Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

[soneill1986]

I'm thinking about returning to the world of Final Fantasy XI but I'm just not quite sure. I have a bunch of real life friends on World of Warcraft and it's fun and all but I just think that FFXI might be an overall better game.
There were a few big things that made me quit in the first place -- time and racism. The time thing I am sure I am able to maintain but my huge problem was the racism in the game. I was always open minded about the game and let people into my parties no matter what language or ethnicity they were if they chose to give the information. It always infuriated me to my fullest extent when I saw people with "JP Only" and "JP Onry" (I'm not sure if they actually use this but I'm almost positive I saw a few -- trying not to offend anyone here) in their search comment. Like I wasn't good enough just because I'm American. I realize that some Americans say "NA Only" but I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind! Has this dissipated within the past few months that I have been away? If not I'm almost positive I will not return. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[Crode]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

i personally have had no prob. with this issue. I have had the game for close to 3 months now. I'm on Fairy server so I'm not sure how bad it was on your server.

[aegina]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

wow... you must have met some baaad jp's or something...

there are a few jp players here and there who would rather play only with people who speak a language they understand, but it very, very rarely interferes with the game. there are more than enough na's and non-"JP ONRY" people playing ffxi that it's not really a problem.

one bad apple shouldnt spoil the whole barrel. ive pt's with both good and bad players from both na and jp, but in about 8 months of playing i have only met one racist jp player. only one. i simply left the pt and built a differnt one, and xp'd just fine without him.

[soneill1986]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

It was bad at points. The one incident that made me log out and deactivate my content ID was when I was trying to party in Qufim and I get a blind invite from somebody. I normally don't accept them but I was a dragoon and had been waiting a fair amount of time for a party. Anyway I get in, thank them for the invite, and am kicked a few seconds later with a tell saying something along the lines of JP only. I was infuriated!

[aegina]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

wow, that was rude...

whenever i accept a blind invite, i never expect anything good from the pt, and if anything bad happens, i just let it slide.

i have never been in a pt where i was blind invited, where the pt worked out well.

don't let one bad player ruin the whole game for you. i build my own pt's, and it works out well. its faster than lfg too.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

I make a point of not inviting w/out explicitly confirming interest by /tell, since the two times I did, one was ignored, and one was accepted, but the player immediately disbanded on seeing that they were the first I'd invited.

As far as multilingual parties, I have to say I've never once encountered English-fluent players who avoided players for being American. I have 3 semesters of University classes in Japanese, so I'm reasonably able to communicate a lot of basic things, with good grammar, but the language barrier still becomes problematic at times. In one Qufim party, there were 4 NA players and 2 JP players. Neither of the JP players spoke any English, and I was the only NA player who spoke any Japanese. We managed well enough, but there were times, particularly after a near TPK when a Banshee wandered into our camp in mid-battle, where it was frustrating to see the JP players and the NA players discussing the situation completely independently, with essentially no communication between the groups, and not really being able to follow the comments of the JP players very well at all. Not knowing how to effectively communicate my status or my plans to roughly half the other party members was stressful, and I was criticised by one of the NA players for not pulling fast enough when I paused to decipher a comment by a JP player I thought might have been immediately relevant. (Explaining later that I'd been trying to read said comments, they just laughed.) I have to say that I can fully understand and sympathize with a desire not to have to coordinate with people who don't speak your language fluently.

If I'm trying to build a party and someone seeking whom I'm thinking of inviting has their language flag set to "J", I'll generally follow my usual "<area> no pt ga aritai desu ka?" with "eigo de hanasu hito ga imasu. ii desu ka?" ("Do you want an <area> pt?" and "There are English-speakers. Is that okay?" respectively).

Really, I've seen more racism in the form of Galka suck/Elvaan suck/etc. than in terms of a player's ethnicity/nationality in my time on Midgardsormr.

I do have to admit though that I tend to give people w/ language set to "E" or "JE" some preference over those set "J" for precisely the communication difficulties outlined above. My preference order would tend to be "JE" first (this implies a level of communication flexibility and experience that tends to help regardless of dominant language), then "E" (I have some difficulty communicating when the dominant language in a group is Japanese, though if a majority of players already invited were better w/ Japanese, I'd probably switch this priority with "J"), then "J". Those with no flag setting (the majority) tend to have the same priority as "J". Note that the more fairly bilingual people you have, the less of a problem language barrier as a whole is, as people who aren't understanding something being said have more people who can help explain.

Of course, the biggest determinants are what role someone can fill and what level they are. The biggest rule in building pickup parties is often to go with whomever is available and can work, because being too picky can mean no pt or way too much downtime.

edit: about lfg vs making party... I do recommend making the pt when possible, but there are two points to keep in mind. One is that if you make the pt, you'll generally be expected to lead it. Giving control over to a more experienced player is an option if you end up with a more experienced player who is willing to take the lead, but in general you probably want to stick to lfg until you're familiar enough with pting in an area to lead. The second point is that most players rarely are willing to work with anything less than a full party even on a temporary basis. The time it takes to build a party is generally all downtime, and while those who have been lfg for hours probably won't mind a pt that takes 20 minutes to organize itself too horribly much, excessive downtime waiting for someone to become available is best avoided if possible. Make sure there are enough people in workable roles seeking in your level range first. In my experience, particularly in Qufim/Jeuno in the 20s, there often aren't. If too few are seeking, or no healers, or no tank-capable jobs, go lfg, and try searching for prospective members again in a while. Also probably isn't bad to make sure that others seeking in your level range know you're there; once, in Qufim, I was waiting around the end of the tunnel with about 4 other people in range, because there weren't enough people in the level range to make a full party. Eventually I got fed up, headed back to Jeuno, and got a Chocobo and headed to Windurst to solo WHM for a while. I'd made it to Tahrongi Canyon when I got a /tell from one of the others waiting there asking if I still needed a pt. Since I still had my home point set at the end of the tunnel in Qufim, I ended up heading to Buburimu and deathwarping back.

[DakAttack]

Re: Thinking about returning but I'm not quite sure

If I'm trying to build a party and someone seeking whom I'm thinking of inviting has their language flag set to "J", I'll generally follow my usual "<area> no pt ga aritai desu ka?" with "eigo de hanasu hito ga imasu. ii desu ka?" ("Do you want an <area> pt?" and "There are English-speakers. Is that okay?" respectively).

This is actually nice to know. I know a few ways to communicate, and I've been basically copying what the Japanese players say in certain situations, like よろしくです when the party forms and あり（がとう）　when the white mage teleports, but there's a lot I still don't understand. The AreaのＰＴがありたいですか　and えいごではなすがいます。　いいですか。 should help out a little bit as well. Got anymore? ^^