Smallest MMO world to date?Follow

Sweet, it looks like I've finally made it to a 1% club!

And more hogwash.

Look, I won't say instancing is the best in all circumstances, but let's look to the alternative of what XI's "engaging" endgame provided. Going out to Sky/Sea or camping HNMs basically introduced you to competition, botting, MPK, and server drama. I know the trolls love to espouse that the drama makes a community stronger, but my take on it is it's divisive and basically hedges players further apart when fact, fiction, and over-dramatization comes into play. XI wasn't a PvP game, yet it was wrought with pseudo-PvP via limited resources and the steps players would take to get an edge. XIV technically isn't different here, and to be honest, I hope PvP never becomes a priority for the game. But I can at least understand some people like challenges beyond your basic enemy AIs. As long as PvP is never a "must do" like Aion, Rift, or GW2, we'll be okay.

But more specific to the hogwash, there are phases of the relic quests where you must actually leave town. You don't get GC seals just sitting in the city, either. Maybe you want to buy the stat reset item or put together a gear set for an achievement or secondary/tertiary job. Given time, I'm sure we'll see some kind of merit system for overflow EXP, too, which will have people out grinding FATEs, too. As well, I've seen you claim XI's crafting system was superior based on the premise of difficulty to level and rare materials. I can assure you people could PL crafts in XI, too, and without the restriction of leves for bonus EXP. No, XI craft leveling involved finding the cheapest synth and spamming the hell of out of it. As well, many items were "worthless" because of the insistence that HNM or event gear beat crafted counterparts. Maybe you'd have an exception here and there, but a small handful of items does not a healthy economy make. Nevermind the sh*tfest of "public" gathering and there being nothing to it other than carrying a bunch of tools and wearing field gear for an arguably negligible effect.

Anyway, the launch FFXI the NA crowd got was actually the RotZ expansion, too, which means we also didn't go through some of the early growing pains of XI. True launch endgame was getting to 50, beating Shadowlord for R5, and then camping Roc, Simurgh, Serket, Lumberjack, and then maybe playing with the Sin Skulls in Eldieme. That sounds incredibly boring to me, and that's with trying to distance myself from the actual knowledge of the game and those task difficulties. But in the interest of comparison, let's call completing XIV's main story to beating SL (though I'd argue more difficult). You could liken the Odin and Behemoth FATEs to the launch HNMs. Crafting is more robust. Gathering is fair. Leveling is handled more intelligently. There's a critical flaw in thinking forced grouping for EXP built community, and that's not everyone partied up with the intention of being your next best friend, even if you pushed aside the language barrier that happened in mixed-region parties. Both have seen and will see endgame groups arise and fall, so that's the other side of the community coin. You've played the "XI community is better than WoW community" card in other threads, too, when I'll say both are blessed with people who are awesome and people who suck. You're just running around with a pretty strong confirmation bias because the "suck" people are easier to "see" with spam shouts or rage quitting a dungeon. Frickin' hell if I didn't have some princess people in XI drop a group because we weren't getting X EXP an hour or didn't have some "tried and true" wiki party layout.

So, I'll just be curt. XIV isn't the problem despite its fixable flaws. It's you. Nothing you say here will make XI better. No twisting of interviews actually affirms your agenda. Confusing their plans for the mobile market with the console/PC market is just as inane. Tossing aside reviews you disagree with as if your opinion is any more legitimate is outright dumb. And oodles of wasted zone space still doesn't make a better game. Cling desperately to that "cycle" of launch retention all you want. Nobody's arguing that everyone who picks up the game will stick with it. What's rubbing people the wrong way is the claim everyone is going to quit because... well, you think they're you. Mercifully, they're not.

Edited, Sep 15th 2013 7:32am by Seriha

Not sure where you got that info from, in actuality FFXI was in development for nearly 6 years, whereas XIV was completely redesigned (as in, the entire world was pretty much recreated in 3) and each and every zone in it has far MORE to do. They might be smaller, but they are also much fuller. There aren't giant mazes where you have to just run or choco for 5+ minutes seeing absolutely nothing but the occasional mob. To me, that's a very good thing.



Have you bothered to actually explore the whole word? There are tons and tons of out of the way places to explore that are some of the most beautiful I've seen in any mmo. The zones might be smaller, but there are still a myriad of exceptional touches that make them unique, and make discovery a truly excellent experience.


Uh, actually it's the exact opposite. Every day that passes more people are reaching higher levels, requiring high level gear, requiring triple melds, requiring some of those super rare materials from unspoiled nodes, etc. I've been asked by my FC almost daily to make items for players on my armorer. If you think it's becoming less and less useful, you're doin it wrong.



And once again, you are wrong. If you are only sitting in town at 50, you are missing 95% of the game content, which I already explained in a previous post which you ignored. But hey, that's fine. Keep sitting in town and complaining about how boring it is. I'll be out in the world exploring, leveling multiple jobs, working on relics and AF, gathering. Having fun. You know, what the game was made for.

I'm going to say this in giant font because preludes is spreading around factually incorrect information. (Hey, that's my schtick!)

FFXI AT LAUNCH WAS SMALLER THAN FFXIV AT LAUNCH IN JAPAN BECAUSE IT HAD ONLY THE CITY ZONES, THE FIELD AREAS TO JEUNO, THE BEASTMAN DUNGEONS, AND QUFIM AVAILABLE. BEAUCEDINE AND XARCABARD WERE ADDED IN PATCHES.

Delkfutt's Tower was the final dungeon available. Even the friggin deep parts of KRT were not added until Rise of the Zilart.

The NA speakers got a vastly expanded world, probably double in size, because we didn't get access to the game until a year after it launched when the first expansion came out.

Edited, Sep 15th 2013 10:44am by Catwho

seriously catwho?


so youre saying north/south gustaberg, dangruf wadi, palborough mines, konstath, beaudex, pashow marshlands, rolanberry fields, crawlers nest, valkurm dunes, crawlers next, jugner forest, lathein plateau, east/west ronfaure, king ramperes tomb, ghelsba outpost, davoi, eldieme necropolis, battilia downs, east/west sarutabaruta, giddeus, meriphataud mountains, taronghi canyon, ,buburimu pennensula, castle ostroja, sauramagu champaign, garlaige citadel, the ruins inside sarutabaruto, quifim and the three main cities, jeuno (plus mhura and selbina) werent 2 if not 3 times the size of FFXIV? ookay

Im sure if tyou just cut that list in HALF it would STILL be bigger than FFXIV

Palborough Mines, Beadeux, Crawler's Nest, KRT, Ghelsba Outpost, Davoi, Eldieme, Giddeus, Oztroja, Garlaige, and Horutoto are dungeons.

Miles of desolation with no pre-crafted rides or experiences, the people have to make their own fun. This is a bit extreme and a bit false describing XI but just tossing it out there.



Tightly condensed pre-crafted rides or experiences, you don't have to create your own fun. This is a bit extreme and a bit false describing XIV but just tossing it out there.



I've had fun in both.

Oh by the way, who is to say future lands can't have larger regions, who is to say crafting will always be easy and there will be no specialization implemented at one point or a cap to how many crafts you can learn. Everything can change, reality changes, what you see now doesn't mean that's how it will always be.



Edited, Sep 15th 2013 12:09pm by sandpark

You've just claimed that no MMO that uses instances is decent.

And as I said which you again ignored, they completely redesigned every single zone in three years. It wasn't just a new coat of paint or something, it was a complete overhaul of almost every single zone. They did this in less than 3 years. FFXI was in production for 6 years before it was launched.



It's not cramped at all. There are still tons of open areas, such as Sagoli Desert, most of Coerthas and Mhor Dona, Eastern La Noscea, etc. It's just that instead of yalms and yalms of absolutely nothing, they made the (smart) decision to actually reduce the expanses of nothingness and increase the amount of landmarks, unique scenery, etc. Again, that was an incredibly smart decision. If you want a giant open world full of nothing to explore, go play ffxi. The world is still there, and 95% of it is just as lacking of any content as it was 10 years ago.



Actually, you ARE wrong. I've played easy crafting cap games too. Like lotro, like WoW, like pretty much every other mainstream MMO that wasn't ffxi. Crafting was never pointless or worthless in any of them. It was actually incredibly useful in most of them. And the longer the game was out, the more useful it became because of the added recipes and bonuses. Your speculation here is incredibly false.



I will have fun doing all of this. Because to me, it IS fun. I love leveling other jobs, because I actually enjoy them. I like grinding dungeons because the dungeons are a ton of fun and some are relatively challenging. The game is not shallow in the least, and your comments lead me to believe that you just don't have any clue what you are talking about. This game has more content on launch than any other mmo I've played by leaps and bounds. It puts Vanilla WoW to shame.

If you really had any clue about what you were talking about, you'd know that after your first class, leveling is not overly fast, you'd also know that crafting is not worthless. I get it, you don't like instanced content. Good for you. Go play a game that doesn't have it and quit complaining about stuff that you really don't seem to have any grasp on other than whining about how you don't like it and making assumptions that others won't either.

Edited, Sep 15th 2013 12:53pm by BartelX