Before buying this game, i want to know.....

[Meis]

Honestly the grinding is crazy, right?

Can i hit 75 in 1 year? lol might as well wait for ff14

Don't think i will have 8 hours per day for gaming...

I do plan to have a mage then dragoon tho, can drg solo? yes at some degree i guess?
Not saying i would like to go for solo but getting a party won't be easy in this game? correct me if im wrong.
How frequent will i get into a party anyway?

How friendly is the players? the jp prolly will ignore me since i can't speak jp.

How populated is the server? i hate having that "ghost town" feeling

RMT, is it really badly effecting this game?

Sorry for all the questions and doubts but i simply need to know...

[cidbahamut]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

honestly the grinding is crazy, right?

A little, depends on what route you take but yeah there's grind involved.

can i hit 75 in 1 year? lol might as well wait for ff14

I didn't but plenty of other people have.

don't think i will have 8 hours per day for gaming...

Most people don't.

i do plan to have a mage then dragoon tho, can drg solo? yes at some degree i guess?

Everyone can solo to some degree, although Dragoon a bit better than others, so yes.

not saying i would like to go for solo but getting a party won't be easy in this game? correct me if im wrong

It's easy to get one, but if you're doing pickup groups you'll likely be waiting a while for an invite.

how friendly is the players? the jp prolly will ignore me since i can't speak jp

JP will ignore you. NA community is ok, but like everything else people are evaluated on a case by case basis. Some will ignore you, others will be friendly. Haven't found any openly hostile folk yet.

how populated is the server? i hate having that "ghost town" feeling

Which server?

rmt, is it really badly effecting this game?

Not like it used to. I can't tell it's there.

[Murphie]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

This OP reads like a conversation with oneself. It's kind of hard to track down the actual questions being asked. Or at least determine how serious they are.

It's an MMO. It has grinding. Is it crazy? That's subjective. Having played the game for a long time, I no longer notice, and the changes they have made have made it a heck of a lot simpler.

You can reach 75 in a year (except by the time you get there 75 isn't the cap anymore). Hell, people can reach it in a lot less than that with help. As a completely new player who doesn't play much and doesn't know the game very well? Still possible. But if you think you may as well wait for FFXIV, then do so.

Not a lot of people have 8 hours a day for playing. If you don't, there's nothing wrong with that.

What kind of mage? How far do you intend on taking it? Dragoon can solo very well with the right subs, and a mage sub would be great for that. But for true success in FFXI a wide variety of subjobs is essential.

Parties are easier to get in if you know people, but it's hardly impossible. People are always leveling. They are sometimes leveling solo or in small groups these days, but they ARE leveling. It's not as bad as you seem to think it is.

Japanese players will likely have little to do with you because you won't be playing when they are, and there is a language barrier. But you will encounter them from time to time. You'll also encounter players from all over Europe and just about anywhere else you can think of that has an internet connection. MMOs are social games. Make friends, and you'll go far.

Servers were consolidated recently. I don't know how populated they are currently, but other posters could tell you that. The lower level areas are going to seem a little like a ghost town, but that doesn't mean people aren't out there. Plus, there aren't global chat channels like in many other games, so the world can seem fairly quiet, which throws some people off.

RMT are in every game. But in FFXI it's really not so bad. It used to be, but they cracked down hardcore.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

Honestly the grinding is crazy, right?

Guess you mean leveling up. It can be tedious, but it can also be fun; a smoothly working exp party of six is an pleasure I've never gotten from any offline gaming.

Can i hit 75 in 1 year? lol might as well wait for ff14
[...]
I do plan to have a mage then dragoon tho, can drg solo? yes at some degree i guess?
Not saying i would like to go for solo but getting a party won't be easy in this game? correct me if im wrong.
How frequent will i get into a party anyway?

It really varies from player to player and job to job, and what sort of friends you make.

I've recently seen a player zoomed from Lv.1 to Lv.50+ (along with a bunch of other jobs to the Lv.30's) in less than two months, but I personally took over an year and half to hit Lv.75 on one job. Three months to hit Lv.75 would be unusual, but not out of reach for a smart and motivated new player on a job like White Mage or Red Mage.

It helps a lot if the player is good at making friends; invites can be slow at times for partying, and having a bunch of friends to form parties with (or even duo'ing/trio'ing with) is a great asset.

Of course, the cap is 80 now, so perhaps four months to hit cap is a better goal. (Though, in four months, maybe the cap would be 85. lol.)

Dragoon can solo at lower levels using Field of Valor's support, and interestingly enough can solo pretty well Lv.60+ as DRG/WHM.

How friendly is the players? the jp prolly will ignore me since i can't speak jp.

How populated is the server? i hate having that "ghost town" feeling

There are friendly people and there are jerks pretty much everywhere. Befriending nice people is an essential skill in this game. lol.

It varies from server to server on how friendly the JP crowd is to NA players, I think. ("Avoid the NA like the plague" is how they roll on Ifrit.) Learning to use the auto-translator properly can help; its functions are very limited, but can communicate a great deal if you're sensitive to language differences.

Some examples of common mistakes NAs make with auto-translators:

• â—€Meatâ–¶ â—€Shieldâ–¶: Just... Don't.
• â—€mainâ–¶ â—€Healing!â–¶: â—€mainâ–¶ is "main-weapon", â—€Healing!â–¶ means "I'm resting (usually for MP)". The combination makes no sense.
• â—€subâ–¶ â—€Jobâ–¶: â—€subâ–¶ is "sub-weapon"; use â—€Support Jobâ–¶ instead.
• â—€Take care.â–¶: It actually means "Be careful of danger (around)" and cannot be used as a proper farewell. Can use it if able to remember the correct meaning, but it's infrequently needed.
• â—€secondâ–¶ â—€Provokeâ–¶: â—€secondâ–¶ is a unit of time, and cannot be used as "the second item/person", etc.
• â—€Mayâ–¶ â—€Beeâ–¶: It may look clever to some, but "5th month stinging insect" is incomprehensible on non-English clients. If unsure about something, use â—€I don't know.â–¶ instead
• â—€Fishâ–¶: This is a noun, as in the collective of salmon, tuna, etc., and not a verb. If need someone to pull, use â—€Fishingâ–¶ â—€Pleaseâ–¶.
• â—€Rewardâ–¶: This is a job ability, and in Japanese means feeding an animal; it is not an offer for compensation for goods or services when interacting with human beings. For that, use â—€Reward:â–¶

Japanese players make their own mistakes; in particular, ◀rear▶ does not refer to one's posterior, but is a slang for Dynamis. (The Japanese word can mean 'interior' or 'hidden'.) Don't get offended by the talks about ◀rear▶◀money▶; that's just JPs trying to include you in a conversation about Dynamis currency.

Another common one is â—€hourâ–¶, which can used as a unit of time, or can mean time itself. However, a JP player saying "â—€hourâ–¶?" likely isn't asking what time it is, but rather if your time (to party) is close to an end; an affirmative answer to that question would mean "Yes, time's up" to the JP player.

RMT, is it really badly effecting this game?

They do have detrimental effects, but for now they are mostly contained.

That said, if you play FFXI, make sure you purchase a security token from SE as well.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

That said, if you play FFXI, make sure you purchase a security token from SE as well.

I thought those were out of stock at the moment.

[MrMageo]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

JP will ignore you. NA community is ok, but like everything else people are evaluated on a case by case basis. Some will ignore you, others will be friendly. Haven't found any openly hostile folk yet.

This is highly misleading. TBH it depends on your playtime. I have had such various work shifts that my playtime has fallen in JP prime, NA prime an EU prime. The biggest communicative skill is knowing things about your job, how to do them and when to apply them. I have never noticed outright biased issues in any crowd outside NA.

For example JP's tend to invite a solid group, usually a tank, or some semblance of one, a healer, some DD and a buffer/support healer. NA seem to prioritize speed rather than efficiency and chalk bad speed up to a "gimp", EU run in a bit of both.

IMO keeping an open mind is crucial, don't assume 1 set of people will neglect you or you will find you will be neglected. Just because you can't have an open conversation with people does not mean they are ignoring you or you them. To be frank, conversation does not happen much outside of social linkshells (guilds) anyway.

Just because you read that so and so hasn't got a PT invite from JP or EU does not mean they don't invite, it just means they don't need you. To be brutally honest NA players have the most visible stigmas, and often times if you do not have SAM,WAR,DRG,BRD,COR,RDM,WHM (or DRK exceptional gear) you will be even more hard pressed to find a party during NA prime time than you would with JP's who make parties work with what they have (I have been in groups as RDM with 2 PUP, a BST, a SMN, and a BLU and still pulled 15K HR which is on the lower end of the "elite" NA spectrum).

Basically it depends what you after like I said NA= Speed, JP = efficiency and EU = hybrid. Depending on your location and playtime hours (as in timezone not quantity) language rarely plays a role in the deciding factor.

[Losrase]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

Japanese players make their own mistakes; in particular, ◀rear▶ does not refer to one's posterior, but is a slang for Dynamis. (The Japanese word can mean 'interior' or 'hidden'.) Don't get offended by the talks about ◀rear▶◀money▶; that's just JPs trying to include you in a conversation about Dynamis currency.

So that is what ◀rear▶◀money▶ means. I thought it mean "money for mercenary work" let me explain why...

I was bored and decided to head to Sandy. There was a JP Dynamis LS was going in "low man". From my understanding, it seemed that they didnt have enough "magic firepower" to complete the event. They were waiting for someone to arrive but that person didnt log on yet. There was another Dynamis group trying to take over. I offered to help and they didnt have to feed an animal. (75 ◀Black Mage▶◀Do you need it?▶ ◀Reward▶◀No thanks!▶ )

They agreed and I help them until their friend arrived. When their friend arrived, I was told ◀rear▶◀money▶ ◀Do you need it?▶. At first I thought it meant "prostitution money" but of course I said ◀Yes please.▶.In FFXI money is money

Thinking about it a little while later, I remembered the translation system is very limited and they probably where trying to say "money for mercenary work"

[Prons]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

I got 75 in around 7 months as bard, even though I was originally going for White Mage. Along the way I leveled up some other jobs, so yeah you could do it.

[Kurokaze]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

As someone who's just hit their own one-year mark in the game, I can tell you you can definitely make 75 (or 80, or...whatever the cap might be at a given time) in a year. I started as BLM and hit 75 at about the 8-month mark. Hit 75 for DRG at about 10-months. Seriously, are you me? XD If not, I like your taste in jobs. Both are now 80, with another two jobs (WHM and SAM, subs for BLM and DRG) both at 49.

I wasn't a leveling-monster, wasn't all that concerned about getting a certain amount of exp per day or whatever so you don't really need to worry about that. In fact, I spent a lot of time screwing around doing completely useless stuff. From my experience, getting a party is fairly easy, providing you've got your party flag up and you're not gimp in some way. Depending on what jobs you choose, there may be some level ranges where for some reason, you just will not get party invites. Obviously, when that happens, soloing is your only option. Personally, I don't think I ever had to solo on DRG after level 12 or so, and only had a point on BLM I had to solo around 50-55. If you decide to go something like WHM or RDM, I can't see you having much trouble getting a party at any level, since parties will always need healers.

The players are like people anywhere else in the world: most of them are easy to get along with, some of them not so much. How populated the server is depends on which one you choose and what time you're logged on. There are peak times on servers depending on players' time zones (like, if you played at 4am in a major timezone, there's probably not going to be as many people online as if you played at a different time) but there tend to always be a decent amount of people online.

RMTs...the scourge of Vana'diel. Yeah, they're around. There's a chat filter you can turn on that will attempt to block them but some will still get through. Those, however, you can happily point out to a GM using the Help Desk.

If you do decide to join the masses, I say /welcome. And also: FFXIclopedia is GOD.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

And also: FFXIclopedia is GOD.

Not necessarily. A more appropriate analogy would be to say that FFXIclopedia is the bible. Sure, it's good and whatnot, but one must remember that it was still nevertheless written by other mortals such as yourself.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Before buying this game, i want to know.....

But please please please, if you are going to ask a question here, first go to FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more first and try and find the answer.