MMO's and Why My Life is a Spiraling Abyss

So I made a mistake... Again..



So I started Final Fantasy XI... The MMO for Final Fantasy. Some of you may know this, and I will just say this now. Pandemonium server, Name is Zdrok. I am a Mithra Warrior.

Now on to discussion. I have played World of Warcraft on and off for four years. I have been playing before they had battlegrounds. Not once did I reach the level Cap.
World of Warcraft has a couple of problems that keep me from ever really, really getting involved. Those being, the community is hard to get into without dedicating your life, the gameplay is repetitive, Character management too complex, character and world design get old. While these... don't seem too big of problems, and the repetitive one is a no duh because it IS a MMO, to me, this game is different than a lot of MMO's. I don't feel like I am honestly able to contibute in WOW. Everything I have accomplished is something someone else has already done, and probably does a thousand times better. There are ten year olds that are tier... whatever is good nowadays, capped their level long ago, and are able to kick my ass in PvP. Not only that, but they run guilds poorly, and schedule rediculous times for events. While this could easily be an overstatement. I believe it to be true to an extent. WoW just seems to be run over by idiots now adays. I Play best on MMOs when I have at least one sensible person to play with. It has happened before. So why with 10 million people playing, am I having such a hard time?


The answer is simple, Because out of those 10 million people, 2 million are dead account, while 5 million are kids, and the three million left over are oceanic, european, or jerk elitists that take this game way too seriously. (of course these are not real numbers, but they seem to make sense for me.)

So instead, My plan is to go to a tighter community, less servers, bigger server population, more high levels rather than countless Alts. This world... Final Fantasy XI

Over the past 2 years I have entered Vana' Diel Three times. Out of the three times, I have quit because I had yet to denounce WoW of its title... "The Best MMO". Today I am ready to do this. I have seen the community that is FFXI, I have seen the pod casts, the forums, the Linkshells (guilds). The fan base is not as large as some, but damn they are strong.
Here are the reasons why.
You are only allowed one character (unless you want to pay more). Now this might sound REDICULOUS to some, but... it makes a lot of sense. With this one character, you can do every single job available in the game, not only that, but you can hold a job and a sub job. This Highly discourages Alt characters, because there is no reason to do so. It would be a waste of time. Also, when new people join FFXI, and eventually join a linkshell, it gives people more of a reason to help them because they could level up their lower level jobs.

Money is scarce. It is hard as shit to make money. The auction house is flawed in so many ways. Quests often times don't give money. Why is this good? It forces people to come together, for a real economy. For a real system of bartering. People have things that this person wants, and vise versa. Money is still an object, but there are many more ways to gain a profit other than just Gil.

Soloing is a bitch, if not impossible. You can not level in this game by playing it alone. Nor can you complete Missions alone. or get any good items, or get any money, or live. This game forces you to play with others by the sheer difficulty. But when you play with others, it very quickly becomes simple, enjoyable, without much effort. Just a nice way to talk to people while getting shit done. Which leads me to another point.

It is a bitch to find people to level with.... but after saying this, once you do... you got a group till 75. Everyone hates looking for groups so much, they once you find one, you are almost guarenteed new friends till the end of you ever wanting to play. Creating a linkshell is simple, and so is getting people in yours. or being in multiple of you choose to do so.

There are barely any Idiots in this game. Simply because, it is far too difficult, and time consuming, for a simple kid to play. I am not saying this game is rediculous and not fun because of the difficulty. What I am saying is... It will not hold your hand like certains worlds of warcrafts do. Leveling takes awhile, even at lower levels, you lose experience when you die, Traveling is hard to do at lower levels. The characters are not aimed at being fun to look at, nor super epic that everyone must bow down to you. They are aimed to look realistic, to go with the story that is Vana' Diel. Money is hard to make, the 6 hour install will kill any kids patience. Oh, and there is no exlamation mark above the NPC's giving quests. You have to TALK to people. you have to LEARN THE STORY BY ACTUALLY READING THE TEXT!!! I know that is insane, seeing as how you can play wow for 4 years and never know whats going on story wise. But hey, it is final fantasy, their story has to be good.


Looking back... it seems like there are a lot of bad reasons to pick up this game.... which is probably why no one picks it up ha.

But... that being said, think of it like football practice. In all honesty, football practice sucks. But being with your friends, cracking jokes, beating the shit out of eachother, bus ride to games, the excitement of games.... all of this over shadows the actual practice.

Its the same with FFXI. You find friends, you go through leveling with ease because you are enjoying yourself, rather than just... leveling. You have people sharing the bitch that is reaching level 75, that you are forced to find ways to enjoy it, which Vana' Diel offers... you just have to look for it, with your buddies.



Needless to say, I am enjoying this. I have yet to find my friends, its a search I am working on. But really, I can do that, simple enough. and hell, if some more people than just skyliner played, we would be in business. Just need a solid group of 6 to keep us going throughout the whole game...


Nevertheless, I will see yall soon. I hope I inspired you to pick up FFXI or at least an MMO. I am sure David has like 20 copies if you ask him.

Thanks for reading,
Travis