Newbie questions!

[Little Wolf]

Heh, I just decided to FINALLY buy the game and ordered it (can't get it in shops here )

Anywho. I got a few new player questions, (surprise!) Don't be scared by the amount, if you only feel like answering 1 question that's fine too :D

1. How is the community? I played WoW for a while but absolutely hated it because the people had no interest in each other what so ever, I found it very hard to make friends. Is it different per server? What servers would be considered 'kinder' and where are the assholes?

2. Are there many new players? I reckon I will need players of my own lvl to party/lvl with, are there certain servers where everyone is high-end and others that probably are new so with new players? It's no fun to start in a region where there's no one else, just because everyone has a much higher lvl already.

3. Do you have to pick specific skills? In the game I played longest (Ashen Empires), one character can lvl up every single skill in the game - although the success rate depends on your attributes (str/dex/int/con) so it would be very hard to lvl some. I loved that system very much. But in WoW, if you pick tailoring you will never be able to do blacksmithing. How does this work in FF XI?

4. Are there (unofficial) language based servers? Even though english isn't my first language, it always annoys the hell outta me when people speak non-english.

5. What is this 'world pass' thing?

6. Is it possible to have more then one character, and would there be any reason to have that? (one mage and one warrior, just because you like both, for example, or would it be impossible to invest enough time in that) And how long would it take to max a char on average? Does it differ per class (erm, job.)?

7. Is this one of those games where the fun only begins when you're past a certain lvl? I'm a very slow lvler so I can't be bothered to invest 2 months of powerlvling to only have fun after that.

8. (Wow, this questions just start popping up as I type them).(Darn, that distracted me and I forgot the question >.<)

9. (Oh yes I remember.) Are there server wide chat channels? Do you have to specifically join them? Or do you only speak to people near you?

10. And last but not least, any starting tips? =D


Well, I ordered it but don't have it yet, so sorry if some of these questions are automatically answered by starting up the game. Thanks in advance =D

[Murphie]

Re: Newbie questions!

Heh, I just decided to FINALLY buy the game and ordered it (can't get it in shops here )

Anywho. I got a few new player questions, (surprise!) Don't be scared by the amount, if you only feel like answering 1 question that's fine too :D

1. How is the community? I played WoW for a while but absolutely hated it because the people had no interest in each other what so ever, I found it very hard to make friends. Is it different per server? What servers would be considered 'kinder' and where are the assholes?

2. Are there many new players? I reckon I will need players of my own lvl to party/lvl with, are there certain servers where everyone is high-end and others that probably are new so with new players? It's no fun to start in a region where there's no one else, just because everyone has a much higher lvl already.

3. Do you have to pick specific skills? In the game I played longest (Ashen Empires), one character can lvl up every single skill in the game - although the success rate depends on your attributes (str/dex/int/con) so it would be very hard to lvl some. I loved that system very much. But in WoW, if you pick tailoring you will never be able to do blacksmithing. How does this work in FF XI?

4. Are there (unofficial) language based servers? Even though english isn't my first language, it always annoys the hell outta me when people speak non-english.

5. What is this 'world pass' thing?

6. Is it possible to have more then one character, and would there be any reason to have that? (one mage and one warrior, just because you like both, for example, or would it be impossible to invest enough time in that) And how long would it take to max a char on average? Does it differ per class (erm, job.)?

7. Is this one of those games where the fun only begins when you're past a certain lvl? I'm a very slow lvler so I can't be bothered to invest 2 months of powerlvling to only have fun after that.

8. (Wow, this questions just start popping up as I type them).(Darn, that distracted me and I forgot the question >.<)

9. (Oh yes I remember.) Are there server wide chat channels? Do you have to specifically join them? Or do you only speak to people near you?

10. And last but not least, any starting tips? =D


Well, I ordered it but don't have it yet, so sorry if some of these questions are automatically answered by starting up the game. Thanks in advance =D

1. The economy can seem a bit daunting to a new player, because the prices on many items seem very high. However, it's actually easier to start out now than it was back when the game first launched, because everything is high, and you can easily buy low level gear from NPCs and then sell it on the AH to people who don't know about or care to look for which NPCs sell what.

2. With the recent expansion and the Xbox 360 release, there are a fair number of new players starting all the time. Then again, there has always been a relatively steady stream of new players, from what I've noticed. Not on the same scale as games like WoW, but you won't have any trouble finding folks to group with.

3. You can take up any and all crafts to level. However, you can only take one skill to 100. After that you can only take the rest to 60 or something like that. A more experienced crafter will be able to answer more easily. By the way, a good way to circumvent that rule is to have an alt character that focuses on a craft that you would also like to take to 100.

4. All of the servers are mixed Japanese, English, European.

5. A world pass is something that you use to select a particular server. Otherwise, you just get placed randomly. If you know someone on a server you'd like to be on, you can ask them to purchase a world pass in game, and then you use that # that they give you to select their server.

6. Yes, you can have more than one character, although there is a $1 charge for each additional character you create. However, you really don't need multiple characters (except for storage reasons), becuase each character can play all of the jobs.

7. You'll get various answers to this. I think the fun starts immediately, but some feel that it really starts to pick up once you start grouping for exp. The mid levels 30-50ish can be a lot of fun, and some say the game doesn't even start until you reach 75. Really it's all subjective.

9. There are no channels like in WoW, but you do have LS (guild) chat, Party Chat, Say (immediate area) and Shout (zone wide). You can also send Tells between characters.

10. Just have fun! FFXI is my favorite of all the MMOs I've played (and there have been a few). It's really a great game. If you don't know anyone else who is playing, I'd be happy to set you up with a World Pass for Bahamut. We're a pretty good server over here.^^

[Jei]

Re: Newbie questions!

1. FFXI, there are many things that you need to rely on other players. The bad of the bad players will eventually die out. So I would say over all the community is much nicer in FFXI than WoW.
We do have our bad players here and there, nothing's perfect ^^

[Little Wolf]

Re: Newbie questions!

1. FFXI, there are many things that you need to rely on other players. The bad of the bad players will eventually die out. So I would say over all the community is much nicer in FFXI than WoW.
We do have our bad players here and there, nothing's perfect ^^

Yay. As the community is really the most important thing for me =).

And thanks a lot for the quick and good answers Aelathir!

(Grr, I can't wait till my game gets here, hehe)

[Murphie]

Re: Newbie questions!

No problem.^^ And Jei is right. I've played several MMOs (WoW among them) and the FFXI community is one of the nicest that I've ever encountered. There are definitely some jerks out there, but for the most part the people that you meet will be helpful and friendly.

[Little Wolf]

Re: Newbie questions!

Oooh silly forum question, what is the Gil in this forum?

[Murphie]

Re: Newbie questions!

The gil is something that you get by posting (although spamming to get more gil is frowned upon). You can use that gil to purchase various things like a colored name, or a custom title, etc. You can see all the options in the Store Menu available via the Store & RPG link above.

[Ellipses]

Re: Newbie questions!

About the craft skills: There's Fishing, which you can take to 100 independently without effecting your totals on the others. For all the other crafts, you get 40 skill levels to distribute among them all after 60. So you could take 1 to 100, or 2 to 80, or 4 to 70, etc. It generally makes the most economic sense to take 1 to 100, though.

The community is great. You will of course run across morons and immaturity and laziness, but for the most part, those traits tend to make it so you don't get very far. Especially at later levels, player reputation plays a big, big role. It's also generally easier to ignore the bad seeds, since it's not like they can (usually) PK you or anything like that. The game gets pretty tight-knit as you go along, and the player-base is, on average, a little older than other MMOs.

FFXI is as fun as you make it, IMO. There are lots of different things to do. Tired of leveling? Go craft. Tired of crafting? Do some quests. Tired of questing? Start a new job? Tired of that? Start fishing. The different activities are all very separate here; leveling is leveling, questing is questing, crafting is crafting, etc., and you really won't be getting much of one accomplished while you're doing another. That sort of makes some things more of a grind, but it also makes it easier to do something different when you get tired of what you're doing.

Quite a bit of the FFXI experience revolves around linkshells. They're like a very limited guild; the game doesn't give them a lot of features, so all the organization and structure is up to the players (a lot of that sort of thing happens on forums instead of in-game). You can have more than one, but you can only have one active at a time. A good linkshell will help you get things done that you'd normally have to shout for help for, do events just for the fun of it that you'd never convince a bunch of strangers to do, give you folks to chat with during the more boring tasks in the game, etc. Having a good linkshell versus having a bad one or none at all is a night-and-day difference.

[Little Wolf]

Re: Newbie questions!

Thanks again for the quick and good replies! Still only getting positive news :D

[Icemage]

Re: Newbie questions!

A quick note about servers and English speaking vs. the auto-translation function.

FFXI is unique among MMORPGs in that it provides an in-game translation tool which allows you to type phrases and words which appear in the correct language depending on whether you're using the English or Japanese client.

While all servers are a mix between English and Japanese speaking, with a scattering of various Europeans, the newer servers seem to have a higher English speaking population (Midgardsormr, Fairy, Asura, Hades, Remora). Midgardsormr in particular has a very strong English speaking presence (whether you consider this to be a good or bad thing is a matter of personal preference - Japanese players tend to be more polite than English speaking players, for instance).


Icemage

[Murphie]

Re: Newbie questions!

I've also noticed (and this may just be my own observation) that Midgardsormr seems to have a very high concentration of folks who frequent forums (such as this one). Their server forums are among the busiest at any FFXI community site.