What Ever Happened....

To the good old days of FFXI? I remember when i played this in 04 i would get on FFXI and not worry about what i had to do or what i needed to get done for the day, everything fell into place on its own. I remember i used to get this feeling not sure what to call it but i felt like this place was a get away from everything in the world it truly felt like a adventure even the music from this game brought back memories. I loved the MPK days were struggling to not die, but all of that has died too many people have complained and this game has just isnt the same i dont get that feeling of happiness and adventure.

I feel that way too. I think its because everyone with half a brain stopped playing. I honestly feel like somtimes most of the people I play with belong on the short bus.

What I wish SE would do is start to combine some servers. Somtimes its pretty hard to even find people to do nyzul, missions, or any of that sort of thing, especially in EU timezones... so most of the time I just do dyna and lvl jobs.

EVERY game that has online something be it mmo, first person shooter etc. (that I have played)
always talk about "the good old days" apparently a game sucks unless its brand new.

well im saying the enviornment isnt the same, interaction idc about the gear or anything , the game play is all about one self :/

6 yrs and still loving it

That however I disagree with. I know I have a lot of friends that would help me no matter how horrible the task was. It's all about finding the right people, linkshell, etc.
I dont know where'd I'd be today without my friends, and I'd gladly help them too.

well ive been playing since jan 04 and ive only had one character and only been on one server... i have seen this server go through everything .. and ive never seen this place to be everyone only to care for themselves or gets them something out of it , but thats regardless of what im saying, just the game experience is just gone now.

The good old days were back before us NAs started doing endgame. Back before we started joining HNM and endgame shells with people we hated to play the game as if it were a second job. Back then you were only in a shell with people you liked, doing the stuff you liked, and having fun on your own terms.

There are only a lucky few that now have shells like the ones that used to be.

Ok I'm not alone! lol

That's why it's recommend to just DRIVE the short bus so regardless of how spamtarded things get, you can dictate the pace and speeeeeed. It all sounds good in theory of course!

the short bus kids will beat you up and hijack it.

Them "good ol' days" really werent all that great.

They're just fun to remember to make the newer folk feel inferior but Id never go back and do it again 8|

You could always delete you character then start again if you want to feel the good old days lol.

Simple really... Stop playing. If the game experience has gone, why are you still playing?

need something to complain about.

Quite simply, you hit 75 and it became a different game.

I used to love the pre 75 days when as you said in your first post, you could just play and not worry about what you needed to do.

I still love the game after 6 years, but once you get onto endgame stuff i think the game plays differnet as suddenly things are 'required' and 'expected' of you.

It has changed a lot.

2004:
you HAD to party and the japanese would not return /tells at all... they just didn't. AF quests were hard, it took an entire party of 6 people... sometimes a small alliance for miser murphy. hitting 75 was an accomplishment. dynamis was hard and could only be done 1 or 2 ways.

2006:
aht urhgan came out and all a sudden the boyahda tree, kuftal tunnel, bibiki bay were all empty. People started getting rank 5 in their nation and said *** 6-10... i'm doing aht urhgan onry. people started experimenting ways to solo everything. exp rings came out and getting 75 was not as big a deal as it used to be. now you had to have at least 4 75's to be something >.>

2008:
wotg comes out and now conquest has completely hit the shitfan. bastok at least on bahamut is *** over because se closed our server so bastokans are leaving server and those left don't give a *** about conquest, they want to solo the game and solo campaign. it is now officially the new era of soloing.... parties are the past. good luck getting one, your better off joining the soloers. decent players and LS are a rare thing it seems. players now get level 75 jobs with ***skill, level 20 gear, and not knowing that a level 55+ crab in certain areas can aggro them. it's not so cool to have a 75 anymore, well unless you have 10 of them. RMT are gone so farming isn't a big deal, mostly people bcnm and ksnm for gil now. crafting? whats that? with people transferring servers or quitting crafting has died down just a bit. how long have you seeked a pt lately?

2009 Bahamut:
I've noticed small LS's are the way now, yes there are still big LS's but people are keeping there dying small ls's to form statics just to get ***done. The big ls's don't care as much as they used to. anything endgame seems to becoming free lot now, I guess thats due to it's the only way people will do pickup missions, nyzule, dynams etc. It has taken me personally 1 month to level thief from 37 to 61 and i do seek and attempt to build parties near everyday. when seeking i'll be waiting 8 hours or more most any day... then when i do get pt's they last til the first person d/c and we quit... no tanks seeking at all. I can solo my af on most any job now so who needs friends? speaking of friends I don't know many people anymore on my OWN server for 6 years... cause my friends of 4-5 years have all quit.

That's my experience as a 6 year player on Bahamut. i lvoe the game and honestly couldn't give a ***about FFXIV. It truly so far looks like a re-vamped xi with newer system specs and graphics. I'll probaly wait a year or so before trying it. feel free to flame this post, i know you all want to lol

Except, end-game is voluntary.

Everything in the game is voluntary. EG used to seem like it was mandatory.

I agree with you, Alvar. I remember when the game felt less like a job and more like a great adventure. Which is probably a factoring reason in why 90% of us actually bought it, to begin with. Despite the lack of content and some of the simple modifications that made game play 100x easier, I would gladly go back to '04 and scout through uncharted paths in the jungles.

As far as end game being voluntary versus mandatory, there were some shells even on my server that took it to a psychotic extreme and as a result got burnt out or bored, and less than half of them still play. That's the beauty of having many different endgame options, though. The hardcore people camp kings still everyday, the rest of the population does Dynamis every three days. It kind of evens out.

That would be great, combining servers would rock.
It would help out for some of the dead servers to.
But SE is so worried about RMTS, "something" with RMTs would "happen"
Its so lame,

Merge Fairy and Pandy to test this solution! ;P

Yup i remember when the little things were a big deal, but i remember having group of friends do everything together, hell even strangers became friends and had a good time, it wasnt about getting what needed to get done it was about having fun chatting laughing doing stupid things together to pass time, gear wasnt such a big deal

I share this sentiment. I used to be one of those "Need the best gear omg!" type of people, but adapted my play style as the years went on. The social I'm in has a mixture of innocent beginners and retired end gamers and it's fantastic. We do so much together and have a great time and it's never dead. Simple tasks that us end gamers "meh" at due to their repetativity still fascinates them, and being the one to hold their hand like people did when it was new to me is an enriching feeling.

I suppose it's down to how much you let the drive for the best gear shape your style of play. There's still some people who only think about the next piece of 1337 equipment. There's nothing wrong with that because, after all, this game is what it is to people and it's not our decision to make for them.

I don't think it could have been put better, Wooooo.
But a server merge would rock.

I predict server merging by next year.

I've said before that what I miss most about this game is the sense of adventure..it just doesn't exist anymore. I suppose it's to be expected to a degree after so long, but a lot of end-game players seem to go out of their way to suck out what little fun remains.

I just can't understand those people. This is supposed a game, something to do for fun after work/school to relax, yet most of them are so anal about *everything*, that's it's like another job. A job you don't get get paid for.

I've long since given up endgame stuff, nowadays I only log on for a few hours a week, and that time is just spent helping new players, cause it reminds me of what it was like to have fun playing FFXI.

FFXI has gotten boring to the point that it seems more like a chore to play than a pleasure. I grind my teeth every time I pick up my controller to play, since most I do is solo and campaign.

At least I have BioShock and DeadSpace to fall back on.