FFXI Reaches 500,000 Players

Wow. This was posted on the official site: "The PlayOnline service has surpassed 500,000 registered users in North America and Japan combined, with the total online community population (number of active characters) of FINAL FANTASY XI at nearly one million characters."

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EQ Fan
# Jan 12 2004 at 12:27 PM Rating: Default
So what makes your game so great?
I've heard it's one time sink and exp. grind just like EQ.
RE: EQ Fan
# Jan 12 2004 at 5:29 PM Rating: Default
Maradon summed it up nicely. I don't think it's possible to make an MMORPG that doesn't have time sink and experience grind elements TO it, but the difference between Everquest and FFXI is that the time sinks can actually be quite entertaining, and they aren't utterly ridiculous (as in, no literally waiting weeks and weeks for a particular spawn).

Also, the classes are BALANCED. Hear that? They're balanced. That's like a balanced budget in EQ...soooooo elusive.

From day one in EQ, a lot of things feel like a "chore." The quests were moronically boring, and largely not worth doing unless the developers made a mistake and the reward was actually decent. Whenever I had to do a quest in Everquest, I literally groaned...as if someone had told me to clean the bathroom.

In Final Fantasy, the quests have CUTSCENES. There's real, honest-to-goodness story behind them, and they are (for the most part) entertaining. In Final Fantasy, the quests and missions are usually worth doing just because they're fun to do, and to watch the impact it has on the story. The rewards are more like an added bonus...and, oh yeah, the developers don't seem to have a sadistic desire to ensure that you never actually gain some sort of PROFIT from quests.

In EQ, even hunting started to become a necessary evil after those few fast starting levels flew by, and the big "slow-down" came on. That rarely happens in FF.

Oh, and there's actually a STORY. Well, I mean a story that 99% of the players DON'T ignore (as they do in EQ) because it's contrived and uninteresting. The world constantly changes, the economy has several "self-balancing" properties that keep inflation and market floods in check, but most importantly...the game isn't a race. Here that? No Paludal Caverns. There's no massive hurl for experience.

The game isn't entirely about experience, and that's all that matters in EQ. It's all that matters in EQ because as far as questing and tradeskills were concerned, it was the only thing half worth doing. Sorry, Sony, but after the first two weeks of "NeverSleep," you truly become "work" and not "play."
RE: EQ Fan
# Jan 12 2004 at 2:48 PM Rating: Excellent
2 posts
Very much unlike EQ, the quests are interesting, well written, and prolific, the graphics are extremely good but not laggy even on mid-range machines, environments are detailed, and classes are balanced and well developed, the high level game is well structured and not just self-oneupsmanship, and trade skills are more important and actually interesting to practice.

Zone-altering events are commonplace in FFXI, cities are decorated, new items are available for holidays, new NPC's and monsters spawn (a harsh contrast to EQ's events where a couple GM's spawn as high level mobs and slaughter newbies until an uberguild comes along)

I see it is an experience grind, just like EQ, only about a dozen times richer and more highly detailed in every respect.
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