Not to derail the thread, but...
There is something extremely fucked up about my psyche that calls me to be an FFXI apologist to its detractors and its harshest critic to its fanboys.
So, you just about convinced me to reactivate my account with that post. So I know what I'm getting myself into, what are your criticisms?
FFXI, maybe more than any other game I've ever played other than Baldur's Gate 2, is about learning The Rules. It never tells you The Rules; you just figure them out on your own, and once you do, it's great. You just can't ever forget The Rules once you learn them because if you do, you either die, or worse, spend hours, DAYS, just spinning your wheels without accomplishing anything.
The two most important Rules are:
1) If you're alone, no, you can't do it. Don't even try.
and
2) Be nice to everybody, not because being mean will get you OMG REPUTATION, but because you never know when some random person will be useful.
A lot of people complain about the death penalty in FFXI, but honestly, it's jus there to teach you The Rules. High levels dont complain about it because they
don't die. There isn't much incentive to get good at WAR, by comparison, because death is so meaningless I use it to reduce travel time.
Since I, at this point, have learned The Rules, my biggest complaint with the game is that it a PC port of a console game and thus the UI is beyond awful. But you already know that.
Money is easier than it used to be (the economy is under control so farming/repeatable questing is semi-viable (sup tiger fangs)) but it's still a pain. This is another Rule: crafting is always better than farming if you're alone.
Most of all, you're still really reliant on groups to progress quickly (lol @ me levelling THF) and accomplishing the big hurdles assumes you have access to a half dozen people who will drop everything to help you advance, when they have their own shit to do. I personally feel really guilty when I have to get friends to drop everything to help me with stuff.
This brings me to my biggest complaint: the playerbase is the most boring bunch of unfunny carebear faggots I've ever seen. Bring friends or you'll lose your mind.
