The Best or Worst Game Ever Made?Follow

It's November 1st 2014 and I’m playing FFXI. If someone told me in 2004 that I would be playing the same video game in 2014, I would've said they were outside their head. I love this game. Forgive me for saying this, as I know it is a point of controversy, but I love it for what it was in the beginning. Granted I like it now, but I love it for what it was.

I started this game in August of 2004 and was mesmerized. I was a green first year law student and my friends and I decided to each buy a PS2 hard drive in order to play SOCOM – a good outlet to blow off some steam. Little did I know that that hard drive came preloaded with FFXI and that it would completely alter my perspective on gaming. I’m not the subject of one of those sad MMO stories where the game completely consumed my life, but gaming has always been a way a way for me to escape stress as I’m sure it is for many.

When I first logged in to Sandy with three friends it was as if a door to an alternate reality had opened. What first impressed me was the openness and expanse of the world. It seemed huge. Unlike anything I had ever played before. I could see the other zones on the regional info tab, but it took forever to even run across Ronfaure. How would I ever get to these other places?

Slow but sure, the group all worked our way towards 75 – and I do mean slow. It took me a little over a year to bring my first character to max level. I enjoyed every minute of it. The next move was to a great LS that did everything from Sky, Sea, Dynamis, HNMs, etc. (whatup Wasp/Redwings LS on Shiva).

I didn't mean to post my FFXI life story. Nostalgia comes with the scotch I suppose. For those that haven’t moved onto the next post, the point of the post was that there has never been another game since XI that has held me. What is it? The grind to max level? The rarity of important drops? The exploration? The community? The improv and cohesion of a group when everything goes wrong? The immersion…

That’s it, I think. I believe it’s a combination of all those things that lead to complete immersion. I feel bad for people that don’t experience that. It’s as if for a short time you completely take your mind off everything in your life and sink into this game. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not replacement for RL, but it has been a crutch of mine for those times when problems and stresses of everyday life seem insurmountable.

What I can’t understand is why no game manufacturer can seem to replicate this feeling for an extended amount of time. I've played plenty of games – looking at you Far Cry, Borderlands, Metal Gear, The Witcher, Mass Effect, – that have come close, but it’s all over in a flash. FFXIV held me for half a year, but it doesn't get the job done. All this is personal opinion, I know. There are a lot of people that enjoy FFXIV and I'm genuinely glad that they've found something, but it is a vastly different game than FFXI, and I think anyone would agree.

To me FFXI was something special. This is not a post about why XI is better than all other games, it is about a personal opinion that I know is shared by others. There is a gaming market for us, but what I don’t understand is why these games aren't made anymore.

I’m believe that FFXI has ruined my perspective gaming.


-Mad

FFXI was my first MMORPG as well, but unlike the OP, I never really found much fun in NM Camping, or hours of grinding the same 5 mobs over and over again, nor did I enjoy some of the ridiculousness in trying to procure items for my character.

I did, however, like the nice open world and some of the few music tracks this game has (I hate silence/wind ambience sooooo much). I liked the world, I enjoyed getting Fishing up to 60, sometimes I'd even enjoy a nice fast-paced XP group if I could find one (though most put me to sleep nearly).

I enjoyed crafting when the materials were sensible to obtain and when skillups were decent (0.1 every 2-3 synths, not the "I just made 15 and finally got a 0.1 BS you see sometimes).

But eventually, the inability to get anywhere (hours of LFG with no group to show for it, crafting materials being too difficult to get as my crafts were getting into the 60+ range) led me to quit the game almost a year before Abyssea came out. I came back briefly during early Abyssea, but still couldn't really get anywhere; it took hours to get any meaningful XP and now everybody leveled in Abyssea.

So I quit again and re-subbed this past March when I read about the Trust NPCs and the various other changes (Records of Eminence and such).

Since March, I've been enjoying the game for the most part, though there are still things that make me grumble (trying to get past Platinum Rings for example... UGH.).

I love being able to go to town on anything Pre-Adoulin, I like being able to actually make progress (just 3 days ago my Bard was 26. It is now 89.5!), though I imagine there will be a day where I will get to the point where I need a group to progress any further and I probably won't have the kind of gear they want. If that ever happens, well. Maybe I'll hang up the gloves again for awhile or something, I dunno. We'll see if/when that happens.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2014 9:59am by Lyrailis

MMOs aren't really getting easier. It's more the usual players becoming more experienced and used to what's been presented of the genre. To up and declare XI a harder game justifies some clarification, but I'm going to bet the common denominator involves some degree of time sink. Time spent looking for a party. Time spent waiting for your turn for an item in an LS. Time spent waiting for a mob to pop that you may or may not claim, let along get a drop. Put bluntly, XI had a tendency to be difficult for all the wrong reasons, of which actual player skill was rarely the prevailing factor. And mechanically, I'd only say it's hard in the same way that the NES Castlevania is, controls being clunky with our motions relatively stiff.

Whether or not a competing game is quality, F2P or no, is pretty much subjective. I encounter a-hole kids in P2P games just as much as the F2P. Regardless of model, the hardcores think they're the center of the universe even though it's the casuals they berate paying for the content they enjoy, yet seek to keep others from. One way or the other, anyone who has played multiple MMOs could probably pick something they liked in one, hoping it may show up in another. That's kind of how the business has been evolving, though, frankensteining ideas from competition and being quick to drop ideas that don't work too well, sometimes an entire game itself. Expecting the good ol' days just isn't going to happen. We know better. Wildstar pretty much proved that pandering to nostalgia MMOers will flop. On the other end, I don't believe we're going to see much evolution until HOW we interact with our games changes. I'm not a fan of WASD+Mouse even if it is the standard.