Best Expansion / Most Time Spent

[Zumi]

Shouldn't really rate WotG yet till they actually finish it and add all the events that they are going to add.

[Karbuncle]

I don't know if you people have actually tried the Airship fight "post-nerf", but its still hard as Fuck... Only part that seems easier is the Mammets, After that its still a giant Middle finger.

but

ToAU > Best Assortment of Endgame Events by far, though annoyingly difficult. Revolutionized Meriting/exp. Besieged is awesome still, Skilling up and Dieing to shit you can't see in your chat log. Really the best thing that happened to FFXI.

WoTG > Gotta say, I love the Storyline so far, Campaign is hot, Campaign Ops Are hot, Everything about WoTG Seems so Accessible and Easy to the Lone player... But thats all it has right now.

CoP > I absolutely LOVED doing CoP Missions, Challenging, Exciting, Always wanting to move on, BUT! 90% of CoP is unused and empty all the time, Level Cap was the biggest mistake SE has ever made, and Level Sync Armor Doesn't help at all. I didn't work my ass off to hit 75 back when CoP Was new just to Gimp myself over and over to level 30/40/50/60 and Be half Naked and looking for some cheap ass level Cap armor to Progress through a storyline, Only to party with people who don't have Level Cap armor, And end up losing missions time and time again. It was rewarding to be amongst the people who completed CoP, to have Sea... Everything was nice. But that brings me to sea. Worst "Endgame" event ever. Sure its 100% Drop to go to the next mob, But at the same time, Torques Have Shitty Drop Rates, Capes have Shitty Drop rates, And Everything about Sea only benefits 1 or 2 jobs at a time. meaning your entire linkshell is stuck killing jailer of Fucking prudence 20 Times cause the piece of shit Torque WONT DROP, so the SCH can have +5 INT on his neck slot! FUJOIFJE Sea.

I still enjoy every Expansion, ToAU Is just my favorite =D, and i still have fun trio'in Tres Deundes... and Eba, and all the other NMs that are up all Day 24/7

[Silenka]

ToAU blows them all away for me (not counting WotG just yet, the missions, especially windy storyline, are becoming amazingly awesome). ToAU, to me, had the best/most fun story and so much stuff to do. I like the zones better, I like the events better (minus salvage, salvage is a dick), all around so much amusement. It brought COR, my favorite job after SMN, and did I mention Qiqirns...? <3

[Norellicus]

CoP. Mood > all, for me. As the devs and/or Tanaka said, CoP came the closest to the intended feel of the game. I had the most fun during the CoP era, despite how shitty the rewards were.

wat

[Nameless]

Cop > Wotg > Roz > ToAU in term of story for me

ToAU to me has very boring story line and everything was too easy to do and not very original. It is almost not very ff like.

RoZ is to me is the flavor of what the entire FFXI should be in term of zone design, monsters etc. Sky is great in that concept.

WotG could easily be the best depends on how the story ends for each nations. For those who don't get this expansion, you really should be doing all the quests for all three nations to appreciate it.

CoP is the best in term of difficulty of the missions and pretty awesome story line. While WotG quests aren't as hard as what some of the CoP missions used to be, a large part of that is due to lvl cap, which alot of ppl hated it but now appreciate it.

End game content is whatever to me. You do what you have to do to get gears, non of it is really fun IMO when you repeat it for the 180329523905 time. To me it all comes down to story line, and so far WotG is just awesome.

Airship fight is probably by far the most enjoyable fight of all missions. I hope we see something like that in the end of WotG.

Side note: I actually enjoy sea more than alot of ppl. I find the end game for sea are alot more relaxing. No time limit like dynamis, no running around using oil and powder like SNM, no annoying take pic for zeni on your own and do ZNM as a LS, no camping... Drop rate is ok, not really as bad as ppl make it out to be. We usually get at least a torque of something every sea raid.

[TybudX]

I won't break down my time spent doing most things, but I have to agree with some other posters... if Ixion and Sandworm weren't such huge cash cows (as in, several hundred million gil a month or more), WotG wouldn't even count.

I feel bad for anybody who counts Campaign as a majority of their time spent playing this game. It isn't fun, it isn't rewarding, it gives poor exp, holds no challenge... I can't even aptly describe how bad it really is, or how I feel about the people that seem to think it's a good thing.

It's like they took all the motivation out of some event, and put it out in front of us to see just how little reason some people would need to spend 12.95 a month. Some suit and tie is sitting in an office right now enjoying his promotion for discovering that 60% of the player base is medically retarded but still allowed to decide how they spend their money.

The only thing even remotely good about WotG is ISNMs. The NMs themselves drop mostly crap, but that's not much different than anything else in the game. Two of the hats are pretty good, and Stone Mufflers are a nice little addition for some jobs.

ANNM is ok, too, if you have enough free time to do it, and people to do it with. The problem here is, the people who do have the free time (and are spending lots of time in Campaign) don't have any friends in game to do ANNMs with, or the friends they do have are so lobotomized by the constant drone of Campaign that they can no longer do simple things like follow a pre-made strategy and play with a group.

So yeah... WotG sucks. People complain about how bird camps have ruined the game, and blah blah blah, but really, nobody ever mentions the effect Campaign has had on anybody. It's like a refuge for melee RDMs and 'but PUP is good!' and people who think Haste is over-rated. It is just really, really bad. Of all the things SE has put out over the years, Campaign is the one thing i wish they would take back.

[Damane]

I won't break down my time spent doing most things, but I have to agree with some other posters... if Ixion and Sandworm weren't such huge cash cows (as in, several hundred million gil a month or more), WotG wouldn't even count.

I feel bad for anybody who counts Campaign as a majority of their time spent playing this game. It isn't fun, it isn't rewarding, it gives poor exp, holds no challenge... I can't even aptly describe how bad it really is, or how I feel about the people that seem to think it's a good thing.

It's like they took all the motivation out of some event, and put it out in front of us to see just how little reason some people would need to spend 12.95 a month. Some suit and tie is sitting in an office right now enjoying his promotion for discovering that 60% of the player base is medically retarded but still allowed to decide how they spend their money.

The only thing even remotely good about WotG is ISNMs. The NMs themselves drop mostly crap, but that's not much different than anything else in the game. Two of the hats are pretty good, and Stone Mufflers are a nice little addition for some jobs.

ANNM is ok, too, if you have enough free time to do it, and people to do it with. The problem here is, the people who do have the free time (and are spending lots of time in Campaign) don't have any friends in game to do ANNMs with, or the friends they do have are so lobotomized by the constant drone of Campaign that they can no longer do simple things like follow a pre-made strategy and play with a group.

So yeah... WotG sucks. People complain about how bird camps have ruined the game, and blah blah blah, but really, nobody ever mentions the effect Campaign has had on anybody. It's like a refuge for melee RDMs and 'but PUP is good!' and people who think Haste is over-rated. It is just really, really bad. Of all the things SE has put out over the years, Campaign is the one thing i wish they would take back.

noones talking about spending the majority of your playtime in campaign. I realy doubt there are people that do only campaign, i for myself find it a fun event when I have nothing to do and am LFP. That happens like what 1-2 a week tops. I have to disagree on the reward side, I think you realy forget the armors that you can purchase with allied nodes...

[Nameless]

Yea, iron ram haubert is probably one of the most anticipated item of this coming update.

[Guppy]

I feel bad for anybody who counts Campaign as a majority of their time spent playing this game. It isn't fun, it isn't rewarding, it gives poor exp, holds no challenge... I can't even aptly describe how bad it really is, or how I feel about the people that seem to think it's a good thing.

No challenge? Back during one of the adjustment periods, when it was at it's peak difficulty, a lot of the zones were devoid of players and permanently beastmen-held. I used to occasionally solo Campaign victories in some of these beastmen-held zones by manipulating the NPCs (note: and not by killing defenders between battles, which is only slightly less boring than smacking fortifications).

By pulling mobs and holding them at the right spots, you could intercept the incoming waves of Allied attackers, and shift the battle away from the outpost. It was difficult -- mess up a pull or a hold and you'd get flattened, or the Allied NPCs would run in and get slaughtered (the beastmen were almost always at max morale, while the Allies were near minimum). By planning carefully though, a player could win a battle alone, even while a nearby zone with a dozen players would get crushed.

But you're right about the rewards though. Any gains were erased in the next unattended battle, and there wasn't any special XP/AN for soloing a victory, and often less than a normal group campaign battle (thanks to the limited set of actions performed, and homepointing when there was nobody to raise you from a mistake).

Campaign is less challenging now, but the balance is a lot better. For starters, it requires effort but is practical to roll back the beastmen when players cooperate, kind of like a public quest. The main rewards don't come from the campaign itself, but from the special Ops like Splitting Heirs -- unfortunately, there's no link between how much you contributed to opening the fight, and how well you make out in the frenzy following conquest tally.

[Almalexia]

TAU is miles ahead of every expansion, both in personal preference and time spent.

Rather, TAU was miles ahead. Balrahn trolled the world from beyond the grave and now the only things keeping TAU afloat are Salvage and ZNM, both of which I enjoy (the events, not the drop rates).

[Sho]

ToAU > WoTG > Zilart = CoP

Dunno why people love Zilart, but I can understand CoP mission-wise. Zilart was a hell of a hassle and grindfest endgame-wise, even in early 2004. ToAU basically expanded the diversity in this game, and WoTG is very very indeph storyline-wise (A tad more than CoP, just on a very slow release timetable).

[Eticket]

Story: CoP > ToAU >>>> Zilart

Content: ToAU > CoP > Zilart

I haven't even gotten into WotG yet, let alone ACP.

[Reapz]

Can't really rank them because I enjoyed/enjoy them in their own way but its pretty safe to say ToAU for content, CoP & WoTG for story and RoZ for having some of the best/the best gear in the game 5 years later. I'm sure WoTG will be more popular toward the end when it gets an endgame and all areas are opened up, its just progressing slowly atm.

[Avanarius]

Zilart > CoP > ToaU > WotG

or basically the order they were released.

For newer players it's understandable if they don't like Zilart as it's camped a majority of the time but for me, there was little to no competition on the server I played at the time it was first released, and if you look at the abundance of zones / mobs / story / nm / hnm / gear it completely triumphs over everything the other expansions have to offer with the exception of story in CoP.

most people don't even acknowledge how small the game is without the addition of Zilart considering it's been there right from the start for most people.

I guess it depends on when you joined the game and the play style of the server you're on.

[Anomander]

ToAU > All, just simply due to completely reshaping endgame content. Salvage, Einherjar, Khim/Cerb, Assault, Besieged, rediculous leveling camps, life now centers around whitegate in FFX.

Zilart: Sky, Kings, Dynamis, gear that is still the best to date.

CoP: Sea, Limbus Omega/Ultima, CoP-Dynamis, my favorite battle/stories to date.

I dont even count WoTG as an expansion yet... yay for adding 2 new HNMs with odd spawn conditions in remasked zones we already had.

QFT, excluding the part about camping kings (fuck kings). I'm also not a big fan of dynamis, but at least some gear is good. WoTG is trash, campaign was cool when it was introduced but the last patch made it retarded (fortification bashing was decent, but if you wanted good xp you didn't do it. Now its rare to see more than three zones owned by sandy and new cuchulain's mantles will never be created). Ixion and Sandworm are like pseudo-kings imo (you don't sit in one spot, but the big HNM shells on my server make their members scout zones for hours on end).

As for my favorite...hmm. It's a hard decision between CoP and ToAU for me. CoP missions were cooler and more engaging overall (Alexander was the only decent mission in ToAU, and was a damn cool fight, but didn't excuse the 30 cutscene/lolJPMidnight bs) and Sea is my favorite zone in the game, but as Neo stated, ToAU just added so much content. Salvage is a lot of fun (I go with a good group of players who have all become friends), Einherjar is fun and challenging, lots of good camps, and more recently ZNM. I guess overall I will have to go with ToAU>CoP>>RoZ>>>>>WotG

[tonystigma]

I have fond, fond memories of doing CoP missions with my static. Yanks and wanks!

However, ToAU has a lot of badass content that cannot be ignored. Zilart missions were a joke, WotG seems fun but it was so lazily done.

[GreenKnux]

CoP. Zilart as well, but mostly CoP. You can feel the care SE put into the stories for these. There was interest in making them good, as opposed to what we currently have.

SE stopped caring about FFXI after CoP.

[Taint]

When CoP camee out FFXI was clicking on all cylinders, it will be hard to forget and lots of new techniques and play styles were still being found. The story was solid and was so long and hard that every step felt like a great accomplishment. Everyone remembers their first trip to Sea.

ToaU has the best content and really broadened the game from a play standpoint. Salvage is very dynamic even after hundreds of runs I still look forward to the next. It also adds something for every type of player and different tiers of drops.

[Mojo]

ToAU is the winner by far in terms of content follow by RoZ and then CoP. CoP storyline was amazing, RoZ ranks second here as well, followed by ToAU. I haven't really played WotG much but it's still in development so it's hard to say.

[thomassmith]

Best expansion for me is TOAH because it is where I spend most of my time. I actually like the missions for TOAH even though most are just CS and boring shit. COP is by far the worst because of the bullshit way Sea is setup for popping NM. And in general just finding your way.