What made you quit FFXI?

[Dathus]

Not on the list, but I lost my job and couldn't afford the game anymore. =/

[Dazusu]

Not on the list, but: *Shocker* The removal/relegation/redundancy of HNMs

[Rehn]

I was on the verge of quitting due to the stress of leading a shell a while back. Did anyone here felt the same when they were leading something? Shit was fun when everything goes to plan, but the constant buildup of countless little problems almost killed the game for me. Though I had support of a handful of people, everyone just tends to shoot to the leader to solve all their problems. Stopped roughly a year after the shell was rebuilt (which nearly went under right after salvage bans, which I was part of), and I have to say I enjoy not having to be responsible for others anymore.

Those times were unique and fun to an extent, but if I could go back, I would have never chosen to lead anything. Shit sucks so hard and ultimately you see the sides of some people that you never did before, and being shit-talked behind your back from people you saw as friends were just saddening.

[Pandora]

Not on the list, but: *Shocker* The removal/relegation/redundancy of HNMs

pretty much what did it for me.

[Eeeks]

Lack of a real future. Abyssea was awesome but it shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all of the game, and Voidwatch is awful. King update was long sought for but we were slapped in the face by horrendous drop rates. Combined with the dwindling playerbase and lack of attention of the devs, and unlikely chance of real expansion in the future, I decided to change to a more new game.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I deactivated in July after yet another lay off, but once I found a new job, I never really got around to reactivating my cat (and I may never do so). Over the past few months, I checked out BG from time to time and skimmed the new adjustments/update notes and resulting discussions. Abyssea was a breath of fresh air with tons of fun content that catered to groups both large and small. There was something for everyone in there. After Abyssea, Voidwatch is nothing more than a depressing homage to FFXI's past. All the post-Abyssea momentum is now gone, and the game lacks a clear, exciting direction. Tanaka's increasingly public profile and internal influence is a disaster waiting to happen. I really do miss FFXI - both the people and the game world - but I don't miss it enough to jump aboard a sinking ship with an insane captain at the helm. I'll likely ignore the game for good if the next 1-2 updates don't look promising as I don't have the same patience I did years ago.

Since I left, I joined some friends from an old social LS in a f2p MMOish game by the name of Vindictus. It's a surprisingly decent hack-and-slash game, and it's a type of game I like to have on my PC (for those times when I just want to kill shit for an hour or so). The game world feels claustrophobic (the only public areas are two towns linked by a field area) and the level design is awfully repetitive - which was a common complaint with Abyssea - but it's simple fun and doesn't demand a huge time investment.

I may go back to FFXI some day, but that's looking less and less likely by the month.

[falseliberty]

Vindictus is preety fun. I really still dig Valve's Sorce engine still
Portal 2 looked great

[thetruepandagod]

I played FFXI for the competition between rival linkshells, the drama, and some of the best friends ill ever have for the rest of my life. Going from dicking around talking about our days over ls chat while camping LL to churning out a relic every 2 weeks while fighting KB/faf/tiamat/DI at the same time with 4 holding parties with the same exact people that i lvl'd my first job in maze of shakrami with was downright amazing.


The reason i quit is because getting people on at 1am-7am for our 622nd ixion and 370th tiamat became increasingly more difficult. Also when abyssea came out it seemed like everyones attitudes got flipped on their heads, it went from everyone in the linkshell being happy for someone getting an item and cheering them on to demanding they get certain items by the end of the event or else and throwing shitfits saying that other people didn't deserve certain items because of such and such. Last straw for me was doing rani in abyssea while looking at old pictures in my windower folder of us getting a ridill and everyone being ecstatic that we finally got one and being so fucking happy for that person to finally get his and then alt tabbing back to game and seeing someone that we just gave a relic a month ago dropping his pearl because he didn't want to wait til the next rani fight to get a ring.

[Ithorien]

Last straw for me was doing rani in abyssea while looking at old pictures in my windower folder of us getting a ridill and everyone being ecstatic that we finally got one and being so fucking happy for that person to finally get his and then alt tabbing back to game and seeing someone that we just gave a relic a month ago dropping his pearl because he didn't want to wait til the next rani fight to get a ring.

Spoiled, self entitled little bitches nowadays, a whole lot of them.

[Cream Soda]

Ran out of shit to do. Don't really care to pimp out X number of jobs. Wanted to do my main and it's done. Nothing worth a fuck has been added for it since before June, so no real goals. I'll log in if someone comes on MSN and asks for my help, but other than that, I'm pretty much done.

However, I do have this game to thank for many friends. Both directly (in game) and indirectly (all these forums, and yes, even that one class this game made me fail, and when I had to retake it, I met one of the best friends I have in it)

No regrets.

Edit: @Limlight, If there were still active ballista, I'd probably be logged in right now. Despite what anyone says about it, I had a lot of fun during those times. I'd have a calendar for ballista and adjust my sleep schedule around the matches to get the most game play. Only matches I'd miss were during ls events or school

[Zansho]

Right now, work is really taking my time away from the game, which I honestly do not mind since given the current state of the economy and being self-employed, it's nice to have an active salary that pays my bills and then some.

I've pretty much done everything I wanted in this game though, aside from maybe finishing my empyrean (currently level 85) or getting a salvage set or perhaps a d.ring, but that's gear. I jumped servers from Carbuncle to Bismarck when all my friends quit and my endgame shell was pretty much falling apart on Carby, and while I have a very good linkshell on Bismarck, it's not the same as when I was with my first linkshell back on Carbuncle.

I think what I miss the most was the group I was with on Carby - I ran my own linkshell, but it was really the folks I played with then - we all started around level 20ish when we met each other, and known each other since. We were all around for our biggest accomplishments, and it really felt like a family. I miss that, but I know all good things come to an end.

Now? I've contemplated leaving the game several times. Job, have a 2 year old daughter, awesome wife, and just can't really find the time to sit down and play ffxi. I'll probably keep my account active, but I think I might be playing just maybe twice a week, tops. I honestly don't know. I might stay, might go, really just don't know.

[Nuker]

I quit because shit got ridiculously easy. I missed Kings/Grands and FFS They killed Crafting. Was a good run though, got everything i wanted except Dring, and by that point not many played whom i enjoyed playing with.

[Falaras]

I always viewed when ToAU came out as one of the most fun times I've had in the game. CoP/ToAU dropping seemed epic. WoTG was less exciting.

Same here, in fact I'd say the ToAU expansion provided me with the most fun I had in FFXI. Around when WoTG came out I quit, I saw it as an abomination of an expansion that added absolutely nothing to the game and forced events made for gimps such as campaign. Since then I've quit and come back a few times, usually quitting because of lack of things to do (Like I'll get my Ninja really geared out and say, now what do I do?). I'm currently playing although will probably be quitting soon again since the last update really added nothing of value.

[Cream Soda]

ToAU dropped right around the time I dinged 75 on my first job.

I leveld mostly in the old areas, started imps at like 71, mamools like 73-75. Before the bugards were taken out and the colibri camps exploded.

Fun times taking that first job through Zilart/CoP zones. Was unique since I only did it once, the following jobs all came up in ToAU zones from 37+.

Though, I loved both CoP and ToAU. CoP for the story, loved the missions. ToAU for all the content that dropped at the time I first dinged.

I'll agree with everyone with WoTG was a large disappointment. I thought the story seemed interesting for the missions and quests that I did complete, but never was able to bring myself to finish it.

Abyssea, breathed some new life into the game. Since I had all goals but spharai completed, and didn't see myself realistically putting in the effort to get them, but it was rather short lived. By the time the third expansion dropped, finished 90 Vereth and was like what now?

Which brings me to my previous post

[Brutala]

Not on the list, but: *Shocker* The removal/relegation/redundancy of HNMs

You guys need to hurry up and beat WoW. ; ;

[shepardG]

I honestly bounced around until i found iiZerg back in 2009 after my 1st tour in afghanistan. I had a blast even though i acted pissy every once and awhile, but then abyssea came out, and hell I fucking love abyssea, but that retarded ass family that if found with panda, and wite and braarg and nihil and sinharvest and gred and reain and lydia and fucking jackyl and my wife saying retarded shit in the back ground and everyone in vent laughing sort of fell apart for reasons panda stated above. I stuck with the game solo for a bit, but didn't really wanna get serious about it again. I'm 31 almost 32, and If i'm going to continue to play video games, I won't be able to dedicate the time that iiZerg required until after I've 1: retired 2: been in a horrible disfiguring accident that paralyzes everything from the waist down.

I still love the game, hell i have my accounts and i'm like 45/100 100bynes away from my spharai but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it without having folks to enjoy it with. I'm debating selling that shit and basically just stripping my accounts and keeping them dormant with some sort of nice document that I type up to put in my "all things FF collection"
But i don't really play. hell I never even touched voidwatch...

[Dmitry]

I voted hate the community and no friends to play with. I really enjoyed the game in high school when it was still going strong and I had people to play with, although I only ever knew one other person irl that played. Then college came and I ended up quitting for a while and came back a while and quit again due to not being able to do anything on my own.

Now that you can do a lot on your own, everyone that plays completely sucks dick in regards to skill and are mostly assholes who only want to help themselves. I keep telling myself it's the server I ended up on, but it's probably just a delusion.

[BlackMoomba]

Ran out of shit to do. Don't really care to pimp out X number of jobs. Wanted to do my main and it's done. Nothing worth a fuck has been added for it since before June, so no real goals. I'll log in if someone comes on MSN and asks for my help, but other than that, I'm pretty much done.

However, I do have this game to thank for many friends. Both directly (in game) and indirectly (all these forums, and yes, even that one class this game made me fail, and when I had to retake it, I met one of the best friends I have in it)

No regrets.

Edit: @Limlight, If there were still active ballista, I'd probably be logged in right now. Despite what anyone says about it, I had a lot of fun during those times. I'd have a calendar for ballista and adjust my sleep schedule around the matches to get the most game play. Only matches I'd miss were during ls events or school

If you find a ballista server Veg, tell me. I'll be there.

Edit: I'm back for a bit, but I quit for awhile after my old LS broke up before the Abyssea time. Just having no one on vent besides my real close friend, it just wasn't the same. FFXI is based around groups, so without one, that I had spent years with, it just wasn't the same. Also the whole server merges and having to change my name, it was never the same for me. It's still weird, my friends and even myself catch ourselves typing out my old name instead of my new one for manual spells, /pcmd add or /sea all.

I came back to see what Abyssea was all about, it was really such a difference from what I'd experienced ever before in the game, but without my old friends, it just wasn't the same.

Still playing a little bit now since the dynamis updates, going to try to finish my Spharai then maybe change servers to get my old name back to say I ended the game with my real name, and my final goal intact, but who knows.

[Sho]

I agree with the person that said "Life & Game" balance. The times I do quit is because of the very reason. Now I just log on and salvage with two close friends and/or purchase alexandrite then off again. Abandoning XI completely when Tizona is complete (which is in a month or so if alexandrite stock permits), the FGC (Fighting Game Community) is waaaaaay more interesting (and way less time consuming) than sitting around like a log all day trolling away at an MMO. Already know who to give my account and shit to when that time comes. If you want to seriously quit, give your account away.

[Ivve]

This turned out to be really long, so I spoilered a lot of it.

I've always had an active account since 2003, even if I wasn't playing at the time. I tend to take pretty long breaks, and didn't play most of last year or the year before. The first break I ever took was before the introduction of ToAU, and I just felt the content was kind of bottlenecked.

Spoiler: show

Just seemed like you either couldn't break into the HNM content for one reason or another, and with the size of the LSes we used to nurse, you couldn't even think about a piece of gear without 15 other people wanting it too, unless you played a shit job that nobody liked/used/leveled. See: DRG/SMN/BRD, respectively. Sky and sea were both retardedly labyrinthine, and zones that people are going to spend hours upon hours inside should not be the featureless, bland, white wastelands that sky and sea are primarily made up of. You get a little looky looky on the outer parts, but the inner parts... If any future zones have that bullshit cermet design, I'm opting out right now. No sir.

Round one: Didn't like some of the game mechanics.

After ToAU, I took breaks because a lot of the content just burnt me the fuck out. The drop rates in salvage were abysmal, the fact that you had to blow your points on permits precluded you from actually getting the goddamned assault gear embodied everything I hate about FFXI, and jesus take the wheel I came close to committing real life crimes after losing lots on some nyzul gear. What could have been fun turned out to be claustrophobic and repetitive, and any enjoyment was absolutely strangled out of the events due to the lack of payoff.

Spoiler: show

Yes, stuff is cool to do, but not just for the sake of doing stuff. I want to see some results at some point. Plus the HNM were some absolute butthole. Hydra was worthless for as long as I can even remember, and you bet your sweet ass I pretended to be AFK more than a few times when someone called that Khim was up. Oh is it? I have a thumb twiddling competition to be practicing for, which will probably yield greater reward than a fucking Khimaira. Cerb was the least annoying one to camp, but all of these HNM were distinctly lacking in mage rewards. There's only so much tedium I'm willing to tolerate on the behalf of other people getting gear, and that fucking Khim imp run met and exceeded that quota. Once I maxed out all my merits for my 5 jobs at the time, there wasn't a whole fuck of a lot I was legitimately interested in doing, so I kind of dicked around and didn't play for quite a while. The only thing I ended up not hating all to fuck was that puk BC people used to do for khroma ore. I personally had terrible luck with khroma ore, but it was quick and hard to fail even with a shout group.

Round two: Didn't like some of the game mechanics, but this was still far and away a significant improvement over sky/sea as endgame content. Kings shat all over the ToAU big three, though.

I really liked the direction that the Abyssea period took the game in, overall. Smaller group activities, better drop rates that you can actually impact if you give half a fuck to try, the atma/abyssite system, exceptionally faster leveling and meriting options (you don't know how awesome it is that people finally have zero excuse not to cap their fucking merits), AF gear that finally doesn't suck balls but for a couple of paltry sidegrades, much greater variety of mobs to fight to get your shit rather than grinding out the same shit endlessly, and mostly nice/interesting zones. Granted, there's still a decent amount of grinding shit for empyreans and various moogle weapons, but at least you can finish that in a couple of days with some friends rather than hours upon hours upon hours camping and/or killing some bullshit that never drops. Even having to plow through like 500 fucking plantoids on lightningsday with your thumb up your ass while you sing Sweet Home Alabama has an attached countdown and you can roughly estimate how long it's going to take you. None of this content ever just feels... hopeless. That's what I got out of hours of sky and sea and dynamis and HNMs and salvage and blah blah blah bullshit drop systems before abyssea: over time, shit just started to feel fucking hopeless, man. Not exactly a feeling you want to pay $15 to experience every day. If I wanted that, I'd seriously just tape all the ASPCA beaten animal commercials and wach them on repeat while I think about how wasteful America is as it relates to the environment. I wanna log in and do something a) different and b) with a reasonably attainable goal. Abyssea delivered.

By this point though, I really didn't have many friends left. I had a handful, but the vast majority of my fl never logged on or had server hopped, and the ones that did seemed to have developed rivalries between themselves. Tbh I never gave much of a shit about any of that, but the feeling of mostly playing with strangers just made things not very fun. Merging with Ramuh brought back some people I legit hated, and swelled the ranks of the retarded on Bahamut twentyfold. Recently server hopped, realized that I seriously have more old friends/familiar "faces" here on Asura than there were left on Bahamut. Lol.

How long I continue to play depends 100% on what the endgame ends up being. If we're going back to hopeless FFXI, I'm definitely out for good.

Oh also, I hate synergy. Sort of okay in theory, not a picnic to track down multiple crafters anymore. Yes assholes, once you killed crafting as an individual activity, the people who invested a lot of time into the harder crafts probably fucking quit. How did you not see that coming? God the lack of foresight is so frustrating at times.

[Manako]

I quit FFXI due to life/game balance. I played from the Christmas after NA launch to around mid 2005? Mid COP content, Sea had been opened but people were just starting to progress through it. I quit and then came back for ToAU release, when I had a summer internship which meant that I was alone in an apartment by myself for the entire season. I quit shortly after that because my linkshell broke, school was busy, and eventually I was just logging in for dynamis. At that point my character was deleted and so I could never go back to it.

Having tried numerous MMO's following, they just couldn't scratch the itch I had and eventually I started a new character on a different server. Got to level 47, realized I couldn't be bothered to do genkai I stopped playing. The game is too old to start over, and its frustrating being the "noob" who needs help doing quests and doesn't have enough gil to buy all the cool armor. Also, partying with people who look down one you because they have 4 level 75 jobs, and yet REFUSE to do simple things like cast haste etc..

Definetly the main reason why FFXIV is my new home, despite its shortcomings. Its the brave new world where I can still manage to be near the top of the curve, and has the same flavor as ffxi.