What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

[Kailea]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Every MMO ever released, is pretty much still active, the only ones ever really shut down, are ones like RF (opening again soon) and SWG (also coming back in a since, but in a diffrent way) and a good amound of the free to play MMOs that have what.... 200 that all look the same? ;p


Ultima Online is a perfect example of this, it was released on September 25, 1997 and is still going pretty strong even today, thats 12 years!
Ever Quest was released on 16 March 1999 thats 10 years.....
FFXI has been out what.... 5~ (depending on what release you go by)

its not going anywhere.....

[EternalMalachi]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I think I'm going to jump on board w/ Rapture from the very begining. I was on with SWG from the begining and I loved the feeling of exploring places and doing things others had yet to see and do. Then they screwed it all up and I quit. -.-'

I'll still play FFXI because its just too much fun (most of the time). So I'll play the games side by side, because I want to be the best, there ever was..... o.O'

[Tickmeoff]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I think I'm going to jump on board w/ Rapture from the very begining. I was on with SWG from the begining and I loved the feeling of exploring places and doing things others had yet to see and do. Then they screwed it all up and I quit. -.-'

I'll still play FFXI because its just too much fun (most of the time). So I'll play the games side by side, because I want to be the best, there ever was..... o.O'

Kind of off topic, but what exactly happened to SWG? I never played it and all I've ever heard from anyone that has is they loved it until something or the other happened and completely ruined the game.

[nanatsu]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I think two of the major problems was that they completely replaced the combat system, removing a lot of features people liked and replacing it with something that was really bug laden. I believe they called it a combat upgrade or something.

They also made another update later called New Game Enhancements. They reduced the number of professions and simplified everything, giving the excuse of trying to make it more accessible. But a lot of people were disappointed and dissatisfied with it because it changed the way the game was played completely and many complained that they got rid of a lot of the game's depth. Someone else can probably elaborate more about it.

[amusinginquiry]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Even though that JP Button story didn't have very much meat to it, it sure was nice to hear something that was from SE, albeit indirectly, mentioning the MMO...

Almost started to feel like the whole Rapture thing wasn't very real

[Lmnop]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

List of massively multiplayer online role-playing games - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A quick scan shows 6 of these billion MMOs to be defunct. Hard to say how many have gone free or are now hosted on servers of people who said "running an RO server sounds like fun."

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Is there anything known about Rapture, aside from that its an MMORPG that the FFXI team is making?

Kinda odd to see people pledging to being on board at Day One when so little is known thus far.

Heck, even stuff like DCU Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic are a ways off. Dunno if I'd even quit FFXI for those, much less play one of them with FFXI. Maybe DCU as it seems less dependant on roles and can be played in a low-man and sometimes solo context.

[EternalMalachi]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Kind of off topic, but what exactly happened to SWG? I never played it and all I've ever heard from anyone that has is they loved it until something or the other happened and completely ruined the game.

They made a massive change to the combat system that made certain classes gods and other classes useless. Bounty Hunter took several jobs to master, but Pistoleer took only 1 job to master and could waste EVERYTHING. They introduced the Jedi class in a poor way. All through the begining they said that Jedi would be different unlock for everyone and that was it. Very tight lipped as to whether job related, or quest, or what have you. Then when they did introduce it, it was essentially a grinding game. Each person had 4 jobs they had to master, 3 of which they find out through rare rare rare drop of holocrons, the 4th being a random. So you essentially had to grind through different jobs to unlock it. Just stupid. I quit around that time.

[Firewind]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Doom and gloom, don't you love it? EQ and UO are still in existence after all this time. What makes you think XI is going anywhere anytime soon? I know that I'll be playing both when it's out.

Actually didn't EQII end up making the original EQ more popular and didn't replace the original?

[Kailea]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

Actually didn't EQII end up making the original EQ more popular and didn't replace the original?

yeah because EQ I players tried EQ II said it sucked, and went back to EQ I ;p

[Firewind]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

I've not played either EQ game so I honestly wouldn't know XD

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

EQ2 more or less took anything that had good gameplay or roleplay potential and tossed it in the trash?

Faction system? Be a Barbarian and actually be from Halas?

Pffft.

Being forced into being a Good Barbarian and being from Qeynos is your only choice. No making friends with Frogloks and Gnoles!

And Freeport - that neutral area where anyone could gather? Evil now, sorry to fuck with the story but we gotta.

[aegina]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

FFXI is still going strong, and back to like what the OP was asking...

Things I'd like to see carried over from FFXI into SE's next MMO:

-Job switching. This feature probably would be able to keep me here even if it was the only cool feature this game had. By doing everything on the same character, it keeps me attatched to my character, and it lets me feed my "Job ADD Syndrome" without having to repeat so many early quests. It's a large part of why this game is so darn addictive, and how the players get so close to each other. I wish more MMO's used this feature.

-The recent trend in "points." You know, think "Campaign" and "Assaults" as opposed to "Dynamis." Every time you complete a run, you get "points," which you can spend buying the gear you want once you have accumulated enough. Compare this to often completing Dynamis(etc) runs where it's very common to exit the run with absolutely nothing. An example would be to apply the same idea to, say, BCNM's: Win the BC, get points to spend "buying" items from a list rather than just getting random, useless drops.
(Not saying there's anything wrong with BC's as they are, just trying to get the basic idea across.) Every time you win, even if you get no items, you at least get SOMETHING (points), even if you it takes just as long or even longer to get the gear you want.
"The recent features to remove some randomness from the game."

-The recent trend encouraging solo/small group/casual content. I liked this. It would also (potentially) keep FFXI afloat longer if both games were marketed towards different audiences: FFXI towards the hardcore, Rapture towards the casual/middle crowd. Just an idea.

-Keep the challenge of the game. Just lose some of the forced timesinks, and allow casual players to participate more.

-The recent trend towards force-popped NM's (think ZNM's and Sozu Rogberry.) Even when the pop items take time to acquire, I still prefer that over waiting hours staring at a blank screen to watch someone's bot outclaim me.

-Merits. Nuff said. Merits are an awesome idea


Things to leave out:

-Randomness. Killing that NM 100 times and never getting the drop, then watching someone else walk in, stumble across it, and go 1/1 on it. Effort vs. reward, anyone?
I don't even mind having to kill that NM 100 times to get the item, so long as I know everyone else does, too. It's the randomness that makes it frustrating.

-Loading screens. We have the technology now, that they're no longer needed in future games.

-Exploding Crystals.

-In fact, let's expand on the crafting system. Make +1 items be a seperate recipie/made somehow differently from NQ items, so high level crafters won't just spam lower level synths to make them, pushing lower level crafters out of the market.
Not sure exactly what changes it would need, but FFXI's crafting system shouldn't be just copied into Rapture; it would need some changes first.

-Rare/Ex. You can mule Soulbound gear, capishe?

Just a few ideas. I'm sure I'll think of more.

Reading that article at JP button really cheered me up. FFXI isn't dying at all

[Tickmeoff]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

EQ2 more or less took anything that had good gameplay or roleplay potential and tossed it in the trash?

Faction system? Be a Barbarian and actually be from Halas?

Pffft.

Being forced into being a Good Barbarian and being from Qeynos is your only choice. No making friends with Frogloks and Gnoles!

And Freeport - that neutral area where anyone could gather? Evil now, sorry to fuck with the story but we gotta.

If you did the Paladin epic quests in EQI you find out that Freeport actually is evil on every side except the one with the Paladin guild.

Not that I ever played EQII or support it at all, but they didn't really change anything in that regard.

[Neomage]

Re: What Makes FFXI great; or, Rapture Hopes

My favorite things about FFXI:

1) The job, and more importantly, subjob system. Being able to select a subjob allowed players to customize their characters(somewhat), and opened up different strategies with different combos, rather then the cookie-cutter "X job does Y task" in most MMOs.

2) Skillchains! They have unfortunately all but died out in FFXI, but I really liked this team-oriented combat system. I hope they come back in full force in whatever MMO SE works on next, and maybe they can be a little more powerful so players are more inclined to use them.

3) Alternate abilities/equipment. Having different spells, weaponskills, equipment pieces, etc. that wasn't exactly better, but different, to use in different situations.

4) Merits. These were just brilliant. Being able to increase the abilities of your character without increasing the level cap(and consequently obsoleting all the equipment you worked for?) Sheer brilliance.

5) Storyline! 'Nuff said. Way, way better then "bring me 20 rat tails and I'll give you some pants."