Now... Where Were We?
Okay, apparently, I was getting ready to do a whole thing about WoW and private servers and shit.Let's roll with that. Why the hell not?
Because I absolutely hate myself, I made myself a list of shit I had to do before I could quit playing WoW. This list was formulated out of:
a) self-loathing
b) a desire to not leave anything WoW fans could possibly bitch about
c) alcohol
d) alcohol
e) Wild Berry Skittles
f) alcohol
This list was freaking exhaustive. I don't even put as much freaking work into taking care of my own offspring as I put into that freaking list.
I had to level a Paladin to 80.
Yeah. A paladin.
Then, I had to level a Hunter to 80.
A female Hunter.
So, I covered two completely different job classes and two completely different genders. One was a hybrid class that included a dps spec, a tank spec, and a healer spec.
I tried them all.
I raised several professions and did dailies and all of that crap.
Yes, even the stupid freaking jewelcrafting dailies where you had to go kill an animal to get a tiny piece of bone or ivory or whatever to make something for the owner of the jewelry store who is apparently too freaking busy giving retarded daily quests to actually go out and get his own damned shit.
I farmed freaking titanium for crying out loud.
I did every raid that could possibly be done on my server. I killed dragons and... Other dragons... Blue ones... And... Some guys in Ulduar...
There was a lot of guys in there.
And another dragon.
And everybody dropped like seventeen pieces of loot. You spent ten minutes killing a boss and then ten minutes rolling for everything.
And lord help you if you roll for the wrong item. They'll slice your freaking throat for that.
I did everything that anyone could possibly suggest would make this game SOMEHOW better than FFXI.
I camped the Time-Lost Proto Drake. And killed it.
Yes, I got a giant, prehistoric drake that I could ride around on. I circled over a desolate, icy mountain range for days waiting to find it and when I finally did, it knocked me off my mount and I fell a bajillion feet to my death. I hopped back up and went and kicked it's ass.
You know what?
Still not more fun than FFXI.
Don't get me wrong. It was okay.
I might even upgrade it to pretty good if I didn't have to force myself to play it practically at gunpoint.
But everything was just... Wrong. Nothing seemed to have any real life or substance to it.
When I'm in Vana'diel, I FEEL like I'm in Vana'diel. I almost feel the grass under my feet as I run through a field. I can feel the cobblestones under my feet as I walk through San d'Oria.
In Azeroth... Well, everything was just there.
None of the monsters seemed realistic. Neither did the landscape.
Hell, even my character looked like a poorly drawn cartoon.
And seriously... Can we just call the shoulder armor experiment a failure and move on? There were a couple of times that I saw shoulder gear that was actually larger than chest armor.
That shit ain't right.
I'm starting to wonder if there maybe isn't a rogue modeler over at Blizzard with freakish, mutant shoulders.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for textures, but FFXI just seems more real to me.
The whole world seems like it's right there, right in front of you. The rocks, the sand, the grass, all just feel so real, like it was an actual world you're looking into.
But not a real world.
My doctor told me I'm not allowed to say that any more.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 7:15 PM
40 Comments:
Glad to see you back on track Dave, and hopefully, back to playing the glory that is FFXI.
I play both WoW and FFXi, and I had to admit WoW maps are more alive than FF. You enter a swamp, a forest, and that is what you see. U hear a name of an area and when u enter that area, the name has something to do with the area. Valley of Sorrows, I swear when I was just a noob b4 Treausres came out, I was desperated to go in that area cuz the name sounded freaking awesome, I was expecting a freaky forest of some sort, spooky and all that.. WoW maps and mobs behave in a more realistic way compared with FF. Also WoW has alot of visual effects on their gear. And just for the record, I have 4 to 5 years in FF and a few months to a year in WoW, so, im not a WoW fanboy or anything.
And lord help you if you roll for the wrong item. They'll slice your freaking throat for that.
Heh, loot drama.
I camped the Time-Lost Proto Drake. And killed it.
Wow, you are patient.
I swore the name of that damn mount was a subtle dig at the people who bothered to camp it. :P
In Azeroth... Well, everything was just there.
This is one thing that I don't like about WoW's world artwork.
Blizzard chose convenience by making everything close together so people don't have to spend too much time walking.
They also avoid putting buildings which serve no purpose so as to not confuse noobs - everything is there for a reason.
As a result the world ended up looking like something out of a RTS, giving it a "symbolic" feel.
None of the monsters seemed realistic.
...
Hell, even my character looked like a poorly drawn cartoon.
Well, they do have a limited poly budget, they have to be careful make sure the game is playable on lower end PC, with up to 40 people on screen at a time.
And the game is fairly old.
Well, for me I have finally quit that game. LOL
Game discs are long gone.
It just stopped being fun, PVP balance (class and faction) is a joke.
I play for fun, and getting chain rolled by the opposite faction because they outnumber you 3:1 isn't fun.
Welcome back Dave, we missed you and are hoping for the best with everything, I'd donate some money if I could but I have to be a bit tight right now.
Yay! GM Dave's back! And he tried WoW. Can I convince you to give Guild Wars a try? And more importantly to have a look at Guild Wars 2?
If I say it looks better than FF14 will you ban me?
Glad to see you back, Dave. :D I hope that you can continue to have fun with the blog.
@Beniki: If they can follow through with all their promises, Guild Wars 2 looks to be better than -everything- else on the horizon. >.>
The one thing that's always impressed me in FFXI is the detail. The world might not be as colorful as other games out there, but there's tons of little things that everyone takes for granted or overlooks that really make the world feel alive.
Things like the Galka in Mhaura flipping the sign, a bird flying overhead, the gentle swaying of the plant life or leaves falling off one of the trees in the Highlands. It doesn't add anything to the gameplay, but it makes the atmosphere that much more gripping for me.
Does WoW have similar detail work? I don't know since I've never played.
"Valley of Sorrows, I swear when I was just a noob b4 Treausres came out, I was desperated to go in that area cuz the name sounded freaking awesome, I was expecting a freaky forest of some sort, spooky and all that.. "
Obviously, you weren't after that damned turtle for anything.
I'm taking it from this that he did all that on a private server, because in the real game raid bosses don't drop 17 pieces of loot. For 25 people, you get 3-4. FF doesn't have loot drama? I find that hard to believe.
Private servers aren't wow. Period.
You are talking from a quite limited point of view PV. Have you ever played on a private server for a significant period of time? During BC I was a full on raider on a private server. Twas more fun if you ask me, but now I am a full on raider in retail and don't get me wrong. It is still fun but I do so miss Chaos Crusade.
See, dave, the only issue that you haven't covered is how easy playing WoW casually is much more practical than FFXI. Coming from 3 years on FFXI, and now 2 years on WoW, it's far easier to, say, grab half a level on my pally and work on some Timbermaw rep in like an hour than it is to get my 58MNK to 59.
WoW's got a solo-friendly atmosphere that FFXI has never achieved.
But, don't get me wrong, still <3 my xi.
I have three things to say...
1) I htae you for getting the Time-Lost Proto Drake, even if its only a private server.
2) I wish I could play FFXI, but my account was inexplicably banned several months back. (Inexplicably because I hadn't played in months and wanted to come back to find out it was banned somehow)
3) My friend got into the FFXIV beta and I am jealous so I will be stealing his computer and hoping its even half as addictive as XI was during the short time I had with it.
Hello Dave. My thoughts with your family. I'm glad you are back.
I have a few things to say about FFXI and any other MMORPG...
I can totally agree with you about feeling part of Vana'diel and it's not about the graphics or textures. After some years of being away I just returned to FFXI this very same week.
I played a lot of other MMORPGs in that time and now that I'm back FFXI graphics look just... old. You know? They are not as good as I remembered them.
But that's not what made FFXI feel good in the first place, you know? It was everything. The music, the ambience, hearing your character's steps going through Sandy, entering a guiild and seeing people working there, passing next to a lake and watch the people fishing like nothing could be better.
That feeling that you can be in a campfire in Ronfaure and just sit there and talk with your friends.
That. That is what makes FFXI much better.
@Blake FFXI Is solo friendly, even before the training regime came to be I was a self-proclaimed soloist and got most of my lvls out of soloing and the adventures! I liked to just enter a new (and very dangerous) dungeon, cave or whatever just to explore it or to focus for hours on your crafts or spend all your afternoon fishing to cook.
Not everything about FFXI was partnership, it's just about enjoying what you could do, the little details.
No other game has that.
Ok, I've never understood the "WOW is so much better because it is more solo-friendly than FFXI". Well, why the hell are you playing a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG?!?
@Dxoh: Not all of us enjoy not being able to advance if all our friends are offline and all the people LFG are complete retards. Doesn't mean we don't like group content, it just means we'd like to be able to play by ourselves if we have to.
@Tyranastraz
Play an offline game, perhaps?
@Dxoh:Regardless if it's an MMO or not, having to completely rely on having friends around to level up isn't necessaruly a good thing. Square Enix has acknowldged that, and is making FFXIV a lot more solo-friendly. Which was one of the main reasons as to why so many people quit FFXI in the first place, you had to rely entirely on others to be able to level up.
Now all that's left is for Dave to play MapleStory :p
I get this suspicion that Dave actually plays WoW on a REAL server.
ooohh, conspiracy. ;p
@Dxoh:
No thanks. I'll stick with WoW. Or LotR. Or, you know, any of the dozens of MMOs out in the last five years that are solo-friendly.
You said you didn't understand it. So I explained it to you. What I don't understand is why people like you continue to whine about other people's personal preferences.
Guild Wars 2 does indeed seem like it could be better than everything on the horizon.
The original is pretty rough to get into these days though, due to the world being so segmented. I imagine Dave would find frustration more than anything else if he went it alone. Two people starting from Nightfall can begin to find their way though.
It really just plays more like a single player RPG that can't be played single player all the way through without difficulty (Ignoring PvP). I love the game, but that's the truth.
@CidBahamut actually, there are a few places in WoW where you get an ambience feel. it's just different as WoW is more of a spinoff/satire of every fantasy genre there is while ffxi makes things seem more real. if you still play WoW, go into Dun Murogh (the dwarf and gnome starting area) and go through the tunnel that leads out of the noobie pen. to your right you'll see a scripted sequence entitle "Dwarven Target Practice" where you'll see these dwarves comedically shooting targets in a sort of mel brooks-style sketch. another is on the draenei isle where all the shipmates have crashed. i forget what the sequence is called, but it's one between the captain and their chef "Cookie" McWeaksauce.
@Dxoh the reason why solo capability is a good idea is because you get together with friends to complete a common goal. leveling is secondary. i still like ffxi for group leveling, but i don't always want to rely on morons to help me level. the only reason you level should be to be competent in a run through a dungeon or completing a mission. otherwise you're simply taking part in something you don't really want to do in the first place, and adding an extra layer of annoyance by being forced to be grouped up with 5 other people who are just as annoyed with it. let me get my own grunt work done on my own time rather than rely on people to get my level up so i can finally do the fun stuff with them. nothing worse than waiting for all my friends to log on so they can just sit and work with me to catch up to them.
WoW is what I'd call a fun game that anybody can pick up... this includes non-gamers. you know, those people whose only console is the wii because they missed out on super nintendo and playstation? it satirizes everything within the fantasy genre as well as some slight jabs at the sci-fi genre. the game's not meant to be immersive in a world... it's made to look more like an entertaining cartoon.
ffxi definitely had some great ambience with their music. i can't really speak for sandy, but windurst i always got that warm welcome forest feeling. like that one grassy hill in a forest clearing with a lot of sun on it. the music from the promyvions was really awkward/nightmarish, which worked well for the environment.
bottom line: WoW is entertaining, but FFXI is where the real adventure is :)
@Retard WoW fan-boys.
Get a life.
Hey, we're not the ones bashing you because you like Game X and we don't. If me liking WoW has such a negative impact on your happiness, that suggests to me that you're the one in need of a life.
Hey, Dxoh...
You're a douche, put the keyboard away and stop talking.
Anyhow, glad to hear you had a bit of fun with WoW, Dave. I can't believe you took that much time to try out all of those things, but at least now you know what you're up against and how easy it is to be strictly better than them, right? :D
"None of the monsters seemed realistic."
Well there's your problem there. :)
I think you need a wee go on Age of conan for some good graphics. ;)
Hypocrites.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thank you, I see I'm not the only one who thinks WoW is a Bland landscape of bright colors. I see WoW like snow cones. It looks pretty but the instant you decide to start you find out that its bland and all the good stuff sank to the bottom and was forgotten about. The community is your little brother who cuts the bottom of the cone off so what was good is drained out.
not related:I removed my previous post of the same thing because of spelling and stuff... don't make fun of my lysdexia
Dxoh, define this "life" you speak of. what the hell am i missing out on here? whatever this "life" is, it seems to have really twisted you into an angsty rebellion-fueled person set on trying to convince a bunch on people on the internet that your opinion is correct and everyone else who doesn't agree is retarded. bang-up job. totally have us convinced. congratulations: you're perpetually ineffective.
People, you're gamers, and if you're playing a game you enjoy, then you already have "the life." who's with me? :)
Again, hypocracy.
oooooh, big word. you like that word apparently. you like it so much that you're using it in a context that doesn't even make any sense! i know big words are fun, but you really must keep in mind the proper use of them in order to not sound like a complete moron. you had questions about something you didn't understand, we answered, you disagreed and called us retards... the "hypocracy" here is you, as you would call us retards when it is you sir who are retarded for misusing the word "hypocracy." what is "hypocracy" anyway? is it anything like hypocrisy, you dolt?! you don't know the meaning of the word, let alone how to spell it. and you call mainstream game players retards...
So the WoW experience wasn't all that much. Eh. I've given up currently on MMO. Think the next one I'll try is Old Republic.
Here is another one for you. Pathetic troll.
You know... I played WoW to level... 12? Only reason I got that far is because I stuck my character to my BF's and he did all the quests for me while I slept in my computer chair. I think I'll stick with real MMOs.
I 120% agree with you. 5 years of FFXi, i tried to make the switched, did everything i could. But the thing for me, i couldnt get over having to use my mouse. I never once touched my mouse in FFXI, but in WoW, everything is point and click. And i just couldnt get around it.
amen :D
:incoming mushy fangirl post:
"When I'm in Vana'diel, I FEEL like I'm in Vana'diel. I almost feel the grass under my feet as I run through a field. I can feel the cobblestones under my feet as I walk through San d'Oria."
I really like what you wrote and I like hearing it from other players. I did not think that others experienced that 'weightiness' the sense that the characters have weight and substance.
It does feel real, as real as an animated environment can feel. I look for this feeling when I make occasional jaunts into other games in hopes of getting that hook, that sensation of real-ness and while I cannot define what kind of techniques are used by SE to create it, I immediately notice it's absence when I am in other games. I remember my first time entering Gusgen mines and actually getting chills because the place felt creepy.
A little late to this party. I believe it all boils down to minor texturing details. I was staring at the walls in Port Jeuno today, and I noticed that the texture for each of the archways was different. Something as simple as each smeared decorative arch that serves no purpose other than to be seen for 50-10 minutes as you stare blankly at the wall had enough loving detail put into it that the pattern of smears was different for every single arch. Grasshoppers in Rolanberry, the airships passing overhead in each zone exactly on schedule - those are the things that add up. SE did a lot of things wrong, but they made a perpetual, living breathing world exactly right.
I wish more people would realize the amazingness of FFXI.
Also- "FF doesn't have loot drama? I find that hard to believe." (PV)
The answer is a very long one. The short answer though, is no. For the most part, FFXI has little to no item distribution disputes.
FFXI has a set of well-known etiquette rules that each Linkshell sets to determine who gets what drops. They aren't gonna give a person who's main job is Monk a scythe because s/he can't wield it. So you would qualify for items only if you declare beforehand that you need them.
If you qualify for an item that drops, you automatically receive it, unless someone else qualifies for that item as well and has it declared. In a case like this, FFXI has a system set up that gives you the opportunity to Lot on a particular item.
Lotting is a type of 'draw a number' (so to speak) and the highest number wins the item. Some Linkshells have other methods of distributing dropped items, however, each Linkshell will specify in their rules what method they use.
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