Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Baron Reginald]

Final Fantasy XI holds up pretty well, even if the game is on maintenance mode. You can play all of the story content solo, and if you can find a couple other people to play with, most all of the other content.

I'll disagree with you there, as much as I love XI.
It's got Jank UI, controls, dated and fully hidden quests unless you know where to go or what NPC to talk to, suuuper slow gameplay and without other players to talk about the game with it's a game you play with two monitors. One for the game, the other with a wiki.

It's a great game, if you are the kind of person built for it.
That being said, I think this video covered a lot of the pro/cons more than I can with a wall of text

https://youtu.be/vVv2o356PZI

A bit off topic, but have you guys and gals found any other MMOs enjoyable? SB and the quality whiplash from HW was unpleasant enough that I dropped the game, and seeing the DT drama and writing has convinced me not to come back.

I liked Albion online but I am aware it's a very niche game and not for everyone. There arn't really many "Normal" MMO's left, sadly.

 

[Road Work Ahead]

I'll disagree with you there, as much as I love XI.
It's got Jank UI, controls, dated and fully hidden quests unless you know where to go or what NPC to talk to, suuuper slow gameplay and without other players to talk about the game with it's a game you play with two monitors. One for the game, the other with a wiki.

That's fair. I also forgot about how bad play online is to get set up. Seeing as I saw people were struggling with mog station for XIV, I can't imagine how they would get on with play online.

 

[Shieldman]

A bit off topic, but have you guys and gals found any other MMOs enjoyable? SB and the quality whiplash from HW was unpleasant enough that I dropped the game, and seeing the DT drama and writing has convinced me not to come back.

I tend to MMO hop a lot, I would say FF14 is the most ok game right now.

FF11 - Is fun but it takes a a herculean effort to learn how to do stuff. I would play more if it wasn't sub only (and no I don't want 75 capped servers, I want to use trusts and do shit solo).
SWToR - Is WoW mixed with Mass Effect. -IF- you like late 2000's Bioware and Star Wars before it went all shitty, you should try at least the vanilla experience (levels 1 to 50), sadly the game went super reddit after that. Playing for free is bearable but you won't be able to buy anything from players because of the hellish inflation.
TESO - If you like TES you might enjoy it but it has a pretty bad monetization problem, I would say don't play unless you want to use the monthly pay method.
GW2 - Good action combat, neat overworld map design. It's pretty good but there's a lot of basic shit money gated. I usually just play WvW pvp, because I don't want to socialize and use dungeons.
WoW - I only go to wow once every couple of years mostly for nostalgia's sake. Everyone is a turbo asshole so I don't really do much.
New World - lol.

I also try out cheap Korean MMOs like BDO or Lost Ark but didn't play long enough to get an opinion of them.

 

[King Of Braves]

That's fair. I also forgot about how bad play online is to get set up. Seeing as I saw people were struggling with mog station for XIV, I can't imagine how they would get on with play online.

Man the day I finally found out you could change the BGM in the PlayOnline menu, that was a game changer.

 

[00R-Gundam]

I tend to MMO hop a lot, I would say FF14 is the most ok game right now.

FF11 - Is fun but it takes a a herculean effort to learn how to do stuff. I would play more if it wasn't sub only (and no I don't want 75 capped servers, I want to use trusts and do shit solo).
SWToR - Is WoW mixed with Mass Effect. -IF- you like late 2000's Bioware and Star Wars before it went all shitty, you should try at least the vanilla experience (levels 1 to 50), sadly the game went super reddit after that. Playing for free is bearable but you won't be able to buy anything from players because of the hellish inflation.
TESO - If you like TES you might enjoy it but it has a pretty bad monetization problem, I would say don't play unless you want to use the monthly pay method.
GW2 - Good action combat, neat overworld map design. It's pretty good but there's a lot of basic shit money gated. I usually just play WvW pvp, because I don't want to socialize and use dungeons.
WoW - I only go to wow once every couple of years mostly for nostalgia's sake. Everyone is a turbo asshole so I don't really do much.
New World - lol.

I also try out cheap Korean MMOs like BDO or Lost Ark but didn't play long enough to get an opinion of them.

Lost ark is fun if you enjoy diablo-type combat. That said even though i sunk alot of unholy hours when the game released, it inevitably went to shit. The grind got retarded and the power progression turned into pay to win after a certain threshold since it is rng. The game eventually got infested with bots and my account got banned(because i hadnt played for months at that point and they assume i was a bot(?) Personally even though i enjoyed Lost ark and the boss battles were fun to me, i cant recommend it.

 

[Amaranthy]

I have tried multiple times to get into gw2 have five level 80s one or two in full ascended gear, and I just can't, the game has no direction once you get max gear and I need that gear treadmill, I don't like coming back to the game after a year and see that there's no way to upgrade my toon

 

[std::string]

All the NA servers are infested at this point.

The ghost town servers probably don't have very many. Troons love attention too much to play somewhere that's abandoned. Can't really recommend rolling on one though.

You can avoid most of them regardless of server by sticking to a small city and, well, never using Discord ever. That there is troon country.

 

[Lou's Sentient Backfat]

The ghost town servers probably don't have very many. Troons love attention too much to play somewhere that's abandoned. Can't really recommend rolling on one though.

You can avoid most of them regardless of server by sticking to a small city and, well, never using Discord ever. That there is troon country.

True the infestation on Dynamis might not be so bad, but you're going to have to DC travel in order to queue for anything.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Never go to Faerie, ironically its troon infested

 

[SilenceIsViolence]

Are there any good private servers y'all recommend for XI?

 

[Amaranthy]

True the infestation on Dynamis might not be so bad, but you're going to have to DC travel in order to queue for anything.

not really, I transferred to cuchulainn and haven't had trouble finding a party for anything so far, the only problem is its just filled with newer players

 

[I'm Really Feeling It]

A bit off topic, but have you guys and gals found any other MMOs enjoyable? SB and the quality whiplash from HW was unpleasant enough that I dropped the game, and seeing the DT drama and writing has convinced me not to come back.

Honestly no. FFXIV was sincerely the one MMO that fit my exact likes. After my hiatus I thought I am the sort of person who likes MMOs - but what they have become nowadays is frankly disgusting to me. It's either "free" to play chink shit or WoW/New World that want to suck as much of your time and life as possible.

 

[Baguette Child]

It's either "free" to play chink shit or WoW/New World that want to suck as much of your time and life as possible.

This is my problem, too.

Spoiler: Sperging ahoy

The last time I was genuinely invested in an MMO, I was playing Rift in beta and shortly thereafter. Used to run community events on my server that were pretty well recieved. Knew everyone who was a regular on our little corner of the game. Competed against familiar guilds time and again for world firsts. Lots of friendly rivalry. Lots of late night runs with the boys to get our times better in preparation for new content. It was awesome.

After it got sold to fucking gamigo they ruined everything that made the community and gameplay on there fun and enjoyable. They deleted our server (which was originally the dedicated RP server but became more of a home for people just wanting a "small town" feel) and combined all the game servers into an amorphous mass of suck. Made changes to rules that caused key players to leave for good. And, finally, deleted the official old style forums altogether. I won't even talk about the dumb shit they did with game mechanics because my blood pressure is bad enough.

I've basically been a refugee hopping from game to game in search of anything half worth my time ever since.

I miss younger days back when I could spend hours a night playing an MMO like Runescape or WoW or even fucking UO and come away feeling like I'd had a good time. Nowadays MMORPGs are either cheap trash or filled with so many microtransactions that it distracts from the core gameplay or both. WoW and Runescape are so different from what they were that I can't stand to play them. All newer games are handholdy and dull and feel more like a guided tour and less like exploring new lands. Where do I even fucking go at this point?

I don't expect much from FFXIV when I start playing this weekend but I just want to feel that old sense of adventure again.

 

[ZMOT]

TESO - If you like TES you might enjoy it but it has a pretty bad monetization problem, I would say don't play unless you want to use the monthly pay method.

gotta disagree here, first it's b2p, second the subscription includes every expansion except the current one for one year till the next one comes out (minus classes). no need for a sub AND expansions like ff14. shop is 98% cosmetics, rest convenience stuff. sub also includes monthly shop currency for more than the sub, which means you can just buy those classes and other stuff if you want. in value terms you're basically playing "for free" while getting shop currency. it's not very obvious but it looks worse than it is (offering traps like werewolf/vamp you can get ingame for free doesn't help).
if you sub long enough you can buy all the content (if they don't give it away for free) and then keep playing without sub. it's a bit more annoying but if you play it oldschool with a bunch of bank-mules there's not much difference. you can get those classes even cheaper if you buy one of the old editions with the expansion included or the current expansion for a new account. a key for the base game is 5 bucks which will give you quite a few months of stuff to do.

I just buy the yearly expansion so I can access the raid earlier, but haven't subbed in months.

After it got sold to fucking Chinks they ruined everything that made the community and gameplay on there fun and enjoyable. They deleted our server (which was originally the dedicated RP server but became more of a home for people just wanting a "small town" feel) and combined all the game servers into an amorphous mass of suck. Made changes to rules that caused key players to leave for good. And, finally, deleted the official old style forums altogether. I won't even talk about the dumb shit they did with game mechanics because my blood pressure is bad enough.

trino never got sold to chinks, they were highly mismanaged, trying to compete with a linear progression like WoW/ff14 instead of going the gw2 route, eventually got sold to gamigo (german company) where MMOs keep running in a zombie state. iirc they were after the archeage license, rift/trove was mainly a bonus. ironically archeage is now shut down almost everywhere.

A bit off topic, but have you guys and gals found any other MMOs enjoyable? SB and the quality whiplash from HW was unpleasant enough that I dropped the game, and seeing the DT drama and writing has convinced me not to come back.

LOTRO is still running, but haven't played that in 13 years. otherwise ESO if you want a chill boomer mmo that's fairly populated. word of warning tho it will ruin other MMOs for you since they removed lot of the RNG shit for drops and with itemcap there's no infinite gear grind. it's mostly about collecting stuff and doing raids/dungeons for the challenge and e-peen, and with no required sub it's easy to take breaks.

 

[Baguette Child]

trino never got sold to chinks

Yeah, that was my bad. For some reason in my head I was remembering Gamigo being Chinese.

Trion's management sucked but it got amped up to ten after the sale.

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

I miss when Tera Online was on PC. Don't know why the game just didn't die out altogether instead of just living on console life support

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

True the infestation on Dynamis might not be so bad, but you're going to have to DC travel in order to queue for anything.

Honestly, the endgame content roulettes for Dynamis are incredibly solid. I've had far less paste-eaters in Expert than on Crystal.

However, it's before then that it's a nightmare. Leveling is filled to the gills with curebots and single-pull tanks. You will get hit with so many Medica IIs when you're at full health, Cure III when no-one's taking AoE damage, and the ring of cure incessantly. You'll see so many tanks melting to single packs and popping rampart when they're at 10% being healed by Cure I, because SE apparently needs to put a giant flashing red "OPEN THIS GEAR COFFER" button on the screen or the average new player won't ever open it.

I don't expect much from FFXIV when I start playing this weekend but I just want to feel that old sense of adventure again.

I think you'll marvel at the potential of what-could-be. Early-on, the game shows off a lot of cool ideas that have simply been abandoned over the course of time and streamlined. There's so many neat and interesting little systems and events and mechanisms to encourage socializing and interaction -- but you'll have sped by and be level 40 by the time you enter the level 15 dungeon because of how badly-overtuned the experience of the main quest is.

It really needs a lot of cleaning, and it's a very mixed new-player experience as-is. The issue really is that the story does get good only after 30 hours, and is a confusing jumble before then; but if you can glimpse that potential, they do realize at least some of it as they go on.

 

[Baron Reginald]

Are there any good private servers y'all recommend for XI?

FFXI Horizon was pretty popular last I checked, I never got to play a whole lot, but dunes was plenty populated, it is a progression private server that was slowly releasing and going through the expansions. Last I checked it was on the 3rd expansion.

 

[Baron Reginald]

I don't expect much from FFXIV when I start playing this weekend but I just want to feel that old sense of adventure again.

I honestly wish you the best. I can bitch about the game all day, but this game has a place in my heart from 1.0/ARR/heavensward days so i hope it brings you at least a modicum of enjoyment.

 

[Emet-Selch]

Are there any good private servers y'all recommend for XI?

i heard Horizon XI was pretty good and that the devs were working on re-releasing expansions tuned to the lvl 75 era of the game. i don't really know much about XI because i never played it, but from what i've heard 75 was peak for the game. heres a link if you wanted to check it out. i was wanting to get into playing XI soon it really sounded like my cup of tea.

edit: ninja'd