I am not a MMORPG player

[Jonathan]

It's time to face facts, gentlemen. I am not a MMORPG player. I'm going to cancel my FFXI subscription.

It's not that FFXI is a bad MMORPG, or that it's too expensive, or that I had a bad experience. It's not even that MMORPGs are so slow and take many hundreds of hours to advance. The problem is that I do not have a two-hour chunk of time I can spend playing a game anymore. I can barely scrape together a one-hour chunk. To even find a decent party takes thirty minutes of talking and fifteen minutes of walking. By the time we're actually killing things, I have to bail.

It's not that I don't play games at all, either. I play Stars! for thirty minutes on the train every morning. I play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for fifteen minutes here and there in the afternoons. I play a round of Counterstrike or Natural Selection on the weekends.

The problem is the last time I played games all day was back in September when I went to that LAN party. I just don't do that anymore, if even I ever did. (With the exception of finals. Woo, Myth!) If I don't play FFXI for a whole day or at least a whole evening, it's just not worth it.

The cold hard truth is that I am a casual gamer. That is why I must cancel my FFXI subscription.

[Jonathan]

Sadly, no one cares, because I haven't played this game for two months.

Except Vinny?

[Alan]

Yeah, that's why I'm cancelling my subscription too. I don't have big chunks of time to play this semester. To get anything done in any MMORPG requires large blocks of free time. In FFXI, at lvl 30+ you need 4 or 5 hour blocks at the very least. Usually it takes at least an hour to find or set up a party, 30 minutes or so to get everyone together, and 15 to 30 minutes to get to a good camp.

[VLSmooth]

Heh, can't say I'm not surprised... However, if leveling isn't your only priority (don't laugh), you'd probably feel more productive.

I try to do other things, be it quest, fish, craft, farm, etc. all while having PT seek on. If I get a party, great, if not, I'm still doing something relatively fun and talking on the LS at the same time instead of just sitting around. As other threads have mentioned, search comments help immensely, so does having a network of people you've grouped with before. Even if they level faster than you (not necessarily), they usually come back around your level with another job.

Basically, as long as you're not only set on leveling, FFXI can still be a fun and relaxing experience.

Now, if there wasn't a LS, I probably would've quit already myself.

Just my random two cents.

[Alan]

I have a ideological problem with tradeskills in MMORPGs. No matter how much they spruce up tradeskills, I still feel like I'm paying money to work. No matter what the tradeskill is, or how it's implemented.

The only reason I play MMORPGs is to level. And do quests, if the quests are fun. The thing I dislike about MMORPGs is how they make things boring/annoying just because if things were easy everyone would get it done. If I want to work hard to accomplish something I'll do it in real life, not in a game. I play games to have fun, not to work.

I like leveling in groups, I like soloing, I like huge raids. I don't like crafting, and I don't like stupid quests that make you run around and deliver stuff to 50 different people. I also am not a fan of farming.

I guess to boil it down, I like doing stuff that gets me exp. I hate being forced into activities to get money. That feels too much like work. If I'm gonna work, it's gonna be to get real money. One thing I liked about DAOC was that it was possible to solo exp. It's not feasible in FFXI after lvl 15 or so. That was how I got most of my money in DAOC, killing stuff that gave decent exp solo and dropped sellable loot and gold.

[VLSmooth]

The following is rambling due to the annoying emergency maintenance going on right now (estimated at 4 hours).

FFXI party dynamics are both a blessing and a curse I guess. On one hand, it forces people to work together and communicate, on the other, would you really have wanted to communicate with them in the first place?

I agree the complete lack of soloing is bad, but they shouldn't allow unrestrained soloing (a la PSO). Perhaps slow but non-zero gain? (we're talking ~15 xp per kill here, usually requiring downtime, instead of the 0 you get from a monster that can slaughter you). Gah, I feel like this is devolving into a gamefaqs thread, so enough of that.

As for craftskills, I see where you're coming from. At least in FFXI it's not completely static. As raises their craftskill, they get better and can do more. You could apply your need to level to this, just in a different fashion.

All in all though, as with many games, it boils down to progress quest. However the communication is what makes the game fun for me.
</rambling>

[quantus]

I think you're thinking of "trade skills" the wrong way alan. I don't know how you do a trade in FFXI, but in PP it's just another puzzle you gain experience at and are rated at. Everything is a puzzle in PP whether you're pillaging the seas, sailing, sword fighting, in a drinking game, or distilling rum/grog/swill.

Partying restrainst aren't an issue in PP since you can just go to a job notice board and join up with another crew for pillaging or even join a navy ship. You can therefore play for as long as you like or as short in your case. Once you're an officer and have a small ship of your own, you can even take it out yourself for pillaging or memorizing a route if you want.

Basically, COME PLAY PUZZLE PIRATES INSTEAD!!

[Dave]

hehe my main goal now is to get to 70 and start doing those BC battles like the avatar ones etc. I saw a video of BC 60 and it was pretty awesome.

I say every thing within 20 lvls should give at least 1 xp. That way you can at least get *something*. Today I got bored and didnt feel like mining so I went and walked around the world finishing the ranger quest, got a summoner ruby. I ran around killing every enemy I hadnt. I reallly wanted to kill a camel/giraaffe thingy and the 1st one I killed was the NM one that dropped a crappy amulet. Lvling up is the hard and annoying part but once everything is too weak to be worthwile a lot more options open up to do random stuff.

farming and crafting are very related in FFXI, and I dont see a way around farming in any game with a primarily player driven economy. I would almost advise not to even start farming until you get lvl 15 thf. Farming isnt nearly so bad when you see a text box full of green stuff.

I would rather have a crafting system that gives "xp" evey sucess. but if crafting were so easy then everyone would do it, everyone would have the best stuff and then everyone would quit and go to something else if there is nothing else to do. MMORPGs are, to me something to do and look forward to for much longer than a weekend like many games. the XP treadmill is the standard one. The crafting system I think is quite good. The High Quality idea is great and helps make crafting profitable

example: Meat Kabobs

need 1 x meat 1 x onion 1 x pepper 1 x garlic

Standard result: 12 Kabobs ~2.5k per 12
HQ1 Result : 6 Cheifkabobs ~6k per 12
HQ2 Result: 9 CHiefkabobs
HQ3 Result: 12 Cheifkabobs

so the better you get a get a something the greater chance you have of making more profit

[Dave]

no clue why i rambled on.

but anyways, GIMME ALL YOUR STUFF

now i feel better

[Alan]

I've tried thinking about trade skills as another way to "level up". It doesn't work for me. No matter how I think about them, I hate trade skills period.

Farming I don't like, but I can do farming, just not for extended periods of time.

Essentially for me, if what I'm doing doesn't cause my exp meter to go up, I feel like it's a waste of time. If I were at a point where I was lvl 75, had all the equipment I wanted, and nothing else to do, maybe I'd consider crafting. But more likely I'd do crafting for a couple days and remember why I hated crafting.

[Jonathan]

I'm with Alan, but even more so. I'm a killer. I like to think I'm a nice killer who doesn't kill people who don't want to be killed, but I'm a killer. For me, MMORPGs are fun because you get to pit your creation against someone else's, whether it be player or game designer. So leveling is fun in this way, because you can beat up monsters that the game designer made to kill you. Tradeskills as implemented in FFXI, however, haven't got that challenge. You simply need time and money and your skill in something will go up. That makes it not fun.

I don't actually enjoy the grind of farming and leveling and crafting and whatnot that it takes to actually create a decent character. For me, a good MMORPG would have a nonexistent to very gentle progression curve, but there would be millions of rock-paper-scissors decisions to make regarding your character. No character could be "the best" because everything would have a foil, but people could apply their ingenuity and experience in playing the game to create a clever combination of skills or whatever which are better than most. So a newbie wouldn't be very good because he wouldn't know what a good loadout or spell combination or weapon combo is, but someone very experienced would have a finely tuned lethal killing machine and a network of friends to fill out his character's weaknesses. Or a finely tuned, uh, fisherperson. Whatever floats your boat.

I also agree a limited amount with Joe. PP actually makes tradeskills fun by giving them a mechanic which is challenging. That is the way they should work. However, the problem is I dislike sailing, bailing, and carpentry. I'd much rather be doing sword battles, which are only part of the game. Put another way, too much of PP is soloing.

I also agree with Dave. I would love to be level 70, riding around on my chocobo and killing dragons and doing whatever the hell BC stands for. Hell, that's why I play these games in the first place, is for the end game. The problem is, how many hundreds of hours have you put into this game to get that far? Uh-huh.

In conclusion, everyone is right but Vinny.

No, really, it's that Vinny is some kind of socializing explorer and I'm not. I just don't find logging in and doing some fishing and chatting on the LS enjoyable.

[quantus]

In conclusion, everyone is right but Vinny.

No, really, it's that Vinny is some kind of socializing explorer and I'm not. I just don't find logging in and doing some fishing and chatting on the LS enjoyable.

Well, let's look at it a slightly different way. How many completely online people do you talk with regularly? Now let's compare with the many Vinny already knows on IRC and other places. I tend to agree with Vinny a bit more than Jonathan about just having fun and chatting so much as always being on the experience treadmill and killing stuff.

Oh, PP has implemented a few new things since you last played Jonathan. It's now possible to have group sword fights while in the taverns and not just while pillaging. Also, I don't think you've ever participated in the sword-fighting tournaments or any of the all-day bashes that they've run.

Also, it's now possible to find other people in your flag to do stuff with (flag = grouping of crews, think linkshell). There's also a "me hearties" list (friends list) so you don't have to have all your friends just in your crew. I think communication was a major weakness in PP with regard to doing non-solo stuff, but now it's only minor. Take for instance last night, one of the other crews in my flag just got a new Grand Friggate and we all took it out to pillage on. We just attacked everything in sight and had great big sword battles. This was possible since it was much easier to communicate with the other allied crews.

[VLSmooth]

More randomness:

• I don't fish much. I have ~6 moat carps total, and that's mostly thanks to Dave lending me fishing gear. The delay between fishing is too much for me, and I can't craft in the meantime because I don't have a steady flow of materials. Probably will give fishing up for a while.
• Farming is actually easy and fast, provided you find a good location (n.gusta. hill, 'nuff said). Crafting can also be done at the same time since the supply problem is eliminated.
• I'd probably like the end game too, when I reach it, but the beginning and middle game really aren't that bad, especially if you improve with other players and PT with them again. However, as a caveat, I suffer the slower lvling problem, hence spend too much time being a teacher and not reaping the benefits. Occasionally though, I still learn a new trick/technique (overlapping sneak attacks, better hate management, etc).
• Surprisingly, I can still solo at lv31 (Alan was rdm32?), even faster than Dave said. For my last session I was killing gobs in valk for ~20 xp and ~40-60 gil a pop. They went down surprisingly fast, and I lost less than 20% of my HP per battle if I used sneak attack. Also, helped a few players by snagging gobs off them. This was strangely satisfying since I remembered those gobs kicking my ass from levels 12-20.
• Managed to quest, farm, and solo all at the same time (unintentionally to boot). Got two quests done (valkurm sunsand + clay seal), while "farming" 4 sand bat fangs (valuable for gil and fame), among other items (stupid 30 unique item limit) and soloing gobs that were already in my path.
• FFXI seriously rewards people for working together, in the form of skillchains/magic bursts for coordination and xp chains for efficiency. Somehow, I find it really satisfying to be in a good PT. Oh yeah, and smarter parties get annihilated less often ^_^;
• I'm seeing a distinction between easy treadmill leveling, more time than skill-based (as in a typical MMORPG), versus completely skill-based improvement, a la Unreal Tournament and Counter Strike (so-called, twitch games that some people dislike, but should satisfy the killer hunger). Does this mean FPS games are the answer for Alan and Jonathan? I don't know (rambling is fun).
  
  However, the aforementioned rewards for playing "well" make FFXI an enjoyable hybrid imho, albeit somewhat frustrating when some PTs don't have their act together.

</(pointless?) rant>

ps. Key phrases highlighted for the lazy

Edit: surprisely => surprisingly

[Alan]

For the record I'm 33 rdm/17 (well 16) blm. Rdm's hit a bump until they get spells like stoneskin, phalanx, and refresh before they can really solo effectively again, because for a while it's very mp inefficient. At this point me soloing involves casting all my buff spells, taking about 5 minutes to kill something, and using 3/4 of my mp to cast damage spells and/or cure myself.

To add to the discussion, Jonathan explained much better the way I feel about crafting than I did. There's no challenge in crafting, the more time and gold you have to spend on it the better you are. And the people with the most time and the most gold are the people who do nothing but play all day. When I play a game I want to choose my activity within the game, and not be forced to do something (eg crafting, farming). I, like Jonathan, play MMORPGs to kill shit, and I don't like being forced to do other activites just so I'll have gold.

I like killing stuff as a team, as opposed to solo deathmatch. Solo deathmatch just seems like the ultimate antisocial activity to me. Nobody talks, or if they do it's trash talk. So in UO I never went around PKing anyone, 1) because I'd die and 2) because that sort of activity doesn't interest me. But when PKs attacked me, Peijen, and his brother, I found fighting back the best part of that game.

Which is why I liked DAOC. Even though I played an assassin class, it wasn't just about me going around killing people by myself, I also did reconnaisance as well as teaming up with other assassins and so forth. Unfortunately with the new expansion DAOC has just turned into EQ, and my character would be hopelessly weak going against other players with expansion artifacts and shit like that. Which means to compete I'd have to do a bunch of silly pointless quests and do a lot of farming, which are things I am not going to do.

I'm not saying I don't like FFXI. I do like it, it's a fun game when I'm in a party chaining 100 xp monsters. But to get in that kind of situation requires a lot of spare time in large blocks, which is something I don't have this semester. And I'm not going to spend my little spare time in small blocks crafting or farming. I'd rather do extra practice problems and read optional material than do that shit.

[Alan]

More randomness:

• I'm seeing a distinction between easy treadmill leveling, more time than skill-based (as in a typical MMORPG), versus completely skill-based improvement, a la Unreal Tournament and Counter Strike (so-called, twitch games that some people dislike, but should satisfy the killer hunger). Does this mean FPS games are the answer for Alan and Jonathan? I don't know (rambling is fun).

</(pointless?) rant>

I do like the concept of your character getting stronger as you put time into playing him (or her, whatever). What I dislike is when the only measure of your skill at something is how much time you put into it. In other words, crafting. I mean, leveling up doesn't require a huge amount of skill, but it does require some minimum amount of knowledge and timing. As opposed to crafting, where the only thing is getting ingredients and pressing a button to make things.

[Peijen]

But when PKs attacked me, Peijen, and his brother, I found fighting back the best part of that game.

haha, yes. unless they are just too good and kick our ass out right. I remeber we (my brother and I) manage to kill a few pk and that was the best MMORPG experience EVER. I think Alan was in class or sleeping or something

Yeah I have been thinking about quitting too. Because I don't have the time to put into the game to get good at it. I either can't find anyone to group with or I don't know what I am doing and people get pissed and kick me. Leveling solo takes too long.

So I guess this is the end of FFXI. I say we all get a GBA and play FF:Crystal Chronicles on GC next.

there happy now

[quantus]

I do like the concept of your character getting stronger as you put time into playing him (or her, whatever). What I dislike is when the only measure of your skill at something is how much time you put into it. In other words, crafting. I mean, leveling up doesn't require a huge amount of skill, but it does require some minimum amount of knowledge and timing.

Again, this is where I think PP is better. You have two rankings in PP - experience and reputation. You can have a Legendary reputation after just playing a puzzle a few times if you're that good at it. I had a legendary rating in sailing by the time I was done playing my first hour or two on my reset character. Even if you're a new character, it's possible to be so good at a puzzle that you're propelled into the top 10 rankings. Of course, this is very very rare.

[Alan]

Hehe. FF:Crystal Chronicles on GC!

[Jonathan]

I'm not saying I don't like FFXI. I do like it, it's a fun game when I'm in a party chaining 100 xp monsters. But to get in that kind of situation requires a lot of spare time in large blocks, which is something I don't have this semester. And I'm not going to spend my little spare time in small blocks crafting or farming.

Hear, hear. I completely agree. FFXI is a good game, it's just not the game for me.

[VLSmooth]

So... anyone for Warcraft III later then?
(hey, it's got progress, look at the ladder!)