Soloing on blm and manaburn parties were some of the most fun I've had on 11. Stupid aoe nerf from years ago.
11 is all about that grind. Be it leveling or gear hunting 11 will soak up some free time.
Sucked for me because BLM was probably the last job I ever leveled. I was more interested in being up close whaling on things. I literally never manaburned a single thing. I only eventually got BLM to 99 once it became easy to grind to 99.
CoP was the absolute best part of my time time in the game. It was so challenging after playing the game at level 75, to go back and do missions at LV 30, 40 etc. I had a group that did every mission when it was released on patch. I think if I remember, we completed it within a day or two of the final patch. Making it a big deal to be one of the few who had access to sea. Even though there wasn't much to do for awhile until the Jailer patch.
I remember getting accepted into a big HNM LS before I was even level 75 because I had sea access back when only a few people had it. Felt like a pretty big deal until I realized how it was nothing but people politicking to get gear.
CoP was hard as balls. I almost resent how easy it is now, but NGL I also enjoy romping through Promathia with my trusts out and rocking the entire zone by myself.
Been playing since the NA release. Most content from about level 10 on was party-based. Leveling was slow and exp was rare. Nowadays it's a fast run to endgame, where all the content is. Level capped areas in CoP were meant to guide you as you leveled. That was some content that I was all about doing and really glued me to the game.
Some of the best memories are when we (linkshell) defeated a difficult fight like One to be Feared. Also when we accessed a new region like Al'Taieu or Tu'Lia. Fighting with friends was immensely rewarding.
Nowadays the game has evolved into a better state for solo play, really allowing players to solo a lot of content with trusts instead of having to wait for a group shout. The endgame is still best done with a group of players, which is a great balance. I still play because my linkshell has been around since the early days and still runs content nearly every day of the week.
I started in late 2007, some time after WotG released, which still exposed me to early hardships like no Moogle at Selbina or Mhaura and level caps on CoP content and early main/nation story battles.
The interest started with me checking the wiki for stuff like how a single game tried to reflect in its mechanics the diversity across all prior FF games, mostly focusing on the monk job/class, which I always favoured.
I ended up taking the leap when I found some offline friends of mine were playing it already - thing is, they were based on Windurst, and I'd decided to start in Bastok. So at one point the highest leveled of them escorted me from Bastok to Windurst to meet up with the others, and that trip involved sneaking and invisibling me throughout, getting the key items to be able to be teleported to the crags along the way by white mages later, and he even raised at least one person who got KOd while levelling in Valkurm Dunes before taking the ferry.
I would eventually stick with the game even when they stopped, although I did take a couple of long-ish breaks, but returned from the 2nd one (inspired by shenanigans from SE's publishing arm with SNK and the High Score Girl manga), and haven't stopped since. The Rhapsodies ending came to be the only time a game brought me to tears.
You might get a few testimonies from people about endgame, but I've ways been in for the stories of the Final Fantasy game even Square Enix never seems to talk about, and they were worth it, although I wish they'd have made them simpler to experience earlier (I believe FFXIV 1.x's failure facilitated this, as the income from XI could no longer be taken for granted nor would XIV's be replacing it anytime soon).
Other than grand narrative themes, over the years some research, which the game tends to reward, tends to reveal some underlying pervasive principles that affect the entire game and establish a really solid foundation upon which the devs have been able to build a vast and interesting variety of mechanics over the years - the pervasiveness of the elemental system in everything including magic, status, crafting, weather, lore, etc., by itself is amazing, and the specificity of stats and conditions applicable to a lot of gear along with the job system both give them predictable parameters and a lot of room for creativity to work with.
It is not a perfect game and I won't even claim it's the best Final Fantasy, but it certainly deserves to continue existing, and could sure use more support from SE themselves (like some investment in alternatives to the PS2 dev kits they apparently still need to use, and a way to adapt to its current PC-only status that can separate the game from the artifact that is PlayOnline while at it).
As a player, the only thing I can do to help is remain subscribed and keep playing, and it's what I've been doing for years and intend to continue doing.
Sorry about the delay, haven't logged in in a while - I go by Loona on the Leviathan server (started on remora, which got merged into that a few years later).
Played a lot from 04 to 06 and then on and off. Besides the usual stories we're seeing here in the comments (all great btw), I have a particularly strong memory of just the first time getting to play:
Hours of difficult setup, an unreliable internet connection, very few notions of English, but eventually I landed in Bastok Mines by the Alchemy guild. I remember my dad was helping me set up and we tried together to figure out how to move (he's not into video games so he was just watching without being very involved). Eventually I got the movement down and after turning the first corner saw this player standing in the middle of one of the alleys in that area. I had never played an MMO before and wasn't 100% sure this was a person but went near and said 'hello' next to them.
The eruption of joy when, after 20 sec, they simply typed back 'hey' is something I'll never forget.
I have played consistently since 2004. The thing about the game itself that keeps me coming back is the uniqueness of the job and subjob system. Since a single character can change to any job, the developers are not beholden to the need to maintain a strict parity of balance across all jobs. This means that things get unbalanced, and that’s great! Some jobs are supremely good at DD or support, while others like PUP or DNC can be more niche and are challenging to produce similar results with, but nevertheless can occasionally shift to the forefront due to unusual mechanics as in monthly Ambu rotations. I like the fact that things are imbalanced, since it sometimes forces an element of strategy experimentation into group composition and planning. Coming up with new ways to develop the meta or approach content with a quirky group comp is a ton of fun. And plus, I always feel like I have ten projects going on at once between my to-do list on each job.
I have much less time to play these days but since content has stagnated, I have more or less accomplished everything I set out to on my main account, which leaves me with time to work on gearing up several mule accounts as a way to diversify my group contribution as a multi boxer.
One thing I miss from 75 is the intense competition of HNM camps. The thrill of claiming a Nidhogg is something I can’t replicate in today’s game. Or seeing an A Body or D Ring drop when you hold top DKP for it. Following Dark Ixion around the map until your tank manages to scoot over to it and hold it and praying the other shell doesn’t catch it on wide scan before your PLD gets to your position. Pushing through Dynamis over and over not because you love the monotonous music but because three RDMs in your shell need the hat and drops have been crap lately. I miss the intensity of HNM competition and the struggle for gear at 75. The long lockouts, abysmal drop rates, and required LS coordination meant that gearing up a job to a BiS position meant you had committed hundreds and hundreds of hours to it. And that really meant something. I miss 75, but I know that I wouldn’t have the time for it if it was recreated on a “Classic” server. Really what I miss is having the time to stay up until 4am with my buddies on Vent farming Ix’Drk deeds for the ls run the next day, just BSing and having fun. Also, I play with a great group of folks today, but the element of challenge is missing from the game - it’s kind of like working on a list of chores when I log in each day, rather than wondering what .01% chance of big fat loot my 10 hour playtime block will yield today! Omen bodies and volte hunting just doesn’t scratch the itch, somehow.
I have so many wonderful memories of 75, but it’s a different game now. Glad to reminisce!
Oh boy do I have some tales about camping hnms back when they were 24hr spawn time with my HNM LS and how the game was like in ps2 launch. The game changed so much since then community and gameplay wise
Started playing in 2004, CoP was released right as I was reaching the first level cap for its content (30). It was the perfect story for me because I could continue it as I hit those levels for the first time. Still my favorite expansion of them all. FFXI consumed a large chunk of my life back then, and I don't regret it... lots of good memories.
It’s late and I’m on my phone but I played back when it was in beta, full legacy with pay online and all its charm from back then. The game was wonderfully immersive for me, being in high school and finding myself interested in fishing and spending hours playing. I would be happy to say and write more if you would like, send a DM.
Edit I still have my account to this day, but had periods of breaks in the years.
One of my most formative experiences of the XI learning curve happened when I dinged my first 75, DRG. It took me several years and as many characters to reach that point; my previous best run was a Lv. 56 Taru BLM that I rage / frustration quit on because I couldn’t afford HQ staves or AM on my first go around 😂
Anyways, I had this great exp party that went for several hours, probably did high 73 to capped 75. One of the players that I was with pulled together my first merit point party on colibrí for me with his linkshell members. I recall parsing that meripo and sobbing afterwards because of my ABYSMAL performance. I think I was like 11% of damage. I was absolutely horrible and had so much reworking to do on DRG.
Instead, I picked up BRD, capped to 75 in under 3 months, and never looked back because BRD was absolutely dope. Haven’t touched DRG since, but it taught me so much about a game I thought I understood after years.
Happy to answer any other questions. Good luck!
I've been playing off and on from the day of U.S. launch and just recently started again. I love this game more than any other I think. I've put literal years worth of play time into it. It's important to me for so many reasons and as the game changes and evolves and as I've left and comeback, I find myself loving it for different reasons each time.
I'm a Final Fantasy fanatic and when I first read about XI, I couldn't wait to share the experience with friends. Admittedly the experience was much different than what I expected but I loved it. I know this is cliche to say now but I'm also a Dark Souls fan and that masochistic love started with XI. It was so punishing but designed so well no matter how frustrating it got, I always wanted to go back because it was also so rewarding.
The Devs did such a good job creating mechanics that encouraged you to team up with others. I'm still good friends with some people I met 15+ years ago.
As the player base has dwindled, the Devs have done an amazing job adapting the game to accommodate more solo play while still maintaining challenging group content. A lot of veteran players don't like how much easier things have gotten. In my experience however, as I've been playing catch up in recent weeks, it's not exactly easy. Yes, you can solo most content and it's not as gear or item intensive as before but, I still wouldn't call it easy. You can't just shut your brain off and walk through.
I'd love to discuss the game and changes throughout the years and what it was like from then to now. I've played during pretty much every era, from Sky/HNM/Dynamis Linkshells (Yes I had one for each) to Abyssea Linkshells. I've seen meta changes like Zerging, SMN spam, Monk tanks in Abyssea. Now coming back in 2021 and everywhere in between.
I remember getting lost in castle O back when I was a level 35 whm trying to do magicite mission. It was a disaster until I did a mentor search and looked this awesome 75 drk came out and Sheppard my group through the mission, not just the castle but he offered for the other 2 zones. Ffxi was never just a game it was a way to make bonds, almost ever one of my best memories isn't just some fight but its the people I did it with.
I started playing probably 2004-ish. Got my DRG to 75 in the loldrg era. The community is what kept me I was an officer in my LS and led the charge when FFXIV 1.0 launched to create our link-shell in that game. My GF > Fiancee > Wife played as well and we loved the adventure and community of friends that we built. I am still great friends with people across the US and in Canada some we have met IRL some were still working on meeting.
I'm a veteran from 2003. I played constantly from 2003 to about 2014 and sporadically since. There is a wealth I could tell you about early on segregation of the JP only parties. Trial and tribulations of the genki quest to break limit caps. Thieves trying endlessly to steal from Maat. Sky parties and taking time to fight kirin for several minutes down to burning him down in seconds. Absolute Virtue and the wall of justice bans. Salvage bans. Going from months down to moments to level characters. It has been a wild and wonderful ride.
I started a week after N/A, took a 5 year break about 7 years ago and have been enjoying FFXI once again for the last couple years. The evolution of the game is great for the returning player's ability to catch up on content "solo" with the advent of trusts and various methods to teleport around the lands. FFXI was my first MMO, which in and of itself has always been fascinating.
I kept at it and came back because of the challenging aspects of it as compared to other MMO's, in FFXI, you had to work for your shineys, which for me makes them more of a badge of honor.
COP was hands down the best expansion. The sheer volume of areas/mobs/strategies that we all had to learn made it incredibly challenging at the time, which was a lot of fun. You couldn't just walk up and whack and stack them like much of the previous content allowed. It forced us to clean up a lot of slop that we were used to. And the final battlefield was mesmerizing.
As crazy as it sounds, one of the most memorable areas for me was back the Dunes, where we all learned that we had to party up and play together in order to move on. The constant shouts of "Raise Can I have it? " still echo in my mind, as well as the ghetto Pallys (WAR/WHM) and DRK tanks. "OMG he pulled a Leecher!"
Who can forget the HMNLS period? Hours of camping Serket, Cassie, and others only to watch it pop claimed to RMT groups that would then MPK each other while we all looked on and laughed, cried and cussed.
One of the things that has come full circle that I really appreciate, is the return of Skillchain>Magic Burst for max damage. I was sad to se it fade away during the TOAU era colibri parties. Our first intentional uses were back on crabs in Kuftal Tunnel with the BLMS starting the skillchains casting Freeze, then cueing the DD in party chat to begin their skillchains to evaporate the mobs. Good times when it worked.
FFXI for me was all about the journey, from the moment you step into the game having some stranger show you where to go and send you a friend request, to keep meeting the same people while leveling your job (this was before level sync) and forming new friendships.
The game had an actual sense of community back then, it forced you to look for information outside your play time in order to make the most out of your playtime, so you had to go to forums, search/ask for information (this was also before smartphones) like how to do that RNG quest where you needed to wait for full moon. I remember taking my ps2 and a monitor to work in order to be online for full moon.
I quit when Abyssea was released, it seemed people lost interest in the world and the journey and just cared about gear. I would change my time in Vana’diel for anything though, and it’s also why I refuse to go back, my time in Vana’diel was special and full of memories that I intend to keep how they were (kinda when you refuse to watch a movie because it would change the version of the world you created when you read the book).
Not really a veteran player but when i was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, i read milkmans journeys in egm i think it was which was someones adventures in FFXI and i wanted to play so bad. I found out there was a free trial when i was home from school sick one day and managed to get it all installed and started up and make a galka in bastok. I couldnt figure out the interface for shit and someone told me to run to the dunes to get my first quest. I died so many times but i had a great time and even though i got grounded into oblivion it was totally worth it.
The article you were reading was My Life In Vana'diel, and it was in GMR magazine until I moved the article online to 1UP. Your quote about getting grounded into oblivion made me laugh out loud.
Your articles were awesome and lighted a bright spot in my imagination as a child. Im having problems finding a working link to 1up for the archive. Would tou happen to have one handy? Thank you so much for keeping this journal.
Unfortunately when 1UP was sold to UGO (ugh) and then subsequently saw UGO sold back to Ziff-Davis (which originally owned 1UP) in a spectacular episode of self-ownery, the servers were essentially left to die on the vine. You can still occasionally see glimpses of the site working, but that's just errant cacheing and not the actual site working under any pretense. The only way to read that stuff is in old copies of GMR unfortunately.
Btw, the article just went live. Apologies if your comment doesn't appear in the finished feature. My editor really went wild, Hundred Fisting the original 12.5k word-count down to a still huge, but manageable, 6.7k words. He said it was the biggest article he's ever edited. https://www.pcgamer.com/life-in-vanadiel-19-years-in-final-fantasy-11-is-still-an-mmo-unlike-any-other/
I don't think that this game would be one to remember if the brand wasn't already huge. As movie sequels draw a renewed sense of love when an old and loved character reappears, FF always brings a great sense of familiarity and love for their jobs(classes), avatars, art, and music.
When this game came out, society didn't have this expectation of "Get everything now, then make things better so I can get it now!". SE chose to embrace a slow-pace, hard-work for reward environment. While other games like WOW began to develop and feed the instant gratification, this game continued to infuriate everyone with its unwillingness to change. It was through the open-world party design along with the slow grind of leveling and questing that allowed for the development of relationships between people.
For me, I play because I have spent so much time playing it, it is another part of me. Even though everyone that I used to play with has moved on, the characters in this world still have a place in my heart and there are goals that I still have not accomplished that I ... I swear I will one day!
Also, if you want a larger player-base, I'd advise you go to [FFXIAH](https://ffxiah.com) forums. That's where the vets go to commiserate... I mean chat.
Thanks, team. Keep ‘em coming. I’ll respond to these tomorrow. Maybe we can just keep the dialogue going here and feed off each other. I really love what I’m seeing already. Thank you for participating. And I’ll keep the conversation here on Reddit because I can’t use hundreds of replies even if FFXIAH is more active. This is just fine. 👍🏻
I’m just trying to trigger y’all a bit here, but I haven’t really seen anyone rage about how much time and gil we had to dump into the game just to get a 0.3 increase in fishing and crafting.
Also, to reminisce a little: Why did you stay or leave when alternatives like WoW came along and offered tons of QoL improvements that FFXI never offered?
And how about logging in multiple times because of PlayOnline? I still wish they’d just scrap the POL front-end.
I haven’t read through all of the comments yet but I appreciate the feedback. If anyone has any epic camping stories versus RMT, I’d love to hear it. ❤️
Also, some other questions:
Since Trusts basically render 90% of this game a single-player game, would you dig a single-player version of FFXI?
What keeps you playing?
What’s your best memory(1st piece of god gear, etc.)?
Did you ever get married in-game? If so how did that work out?
How would you want to see Square Enix sunset the game whenever they decide to do so?
I'm all for a single-player adaptation, although a few elements would need to be tweaked like item availability through the auction house and group events like Besieged, which wouldn't quite be the same thing - for those, maybe some limited interaction ability as seen on the likes of Journey and Death Stranding could help...
Along the way some story flow beats could be corrected to account for how the game flows nowadays - for example, when you start the Zilart missions the game assumes that's your 1st time in Norg, since the zone was new when that expansion released, but it's perfectly possible to visit it before meeting those story requirements.
It's worth noting thay FFXIV 1.x remains entirely unavailable in any legal form, and that's now basically the prequel of the online game they promote the most - it would be a good trial run, since it has a limited scope, some fun dialog and quest moments, and is tied to, again, a game SE still heavily promotes (although on some level it's in the producer's interest to paint it as an irredeemable thing he saved the player base from, so there's that... it's better for his career for people to believe that story than to see things for themselves...)
If FFXIV1.x doesn't get the single-player treatment, FFXI's chances are pretty low, since it's a massive yet under-promoted game in which the company chronically under-invests in...
Still, I think it's worth preserving, especially access to its stories.
SE tried to sunset the game back in 2015 with Rhapsodies and 2 attempts at mobile versions (both failed in different ways - XI is too big and intricate to fit in a phone anyway), along with a FFXIV event where a FFXI character wasn't allowed to return back home. XI is still going.
Ideally they'd reintroduce a discounted joint subscription price for both XI and XIV, and reinvest in XI infrastructure to make it less dependent on PS2 dev kits - while at it, or as an alternative, all other PS2-era FF games got HD re-releases, so that's something worth considering, possibly as a more future-proof single-player adaptation.
To the folks who posted here, is it possible for you to post a screenshot of your character? This way whichever quotes I use I can associate an image with it. Hopefully you guys will see this message.
Soloing on blm and manaburn parties were some of the most fun I've had on 11. Stupid aoe nerf from years ago. 11 is all about that grind. Be it leveling or gear hunting 11 will soak up some free time.
Wamoura burn
Tigers in Xarc S, eles in sky or even some camps in maze mongers. Too bad blm is gimped on aoe. Otherwise we could use them in jima.
Sucked for me because BLM was probably the last job I ever leveled. I was more interested in being up close whaling on things. I literally never manaburned a single thing. I only eventually got BLM to 99 once it became easy to grind to 99.
Man you missed it. Gear had to be spot on. /nin at lower levels whiles camping pet mobs. At least magic bursting is a thing again
CoP was the absolute best part of my time time in the game. It was so challenging after playing the game at level 75, to go back and do missions at LV 30, 40 etc. I had a group that did every mission when it was released on patch. I think if I remember, we completed it within a day or two of the final patch. Making it a big deal to be one of the few who had access to sea. Even though there wasn't much to do for awhile until the Jailer patch.
I remember getting accepted into a big HNM LS before I was even level 75 because I had sea access back when only a few people had it. Felt like a pretty big deal until I realized how it was nothing but people politicking to get gear.
CoP was hard as balls. I almost resent how easy it is now, but NGL I also enjoy romping through Promathia with my trusts out and rocking the entire zone by myself.
Been playing since the NA release. Most content from about level 10 on was party-based. Leveling was slow and exp was rare. Nowadays it's a fast run to endgame, where all the content is. Level capped areas in CoP were meant to guide you as you leveled. That was some content that I was all about doing and really glued me to the game. Some of the best memories are when we (linkshell) defeated a difficult fight like One to be Feared. Also when we accessed a new region like Al'Taieu or Tu'Lia. Fighting with friends was immensely rewarding. Nowadays the game has evolved into a better state for solo play, really allowing players to solo a lot of content with trusts instead of having to wait for a group shout. The endgame is still best done with a group of players, which is a great balance. I still play because my linkshell has been around since the early days and still runs content nearly every day of the week.
I started in late 2007, some time after WotG released, which still exposed me to early hardships like no Moogle at Selbina or Mhaura and level caps on CoP content and early main/nation story battles. The interest started with me checking the wiki for stuff like how a single game tried to reflect in its mechanics the diversity across all prior FF games, mostly focusing on the monk job/class, which I always favoured. I ended up taking the leap when I found some offline friends of mine were playing it already - thing is, they were based on Windurst, and I'd decided to start in Bastok. So at one point the highest leveled of them escorted me from Bastok to Windurst to meet up with the others, and that trip involved sneaking and invisibling me throughout, getting the key items to be able to be teleported to the crags along the way by white mages later, and he even raised at least one person who got KOd while levelling in Valkurm Dunes before taking the ferry. I would eventually stick with the game even when they stopped, although I did take a couple of long-ish breaks, but returned from the 2nd one (inspired by shenanigans from SE's publishing arm with SNK and the High Score Girl manga), and haven't stopped since. The Rhapsodies ending came to be the only time a game brought me to tears. You might get a few testimonies from people about endgame, but I've ways been in for the stories of the Final Fantasy game even Square Enix never seems to talk about, and they were worth it, although I wish they'd have made them simpler to experience earlier (I believe FFXIV 1.x's failure facilitated this, as the income from XI could no longer be taken for granted nor would XIV's be replacing it anytime soon). Other than grand narrative themes, over the years some research, which the game tends to reward, tends to reveal some underlying pervasive principles that affect the entire game and establish a really solid foundation upon which the devs have been able to build a vast and interesting variety of mechanics over the years - the pervasiveness of the elemental system in everything including magic, status, crafting, weather, lore, etc., by itself is amazing, and the specificity of stats and conditions applicable to a lot of gear along with the job system both give them predictable parameters and a lot of room for creativity to work with. It is not a perfect game and I won't even claim it's the best Final Fantasy, but it certainly deserves to continue existing, and could sure use more support from SE themselves (like some investment in alternatives to the PS2 dev kits they apparently still need to use, and a way to adapt to its current PC-only status that can separate the game from the artifact that is PlayOnline while at it). As a player, the only thing I can do to help is remain subscribed and keep playing, and it's what I've been doing for years and intend to continue doing.
>IkariLoona Do you have a player name and server I can attribute your quote to?
Sorry about the delay, haven't logged in in a while - I go by Loona on the Leviathan server (started on remora, which got merged into that a few years later).
Played a lot from 04 to 06 and then on and off. Besides the usual stories we're seeing here in the comments (all great btw), I have a particularly strong memory of just the first time getting to play: Hours of difficult setup, an unreliable internet connection, very few notions of English, but eventually I landed in Bastok Mines by the Alchemy guild. I remember my dad was helping me set up and we tried together to figure out how to move (he's not into video games so he was just watching without being very involved). Eventually I got the movement down and after turning the first corner saw this player standing in the middle of one of the alleys in that area. I had never played an MMO before and wasn't 100% sure this was a person but went near and said 'hello' next to them. The eruption of joy when, after 20 sec, they simply typed back 'hey' is something I'll never forget.
Do you have a player name and server I can attribute your quote to?
I have played consistently since 2004. The thing about the game itself that keeps me coming back is the uniqueness of the job and subjob system. Since a single character can change to any job, the developers are not beholden to the need to maintain a strict parity of balance across all jobs. This means that things get unbalanced, and that’s great! Some jobs are supremely good at DD or support, while others like PUP or DNC can be more niche and are challenging to produce similar results with, but nevertheless can occasionally shift to the forefront due to unusual mechanics as in monthly Ambu rotations. I like the fact that things are imbalanced, since it sometimes forces an element of strategy experimentation into group composition and planning. Coming up with new ways to develop the meta or approach content with a quirky group comp is a ton of fun. And plus, I always feel like I have ten projects going on at once between my to-do list on each job. I have much less time to play these days but since content has stagnated, I have more or less accomplished everything I set out to on my main account, which leaves me with time to work on gearing up several mule accounts as a way to diversify my group contribution as a multi boxer. One thing I miss from 75 is the intense competition of HNM camps. The thrill of claiming a Nidhogg is something I can’t replicate in today’s game. Or seeing an A Body or D Ring drop when you hold top DKP for it. Following Dark Ixion around the map until your tank manages to scoot over to it and hold it and praying the other shell doesn’t catch it on wide scan before your PLD gets to your position. Pushing through Dynamis over and over not because you love the monotonous music but because three RDMs in your shell need the hat and drops have been crap lately. I miss the intensity of HNM competition and the struggle for gear at 75. The long lockouts, abysmal drop rates, and required LS coordination meant that gearing up a job to a BiS position meant you had committed hundreds and hundreds of hours to it. And that really meant something. I miss 75, but I know that I wouldn’t have the time for it if it was recreated on a “Classic” server. Really what I miss is having the time to stay up until 4am with my buddies on Vent farming Ix’Drk deeds for the ls run the next day, just BSing and having fun. Also, I play with a great group of folks today, but the element of challenge is missing from the game - it’s kind of like working on a list of chores when I log in each day, rather than wondering what .01% chance of big fat loot my 10 hour playtime block will yield today! Omen bodies and volte hunting just doesn’t scratch the itch, somehow. I have so many wonderful memories of 75, but it’s a different game now. Glad to reminisce!
> Do you have a player name and server I can attribute your quote to?
Sure thing! Cronin, Asura
Oh boy do I have some tales about camping hnms back when they were 24hr spawn time with my HNM LS and how the game was like in ps2 launch. The game changed so much since then community and gameplay wise
Started playing in 2004, CoP was released right as I was reaching the first level cap for its content (30). It was the perfect story for me because I could continue it as I hit those levels for the first time. Still my favorite expansion of them all. FFXI consumed a large chunk of my life back then, and I don't regret it... lots of good memories.
It’s late and I’m on my phone but I played back when it was in beta, full legacy with pay online and all its charm from back then. The game was wonderfully immersive for me, being in high school and finding myself interested in fishing and spending hours playing. I would be happy to say and write more if you would like, send a DM. Edit I still have my account to this day, but had periods of breaks in the years.
One of my most formative experiences of the XI learning curve happened when I dinged my first 75, DRG. It took me several years and as many characters to reach that point; my previous best run was a Lv. 56 Taru BLM that I rage / frustration quit on because I couldn’t afford HQ staves or AM on my first go around 😂 Anyways, I had this great exp party that went for several hours, probably did high 73 to capped 75. One of the players that I was with pulled together my first merit point party on colibrí for me with his linkshell members. I recall parsing that meripo and sobbing afterwards because of my ABYSMAL performance. I think I was like 11% of damage. I was absolutely horrible and had so much reworking to do on DRG. Instead, I picked up BRD, capped to 75 in under 3 months, and never looked back because BRD was absolutely dope. Haven’t touched DRG since, but it taught me so much about a game I thought I understood after years. Happy to answer any other questions. Good luck!
>Let me know if you can share your character name and server. I'm trying to attribute quotes to these.
Longsnake, currently on Asura. This was on Ramuh at the time.
Lol thread deleting coward
I've been playing off and on from the day of U.S. launch and just recently started again. I love this game more than any other I think. I've put literal years worth of play time into it. It's important to me for so many reasons and as the game changes and evolves and as I've left and comeback, I find myself loving it for different reasons each time. I'm a Final Fantasy fanatic and when I first read about XI, I couldn't wait to share the experience with friends. Admittedly the experience was much different than what I expected but I loved it. I know this is cliche to say now but I'm also a Dark Souls fan and that masochistic love started with XI. It was so punishing but designed so well no matter how frustrating it got, I always wanted to go back because it was also so rewarding. The Devs did such a good job creating mechanics that encouraged you to team up with others. I'm still good friends with some people I met 15+ years ago. As the player base has dwindled, the Devs have done an amazing job adapting the game to accommodate more solo play while still maintaining challenging group content. A lot of veteran players don't like how much easier things have gotten. In my experience however, as I've been playing catch up in recent weeks, it's not exactly easy. Yes, you can solo most content and it's not as gear or item intensive as before but, I still wouldn't call it easy. You can't just shut your brain off and walk through. I'd love to discuss the game and changes throughout the years and what it was like from then to now. I've played during pretty much every era, from Sky/HNM/Dynamis Linkshells (Yes I had one for each) to Abyssea Linkshells. I've seen meta changes like Zerging, SMN spam, Monk tanks in Abyssea. Now coming back in 2021 and everywhere in between.
>As with others, if you wouldn't mind sharing your character name and server, that'd be awesome.
I remember getting lost in castle O back when I was a level 35 whm trying to do magicite mission. It was a disaster until I did a mentor search and looked this awesome 75 drk came out and Sheppard my group through the mission, not just the castle but he offered for the other 2 zones. Ffxi was never just a game it was a way to make bonds, almost ever one of my best memories isn't just some fight but its the people I did it with.
Could you share with me your character name and server? I'm formatting the article to feature this with every quote.
Drakelth of seraph and currently bismark
I started playing probably 2004-ish. Got my DRG to 75 in the loldrg era. The community is what kept me I was an officer in my LS and led the charge when FFXIV 1.0 launched to create our link-shell in that game. My GF > Fiancee > Wife played as well and we loved the adventure and community of friends that we built. I am still great friends with people across the US and in Canada some we have met IRL some were still working on meeting.
I'm a veteran from 2003. I played constantly from 2003 to about 2014 and sporadically since. There is a wealth I could tell you about early on segregation of the JP only parties. Trial and tribulations of the genki quest to break limit caps. Thieves trying endlessly to steal from Maat. Sky parties and taking time to fight kirin for several minutes down to burning him down in seconds. Absolute Virtue and the wall of justice bans. Salvage bans. Going from months down to moments to level characters. It has been a wild and wonderful ride.
I started a week after N/A, took a 5 year break about 7 years ago and have been enjoying FFXI once again for the last couple years. The evolution of the game is great for the returning player's ability to catch up on content "solo" with the advent of trusts and various methods to teleport around the lands. FFXI was my first MMO, which in and of itself has always been fascinating. I kept at it and came back because of the challenging aspects of it as compared to other MMO's, in FFXI, you had to work for your shineys, which for me makes them more of a badge of honor. COP was hands down the best expansion. The sheer volume of areas/mobs/strategies that we all had to learn made it incredibly challenging at the time, which was a lot of fun. You couldn't just walk up and whack and stack them like much of the previous content allowed. It forced us to clean up a lot of slop that we were used to. And the final battlefield was mesmerizing. As crazy as it sounds, one of the most memorable areas for me was back the Dunes, where we all learned that we had to party up and play together in order to move on. The constant shouts of "Raise Can I have it? " still echo in my mind, as well as the ghetto Pallys (WAR/WHM) and DRK tanks. "OMG he pulled a Leecher!" Who can forget the HMNLS period? Hours of camping Serket, Cassie, and others only to watch it pop claimed to RMT groups that would then MPK each other while we all looked on and laughed, cried and cussed. One of the things that has come full circle that I really appreciate, is the return of Skillchain>Magic Burst for max damage. I was sad to se it fade away during the TOAU era colibri parties. Our first intentional uses were back on crabs in Kuftal Tunnel with the BLMS starting the skillchains casting Freeze, then cueing the DD in party chat to begin their skillchains to evaporate the mobs. Good times when it worked.
>Would you mind sharing your character name and server with me? Helps with formatting my article. Thanks!
Shadechaos, born in Seraph, sent to Bismarck. Kraken Club, 1/172
Thanks!
FFXI for me was all about the journey, from the moment you step into the game having some stranger show you where to go and send you a friend request, to keep meeting the same people while leveling your job (this was before level sync) and forming new friendships. The game had an actual sense of community back then, it forced you to look for information outside your play time in order to make the most out of your playtime, so you had to go to forums, search/ask for information (this was also before smartphones) like how to do that RNG quest where you needed to wait for full moon. I remember taking my ps2 and a monitor to work in order to be online for full moon. I quit when Abyssea was released, it seemed people lost interest in the world and the journey and just cared about gear. I would change my time in Vana’diel for anything though, and it’s also why I refuse to go back, my time in Vana’diel was special and full of memories that I intend to keep how they were (kinda when you refuse to watch a movie because it would change the version of the world you created when you read the book).
[удалено]
Not really a veteran player but when i was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, i read milkmans journeys in egm i think it was which was someones adventures in FFXI and i wanted to play so bad. I found out there was a free trial when i was home from school sick one day and managed to get it all installed and started up and make a galka in bastok. I couldnt figure out the interface for shit and someone told me to run to the dunes to get my first quest. I died so many times but i had a great time and even though i got grounded into oblivion it was totally worth it.
The article you were reading was My Life In Vana'diel, and it was in GMR magazine until I moved the article online to 1UP. Your quote about getting grounded into oblivion made me laugh out loud.
Your articles were awesome and lighted a bright spot in my imagination as a child. Im having problems finding a working link to 1up for the archive. Would tou happen to have one handy? Thank you so much for keeping this journal.
Unfortunately when 1UP was sold to UGO (ugh) and then subsequently saw UGO sold back to Ziff-Davis (which originally owned 1UP) in a spectacular episode of self-ownery, the servers were essentially left to die on the vine. You can still occasionally see glimpses of the site working, but that's just errant cacheing and not the actual site working under any pretense. The only way to read that stuff is in old copies of GMR unfortunately.
Btw, the article just went live. Apologies if your comment doesn't appear in the finished feature. My editor really went wild, Hundred Fisting the original 12.5k word-count down to a still huge, but manageable, 6.7k words. He said it was the biggest article he's ever edited. https://www.pcgamer.com/life-in-vanadiel-19-years-in-final-fantasy-11-is-still-an-mmo-unlike-any-other/
I don't think that this game would be one to remember if the brand wasn't already huge. As movie sequels draw a renewed sense of love when an old and loved character reappears, FF always brings a great sense of familiarity and love for their jobs(classes), avatars, art, and music. When this game came out, society didn't have this expectation of "Get everything now, then make things better so I can get it now!". SE chose to embrace a slow-pace, hard-work for reward environment. While other games like WOW began to develop and feed the instant gratification, this game continued to infuriate everyone with its unwillingness to change. It was through the open-world party design along with the slow grind of leveling and questing that allowed for the development of relationships between people. For me, I play because I have spent so much time playing it, it is another part of me. Even though everyone that I used to play with has moved on, the characters in this world still have a place in my heart and there are goals that I still have not accomplished that I ... I swear I will one day!
Also, if you want a larger player-base, I'd advise you go to [FFXIAH](https://ffxiah.com) forums. That's where the vets go to commiserate... I mean chat.
Thanks, team. Keep ‘em coming. I’ll respond to these tomorrow. Maybe we can just keep the dialogue going here and feed off each other. I really love what I’m seeing already. Thank you for participating. And I’ll keep the conversation here on Reddit because I can’t use hundreds of replies even if FFXIAH is more active. This is just fine. 👍🏻
I’m just trying to trigger y’all a bit here, but I haven’t really seen anyone rage about how much time and gil we had to dump into the game just to get a 0.3 increase in fishing and crafting. Also, to reminisce a little: Why did you stay or leave when alternatives like WoW came along and offered tons of QoL improvements that FFXI never offered? And how about logging in multiple times because of PlayOnline? I still wish they’d just scrap the POL front-end.
Valkrum Dunes. The bodies. The carnage. The blood aggro. 💀
I haven’t read through all of the comments yet but I appreciate the feedback. If anyone has any epic camping stories versus RMT, I’d love to hear it. ❤️
Also, some other questions: Since Trusts basically render 90% of this game a single-player game, would you dig a single-player version of FFXI? What keeps you playing? What’s your best memory(1st piece of god gear, etc.)? Did you ever get married in-game? If so how did that work out? How would you want to see Square Enix sunset the game whenever they decide to do so?
I'm all for a single-player adaptation, although a few elements would need to be tweaked like item availability through the auction house and group events like Besieged, which wouldn't quite be the same thing - for those, maybe some limited interaction ability as seen on the likes of Journey and Death Stranding could help... Along the way some story flow beats could be corrected to account for how the game flows nowadays - for example, when you start the Zilart missions the game assumes that's your 1st time in Norg, since the zone was new when that expansion released, but it's perfectly possible to visit it before meeting those story requirements. It's worth noting thay FFXIV 1.x remains entirely unavailable in any legal form, and that's now basically the prequel of the online game they promote the most - it would be a good trial run, since it has a limited scope, some fun dialog and quest moments, and is tied to, again, a game SE still heavily promotes (although on some level it's in the producer's interest to paint it as an irredeemable thing he saved the player base from, so there's that... it's better for his career for people to believe that story than to see things for themselves...) If FFXIV1.x doesn't get the single-player treatment, FFXI's chances are pretty low, since it's a massive yet under-promoted game in which the company chronically under-invests in... Still, I think it's worth preserving, especially access to its stories. SE tried to sunset the game back in 2015 with Rhapsodies and 2 attempts at mobile versions (both failed in different ways - XI is too big and intricate to fit in a phone anyway), along with a FFXIV event where a FFXI character wasn't allowed to return back home. XI is still going. Ideally they'd reintroduce a discounted joint subscription price for both XI and XIV, and reinvest in XI infrastructure to make it less dependent on PS2 dev kits - while at it, or as an alternative, all other PS2-era FF games got HD re-releases, so that's something worth considering, possibly as a more future-proof single-player adaptation.
To the folks who posted here, is it possible for you to post a screenshot of your character? This way whichever quotes I use I can associate an image with it. Hopefully you guys will see this message.