Could Any Game Be As EPIC As Old FFXI..

Playing a game for 10+ years would be insane if it didnt have those Epic moments and tasks. After quiting for the last time when seekers came out, I find myself hard pressed to find any kinda game like the old FFXI.

Nothing I can find is like being in the dunes running from ghouls, because it got late and your tank died. Nothing is like claiming a NM that only pops every 24hrs or even once a week if your lucky.

Not only is there no competition in any other game I have found, the level of teamwork and skill is nowhere to be found. "Please note I'm talking pre-aby here." Although NNI had some Epic moment's, when everything worked out just right and the floor 100 boss was dead before the first brava wore off. Even finishing the boss off with 2 sec left and nobody could lot on the drops was pretty Epic.

Battle'ing Kirin and his teleport pad, waiting on the 8th window on a NM, seeing zero 100's drop during multiple dyna runs, beating maat the 3rd time on rdm, sneak attack-viper bite!, taking literally yrs to get W-legs, unlocking kings justice and realize'ing it sucked, useing kings justice on the old NI 100 boss and doing 5k damage before it was "cool".

Not one single game has the give and take of old FFXI, it was fun while it lasted. Please post your own Epic moments and maybe a game that could compare if you can think of one.

And who can forget CoP when it came out, it dont get much more Epic than that. My Rajas ring Never left my figure after that.

no

The game is still epic!

EQ1 is probably closest to what original FFXI is I guess. Although it also got easier than it used to be. I find a lot of old RPG tend to design the game in a way to put you in a "world", and newer RPG tend to dumb down everything to streamline the game play process, so the gameplay is more fun, and killed the immersion while doing so.

I just started skyrim like few days ago, the only ES I've played before Skyrim is Arena and Morrowind. I find skyrim feels less like a world compare with older games like Morrowind, the way they design everything just feel very intentional for the purpose of making the game more fun. The result is an incredibly fun game that will never replace Morrowind in my heart.

If you watch a movie in 1950~1970, then watch a movie came from last year, you'd notice the way they tell the story is very different too. Game design evolve overtime just like films. That's why you don't see games like FFXI anymore.

John is kill.

You just spent an entire post describing virtually every poor quality-of-life design in this game and praising them.

It's not "epic" to spend 4 hours trying to get a party in Valkurm Dunes only to die twice and de-level before getting underway, only to watch the tank decide that he's going to bed or for the healer to get sniped by a more competent group. It's not "epic" to wait upwards of an hour while players fight a pointless random number generator to get to Kirin. It's definitely not "epic" to be stuck farming the same damned NM for the better part of several years for a piece of gear. I'm almost amazed you didn't mention the "epic" feel of wasting half an hour or more of your life literally doing nothing but pissing time and/or gil away to get from town to an XP camp or NM location. Next you'll suggest these ridiculous timesinks were genuinely difficult.

I mean, I guess if you're a masochist... there are people who genuinely enjoy being kicked repeatedly in the joy department.

Don't get me wrong, I have some serious nostalgia goggles for the game as it used to be, but it's because I've selectively edited out of my memory the misery of spending over a month farming just to get a pair of gloves considered necessary to level up. I'll grant there was a sense of accomplishment in finally getting Byakko's Haidate after spending 15 months getting every third-job Bard and Ranger a pair first, but to praise that as good game design is just foolish. The pendulum may have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction (largely just in that content is getting finished too quickly -- all the quality-of-life and accessibility things are good), but let's not kid ourselves and pretend that it was actually fun to sit Dragon's Aery watching the same botters claim Fafnir every day for over a month.

I have no desire to return to the days of sitting on my *** for hours and hours waiting for a small chance to claim a monster that has an even smaller chance of actually dropping the item that I need, nor do I ever want to find another game that emulates the experience.

The days I spent in places like Giddeus, Castle Oztroja, and Zi'tah are ones that I regret ever wasting time on. I don't know why anyone would ever want to do it ever again or label it as an "epic experience".

Having battles of varying difficulty that reward you appropriately based on what challenge that you surmount is one of the better reward systems that I've seen in an MMO. Point systems like Delve and Skirmish are also quite nice, however the lack of difficulty in those events makes them weaker. Ideally, you'd want challenging content that appropriately rewards you for having overcome it rather than standing in one spot for several hours to maybe fight something with little hope of actually getting what you want.

Gotta admit some of the funniest crap was said between windows on HNMs.

I remember LS i was with claimed fafnir and our pld had to go for some RL emergency so he forced DC and left. then in that one split second another LS stole fafnir from us and it went unclaimed when pld DC and was not white for even a second name was red then whent to purple in instant.

I`ve had that happen in Abyssea fighting Orthrus, he did Acheron Flame and killed 1 of the DD, we still had 2 other DD on it. Never went white but a JP group some how stole it from us.

I don't think there is another game out there that can compare. I have had and still am having a lot of fun on FFXI. I have tried a couple times to find a different game (Ex: When the servers in Japan were down because of the Tsunami). But it was all to non avail. There was just nothing that appealed to me the way FFXI does.

As years goes by, we remember only the positive moment IG. I /nod all the post before, the game is epic with hindsight, but we have all wasted time for dumb action . . .

Have some epic moment principaly cap 75 :

- Bahamut V2 Win with Dia after RDM Stun Chainspell was off and everyone was killed.
- ToAU Mission 44 - Dia Kill before less than 10 sec for time out.
- Kirin Zerg ( no KC just standart 75 DD )
- JoL Who don't drop anything than a Love Weapon -.-"
- Nyzul Boss 80 Killed but time out before lotting the askar bdy
- CFH on Vrtra when he was on @50%
- Waiting 3 weeks for an invite xp PT on PLD around lvl 60 when NIN was better for tank job.
- The Dumb dune PT ...
- 3 Days of camping with no sleep for Chary and Joytoy.
- In general the pleasure when you got an item after month~years of invest event.
- The beginning of Sea run with ls member who don't know anything and agroed every metre.
- The 1st 75 Job ...

Etc ...

We can't compare FFXI than other game, is just FFXI and we like/enjoy it for that :)

Maybe they cured you?
When under competition /blockaid on.

They didn't do anything to us, up until it used Acheron Flame it was attacking us, soon as he used it we lost claim.

FFXI holds all those memories for us because for most of us it was the first MMO to truly capture us. And its bitter sweet since now we are going to compare every MMO to it. It's like how the first RPG I completed from start to finish was Chrono Trigger and only a few games from then on have matched or came some what close to that RPG experience.

FFXI's main epicness came from it's story and the people you had those experiences with. For me my fondest memories in FFXI was the time I wasted with my LS like spending 7 hours goofing off on vent while goldfish scooping. Doing a full lvl 1 alliance and fighting Burnie. Training all of the aqueducts and trying to hit the ladder that was ALWAYS "to far to climb up" before dying lol.

Really the game holds a special place in all our hearts because we all have invested so many years into it. I mean honestly I have been retired from FFXI for almost 4 years now but I still check these forums daily.

Just graduated high school, last summer before college. I spent 3 months at my grandma's house in CA.

Played this game for 15 hours a day average (up to 18-20 regularly) and wouldn't even go to the dinner table. Would check the microwave at 2am. 3 months in CA and I left my grandma's house literally 6 times the entire summer. (One of which was because I had to get a new controller when mine broke). I went a month and a half without putting on a pair of shoes and put on 35-40 lbs in 3 months.

Best summer of my life and if I could go back and relive it, I sure as *** would

ET for the Atari was just as epic as FFXI @75 cap...

Everquest

Lineage 2

Never played Lineage 2.

And yeah, even though it got boring for me, World of Warcraft was, in my opinion, the best gameplay I've experienced in an MMO. There were fights in that game that were actually challenging. When you did fight, you had to be using abilities/spells every 1-2 seconds instead of every few minutes. In FFXI, a 30 minute boss fight isn't that bad. It's kinda normal for BCNMs anyway. In WoW, a 10+ minute boss fight could be absolutely exhausting.

And, when you won a fight, even if the boss didn't drop the item you wanted, he at least dropped items that somebody in your guild wanted. There were no fights where only one person in the entire raid could benefit from it. (Hate spawning/claiming something in FFXI just to have it drop nothing).

Also, the thing I liked about WoW the most that I absolutely despise about FFXI - money didn't get you the best gear in the game. You actually had to get out there and be in a good guild that could raid the toughest bosses in the game to get the best items.
Relics/Empyreans... you want one but don't have the time? No problem, pull out the American Express. Jaded against RMT? No problem, download a fishing bot. You really don't have to do much fighting at all if you don't want to.


Everquest had a lot of bosses in that game that had 72 hour respawns and 7-day respawns. But at least it wasn't full retard mode where the spawn window was like 12 hours or something stupid. It was usually within 1-3 hours I think. I had some epic claim fights, because in Everquest, instead of winning the claim by being the first person to tag it, the pullers would fight over who could gain the most aggro on it to bring it back to their raid group. Usually that was the first person to tag it, but not always!


The best thing FFXI has going for it in my view, is their diversity in what you can do. Playing/gearing multiple different jobs all on one character is something I found very unique about FFXI, and it always gives you something to do. In other MMO's that I've played, you can get to the point where there isn't anything you can do to improve your character except maybe some random obscure gadget or something. In FFXI, there isn't a single person in the game who can say they don't have something they could do to improve their character. There are just too many jobs and too many time sinks for each job for it to even be possible. Also, something else I really like about FFXI is that there are a lot of things that I can do on my own. I don't have to wait for raid time to do something to better my character.

It was fun when you were on the botting side of things ^~^

Like seriously, was nice to do other ***while people made futile efforts without bots, I can imagine though the pure wasted hours upon hours left scars upon certain peoples very soul.


When I was xping y first ever job in qufim, a RDM passed our party. The armor he was clad in...simply perfection, I vowed I'd make my RDM like his.

It took a very long time ofcourse, getting into a capable LS wasn't easy. When I finally did, think it took another 4-5 months to get a single piece of what that RDM owned. It was Dalmatica, and it felt *** awesome to finally get.

The set I saw the RDM in was: Dchap/Dalmatica/Nash Seraweels.
-Perfection.

Staying awake for 13 hours straight camping Kreutzet. When he finally popped my rdm buddy was afk and I had to grab him solo thf/nin. I was just about dead when my buddy finally came back and we were able to kill him. 1/1 drop thf+rdm duo, epic fight.

The feeling when I first landed in Al'Taieu after beating Tenzen and being just blown away by sea. I have lots of "oooo" and "aaaah" moments over the scenery in this game, I just love it. The lake in lufaise, the waterfall in north gustaburg, the sinistry of Castle Zvahl Bailey.

Oh ya, one more... 18 people running thru Riverne Site B01 without sneak/invis to get to Bahamut v2

When the most "fun" part of your endgame is having time between spawn windows to watch TV, that's not epic. That's just sad.

A couple people hit the nail on the head.

I love my memories of old FFXI because back then I never played an MMO so everything was a new experience. I had nothing to compare it to, so it was wonderful. I don't regret the time sinks and low drop rate, it just made accomplishments more meaningful. I just thought that's how MMOs work.

No MMO will ever compare to FFXI just because of how much impact it had. I lost myself in the game and played way too much. If I picked up another MMO rather than FFXI I'm sure I'd be saying the same exact things about it.

I feel the same about a lot of games from when I was younger. It's not that SNES games are better or worse than new games, It's I have sentimental attachments to older consoles so I tend to enjoy the games on them more. A lot of stuff was just more new and exciting.

Nowadays I hardly play any video games. I still play FFXI, but my console systems just gather dust. Even when PS4 and Xbox One were announced I was just like meh.

IDK what it is, I just think naturally as you get older a lot of things lose their glitter. You become so accustomed to stuff that very little things throw you a curve ball to make it memorable.

I'm sure younger people today playing any mmo for the first time are going to have the same exact memories about how I felt back when I started XI.

As long as things are effortlessly given to you nothing will match old XI.

Ohh the memories. Some people will hold on to the bad until they die. But they forget 1 thing. You were still coming back to play so get over it lol.

I remember the trains. You were in a good party in one of the Y jungles and then you see 3 players run past you and you knew what was about to happen, The gobs were coming lol. Then you spent the next 30 mins or longer waiting for the gobs to slowly walk back just to have someone, usually 1 person train them all over again lol. Yes it drove you crazy and the names we would call the person who started it all over again but now I can laugh so hard about it.

Getting Ohat. Traveling to the pop location. Ohh the deaths. Sometimes the party would disband because it took so long to get there. Cheap people depending on mages to snk and invis instead of buying the meds lol. I finally said F it, made my own run, got the map to the zone learned the path to the pop, purchased meds for everyone and sold it to them and got everyone in my group an ohat that needed it. I changed some minds about drg when a friend was doing a run it was said to be crazy to have 1 blm for stun and I was the main stun for 6 fights and it only got off 3 agas.

Drg was my first love. Ohh the crap I had to go through. Almost quit because I could not get any parties at lvl 57 until I started loggin on early and the JP's didn't care unlike some of you loldrg ***. You know who you are lol. Started making my own parties and from there started making up everything. Made me a leader. Preventing wipes with drg/whm because nobody really knew back then how powerful that combo was. Gettin tells from random people asking about drg/mage because they wanted to lvl the job.

All 75 cap moments. Fav fights and funny moments. Cop airship battle. Tanking Kirin, Omega as nin. Using nin/drk for Ouryu Cometh stacking up on earth resistance. LMAO after learning that some shells broke over sky god drops like Byakko's Haidate. I got mine after me and a fellow LS mate argued over the other getting it first because it wasn't a big deal. He had more points but I lost because I used nin more lol. Buying black belt items because my shell didn't camp the NM's because we didn't cheat with hacks and it was a waste of time and getting to work an hr late because I was getting that dam egg lol.

So many great memories but not enough time to tell it all. Probably wasted my time writing all this because nobody will read it all. But once you get started it all starts to come back lol

Edit Can't forget the noob days. Wondering why the hell I couldn't lvl up only to be told about the Limit break quest lmao. Standing outside sandy with some freinds then heard this rumbling noise, then see this big orange ***come in slowly from the back of my screen and took off into sandy and after I loaded in I see a bunch of lol's and lmao. I was like what the hell was that, and they said it was a avatar named Titan lolol

I remember seeing BLU for the first time in the dunes I'll never forget it. I was lvling MNK because it was for WAR sub and a Galkan BLU joined the party. I had no idea what BLU was nor how it worked all I knew was seeing the casting animation and I was like OMG I NEED TO LEVEL THAT NOW! So I bought ToAU that same day and and some how made it to Aht Urgan and bought a million sneak oils and powders and did the quest and omg did I love it. Never looked back. Took it to 75 solo/duo and holy crap did I learn so much about the game. Not just about monsters but where they are. How mobs attack/link/aggro. How certain areas had little "Easter eggs" in them like the eyes in the pools of kuftal, wamouracampas evolving, etc. Then learning about merits and spending a lifetime in the Mire destroying Imps till fully capped everything since it was first 75. Man just reminiscing about BLU almost makes me want to come back. But alas I was hacked and lost my account. Starting over from lvl 1 now I'm sure is waaaaaaay easier but it's things like getting geared up for endgame again is going to be a real pain.

There was never a fight in FFXI that made me jump off my chair exulting. Maybe those who had the chance to beat AV at 75 felt that, but I did that only years later and nothing else in the game really gives that kind of feeling. Surely didn't feel it with Delve even when we struggled, maybe a lil bit with Legion when things finally started working, but it was not really an unforgettable experience.

What was unforgettable instead were the most simple things but done with friends. I'll never forget doing missions with my rl group of friends, taking hours of preparation and strategy meetings for Shadow Lol only to find out it was a derpy fight, dying repeatedly while navigating dungeons without maps, but doing it together and laughing cause we didn't care.
Even when I was still alone when I started and went on an exploring adventure around the world as lv 14 blm without sneak/inv, I was amazed at everything I saw, I took hundreds of screenshots.

Then missions are over, there's nothing new to explore anymore and what you're left with is the usual mmo grind to pursue higher tier gear. I've done that too, but there is no comparison, it's not getting the good drop that makes the game epic.

@Camiie

If your post was directed at me, not sure what you're talking about chief. I never said it was epic, or even fun to have time to do other things while the bot did it's thing. I said it was nice, 'coz it was, I could go play some offline game while a bot is running, and THEN come back to some fun HNM fight that was very likely to be ours.

Not saying my LS was badass or anything, they sucked pretty bad in many ways, but they were able to get claims through means I don't really care enough to feel anything about. What mattered is with them, I was able to enjoy the extremely fun battles that were HNM, be it the absolute rage from the opposing parties, the battle itself, or hey even abit of both.

Anyone who was in the position I had just described can attest to how fun it truly was, while those who got decimated trying, as per usual, will thank the gods it's over.

There were indeed some very epic memories of FFXI. What stands out the absolute most to me was Cerberus Ballista Royale. It was like the most heated rivals across the server - nobody liked each other and we were all out for blood! Cerberus and Lakshmi Ballista battles for years totally kept me hooked. I remember staying up past midnight, the next day, sunrise, etc. Would come in late for school Just because I didn't want to miss JP primetime Balli 60. My heart still wrenches at those moments.

Outside of PVP, other memorable moments were doing Divine Might 18 man, we won 1/1 and I actually formed the group myself with pick up players, not really having any understanding of the fight and just going off of what people told me. The music and the strategy involved at 75 cap was soooo worth the time getting people.

I loved levelling BLU, learning spells everywhere all over. Assaults, when first released, were really fun. I enjoyed Nyzul Isle Vanilla. It was pure teamwork (and screaming anf shouting).

I remember being part of the first group on Cerberus to beat every Salvage boss. Was an epic run at its inception.

Kurrea groups in Lufaise Meadows, Chi Blast parties for Kirin, Popping Byakko without casting Utsusemi Ni - there were so many unforgettable moments of the game, some simply due to prior ignorance of game mechanics (who else remembers when Blitz Rings were 5k on AH?).

Nyzul Isle Greater Colibri Camp parties as SAM/war Polearm, and Hagun @ Mamool Ja Staging Point merit groups, and old school sky deco zergs. My ffxi dreams =)