Official global alpha start date: November 28th.

[SamanosukeShiva]

I loved FFXI back when I played, mostly because of the tight community, everyone knows everyone etc.
Now I love WoW but because of different things, mainly for the competitiveness in the raiding scene.
If FFXIV can offer something different that I like, I'll jump on that bandwagon as well.

[Stanislaw]

BG has so much FFXI bashing, it's really weird.

Personally I think it mainly has to do with the feeling that FFXI was that 'could've-been' MMO where the potential was there but the devs in charge did so many things wrong. So it's not (technically) bashing, it's more to do with 'it could've been better if...' kind of criticism, which then carried over to FFXIV:ARR in terms of expectations because so many people who played FFXI wants to play 'FFXI-done-right' in FFXIV.

The problem, however, is that most of the people who demand such changes don't realize that their demands are a horribly small niche.

[miokomioko]

Personally I think it mainly has to do with the feeling that FFXI was that 'could've-been' MMO where the potential was there but the devs in charge did so many things wrong.

That's where I'm at. They had a real good thing going with XI and they just completely blew it by ignoring the evolution of the genre and completely ignoring their customers.

Nothing, however, will change how much fun I did have while I was playing it (until the middle of WotG, when they couldn't even come close to finishing an expansion before releasing it). There's just no way I could ever go back to the game at all now.

[Denmork]

Most of the hate on XI is silly, it's the opposite of rose colored glasses many people quit and then look back as though the game was much worse then it really was. When compared to a modern MMO XI is lacking, but for it's time it was a great experience for it's time. The thing about it is WoW came out something like 2 years after XI had went live so they alot more time to add in updated tech that XI's engine simply could not, like bigger more realist environments and animations. The biggest thing people complain about is the type of content between XI and future MMO's it's true that XI was extremely limited to party play, but that is the main reason I played it.

I've never understood the point of playing a multiplayer game for single player content, but that just me I guess. The funny thing is what ended up killing XI for myself and others is when they finally backed off the group dynamic and shifted to a solo or duo style of gameplay that came with abyssea and the level caps.

[Sephiroth]

You have to remember most of us are former XI players, and if we liked the game that much we'd still be playing.

I don't think you needed other MMO experience to realise XI was a heap of shit. XI was the only MMO I'd played until XIV yet I got out there before even ToAU expansion. I could handle the slow leveling, the cockblocking quests and the crappy RNG on drops but the end game was a killer. Standing around for 3 hours only to lose claim to a bot or get MPKed if you did win the pull and then repeat for the next mob and then repeat every day for years was not fun at all. Even more so if you leveled one of the many jobs that were considered useless for that content. Then we had the Sky pop NMs dominated by RMTs, the Dynamis linkshells ran by self interested greedy lootwhores (Hey I'll pay the 1mil for your run but I'm taking the 5mil in currency for my relic!) and god knows what else I forgot.

From what I've heard XI is a much better game these days but they haven't really made it appealing to a player starting from scratch. I couldn't imagine going back and having to beg for help on shit like those level 50 level cap quests.

[Lordender]

I played FFXI at a very high level when the cap was at 75, that is about when all of us cashed out when the first WoTG content patch added nothing worthwhile to the game. I will say one thing, the game wasn't all that great but the people I played with were awesome people and they kept me around way longer than I expected.

My LS was like a brotherhood, we were a very tight-knit group. Eventually the content was just so bad that I decided to move on and see what WoW had to offer. I never saw MMO's the same again after I dived into WoW, it was eye opening to how badly designed FFXI was. One thing I will say that I dislike about WoW is how indecisive blizzard is at their decisions and there are a ton of flaky people in the community especially raid guilds. Every guild I been in on WoW is musical chairs, a revolving door of people coming and going, in FFXI, the same people in my LS were there an entire 6 years.

[Buffy]

Indeed, it is the people you play with that make online games worthwhile in the end. I've played a shit-ton of Command and Conquer in my life online simply because of my two friends. FFXI was the same for me. First MMO, and I have friendships from the game that persist to this day. Of course I still play ffxi. I don't think it is the greatest game, but neither does it deserve the smashing it receives.

Do we know anything more about a Beta, Roadmap, or Benchmark yet? In particular the Benchmark, I just built in July and am eager to try it out on max settings. I'm running the Alpha on max, but I think I read somewhere that Alpha graphics are =/= to final version, so I wanna see what we might be looking at.

[shepardG]

i don't care what a nigga say's, garuda's was dark souls hard.

[Churchill]

The time when XI was "good for its time" XI was beyond terrible and almost unplayable.

After WoW came out, you can no longer claim "XI was good for its time" because its time had passed, and any changes made for the better are irrelevant.

tl;dr shit game, fun people to play with, shit fucking game

[Waraji]

i don't care what a nigga say's, garuda's was dark souls hard.

Hardly bro. All you needed was 8 people on ventrilo, with everyone being able to follow simple instructions. The minute you change that formula you're fucked. Don't think the game should "require" voice comm? Tough shit. Makes any game that much easier, if not just playable.

Of course it would be nice if everyone knew exactly all Garuda phases so that you wouldn't even need anyone think twice of what to do, but that will hardly be the case for non-community / dedicated LS based gaming groups. I for one, am not looking forward to he days where endgame content can be done on a PUG basis.

[Elcura]

I've done all FFXIV content without voice comms, it's hardly a requirement if people know what to do. Certainly makes things easier, but I haven't found it necessary yet.

[ronaldthemad]

Well this is a weird situation. FFXIV fanatics knocking GW2 down as not being good enough for a monthly fee. I suppose i shouldn't be surprised. Back in the old days, FFXI fans (including me, when i lacked a heart, a brain, and a dick) used to swear up and down that FFXI was better than WoW in the safety of their bubbles. They used to say stuff like how WoW had no community but FFXI had one (even though that community was largely composed of status seeking shemales), or that FFXI looked more realistic and less cartoony or that FFXI was a real challenge and WoW was easy mode (in those days standing around was considered a riveting experience for most FFXI gamers). As the love affair with FFXI waned, FFXI gamers soon came to realize how crappy the game they loved truly was, and they stopped making excuses for it. They merely came to terms with the fact that the game they loved was objectively worse than some other games, but nonetheless FFXI appealed to their very particular interests that simply weren't standard.

I certainly hope we don't have to relive those experiences. Lessons should stay learned.

I completely agree. Although, I stayed out of the FFXI v WoW shitstorm because at the time I was like, "whats the point of playing two MMOs?" After quitting FFXI and playing WoW at a high level its like opening your eyes for the first time.

Wings of the Goddess was what finally turned me away from the game forever. What an empty, sorry excuse for an expansion even by FFXI standards.

[Tearshang]

I've done all FFXIV content without voice comms, it's hardly a requirement if people know what to do. Certainly makes things easier, but I haven't found it necessary yet.

You don't know how many times I have called out to you on vent and you weren't there. ;;

[Churchill]

If this is in any way directed at me: I have never played FFXIV, ever, and if you see my posts here, most of them are regarding me being concerned about shit in FFXIV 2.0, so yeah I'm hardly an FFXIV fanatic. In GW2 I got 2 legendaries, fractals at lvl 35 something, 4 sets of exotics, 4000 achievements (before I sold the account). I know what's up with GW2.

sounds like you played the shit out of it, definitely not worth paying for

[Dakin]

I've done all FFXIV content without voice comms, it's hardly a requirement if people know what to do. Certainly makes things easier, but I haven't found it necessary yet.

This can be said for any MMO or any game with multiplayer content. Once your LS or your party comprised of people who knew what to do, content was trivial.

No game requires voice comms.

[Lucavi]

Uhh... I'll leave that one alone.

[Churchill]

I require you at least be able to listen and do listen, if you can't do that you can go pug shit somewhere without me.

[shepardG]

Well there's the thing, we had about 10 people in my group when we were bustin out XIV 1.0. Of those 10 6 were good players w/ good gear, 2 were good players w/ mediocre gear and 2 were not good players and mediocre/AF gear.

It litterly took us as a mixed group of 10 as 30-40 try's before we finally beat it.
After we beat it. it was still hard, like 1/5 we would fuck up one thing and the whole thing was ruined, full wipe. That was the thing with that fucking fight that made it hard. Other fights if 1-4 people wiped, you could recover, but not with garuda.

Anyway, yeah voice comms all the way, even in guildwars, or league of legends.

[Spider-Dan]

@SD: Considering that your track-record for MMo experience consists of playing the most broken classes of XI, and then mastering the complex, deep, strategic and ultimately super-successful XIV 1.0, I don't think you're in any sort of realistic position to talk about how much movement XIV did or did not have in its fights compared to other games.

But guess what I am in a realistic position to talk about? Post-Tanaka Final Fantasy XIV.

Unlike, say, someone that quit long before it was released.

[Spider-Dan]

The time when XI was "good for its time" XI was beyond terrible and almost unplayable.

After WoW came out, you can no longer claim "XI was good for its time" because its time had passed, and any changes made for the better are irrelevant.

tl;dr shit game, fun people to play with, shit fucking game

This hindsight critic stuff is pretty ridiculous.

The original Street Fighter II is a broken, abusive, very bad game. The damage is absurd, there are dozens of simple death combos, there are plenty of literally inescapable throw loops, the balance is horrible, and the game is riddled with glitches. And it kicks the crap out of every fighting game released before it, and quite a few that were released after it.

The release of Halo does not mean that Quake always sucked and was a horrible game. The release of WoW does not mean that FFXI was always terrible and unplayable.