So, I was having a cool conversation with a sales associate at GameStop today, and it made me think more about this post that I'm creating. She mentioned that she was playing Final Fantasy XV: A Realm Reborn. I asked if she played FFXI, to which she replied, "no." Therefore, I have a few questions for you, my fellow Cheerful Ghosts.

Have you played FFXIV? If so, what are your thoughts about the game? Also, have you played FFXI? If so, what are your thoughts on that game and both games? I played XI, but not XV. I wasn't very successful with XI and I believe it's because I'm so used to being a solo gamer and apparently the game is primarily for parties, groups of people playing together. I did end up meeting a stranger, who was very helpful to me, which I thought was awesome. Apparently, the game just wasn't made for the solo gamer in mind. I do have all or most of the DLC. In fact, I won a free copy of Wings of the Goddess from a FFXI wiki, but I never played it or most of the DLC.

Therefore, my next question is if any of you have thought about playing FFXI again. This thought came into my mind some time ago. I can certainly afford the play the game again, if it still has a monthly fee. I'm not sure if it has gone free-to-play and it might be interesting to find out if it has or if it will some time in the future. I assume the servers are still running and it's still playable.

So, what are your thoughts on this subject?

*Note* Corrected mistake found via the comments.

jdodson   Admin wrote on 10/24/2014 at 04:57am

I haven't played either. I stopped at Final Fantasy 6 and never looked back.

I missed the Playstation era FF games and haven't really seen a reason to head back. I know FF VII gets a ton of accolades and someday I might try it.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/24/2014 at 06:08am

Will the ones I mentioned in this post are MMORPGs. I like almost every Final Fantasy game I've played, which is almost all of them. I've only been disappointed a few times.

Timogorgon   Member wrote on 10/24/2014 at 05:44pm

I haven't played FFXIV, but my wife and I played FFXI for something like four or five years. :P
Yeah, there wasn't much you could do in FFXI by yourself back then. It's different now, but you still need a party for most of the big activities.

Both me and the Mrs. were interested in FFXIV when it was announced but we didn't have computers powerful enough to play it. by the time we upgraded we had pretty much given up on MMO's in general.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/24/2014 at 06:11pm

Oh, crap, I see I made an error. I was talking about FFXIV and XI, not XV. Thanks for showing me that. Wow, that's a lot of time spent on FFXI! I had two characters, at least. One was one of the little ones and the other a Hume. I was expecting to meet friends in Windhurst, but I apparently got confused and set that as my home. I eventually made it to where the Hume home is. I forget the names. I think I was on the Bahamut server.

Timogorgon   Member wrote on 10/24/2014 at 06:18pm

Ha ha, it's ok. I knew what game you meant.

The hume/galka home city was Bastok, and was always my nation of choice. We had Cid, so we were clearly the best. smirk I was on the Cerberus server
I had 3 characters but really only played one: My Hume Taion. One of my favorite things about FFXI is that you had no real reason to have multiple character because you could be every job on one character. Although my main job was a level 75 Samurai, I also dabbled with Ninja, Dragoon, Summoner, and Blue mage, and of course I leveled several sub-job options like Warrior, Thief, and Dancer. At one point or another I played every job at least a little except for Scholar, which came out shortly before I quit.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/24/2014 at 06:58pm

Wow that's awesome!!!!! Have you been at all tempted to play again?

Timogorgon   Member wrote on 10/25/2014 at 07:30pm

As a matter-of-fact I picked it back up for a little while about two years ago. Here's my post about it: http://cheerfulghost.com/WhiteboySlim/posts/404/so-i-ve-been-a-bit-absent-from-the-cheerful-ghost-community

Every once in awhile I think about picking it up again, but the game really has changed a lot since I played. While some of the changes are improvements that were very welcome (more solo friendly, quicker leveling, making the game easier in general) a lot of what i loved about the game is no longer there. One of my favorite things about FFXI when I started playing was the party dynamic, especially the skillchain/magic burst system. That's why I ended up with Samurai as my main job, because that class specializes in skillchains. :)
Parties just don't work like that anymore in the game. Add in that the number of players in general has dropped significantly and there are especially no low level characters around anymore and it's just not the same FFXI I use to play. Sometimes you just can't go home.

And of course there's the fact that the game is still subscription based and I just don't have enough free time to commit to a game to justify paying a monthly fee. That said, if it ever went free-to-play (which I highly doubt it ever will) I'd definitely play it again just so I could go through the story missions again.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/25/2014 at 07:43pm

Awesome, I'll check it out. Some of the things you mention make me want to play it again. I might have stated, but what my main issue seemed to be was that it was very party based and I'm a solo gamer. What you said about fewer people and some of the improvements makes sense and makes it seem like it's more solo-friendly.

It would be cool if it went free-to-play. I did notice that it's still the same price per month as it was before and FFXIV is the same. I'm tempted to try to jump back in the game and/or give FFXIV a try.

Thanks for commenting! =)

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/27/2014 at 11:54pm

As for my MMO history, I've played Ragnarok Online with friends, which was a lot of fun, and Star Trek: Online. Unfortunately, in the latter, my first character was stuck on Earth, I couldn't get off because of a bug and the fact that I didn't visit the right place first. So, I deleted it and created a new one, but I have unfortunately been unable to defeat the Borg in the very beginning of the tutorial. This wasn't a problem with my first character.

Timogorgon   Member wrote on 10/28/2014 at 05:08pm

I tried Ragnarok back when it was in open beta. It was pretty fun but I was still pretty heavily into FFXI at the time, so I didn't stick around. Never tried Star Trek Online.
I played City of Heroes/Villains for a couple months. That game had the best, most in-depth character creator I have ever seen and was worth trying for that alone. I only played it for about 4 months total, but I have more fond memories of my characters there than any other MMO other than FFXI.
A few months before the Cataclysm expansion for WoW hit, a group of my old FFXI friends all signed up for WoW, so my wife and I jumped in as well. It was fun for a little bit, but again we just couldn't devote enough time to playing it to justify the monthly subscription. So we quit.
Runes of Magic is a fun free-to-play MMO. I haven't played it in years, but I think it's still going strong. I should check it out again sometime.
I played Lord of the Rings Online briefly when several CG members signed up. That's another one I should try out again sometime.
And last but not least, I play Star Wars: Old Republic with a friend. We basically treat it like KOTOR3 with co-op and we've been going through our class quest lines just for kicks. Although technically "free to play" I'd argue that. Instead I'd say they have one hell of a great free trial, but if you really want to play the game you'll have to fork over a little cash at some point. That said, I've only sunk about $5 into it and I feel I've gotten way more out of it than a lot of other games at that price.

Azurephile   Super Member   Post Author wrote on 10/28/2014 at 05:56pm

Wow, that's awesome!

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