FFXI: worth replaying after 5 years?

[Rinaun]

Wondering if I should get back into FFXI again. I stopped in 2004-5 back when I was young; it was my first MMO. I remember being a nubcake and going to Selbina to sell items at the Taru starting point. I quit after level 25, because the game was becoming too complicated for myself at 14-15 to learn solo, among other factors (grouping suuucked). I wasn't also as skilled with tech when I was younger

TLDR; is it worth returning to this game, or should I just wait until they fix the other, newer FF MMO (A Realm Reborn)?

What worries me:

Population count incredibly low
American player count being nonexistant
linkshells being hard to join proclubs
no point in returning to this old ass game

So close to buying it again. Talk me out of it!

 

[KaOTiK]

I'd just wait for FF14 ARR at this point imo.

 

[Rinaun]

I'd just wait for FF14 ARR at this point imo.

Yea, i signed up for the beta but I've only heard negative reviews from ARR. Mostly people saying ARR will never be anywhere near as good as FFXI.

I'm just looking into playing another MMO, and I thought I'd start with games I've never really finished but enjoy. Does anyone have an idea on how many american people are on the largest server at 8pm PST? If it's under 300 then I think I'll avoid this game and wait for FF14 like you suggest.

 

[zokudu]

Ive gone back and greatly enjoyed FFXI. Did a big 5 month stint last summer or so. The game just got a new expansion so lots of cool new stuff to play with. Couple things worth noting:

Leveling is really really easy. You solo to ~14 then join groups (Up to 18) to complete book pages (equivalent to quests only they auto repeat). You can stay in Gugen mines for a good 20 levels if you had a player to sync with. Oh right, you can also sync to other players to stay within a good leveling area for a long time. I hit 99 with having to do limit breaks in about 3 weeks.

Level cap is 99 now, most of the 75 cap gear is worthless now as well as most of the level 75 endgame content. Several events have been scaled up to 99, salvage and nyzul isle being the big ones.

Endgame is still pretty grindy. There is now farming to spawn nms to spawn bigger nms etc. Same stuff there always has been just in new areas.

I don't think the game has changed a whole lot, just new areas to grind in. I loved my recent stay in it and will probably go back again soon, if and when my wow guild falls apart.

 

[Jinru]

You could try out the FFXI private servers... You can get your nostalgia kick while progressing through the game much faster with the higher exp rate.

I played in retail back in 03 and replayed it on a private server about half a year ago. Back then there was only a couple hundred people on at any given time since FFXI PR's were still fairly new, but its probably larger now.

 

[Rinaun]

You could try out the FFXI private servers... You can get your nostalgia kick while progressing through the game much faster with the higher exp rate.

I played in retail back in 03 and replayed it on a private server about half a year ago. Back then there was only a couple hundred people on at any given time since FFXI PR's were still fairly new, but its probably larger now.

I had no clue that is was possible to emulate FFXI. I purchased the game for full retail price a long time ago, and I did emulation with WoW back in alpha as well, so I think I'll take this route. I'm not in this for the long run, at most I'd be playing this for a month so I don't think SE is losing more than 10$ by me going this route. I also plan on buying their other games at full retail price

Edit: I also noticed I missed a 10$ sale on the game recently. That would of been PERFECT (game + one month for under 15$). No way am I paying almost 50$ to retry the game when I had already bought it for 60$ in '05. I couldn't find any of my old information because of the lame way they stored IDs back then.

I don't think the game has changed a whole lot, just new areas to grind in. I loved my recent stay in it and will probably go back again soon, if and when my wow guild falls apart.

Let me know if you do. For WoW, I'm waiting for Corecraft (BC Server) to come out sometime this year or next year. I just dislike Pandaria/cataclysm and thus quit when they came out.

 

[Sohaltang]

I put 5 years into that game before selling my account. I wish I had it back. My most fav game ever. Would come back but no way Imcan level 15 jobs and a craft to max. I literally had 400 days of play time. Thought about buying an account but scared I would get screwed.

 

[Tweak155]

I have an account with about 40 days playtime. Leveled a main to 75 and 3 or 4 sub jobs to 37 and one of them to 50 something to have a 2nd main.

That game was one of the best MMO's due to challenge. They made grouping a ton easier with level sync but any awesome guild (linkshell) is going to be Japanese. But their auto translate tool usually was enough to get the point across.

Man, tempted to go back! I think my server was Asura or something like that - and I stored all my important account details in an excel file ages ago when it took me a while to figure out how to get back in.

 

[darkewaffle]

Me and few friends of mine reactivated in February and have been playing heavily since.

Level 75 content is mostly a moot point now, however a lot of the events have had level 99 implementations retrofitted onto them so that you can upgrade the gear obtained through them into very relevant pieces. Eg: Dynamis relics can be upgraded to 99 versions, salvage gear has 99 versions, Nyzul drops new level 99 sets, etc. Those level 99 versions have varying degrees of difficulty, "Neo" Nyzul Isle tends to be one of the more difficult/demanding events while "Neo" Dynamis farming can be done by just about anyone, and even the bosses aren't bad with a full party.

Levelling (or rather, XPing) has gone from being 'core' content into a fairly painless grind. Abyssea and Grounds of Valor have made it so you can XP effectively in alliances which really ramps up potential XP/hr.

Chances are if you return you'll first just level, then once you hit 85/90/95+ you can start working on your Empyrean gear. Empyrean armor is all from Abyssea and tends to be the best 'value' as far as time invested goes. Though if you're able to Dynamis and have some spare gil, it's pretty easy to upgrade base Relic pieces to Relic +2 as well (though speaking at least as a Thief, relic blows lol).

Edit:

Population count incredibly low
American player count being nonexistant
linkshells being hard to join proclubs
no point in returning to this old ass game

Depends on your idea of incredibly low. The servers regularly have 1000-2000 players at any given time, up to 2500+ peak I think. Jeuno is always chock full of people but you don't see as many players in the field as you used to.

Americans are plentiful. Really depends when you play. Primetime USA Jeuno shouts are almost all english, primetime JP Jeuno shouts are almost all in Japanese.

There's both kinds. There's your share of elitists of course but social/casual linkshells are plentiful for those seeking, just ask around. With the level cap increase and the change in the progression style used in events, HNMLSes are dead and so is much of their mentality.

If you have fun, what more point do you need? Suffice to say Realm Reborn probably won't be out for quite some time and (while I'm thoroughly enjoying the beta) I don't think Eorzea will ever quite recapture Vana'diel's magic. It has it's own charms but they're ultimately going to appeal to different players/desires imo.

 

[Tweak155]

Oh yeah I forgot I left with a chunk of gil. Like 900,000... nothing awesome but not starting from 0 either. Hmmmmmmm.

 

[Paul98]

I stopped playing about 6ish months ago. I am sure there are still plenty of people playing. Since you only got to level 25 and played 5 years ago you didn't really get into much of the game. So you should have a good time playing it.

 

[PowerYoga]

FFXI is one of my fondest memories. The world was just incredibly immersive and had a great sense of scale. I won't go back though, I just don't have the amount of time I used to. One regret is missing out on all the new story bits and pieces and the various little things littered around the world.

 

[Tweak155]

FFXI is one of my fondest memories. The world was just incredibly immersive and had a great sense of scale. I won't go back though, I just don't have the amount of time I used to. One regret is missing out on all the new story bits and pieces and the various little things littered around the world.

The story is one thing I never could follow. Usually you had to do random tasks with their own story and it was just too confusing to follow depending on how your time played out.

I can only remember 2 or 3 stories from that game unfortunately. The fun for me was doing the tasks.

 

[darkewaffle]

Even now there's still something really unique to FFXI's community. A few days ago I was bidding on a Chatoyant Staff which costs about 1.1M gil. I mis-bid and ended up buying an Iridal staff (which is the next to the Chatoyant in the listing, chatoyant = HQ, iridal = NQ) for 1.08M but normally costs about 200k. I figured I was screwed and out about 900k, sucks but life goes on.

Last night I check my inbox and the guy I accidentally bought the Iridal staff from sent me 900k back as a refund. {Thank You} Jarn.

 

[Tweak155]

Even now there's still something really unique to FFXI's community. A few days ago I was bidding on a Chatoyant Staff which costs about 1.1M gil. I mis-bid and ended up buying an Iridal staff (which is the next to the Chatoyant in the listing, chatoyant = HQ, iridal = NQ) for 1.08M but normally costs about 200k. I figured I was screwed and out about 900k, sucks but life goes on.

Last night I check my inbox and the guy I accidentally bought the Iridal staff from sent me 900k back as a refund. {Thank You} Jarn.

Probably Japanese. They love to be helpful.

 

[werd]

I came back recently (well, when the lvl cap was 90, 2010 i guess) to this game, it was my favorite game of all time in the early 2000s. Personally I do not think its worth returning to because of the lack of american players. I'd say "plentiful" is an overstatement, especially coming from more popular MMOs. Not many people play this game anymore. It's not impossible to get into a decent LS and do events, but it took me like 6 months to find something, and I was playing everyday. This is how it was on Cerberus at least. I'd try to get on Bahamut or Odin or whatever the popular server is these days if you want to return.

 

[Arkadrel]

I quit after level 25, because....

You should go back.
Youve played only 1/1000th of the game or less.

Its a unique experiance you cannot find anywhere else.
Some people have 10 job classes (25? classes?) at lv75 (max is 99? now) and have played 7years and have explored everything, seen high level & playing in elitist linkshells that do feats most "avg" players cannot accomplish ect ect ect.

For those people, that have seen the intire game and quit, going back = not worth it.

Level25 is 1day's worth of solid gameplay, where you sit down and play for like 16-18hours. Its basically nothing, meaning what youve seen, is nothing of the game.

FFXI is about the endgame, the challenges there, and the loot.

The leveling is just a minor journey, which isnt even a grinde, its a enjoyable experiance (which is why you repeat it many times, with differnt job classes, and good company (people you enjoy playing/chatting with)).


also auto translate funktions :

<Hello!> <I'm back!> <Do you have it?> <What's the battle plan?>

 

[Rinaun]

Well, I went to play on a private FFXI realm and yea that didn't work out. They are all run by very inexperienced teenagers from the US making horrible choices in every regard. I want to like this game, but for 49.99$ I'll hold off until another 15$ or less sale.

Another thing that bothers me is how long it would take for my character to become something viable in the FFXI community; it was taking quite some time leveling at 3-4x exp. I ended up stopping on the prserver around 23 because of the constant server crashes. Does leveling get better on retail/with promotional items, or is this game like a second job?

The story is one thing I never could follow. Usually you had to do random tasks with their own story and it was just too confusing to follow depending on how your time played out.

I can only remember 2 or 3 stories from that game unfortunately. The fun for me was doing the tasks.

I agree. The story in FFXI is good, but I've never seen a game try so hard to make you do the story line. It's hidden in so many different quests/tasks it's a bit annoying/bothersome for people who don't want to spend all day being spoonfed by a LS/friend or reading a game guide.

 

[Arkadrel]

Well, I went to play on a private FFXI realm and yea that didn't work out. They are all run by very inexperienced teenagers from the US making horrible choices in every regard. I want to like this game, but for 49.99$ I'll hold off until another 15$ or less sale.

Another thing that bothers me is how long it would take for my character to become something viable in the FFXI community; it was taking quite some time leveling at 3-4x exp. I ended up stopping on the prserver around 23 because of the constant server crashes. Does leveling get better on retail/with promotional items, or is this game like a second job?

I agree. The story in FFXI is good, but I've never seen a game try so hard to make you do the story line. It's hidden in so many different quests/tasks it's a bit annoying/bothersome for people who don't want to spend all day being spoonfed by a LS/friend or reading a game guide.

I went to play on a private FFXI realm

I ended up stopping on the prserver around 23 because of the constant server crashes.

Official servers never had 1 crash in the many years I played it.

Another thing that bothers me is how long it would take for my character to become something viable in the FFXI community.

Unlike other games, where the "rush" to endgame is all there is, in FFXI its a journey.

Its enjoyable, its educational, and its nessary.
Also it DOES not stop you, from doing challengeing stuff.

There are storyline chapters, missions ect, that require certain levels.
These missions ect, are LOCKED, to low levels + gear.

So there is no advantage to being level 99, if the mission area is capped at lv30.
Thus level + do your story to get a break from constant leveling.

Go do crafting, if you get bored of leveling constantly.
Go fishing, go mineing, go exploreing looking for treasure chests, go farm ingredients for crafting, go camp a spawn point for a rare notorious monster (NM) that drops a item you need (or do it to sell it)., ect ect ect.

Does leveling get better on retail/with promotional items, or is this game like a second job?

Your seeing problems where there are none.

Is it like a 2nd job? are you a 10yo with 5sec of consentration?
DO you want everything done in 2secounds and being easy to do?

Where is the reward in doing something silly and easy? thats just going through the motions.

You want a game that has dept, one that "can" act as a 2nd job if you choose to fall in that deep.

You can immurse yourself in ffxi, its NOT a shallow mmo.

 

[Rinaun]

Official servers never had 1 crash in the many years I played it.

Yea, I know. It was nice to test the game out and refresh my memory. I still want to get into this, but I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate getting my character even remotely close to endgame.

Your seeing problems where there are none.

Is it like a 2nd job? are you a 10yo with 5sec of consentration?
DO you want everything done in 2secounds and being easy to do?

Where is the reward in doing something silly and easy? thats just going through the motions.

You want a game that has dept, one that "can" act as a 2nd job if you choose to fall in that deep.

You can immurse yourself in ffxi, its NOT a shallow mmo.

I want a game with depth, not a game that has a terrible UI for crafting/auction house and then expects me to sit for hours crafting for .1 of a skill point. I have no problem developing my character...if it takes me no more than 2-3 months to have something endgame viable. If not, why would I play this over a game like XIV or any MMO? It's 10 years old and on its possible last expansion, plus people mention how much a grind this game is. For all I know it could take me 6 months to start doing endgame content and by then as someone mentioned above, there could be hardly any US players left.

P.S. anyone who can put up with leveling in this game isn't impatient at all. This game was incredibly grindy back in 2005. I heard that the new promotional items make leveling a joke compared to what it previously was.

 

[Tweak155]

Yea, I know. It was nice to test the game out and refresh my memory. I still want to get into this, but I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate getting my character even remotely close to endgame.



I want a game with depth, not a game that has a terrible UI for crafting/auction house and then expects me to sit for hours crafting for .1 of a skill point. I have no problem developing my character...if it takes me no more than 2-3 months to have something endgame viable. If not, why would I play this over a game like XIV or any MMO? It's 10 years old and on its possible last expansion, plus people mention how much a grind this game is. For all I know it could take me 6 months to start doing endgame content and by then as someone mentioned above, there could be hardly any US players left.

P.S. anyone who can put up with leveling in this game isn't impatient at all. This game was incredibly grindy back in 2005. I heard that the new promotional items make leveling a joke compared to what it previously was.

If you get to end game in 2 months on an MMO that's a TON of time you have available to dedicate.

When I hit 75 in FFXI I still didn't do anything end game. I started participating in town raids and still working on gaining experience (back then you could literally level "forever").

I think developing your character IS the reward in that game - and obviously leveling adds to that. Also the grouping aspect made it all the more rewarding. You aren't going to hit 75 (or whatever the current cap is) on your own like other MMO's.

It's just 2 different levels of rewards. One is quick lower value rewards, the other is longer, higher value rewards.

The leveling in WoW for example was still a grind - the reward from that game was the end game content. In FFXI I felt like I was getting rewarded all the time.

Both are fun IMO.

 

[J-Dizzle44]

I'd just wait for FF14 ARR at this point imo.

+1

 

[Arkadrel]

I'd just wait for FF14 ARR at this point imo.

I saw the guy above +1 this sentiment.
FFXIV is not FF done right, its selling short trying to copy WoW too much.

The experiance wont be the same from FFXIV, you might as well be playing WoW then.

WoW is the orginal that SAD mmo's copy and fail, sadly FFXIV is one such.
(not understanding that WoW has had many many years to develop, so their experiances cannot compete with it)

(the results from copying WoW usually end up bad experiances, for both the players and the developers)

Yea, I know. It was nice to test the game out and refresh my memory. I still want to get into this, but I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate getting my character even remotely close to endgame.

I want a game with depth, not a game that has a terrible UI for crafting/auction house and then expects me to sit for hours crafting for .1 of a skill point. I have no problem developing my character...if it takes me no more than 2-3 months to have something endgame viable. If not, why would I play this over a game like XIV or any MMO? It's 10 years old and on its possible last expansion, plus people mention how much a grind this game is. For all I know it could take me 6 months to start doing endgame content and by then as someone mentioned above, there could be hardly any US players left.

P.S. anyone who can put up with leveling in this game isn't impatient at all. This game was incredibly grindy back in 2005. I heard that the new promotional items make leveling a joke compared to what it previously was.

but I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate getting my character even remotely close to endgame.

You shouldnt be playing a MMO. Your "cheating" yourself of the true experiance, which is about time invested & dedication/small amounts of skill.

This leaves you with a few choices:

1) pay to win type MMOs, where you can buy the advantage's you might need.

2) play the type of MMO ffxi is, accept your limited time & efforts means not getting as far as others.

3) play a game type MMO, that doesnt have time&dedication=reward.
---this means playing something like Battlefield 3 online. Its still a MMO, but its not about dedication, and everyone is on equal grounds reguardless.

If not, why would I play this over a game like XIV or any MMO? It's 10 years old and on its possible last expansion,...

Its also a "rich" game, BECAUSE its 10years old.
Its a strength, that you veiw as a weakness. It has had so much content updates and expansions, that leave the world you play in, a complete experiance instead of something thats "new" and empty.

Do you realise how many shallow MMOs are out there, where after a week you litterly have nothing left to do in them? other than badly balanced PvP?

 

[zokudu]

Yea, I know. It was nice to test the game out and refresh my memory. I still want to get into this, but I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate getting my character even remotely close to endgame.



I want a game with depth, not a game that has a terrible UI for crafting/auction house and then expects me to sit for hours crafting for .1 of a skill point. I have no problem developing my character...if it takes me no more than 2-3 months to have something endgame viable. If not, why would I play this over a game like XIV or any MMO? It's 10 years old and on its possible last expansion, plus people mention how much a grind this game is. For all I know it could take me 6 months to start doing endgame content and by then as someone mentioned above, there could be hardly any US players left.

P.S. anyone who can put up with leveling in this game isn't impatient at all. This game was incredibly grindy back in 2005. I heard that the new promotional items make leveling a joke compared to what it previously was.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here. The leveling is really the easy part right now. Book parties can grind you to level 99 in easily 2 weeks with 3 hour a night sessions. This gets a tad extended the first time because you have to do limit break quests at 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 95. Once those are done you can level a new job very quickly.

As far as "endgame ready" it really depends on your idea of endgame. At level 99 you could for instance farm nms or mobs to get one of the new(er theyre a few years old at this point) Abyssea weapons. These weapons are all very good and gathering the nm kills and mats to create them is part of endgame. Some people carry 4-5 different ones with different stats.

You can also grind a Relic, Mythic, Empyerian weapon. Again this is endgame, something you continually work towards at level 99. I wouldn't call it glamorous. You can farm items to spawn nms that drop items for more nms. i.e Abyssea quests.

At the end of the day though, I think 2 months at max level on a class YOU ENJOY PLAYING would get you ready for the higher tier content. Things like Voidwatch, Neo-Nyzul, or 99 Salvage but FFXI is not just about those.

A large portion of your time spent at level 99 is not in those type of events but rather killing monsters for drops or waiting on an NM to spawn. The game really isn't like wow that way "Raid" style content isn't the big thing.

 

[Rinaun]

I'm going to be perfectly honest here. The leveling is really the easy part right now. Book parties can grind you to level 99 in easily 2 weeks with 3 hour a night sessions. This gets a tad extended the first time because you have to do limit break quests at 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 95. Once those are done you can level a new job very quickly.

As far as "endgame ready" it really depends on your idea of endgame. At level 99 you could for instance farm nms or mobs to get one of the new(er theyre a few years old at this point) Abyssea weapons. These weapons are all very good and gathering the nm kills and mats to create them is part of endgame. Some people carry 4-5 different ones with different stats.

You can also grind a Relic, Mythic, Empyerian weapon. Again this is endgame, something you continually work towards at level 99. I wouldn't call it glamorous. You can farm items to spawn nms that drop items for more nms. i.e Abyssea quests.

At the end of the day though, I think 2 months at max level on a class YOU ENJOY PLAYING would get you ready for the higher tier content. Things like Voidwatch, Neo-Nyzul, or 99 Salvage but FFXI is not just about those.

A large portion of your time spent at level 99 is not in those type of events but rather killing monsters for drops or waiting on an NM to spawn. The game really isn't like wow that way "Raid" style content isn't the big thing.

This helped a ton, thanks! I think I'll be waiting for a small sale before I purchase. My biggest worry was leveling was going to take up the bulk of my time if I played for only 3-6 months. I'm not going to play FFXI forever and I want to experience SOME of the level 99 endgame without spending the bulk of my time worrying about how useless I am/will be unless I level a ton of sub jobs or crafting. I also understand (just a little) what you mean by the differences between this and wow in terms of raiding. I don't think I want to raid, but if I do it will be very very seldom for lore and with a Linkshell holding my hand