FFXI's Golden Age?

[Hyan]

CoP was the most rewarding time I had with FFXI and I cleared it pre-nerfs. I had fully cleared RotZ and the main game before CoP release. Also, I've been playing since NA PC release, so I don't want to hear about how I only feel this way because I came in late or never finished content. Some people use the victory of a challenge to wash away any negativity they experienced to gain that victory. This is true for me and CoP.

What do you mean by 'clearing'? Got all your items from Kirin and other skygods yet? Finished dynamis? Got all the ridills from Fafnir already?

[Eleven19]

CoP was the most rewarding time I had with FFXI and I cleared it pre-nerfs. I had fully cleared RotZ and the main game before CoP release. Also, I've been playing since NA PC release, so I don't want to hear about how I only feel this way because I came in late or never finished content. Some people use the victory of a challenge to wash away any negativity they experienced to gain that victory. This is true for me and CoP.

Yeah I can see this PoV. I beat the second half-ish of CoP way later when it was nerfed to all hell (After snoll etc was 45 seconds(?) whatever the change was). I do recall being really excited beating the fights, even the nerfed ones were somewhat difficult depending on the reliability of the people you were with lol.

To be honest it really comes down to what you enjoy doing most in the game. If challenging missions floats your boat, like the man say, CoP was the golden age for you. I prefered the content and finally being able to wear a pirate outfit, lol.

[Spider-Dan]

I still don't really fully understand the "rewarding" feeling of beating CoP missions... the only feeling I felt was more of relief in no longer having to deal with it. For me, I compare the experience to having my wisdom teeth pulled; I felt glad that I only had to do it once and that I would never, ever have to do it again.

I don't really categorize that as enjoyable, per se.

[Valkrish]

CoP was the best- everyone knows that =(

[Minions]

The true answer to this question, was in Beta when people didn't back stab each other, worked together to accomplish goals, and didn't have walkthroughs to figure anything out. You would be amazed how fun games can be, especially MMO's when there are no guides for the content you are playing. Finding NM's on your own by accident like leaping lizzy, and having your entire party killed by Valkurm Emporer are some of the best times I had in ffxi.

[Kerberoz]

In beta people made mules and died repeatedly because they thought conquest was a war.

[Pawkeshup]

Really hard question.

I was stuck between CoP and ToAU releases.

During CoP was when I was having the most fun, running my LS, and I felt the most love for the game. There was still this sense of adventure then.

But ToAU, like many have said, started a whole new era.

In the end, you asked what was the peak of my enjoyment. I chose CoP era for that reason.

I suppose you could make an argument for the golden age being now, with all the improvements to gameplay they have made. Or perhaps, I could delve into more metaphoric terms and proclaim the CoP timeframe as the Golden Age of Fun, ToAU as the Golden Age of Exploration, and the present as the Golden Age of the Soloist.

[Demitrius]

Greatest moment had to be the first time I stepped into Sea, late 2005. I seriously didn't leave the place for a week. Even with the great aesthetics of newer areas, I still haven't found another location that's given me the same sense of awe.

My shell had finally started coming into its own around then, as well, so I was experiencing the best of CoP and Zilart at the same time. Was a good time indeed. Once ToAU came out, I think a lot of things lost that extra gleam. So my vote is definitely for the CoP era.

[Ezhno]

The day we could zerg AV was clearly the only golden day.

No, I think it was the day that my Mazurka was as fast as flee with Harlequin's horn.

[payu]

No, I think it was the day that my Mazurka was as fast as flee with Harlequin's horn.

GOD THAT WAS BADASS

[Onorgul]

I started the game a few months after the NA PC release. I hit 41 Monk the day after the weaponskill TP return nerf. I was among the few 75 NA Monks on Asura. I was one of the first to seriously tank things as Monk/Ninja back when the combination was considered an absurdity. I kited Kirin with Chi Blast during two hour fights in spite of having many Rangers and well before the infamous nerf. Once chapter 3 or so of CoP was released, I was part of a group working on missions as they were released.

And then I quit. Actually, I quit several times during that whole period. It sucked. If you weren't a Bard, Ninja, Ranger, Red Mage, or Black Mage, you probably would not be allowed to do anything. Monks were good for getting merits in King Ranperre's Tomb, but the merits available were limited and damn near pointless. On Asura, the three kings were misery. Towards the end of this period, the RMT activity hit its peak, controlling every profit NM that existed in the game, botting Ifrit's Cauldron mining, and starting to interfere with sky. If you didn't have a static, chances are good you wouldn't get through missions, especially CoP if you didn't have one of the few prized jobs. About the only good things about that time period were that it was worthwhile to have a craft skill and Samurai was considered a trash job.

I started a brand new account shortly before Salvage was released. There were still people working to complete Chains of Promathia, so it was possible to construct a group to do it. Treasures of Aht Urhgan was being finished and one could work on this missions. Pick-up groups for Assaults were fairly common and provided a strong template for the kind of pick-up events that FFXI always lacked. It was possible to actually level something other than the treasured jobs, though pet jobs were and always will be on the bottom of the pile. RMT were being reined in. Player activity was high, to the point that competition for merit camps was a key nuisance.

From a player standpoint, the ToAU era is certainly the best, especially if you wanted to play a job like Warrior or Dark Knight that would have been previously laughed into oblivion. There were plenty of people around to get things done with, but continuing game adjustments were helping to bring the game into balance.

The past year or so has been a definite degradation. It's harder and harder to find people and groups. Heaven help a new player that wants to finish Rise of the Zilart, but since it can be practically duo'd these days, it's possible to eventually con a few people into helping, unlike CoP. The additions of Wings of the Goddess and soloing in that era have helped fill in the XP gaps, but they too often feel entirely too late. As the server populations have shrunk, treasured jobs are coming back to the fore rather inexplicably, probably because everyone has multiple level 75 jobs now. Mid-level XP is only tolerable because people need mid-level players to sync to.

Anyhow, I really can't see how people could stand the CoP era. I'll agree that Chains of Promathia felt like a real Final Fantasy game, but it wasn't really fun. I had more friends quit because of CoP than anything else and, indeed, it was the Shikaree who eventually laid a death sentence on my original account. The era was a time when only a few jobs could level past 37, when the sheer volume of competition made it impossible to get into a linkshell to gear up (a long-standing problem with linkshells is that they want people who are already geared to sit up in sky or Dragon's Aery for months, as though that makes any sense), and pretty much the only thing to do was either sky, Dynamis, the three kings, or try to XP. Content was limited, player attitudes were elitist, most jobs and players were excluded, and the only mark of enjoyment was getting some prized piece of Rare/Ex gear (even if it wasn't really any good, like Koenig Cuirass)... oh, I've just figured out why BG people liked it so much.

[byte]

No, I think it was the day that my Mazurka was as fast as flee with Harlequin's horn.

Seconding this!
gdi I hate when SE fixes good stuff

[Degenxerate]

For me i think its a dead tie between NA PC Release as well as the Toau Release. I dont think i'll ever forget either of these times. I think it was just exploration of all the new lands as well as trying all kinds of new quest/missions/fights when they were still new and somewhat unknown.

[Crab_Cake]

I picked 2003 to early 2004 but I should have picked "It hasn't happened, and never will "(well, only because I'm bitter with SE's lame updates and sneaky milking the fans with the downloadable expansions lately).

2003-2004, the game was a mystery, it was fun.

I was so exciting to finally learn "Enthunder" for my RDM/WAR and DD in the dunes(which I did btw, no one cared I was subbing /war. Good old newb days).

But then I remembered the dozens of times I wanted to cancel the game because it was just a grindfest.

Seek party for hours.

Exp party is boring too.

Woot, this 2k exp party is amazing. Totally going to hit the next level in 2 hours.

Yeah...

Anyway the reason I keep playing the game is cause of my friends.

Anyway as of writing the post, I think the "golden age" is after WotG came out with campaign.

The most fun part of the game for me was to finally finish all that lame grindfest and finally get a few 75 jobs where I can just "screw around".

I like screwing around and doing campaign.

So yeah that's the golden age for me, when WotG came out and I got to screw around in campaign. Otherwise there's too much drama, lolGrindfest, lolBots, lolRMT, lolQuests, lolMissions, and lolRandomNumberGenerator for my tastes. Actually, that's kind of all of FFXI...

Actually I do enjoy quests. I found some of the quest storylines enjoyable.

[Kang]

I voted for beginning of TAU. I would've voted for CoP but I started playing FFXI a month before CoP release and I didn't get CoP for another year.

Best time of my FFXI career was right at TAU release (when I was just about finished CoP story).

[Ryany]

10/28/03 to 11/23/04

[Ezell]

lots of stuff and QQ.

Yeah leveling a useful endgame job is such a pain! I mean god, LS's should invite people who don't do anything useful for 90% of endgame, cause god forbid I have to level a Job that is useful and works.

Try being a THF! At least you got to Chi-Blast every 10 min or so. I got to sit on the sidelines till 5% health and then got to stab the mob like 2-3 times. Least I got smart and leveled a usefull job and the world opened up to me.

Level BRD and watch as mediocrity pays off in spades^^

[urat]

I think right around the time that Call Wyvern became a 20 min ability was when ffxi started to decline.

Not that it caused the decline, but I see it as the point when all the new people entering ffxi from other easier to play but shall not be named MMOs were whining about how hard ffxi was/is.

Followed by CoP being gimped down, etc etc. Remember the good old days when travelling to windurst from bastok on chocobo was normal because no one had airship pass yet?

I recall way back when ffxi was so new, all of us players kind of walking out into this huge world, compeltely unlike any ff we'd played before. There was no world map, and you were right stuck in the game. It was huge, there was so much to explore and do, fuck grinding I'd sit around a beastmen campfire with my handful of ls mates and just chat away for hours.

Running across west sarutabaruta to find out whats in that tower in the farthest corner of the map, first time stepping out into tahronghi (man you guys remember the dhalmel parties there? Felt so cool taking down those massive monsters)

Back then ffxi did have that "we're all in it together" feeling that SE had stroved for, battles that required groups of friends, not payign a lv 75er to solo it for you.

I think a few of the killers of ffxi was the long ass exping system. I don't like hitting the top level in a month flat but your first 75 shouldnt take a year too. Now with FoV and etc it helps a lot but they're 6 years too late.

Even bigger was the monster system. At level 5-6 in windy you start killing birds. Ok cool, but after grinding my character to the peak of mastering his/her job, learning my weapons every curve and blade, becomign the pinnacle of my job, why in the hell are we still killing birds for exp?

SE should've made all the various monster families similiar strengths, so yeah we kill birds at level 3-4 but by 75 I want to by exping on massive dragons and giant monsters of pure awesome. Like every other ffxi game.

But nope, the entire game you spend exping on bugs birds and crabs. Awesome D:

[Onorgul]

Yeah leveling a useful endgame job is such a pain! I mean god, LS's should invite people who don't do anything useful for 90% of endgame, cause god forbid I have to level a Job that is useful and works.

I guess you don't know me, since I do have Bard leveled. You also totally whiffed the point I was making. It's a video game. If the mechanics of the game and the players have made it so that there only needs to be about four or five jobs (which, if you boil classes down to archetypes, would be true of all MMOs), there's no reason to have the other jobs. Changes in late CoP through ToAU have made it so that there is room for most jobs to play in most situations. Anyone who suggests that the best time to play this game was back when the only content were sky gods and the three kings was someone who played one of the four or five jobs that were demanded and were in a linkshell that did them. Before merits, what was there to do at 75? Not a lot. It was dull and shockingly barren of content because SE made the level grind so atrocious that they hadn't been challenged to come up with anything worth doing once you hit 75. Aht Urhgan was the point when a massive amount of content, especially instanced and single party content, was introduced. Paladins in Koenig Cuirass was not a golden age.

[Yabby]

SE should've made all the various monster families similiar strengths, so yeah we kill birds at level 3-4 but by 75 I want to by exping on massive dragons and giant monsters of pure awesome. Like every other ffxi game.

But nope, the entire game you spend exping on bugs birds and crabs. Awesome D:

^ this

They should make things like jormy, ash dragon, shit like that worth 20k xp... give us a reason to go kill it!