What made you quit FFXI?

[Colenzo]

Oh yeah, and if my friends quit I am definitely not playing.

[Rulke]

I started and played FFXI mostly with RL friends. After many years of fun and a few substitutions in our group, the core of us hobbled along as a 5 member team for over a year. Finally when the 5th person dropped out, the remainder of us just decided to call it quits. We had a great run and lots of fun, but hard to do things with 4 and didnt want to pick up 2 spare/random people.

[SamanosukeShiva]

salvage bans, i wasnt willing to start over or buy an account

[Anso]

Needs "I got banned like 6x and had like 3 accounts recalled"

Mark me down for that one

[detlef]

Ultimately, the level cap expansion killed it for me. I was finally at a point where I felt like I had obtained all the HNM/hard-to-get items that I wanted, and I started to expand on completing all of my salvage gear and getting captain title, etc. Working so hard for all of that stuff that became obsolete discouraged the everlasting shit out of me, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I log in once every 6 months to say hi, walk around, think I want to work on something, and then the same mindset kicks in and I log off. I miss the olden days.

If you had gotten every item you wanted and your character was "finished" then what would you have done?

[Mikus]

Ultimately, the level cap expansion killed it for me. I was finally at a point where I felt like I had obtained all the HNM/hard-to-get items that I wanted, and I started to expand on completing all of my salvage gear and getting captain title, etc. .

On my 2nd character I had a hell of a time getting to that (which I never finished) so when speculation started about the cap increase and how stuff would become outdated I was real upset about assaults and all the time I essentially wasted doing it.

I really do miss the people. This is the only mmo I have/will play. It comes down to time in the end for all I think. Someone mentioned the "what's the point?" saying. That's where I'm at. I can think of 5 things off the top of my head that are far more important and/or fun to do then ffxi.

One thing that was really cool was transferring rare/ex stuff to mules. I know majority wouldn't agree, but if you could transfer to others I think my interest may have held longer due to less of a time sink.

[scaevola]

Someone mentioned the "what's the point?" saying. That's where I'm at.

To have fun. There was never any point bigger than that. Neither your nor anyone else's life was demonstrably improved by the time you've spent playing FFXI.

The people I know who got really upset about the level cap increase were generally the people who desperately needed to be upset.

[Howie Roary]

Only time I quit was because I was overly addicted and I had to get my life in order. Once I had my life in order and I could handle playing in moderation I reactivated. Should be a box "Couldn't balance game + life" lol

this

[aduidarnenye]

I play League of Legends now.

I'll probably go back to FF11 at some point. I always do.

[Mikus]

To have fun. There was never any point bigger than that. Neither your nor anyone else's life was demonstrably improved by the time you've spent playing FFXI.

The people I know who got really upset about the level cap increase were generally the people who desperately needed to be upset.

Obviously can only speak for myself, but I disagree with this statement from personal experience. I actually did benefit from ffxi in my personal life when I created a LS. It helped me learn how to take charge of situations while gaining respect from my peers. I was shy by nature, but it helped me gain more friends as I would try to branch out and come out of my shell. It also helped me in my professional career as it led me back into sales which I became totally closed minded 8 years ago.

The 2nd half of this quote may very well ring true with a lot of people. With my circle of friends, the correct adjective would be frustration from all the time we spent, as many others did, to see it mean nothing in the end. This is an old arguement as I'm sure BG was full of comments like this.

Before the cap increase I sold my 2nd character and attempted to wash my hands of all things ffxi to get rid of the want to play to move on with my life. I'm not disappointed to have come back a 3rd time. Abyssea was fun and things were cool. For me, I got married on 8/25/11 and I'd rather spend more time with my wife. She actually encouraged me playing, but I get more happiness by spending time doing anything with her. To each their own.

[Selamis]

I originally quit because I was just tired of the game. I was tired of logging on with the intent of getting anything done only to just end up sitting in moghouse and talking to friends in tells/ls. I was also a little bitter (as stupid as it was) that all the gear I had collected over the years through sky, sea, dynamis, hnms was suddenly not as good since they were raising the level cap and adding newer, better gear. It was a stupid viewpoint at the time, but by no means the main reason I left, just another one I added to the list. Most of my close inner circle of friends that I'd played with since NA PC release had quit too, so that factored into it as well.

I planned to quit for 14, but then after playing through closed beta, open beta, and then retail for about two-three months, I couldn't take it anymore and haven't logged on since. I played WoW for a year, grew bored with that, and then suddenly out of nowhere suddenly really missed XI. Contacted a few friends, found out they were still playing, decided to give it a shot and then found out a handful of other friends that had quit, were back as well. Enjoying the game a ton now, still playing catch up however with regearing but I'm close to being caught up, just in time for the level cap increase lol...but what can you do. I won't have everything done by the next update but that's ok.

[Kipling]

Poll lacks a "Because VbV/MCSC is retarded" option, that's why I left

I never understood this, it was a simple fix. My card has never been either of these, and all I had to do was call POL and explain my situation. You spend about 10~20 minutes and they add the card onto the account for you. Seemed a lot of people quit over it though... did you guys just not know this was an option?

[Ddz]

If you had gotten every item you wanted and your character was "finished" then what would you have done?

To elaborate, I had a long road of completion ahead of me. I wanted to start finishing up on assaults, the rest of my open quests, ZNM tiers and I also intended to keep running my salvage group (was only 2/5 marduk at the time...so I had awhile to go...yeah, that fell apart with the level cap release). I was still on the road to upgrading a relic horn too. All of my motivation just sort of washed away with the level cap expansion. I have no intention of starting a whole new road to endgame after all the work I put in on ground HNM business (2004-2009ish)...so I guess to answer your question I feel I had a good 2-3 years worth of content to keep me busy.

[Tagus]

To have fun. There was never any point bigger than that. Neither your nor anyone else's life was demonstrably improved by the time you've spent playing FFXI.

I'm sure people take different things away from the game, some things probably more positive than others. I'd also agree that it shouldn't be more than a fun hobby, but it's pretty well documented at this point that the game is designed to be addictive to prolong the monthly fees. It's just business I guess, and although I'd argue that if you're enjoying it then who cares, you can't really say much against people who lose the desire to play. Shit, I came back and I'm enjoying the hell out of it for now, so I don't even really have a clear cut side of the debate to stand on.

Here's a popular site on the subject...

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

I think I was actually introduced to this site through BG, so you may already have seen it too. It's rather enlightening.

[Epical]

"Real life" hit me like a ton of bricks. I barely have time for myself now nevermind an MMO. When I think about it, it sickens me how much free time I had back in the years that I played.

[Reuniont]

I just got tired of playing.

[S N K]

As it turns out, that was the whole problem.

Not sure how you mean that seeing as I recall Vile was the shellholder along with Kkel, Ayn and all you other old ass TGers. I know Akanei left for another server for reasons I never knew and Tiki sorta vanished also but I'm assume she still plays.

TG was one of the most successful end game shells on Fairy & to hear it in a not so good light anymore is kinda depressing...hell I don't even know if the shell even exists anymore.

[The Stig]

However, the horizontal development of FFXI was one of the best things it had going for it and I'd say it's the biggest loss that Abyssea has caused. I liked that there was such a variety of things to do at 75. If you thought HNM were fucking retarded then you didn't have to do them, there were plenty of other things to do and you could still be mostly on par with other players either way. You can certainly still do them now but it's not the same when you're 15 levels above it.

Agreed.

Like other posters:

1. I had 3 tiers of players in my mind: Uber (relic(s) + best gear possible) > Hardcore (best gear, +1 or not, usually people who do constant HNM/Dynamis/Sea/events/Salvage) > Dedicated/Casual > everyone else ; I saw myself on tier 3. I would say I had all the gear I could get without investing a huge amount of time towards it, from HNM (brought, mainly, not camped), Sky, Salvage, some Dynamis, and except for RDM and WHM the jobs I did level were all very well geared. This still allowed me to perform better than a lot of people and made me very versatile.

But when the level gap got raised, and very rapidly it did (within what, 3-4 months it went to 85? Then 90 during Christmas 2010 if i remember right), a lot of things I obtained very quickly become irrelevant, especially Magian Weapons, unless you were prepared to invest in a huge grind to keep up.

Echo-ing Ddz's thoughts, it's exactly how I felt. I was content before at obtaining bits and bobs for my char and its jobs, as I'm a bit of a completionist, it kept me busy, and I enjoyed slowly obtaining pieces of gear.

When the level cap was 75, we were all in some sort of safe bubble, or there was a semi reachable ceiling. However it popped when the level cap went up. Due to my completionist attitude I would want to pimp them all up. But it was all too much for me when the cap went up and the thought of knowing it would go up made me feel really demotivated.

I forgot who said it, but one of the people here basically said "aww so you're not a special snowflake anymore, boohoo" - that's a tiny bit how I felt, but not in a serious manner. I wasn't all that special, but I felt good

2. At the same time the level caps first went up, 2 RL friends dragged me into WoW. Being skeptical, I wasn't too interested in the idea of the game initially (mouse/keyboard). I slowly began to start enjoying it.

Maybe because of all the difficulty of FFXI, I had 0 issues adjusting to WoW. Death was just lol (yet people cry about repair bills), and the most important thing was:

After having the freedom in FFXI of changing jobs on the go, I liked being restricted to 1 job in WoW. It gave me less to do. And the only way to play another job is to make a new char, which can't really be classified as a mule, since everything is more or less Rare/Ex, except materials. And although I did make some new chars to try other classes on the game, I never seriously dedicated my time on it because everything I do on it is irrelevant to my main char (achievements, quests, etc).

So with only technically 1 char to gear, and it wasn't all that hard gearing it, I was quite content at the casualness, and stuck to it.

--

I do miss, the animations on FFXI. WoW is so dull on that stuff, but the variety of animations per model and then the pretty weaponskills always stuck in my mind. Made my char seem badass. I remember using Freezebite on DRK just to look cool ... haha

[IronPandemonium]

If you had gotten every item you wanted and your character was "finished" then what would you have done?

still be playing like how i am =(

[aurik]

WotG was terrible, got bored after there was zero decent content for that expansion for a year or so.