I wish that.....

[tazirai]

HI folks specifically the folks who've been playing as long as I have.

Been feeling kinda bad and down lately, This has been a weird week in FFXI for me.

alot of small events lead to one big one.
The big event led to me feeling that sometimes I wish FFXI never became so popular and that EQ and the other MO's woulda killed it .
Stateside atleast.

This is wishful thinking/memories..whatever you wanna call it.
Sometimes playing for the last two years specifically up to last years NA release. I felt Like i was playing a never ending 100% working grade AAAAA+++++ beta.

When NA release came out I had such high hopes for sucessful integration of the importer/JP/NA player base. and to the most point all has gone very well.

The thing is now.. i'm noticing alot about the game and specifically since it 's release stateside thats really pissin me off.
These forums for instance used to be relatively peaceful and full of great information....then we got popular.
We havent gone down hill .. but man sometimes it feels like im fightin a losing battle.

FFXi when first announced seemed great .. many didnt expect much from it.. I loved that.
Then I found Ping's site.. provided so much great info and the community here was awesome.
Still is or I wouldnt be here. but we got popular.
FFXI at e3 didnt seem to wow many here stateside.. again I loved it.... sounds kinda stingy huh?


Then the announcement came of NA release.
I was like great .. but however I think I became prone to a different standard of gaming etiquette. and sadly its very different from what many NA players have.
I played many online games before and i was used to their environments. But on FFXI it was different a strong sense of comraderie and helpfulness.
Its still there but to a lesser degree.
Ive made many great NA friends.. even though technically I am NA .. just an importer. and by NA i mean america/taiwan,china,etc.
But I cant get used to their gameplay style.
I rarely team with NA players.. and the ones I do , I have a silent standard I try to hold them to. If they suck at PT or their manners lack. I wont PT with them again.

Then came ,pretty much out of the blue all this NA VS JP crap. then the latency crap , then the HNM advantage and the supposed botting.
It gets sickening hearing it all the time.
I get tired of insanse /shouts. the constant zone trains.. the job/sub level disparity. It just got to me this week.
After a bad PT with a good friend.. Mong, he thinks I won't PT with him now because of the other NA players in the team we had.
I am literaly wary now of joining Pts with majority Na's.

I dont want my friends to think im "eleet" by not teaming. and I dont want to feel the way I do.

and yes this is a little rambly.
I just wish that sometimes FFXI never caught on as big as it did.
I really get sick of the whining and accusations of cheating and other crap..


if anyone can give some advice ....holla.
im not quitting but I think another break is in order..

[Dark-Cress]

I know what your talking about. Importer times...ah those were the days. Seems like things have changed.
The game may be a little different, but try to go along with the flow. If you resist the change you will end up hating the game and quiting.

[John Doe III]

Originally posted by Dark-Cress
I know what your talking about. Importer times...ah those were the days. Seems like things have changed.
The game may be a little different, but try to go along with the flow. If you resist the change you will end up hating the game and quiting.

Then end up coming back sooner or later like the rest...>.> Just take a break if your getting tired of it.

[Vivid]

Originally posted by John Doe III
Then end up coming back sooner or later like the rest...>.> Just take a break if your getting tired of it.

*cough* :spin:

[matek]

I may not have partied or met you before but I will tell you what I think about my way of enjoying the game.

If you know me and many other JPN boards, I myself has been slandered and insulted a lot since joining a HNMLS and became sort of a Sub leader or Leader-in-the-shadow, mocking up mostly EVERY HNM we could get. And the rivals could do nothing but to insult our members over those boards. That made me felt very down and I actually thought of quitting the game.

But I did not. Retreated from HNM hunting, started raising BST, enjoying normal player chat and met more "usual" players. Got a job later on and started working, meet more real life ppl.

Without knowing, my life has become much more happier. I can do anything I want (which is not against the rule of course) in the game when I feel like wanting to. Going quests and missions fellow former HNM hunters. Exploring into usual leveling places with BST gives you a totally new taste and feel.

And for those insults over the boards, I totaly ignored them, and players who once believed to the board come to understand the truth by leveling togather and talking to each other. The insults vanished then. Not to mention a few old HNM rivals are still hating me and talk bad bout me sometimes.

So, basically I feel so happy and the game look much more fun since I started my usual game life and real life.

For the NA issue, IMO, it works on the same way. The problem will eventually get over when they are enough. Maybe stop playing the game for a while and going out to have some social life may help to cheer you up.

Oh, I and my LS members are planning to explore the new areas when Promathia is out so most of them are currently earning exp like hell (to avoid deleveling) (lol) Maybe you could try too with yours.

[Razz]

I feel the same way, totally, but you just need to learn to adapt to the changes to the FFXI community. Currently I'm enjoying monopolising Fafnir/Nidhogg away from the JP competition amongst other things. No matter how hard you try to quit this game, the inevitable just slaps you in the face:

THE MATRIX HAS YOU!

[peacemaker]

If its bad even on Ramuh, come to Ragnarok...

[Tomoh]

I'm afraid it only gets tougher. Leveling to 75 is extremly painful with too many players and not enough leveling spots. Thank you SE for the Merit points. Also, gone are the days of +200 exp. There are days where I feel like a masochist. Waiting endlessly or joining a PT for endless Refresh sessions for 2000~3000 exp per hour. Yet, I still come back again and again. I'm just trying to get my RDM to 75 before CoP. It is much more rewarding these days to help LS members or going on BC battles with LS.

Dark-cess, I love your sig I've watched Return (Way) of the Dragon many many times. I still cringe when I see that scene. Bob Wall's reaction is not over-acting

[Nerv]

I want the old days back too ; ;

mumu

[Cedric]

https://www.livejournal.com/create.bml

[tazirai]

Originally posted by peacemaker
If its bad even on Ramuh, come to Ragnarok...

Heh sad thing is Ping got me a World Pass to rag not long after release.. But It wasnt for me . I eventually settled on Ramuh and consider it "home".
But yeah I miss the good ole days...
Like when monster signa sold for 10k ^^

[Teejay]

holy crap, i had a huge 1000 word essay on why the state of the NA player base is sad/disappointing to the importers and JP players of today, but for some weird reason my computer just turned right off, and that pissed me right off. I'm not gonna bother typing all of that again, but i will just list the key points of what i was trying to say.

When the JP started out, there was no one there to teach them how to Renkei, MB, level up, etc. Websites were scant with info, and strategy guides by Bradygames had not yet been published.
The JP/importers who started the game from scratch had to learn these things for themselves. They had to struggle through the bad XP gain, in order to gain a good playing experience (knowledge).

NA players have no excuse for not knowing what a skillchain is, and/or what a magic burst is. Especially not after having someone tell them and then DEMONSTRATE it for them. Yet, many of the new NA playerbase still have a hard time grasping this. There is much information available to a player starting out in FFXI these days, and it's quite sad that even with so much information and experienced players out there, an ignorant and unskilled NA player can still be developed (not that i'm saying there are no ignorant and unskilled JP players out there; they are just rarer).

New players - outdated armor, spells, etc - results in getting slaughtered by IT's and VT's, thus they resort to chaining EM's and Toughs for 1-1.5k xp an hour.

NA players (not just the new ones) - PT ettiquette leaves something to be desired (and i'm speaking strictly from the point of view of a JP or an Importer). PT's are formed in the actual hunting areas, instead of the cities which result in PT's that are not best suited to fight mobs in that area. Lots of random invites without /tells, and manners in the actual pt are lacking (people leaving without saying anything, people giving no warning of how much longer they have to play, e.g "sorry i have go. bye".

The JP mentality which most importers were raised on is still dominant in our minds, and most absent to "MANY" of the NA community.

And for these reasons, Tazirai, and many of us importers either are feeling sad/disappointed/depressed with the current state of what we were expecting to be a healthy NA playerbase. One of the main reasons i quit is because of how little and how slow the progression of the NA players has been. (i'm not talking the few NA players who have high level jobs and know how to play them well, i'm talking about the masses who have been playing for a long time and still make you /shake your head)

One of the biggest contributing factors to the growth stunt in this specific game is the ability to switch jobs. Unlike other mmorpg's where u stuck to one job and either got good at it or stopped playing, FFXI doesn't promote loyalty and progression to one profession. It's not a bad idea to be able to switch jobs (heck it's purely for replayability purposes), but many players will level a variety of jobs and not really get good at one or two of them.

And lastly, IMHO the worst thing they did with FFXI is the ability to switch LS's and treat them like items. Big no no. LS loyalty is not what it should be, because of the ease of switching between 2-3 of them.

Other than LS's dedicated to HNM hunting, between job switching and LS switching, many players never really develop the skills they need to play an mmorpg properly.

Sorry for the long read.

Teejay

[peacemaker]

Originally posted by tazirai
Heh sad thing is Ping got me a World Pass to rag not long after release.. But It wasnt for me . I eventually settled on Ramuh and consider it "home".
But yeah I miss the good ole days...
Like when monster signa sold for 10k ^^

Yea, you definitely made the right decision not to come to Rag, even though there was no way any of us could have foreseen the disaster of what it has become today. Ragnarok's roots in Gamefaqs made it easy for us in the beginning, but in the end the very same channel destroyed the server. I'm just glad that we had the opportunity to play and experience the game during the "good times", and memories when FFXI was fun and enjoyable. I don't play much anymore, logging into the game is like logging into a ghetto simulation program, its depressing.

[Legionnaire]

The thing is that I'm "NA" and NO ONE taught me how to do anything. I was on my own until I got to the point where I needed to get the Khazam keys. That was when I got my first real linkshell with people who have played the game a while. I learned a lot from them, but it wasn't til after I unlocked my Drk that I realized how crappy a player I was. I made a change then and did the best I absolutely could from then on. Never found a good FFXI website til this one. Allakhazam was ok, had a lot of information(most of the time it was wrong) but the people there seemed like idiots (in the forums I mean). But frankly this thread just makes me feel even more unwanted than I do already. I wish they had made NA-only servers. ; ;

[Taoist]