom to solo. MMO's should be about the ability to play together. Ability being the key word, not requirement. Some things should require it, but not the majority.

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FFXI was definitly better for freindships, I made some of my best friends in ffxi. But forcing people to work with eachother is not a good thing.

I'm not completely anti social in WoW, I have a guild, I talk to people on the guild, I just don't enjoy actually PLAYING with other characters for like exp or farming for gold, ect, because I tend to exp faster relying on my own skill and time (( no OMG IM HUNGRY AFK LAWL FOR 30 MINUTES , like in ffxi )) in wow.

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No sig because 3 sigs in a row people make me change my sig and I refuse to have a pony sig!

OMFGLMFAO madi, oh boy, that was a ride.

anyway ponuh, that is true, i guess i was thinking about now, and not when lineage was released.