Howdy guys and gals I need some advice.

I was looking at buying a new MMO because warcraft has gotten pretty stale and Lich King doesn't look that much more appealing to me, I figured my best choice would be FFXI considering I'm a huge final fantasy fan, plus I've heard a lot of good things about it and the 2008 edition is a pretty good deal cause I can get it for £15 from a local store, so I'd have everything I need.

But is it worth playing? a few people have said it was bettter years ago and to start playing now is a bad idea, anyone got any opinions?

I've started playing like half a year ago, and I loved it!

Although I did hear the same from oldies, that it used to be better a while ago...

But then again, now would be the best time to jump in! There's this new feature coming up that allows you to party with anyone (levels can be adjusted to the one with the lowest level).

Cons:
- montly fee... this sucks :)
- making ingame money is HARD. You can never buy anything you really want...
- soloing is impossible. You'll always need a party/PL for everyting

Pros:
- Final Fantasy: it's just the vibe, the atmosphere... it's great. I couldn't get myself to like WoW because I don't like that graphical style
- Job/Subjob system: in my book briljant. You can mix jobs (classes) by having one main and one sub. This way, there are many creative possibilities

(I'm talking here about leveling only. Haven't reached the endgame yet :)

I have a Red Mage ay level 75 (max level) and I think it's great. Farming for gil is a bit of a grind but there are some tricks and tips once you get a higher level. Only real gameplay con in my view, partying and exping is fun and the endgame is VERY enjoyable. Also, you can participate in events like Besieged and Campaign with a reward of experience points which makes it more interesting than just partying all the time. It also has a 5 intertwining stories to play through, all of them very interesting.

I'm on the Siren server if anyone cares.

And to the guy above, they game has hardly changed. SE have tweaked the jobs to make them more user friendly and added different events to do. The economy on it has a major crisis last year with RMT but it's on the upswing now. What job are you out of interest?

Hmm... I'm getting more and more tempted.... In fact screw it, it's getting ordered tomorrow ^^

Raynaux:
Hmm... I'm getting more and more tempted.... In fact screw it, it's getting ordered tomorrow ^^

OK, some tips. When you need gil up untill about level 30, farm bees and crawlers. Bees drop beehive chips and honey which sell for 4000 a stack each. Crawlers drop silk thread. Drop at a lower rate to the stuff from bees but sells for 9000 a stack. You solo from levels 1-10 which should help you decide if you enjoy the job, then past 10 you go to Valkurm Dunes.

Useful sites (in order of usefulness):
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.ffxiah.com/
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/
http://www.ffxi-atlas.com/

Oh, and any other questions from you or anyone else I'll be happy to answer.

Actually the game has got alot easier to solo now when parties are not around with a boost of xp plus the level sync system can get parties easily if you know a few people on the server.
making gil is real easy too if you know the right tricks, I hardly ever farm on the game and still make 500k p/m.

I have been playing for 3 years and my main is a 75 Beastmaster, most fun job on the game I think.

PS. If you want a linkshell group (guild) if you join the fenrir server I am in an European linkshell which means people are on when you are on.

Message me if ya wanna join or visit the site on www.linkshell.eu

enjoy the game :D

good choice! ^^

I'm on Bahamut (I'm still waiting on a TRUE MMO that has only 1 server :p)

I'm also Red Mage, 53 at the moment. Scholar sub. But I'd like to be more Scholar/rdm later on ^^;

edit: Windurst is the handiest starting nation, because of afore mentioned bees & crawlers ^^;

Stalkingtiger:
Actually the game has got alot easier to solo now when parties are not around with a boost of xp plus the level sync system can get parties easily if you know a few people on the server.
making gil is real easy too if you know the right tricks, I hardly ever farm on the game and still make 500k p/m.

I have been playing for 3 years and my main is a 75 Beastmaster, most fun job on the game I think.

PS. If you want a linkshell group (guild) if you join the fenrir server I am in an European linkshell which means people are on when you are on.

Message me if ya wanna join or visit the site on www.linkshell.eu

enjoy the game :D

I don't think BST is a very good start-up job though. Also, how do you make so much gil? I'm lazy and just farm in Zi'Tah. Not like RDM really needs any equipment.

And if you join Siren I can get you a pearl too.

tobyornottoby:
good choice! ^^

I'm on Bahamut (I'm still waiting on a TRUE MMO that has only 1 server :p)

I'm also Red Mage, 53 at the moment. Scholar sub. But I'd like to be more Scholar/rdm later on ^^;

Oh, are you sick of Refresh yet? If you are then be a SCH. Personally I don't mind it except when DRKs who don't cast spells demand Refresh off me.

I would like to give credit here to Grimbold, an old LS member, for the following technique. He done all the research on this and tallied up results before kindly telling me about it and now im passing it on to you after many succesfull weeks.
As you will see it has no bearing on AH prices or any ones market so in effect your hurting no one henc me letting you know. If this affected him in any way I wouldnt be telling you.

Rule number 1 of getting gil is sell EVERYTHING and I really mean everything. Crystals for example: I leveled my NPC to 62 in Upper Del Tower and it is predominantly Lightning weather in there, so theres Lightning Elementals everywhere!!! 2-6k per mob. I would normally have 10-20k just on my way to the top. 10 mins work.

If you cant sell something NPC it, even for 15gil! Its 15 gil you didnt have!!

Also there is gil EVERYWHERE. Assaults..... great fun and items are 50-200k in some of them!!! Nothing but win win here!! Plus some lovely Perdu weapons.

So...... here is the technique im going to share to cure your money worries:

Wildgrass Seeds.

This is gardening folks and all you require are:

10x Brass Flowerpots, these are NPC bought in Bastok Mines here: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Brass_Flowerpot

Place 10 of these in EACH of your characters/mules. More mules you have the better and most people I know have got mules.
If you havent then...... sorry this wont work very well for you.

Now you plant Wildgrass Seeds in these pots, 1 per pot and these are bought here: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Khaf_Jhifanm

Very cheap to buy and the NPC wont run out, re-stocks every game day andif you want the cheapest price poss go after the shops holiday, assuming it has one.

Its a simple case from now to check these once every RL day, when it says "your plant doesnt seem to be doing to well" you feed it a water crystal. 2-3 days later TA DAAAAAAA you will harvest numerous chocobo foods!!

Now here is the beauty of it..... whichever of your characters has highest fame you send ALL to them and simply...... NPC them!!!! So you dont touch the AH apart from buying the crystals to feed!!

This will net you, with 4 characters, 100-150k profit EVERY harvest, a month that is 400-600k and all you have to do is check them when you log on, my 5 characters I use this takes 5 mins to check per day.

No farming, no AH and you dont hurt anyone at all as it is all NPC bought and sold.

So get moving people...... nothing but Gil to gain here. If you sit in LS saying your broke after me posting this and doing all the work for you I assure you there will be very little sympathy from me. :-D

Happy hunting.

Easy as that :D

Ps im 63 red mage too and sick of everyone going "Where is my refresh" when its 2 seconds late

Phoenix Arrow:
Oh, are you sick of Refresh yet? If you are then be a SCH. Personally I don't mind it except when DRKs who don't cast spells demand Refresh off me.

Yeah, I don't like keeping up those Haste/Refresh cycles. I like healing a lot more ^^;

Stalkingtiger:
Ps im 63 red mage too and sick of everyone going "Where is my refresh" when its 2 seconds late

I don't refresh people for a while when they do that. They can go fuck themselves.
I love the job though, Dia III, Slow II, Para II, Refresh, Haste, Refresh. =]

Thanks for the tips. You know, we could make a good team if we were on the same server, me farming the stuff in Zi'tah then you growing it to a more expensive form. Problem is with gardening is that I don't play the game that much.
I'm on Saturdays for Dynamis then maybe on or days midweek to merit RDM or level SAM, gardening really needs some time which I don't have with College and such.

tobyornottoby:
Yeah, I don't like keeping up those Haste/Refresh cycles. I like healing a lot more ^^;

Haha, you're a RDM that likes healing? Well, to each their own. I love the enfeebs myself.

Phoenix Arrow:

Problem is with gardening is that I don't play the game that much.
I'm on Saturdays for Dynamis then maybe on or days midweek to merit RDM or level SAM, gardening really needs some time which I don't have with College and such.

Takes no more than 5-10 minutes per day to do that gardening, I can fit it around Uni work

See, i played this game for awhile, and honestly, the leveling is beyond annoying. Any fun I did have was destroyed by the annoying difficult grind. Though Thief was a fun class.

FFXI is fun in the same way really old platformers and the like are fun: it's infuriatingly frustrating and everything is way more difficult than it ever needed to be, but once you complete whatever bullshit task the game hurls at you you feel like the king of awesometown... until you realise there's just more bullshit tasks ahead.

This game is hard work, and everything requires a huge time commitment. Even leveling. This might have changed a bit with a recent update that lets people grind together regardless of level, but last I played people still needed to have a definite 3+ hour timeblock free to even throw together a grinding party (you can't solo, as has been mentioned). It should also be noted that quests have no experience rewards, save a very few of them, and are largely wastes of time for monetary rewards that aren't actually high enough to be worth the time the quests take. Also, for each and everything you do expect to be doing rediculous amounts of research, because the game tells you nothing.

Community is a big part of the game, because you need other people help you do anything at all. Guilds (called Linkshells) are usually pretty close knit, but they usually break down into drama as everyone whines about how a)nobody helps them or b)they're sick of always helping everyone.

There are fun elements to the game, but they're bookended by huge chunks of repetitive grind, anger, frustration and failure. This game is a relic and deserves to be forgotten. I played it for 5 years and consider it the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Really though what other choices do you have at the moment?

World of warcraft or World of warhammer (as it might as well be called)

Both are over simplified and frustratingly easy TBH, I got sick bored of doing the same battleground over and over and sold my character which sume burke bought for 450 quid.
End game wow is a grind where it is meant to be fun, if you dont grind for the gear u got shit all

Wait you're a Galka? Strange, I don't actually know any Galka.
I'm Mithra... you could probably guess.

First of all, you CAN solo. The game is geared to meeting people and partying but it's fairly easy to get a party, espeically since level sync was introduced, and I think our BST friend can verify that it's possible to get to 75 by just soloing.
I personally don't think there is that much grind in the game, if you want to be some elite person with all the best gear then there some grind there. But I'm perfectly happy in my artifact/relic armour.
Also, there's so much to do in terms of end game compared to the alternativees. Dynamis, Ballista, Brenner, Limbus, Sky, Sea, Assault, Nyzul Isle investigation, Salvage... I could go on. Basically, it's hard to judge the game before you get to do some of the end game events because that's really been the focus in development recently. Additionally, the leveling system is the best I've encountered on any MMO.

LOL I used to be in an all galka LS with over 40 members a few years back was
the best linkshell I have ever been in.
An yep ill certainly tell ya that solo is possible certainly now 66xp for an EP!!!
how easy do you want the game, if you dont like a bit of grind while levelling
thats wats WoW was created for lol

Stalkingtiger:
LOL I used to be in an all galka LS with over 40 members a few years back was
the best linkshell I have ever been in.

Haha. I used to be in MithraPride. You probably have heard of it, they used to have a pearl on every server. But they broke on Siren shortly after I got the pearl. Shame because Mithra are the most awesome things ever.

Yeah used to know lots of people in Mithrapride on Fenrir, used to be a good LS one of my mules was on it.

Phoenix Arrow:
Haha, you're a RDM that likes healing? Well, to each their own. I love the enfeebs myself.

I love healing, as it requires some thought/strategy. How many people are in the yellow? is anyone orange already? cure or regen? healing or sitting?

With those cycles it's just... brainless, always the same
Of course enfeebles are nice too ^^;

But what I hate about healing is that it isn't sexy. About damage you can say "look at me I geared all the way towards offensive and now I do [number] damage!" Healing numbers are pretty much fixed, so there's nothing sexy about that... real shame

I was in MithraPride on phoenix, well until prrsha messed it up and the mithrapride community basically banned him from running it.

lol i had a mule in mithraprdie on ifrit was a fun lil ls :)
also had a taru in tarutaskforce but it broke coz some berk kept recruiting non tarus and the link leader got pissed and booted everyone :(

ffxi is a fun lil game but boring as hell midgame

OK, I relise that not many people posted in this thread know about end-game but I'm annoyed so it's rant time.
So, I'm at Dynamis - San D'Oria and Duelist's Boots drop. That's the RDM relic boots for those who don't know, basically the best armour for RDM in the game. So I lot and i get 800. At this point, I'm feeling pretty chuffed. Until 5 seconds before if drops, so other guy accidently lots it and gets 980... then it drops before he can pass.
So annoying when you take the time out to do something like Dynamis then when you get your reward it gets snatched away. I wouldn't mind so much but the guy didn't even have Red Mage leveled. Let's hope it's karma so I get the Tabard when we do Beaucidine.

I'm guessing this game works in a style like tactics in terms of jobs, you can switch at any time to get abilities dependent on your equipment in that job, or is it different?

Also does the linkshell thing with exp ruin the gameplay, I mean like a high level walking around with a low level, is the high level still god-like in terms of fighting or does it balance out so it feels challenging for both players? this sytem confuses me if you can't tell yet :P

When you're in a party, you can limit everyones levels to the same one, if you don't then you get the exp you would get from the highest level guy. This is called level sync.

A linkshell has nothing to do with exp. It's just basically a group of people you can talk to, ask for help, do events with etc.

For jobs, you can start as one of six jobs; White Mage, Red Mage, Black Mage, Theif, Monk or Warrior. Then once you get to level 30, you can do quests to unlock a further 20 or so jobs. You can switch between any of the six starting jobs or any you've unlocked at any time from a residential area in one of the cities. When you get to level 18, you do a quest to get a subjob which enables you to use another job at the same time for half the level of you're current job. So, if you are a level 60 Dragoon and you want to sub Samurai, the Samurai will be at level 30 (if you've leveled it that high) and you get stats boosts and abilities corresponding to that level, so for subbing Samurai you would get boost plus Hasso, Saigan, Meditate etc. You use gear to polish up your stats too, basically like most other RPGs in that sense.

I was a red mage. I played the game for about two days, got fed up and bored by one of the very first quests, and canceled by subscription. I found WoW to be much more entertaining.

Wow's endgame is an endless grind where its meant to be rewarding, and really how can you judge a game in two days i gave WoW 4 month and wen i realised i was lvl 60 and grinding for the first time i thought screw this

Wow's endgame is an endless grind where its meant to be rewarding, and really how can you judge a game in two days i gave WoW 4 month and wen i realised i was lvl 60 and grinding for the first time i thought screw this

stupid internet double postin

my friends play war hammer maby you could get that

I suggest warhammer over FF11 because most people who have stuck with it for the years since it's release will be at a higher level, and it may alienate you. Warhammer is starting up, and it is becoming big very rapidly, so there may be more action there for you. Still another possibility is Lord of the Rings Online, it is generally overlooked, but is still both widely played and substantially significant. Not an overlooked gem, but it comes close.

Have they actually decided how much WH online is gonna be monthly i heard 15 PPM if so that is a rip off