Final Fantasy XI Then...

[mikewl]

Fishing is finally starting to bring in some gil, I now fish in Rolanberry fields for moat carp - nice gil and dark bass for skill ups.

Does anyone know why broken mithra and comp fishing rods sell for more than unbroken ones?

[Hohum]

Crafting skillups maybe? Not sure.

[chang]

hi guys,

glad to see your all still loving the game, im taking yet another break from the game after grinding rdm from 32 to 75(which was supposed to be a change from the utterly mundane life as whm at end game), been enjoying WoW beta and going to give the retail version all ive got. who knows might actually let my FFXI account die after 2 years + of playing the dam game in favour of it.

i keep looking in to see all your antics and am just sorry i couldnt devote my time to both servers, i will however keep reading and having a lurking giggle to myself

[mikewl]

Battle Name Dismemberment Brigade

Mobs:
Armsmaster Dekbuk Orc Special attack / Mighty Strikes
Invulnerable Mazzgozz Orc Special attack / Invincible / Cure IV / Protect III / Banish III
Keeneyed Aufwuf Orc Special attack / Manafont
Longarmed Gottditt Orc Special attack / Hundred Fists
Mind's-eyed Klugwug Orc Special attack / Eagle Eye Shot
Undefeatable Sappdapp Orc Special attack / Blood Weapon /Bio II / Fire II

Drop Item

●Kabrakan's Axe Lv.59 D42 Dly:288 BST
MND+3 CHR+3 Accuracy+4 Add Effect : Slow
●Sarnga Lv.59 D72 Dly:720 RNG
STR+1 INT+1 Ranged Accuracy+8
●Dragvandil Lv.59 D40 Dly:264 PLD
MND+1 Add Effect : Paralysis
●Hamelin Flute Lv.58 BRD
CHR+2 Evasion+3 Requiem+2
●Assault Earring Lv.58 WAR/PLD/DRK/BST/DRG
Accuracy+2 Attack+5 Evasion-2 DEF:-3
●Spectacles Lv.59 DEF:2 MNK/WHM/RDM/THF/BST/BRD/RNG/SAM/NIN
[ICE]-7 Accuracy+7 Ranged Accuracy+7
●Peace Ring Lv.59 WHM/BLM/RDM/BRD/RNG/NIN/SMN
Enmity-1 Converts 10 HP to MP

What do you think about this BCNM60, its this one or the one thats on the LS message.

So far I can think of it being:

Wedge <-- Me (using my orb) Support
Mihki - Tank
Bayan - DD
Tobal - DD
Mahl - Main Healer
Cesarion or Rare - depending if backup tank or backup healer - would be best.

We would use my Orb and go all out with 2 hr etc.

What do you think.

Looking at the BCNM I think we would be up against:

BLM
WHM
WAR
RNG
MNK
not sure about the other.

My guess would be take the mages out first, RNG and MNK next then WAR etc.

Also these fights all look really tough to win so we would need to be very prepared.

[mikewl]

hi guys,

glad to see your all still loving the game, im taking yet another break from the game after grinding rdm from 32 to 75(which was supposed to be a change from the utterly mundane life as whm at end game), been enjoying WoW beta and going to give the retail version all ive got. who knows might actually let my FFXI account die after 2 years + of playing the dam game in favour of it.

i keep looking in to see all your antics and am just sorry i couldnt devote my time to both servers, i will however keep reading and having a lurking giggle to myself

How would you rate WoW in comparison to FFXI.

I tried out EQ2 and thought that was good but I prefer using a control pad which works great on FFXI, is WoW playable with a pad.

I know WoW has got alot of good reviews but I get the feeling its not going to be the mmorpg for me, nothing I have seen on it so far really makes me want the game.

[talizker]

Quick question regarding BCNM40. I'm not sure they are all 3 vs 3 but at least some are. If I go into a 3 vs 3 as RDM I am thinking we will need a Tank and DD as well. This obviously brings the healing question up. Can RDM/BLM realisticaly heal as well as debuf etc? If not do you think that it may be worth leveling WHM to 20 to go as RDM/WHM...?

Onto last night. When I logged on in Jeuno there was a group of 4 /sh for people to Promyvion - Dem and as I had no plans thought I would give it a shot, if only to get a heads up for when the LS does it. After getting the final member and buying food/meds (2 hrs to do!) we Tele of to Dem where me and the NIN tank enter the Halls of Transference. Some of the other party members had to erase their memories at Holla and Mea and it then that there was something strange going on. The WHM (46) did not have all the Teleports and the NIN started quizing him about it. He then started going on about being new to WHM and not having much money for scrolls / euipment. Anyway to cut a long story short it turns out that this WHM was PLV'd from 1-44 and had only partied properly for 2 levels!!! So that was it, no Promy for me although I did enter the zone to have a look

So after all the excitement and build up I wasted the entire night and am now 35k gil down but have a sh1t load of food/meds taking up room in my mog house /sigh.

[Magnakai]

Hi Wedge.
Well, I've played the betas of both... Thought I might as well tell you a little bit about how I'd compare them.

I can honestly rate World of Warcraft higher than FFXI overall. There are quite a few reasons why, some of them shallow, some of them much more fundamental.

FFXI's interface was clunky, but I got used to it. WoW's is just gorgeous in comparison. Typically, Blizzard have made their game very easy to use. You can use many different control methods to run your character around, from WSAD with mouse, the cursor keys or just right-clicking on a bit of the landscape.

The amount of freedom you get is far greater too. River in the way? No need to spend 20 minutes running to a bridge, just swim across. Is that a shipwreck off shore? Let's go dive down and investigate. It really adds so much to the world.

Graphically it's overall a lot nicer. While there's no one technical thing that stands out, and the characters in FFXI may actually look a bit nicer, WoW has so much detail in it. You keep finding neat little things around the world that hold your attention. Granted, I didn't explore all that much of FFXI, but the windmills on the way to the Dunes from... erm... the human city (heh, it's been a while) were the most impressive thing I saw. WoW trounces that with a single griffon ride. Sure, call me a graphics whore, but when you spend hours immersed in this world, you want it to feel immersive in every way. The art direction in WoW is sublime. Everything fits. It's just sort of off-cartoony, but in a wonderful way. Night Elves ears flap wonderfully when you jump. Your little pet kitten paddles along with you when you dive underwater.

The quest system is a relatively simple addition, but it makes for a completely different type of game. FFXI was, for me, 80% hunting with a party, 10% hunting for a party, 5% hunting for a few items for one of the few quests on offer, 3% at the auction house and the rest training mobs. WoW, on the other hand, was 80% quests, 10% helping other people with their quests (and gaining XP!) 5% exploring and the rest floating back to my dead body. (probably a bit of an exaggeration :P) It forces you to search through new areas, something that FFXI actively discouraged you to do. It encourages you to use a wide range of your abilities (Rogue quests had me sneaking through enemy bases to pick the lock on a chest) and include a suprising number of really fun set pieces (such as turning into a wild tiger to reach a wounded hunter and enchanting him, thus letting him escape, or escorting a doddery old prospector around his goldem-ridden excavation.) There are hard ones (trawling through a fortress full of "elite" rated Ogres with your party) and easy ones (finding a child's lost pendant) to continuously top up your XP a bit. Of course, you gain a lot of XP during your quests, especially the hard ones. Speaking of that...

One major advantage that FFXI has over WoW is the system for searching for available party members. To my knowledge (which isn't that great), WoW lacks any such system, bar a dedicated chat channel, which does have it's advantages. I played with a static group, later a guild, so I didn't really encounter many problems in this area. The only times we needed any other people was with particuarly hard quests, and in that case a simple request always yielded a result. Many of our better guild members were gained either this way, or from just partying with people out of convenience when trying for a mission. Incidently, when doing a mission in a group, you really feel a big advantage. If you have to kill a big enemy, you just do it once, and it's done for everyone. You don't have to do it 6 times for each person in your party. This sort of thing is very handy indeed.

Some of the harder quests do require a party. There are elite rated monsters that are meant to be taken down at your level, but not by you alone. Having said that, there's a lot of solo opportunity in this game. Plenty of quests are more than doable on your own. Having this sort of option is definitely an advantage over FFXI, as you gain much more experience by constantly doing stuff (and there are loads of quests to do) as opposed to spending half your time looking for a decent party.

FFXI has the advantage with the class switch system. There's nothing like it in WoW, though you are free to create up to 8 characters on each server, thus giving you the chance to experiment a bit. Each class seems very well developed, though. I have heard a few things about people not enjoying the Warlock and Warrior classes. I do know that Blizzard are looking into it, and I also know a couple of people who enjoy those classes immensely. One swears by his Warlock, so I guess it depends on your own sensibilities.

There's nothing quite like the Mog House, though you do have a certain number of free slots to store stuff at the bank in major cities. Naturally, you can recover it at any other bank. You have a superb auction house system, one that easily trounces FFXI's. Actually, it works a bit differently from FFXI. This one is more like eBay. The system puts in a recommended price for your auction to start at. You can change it if you want, but for often-auctioned items, it's a big timesaver. You can also put in a Buy It Now type option. You choose the length of your auction (Short, Long, Very long) and then pay a fee that varies depending on the value of your item. It doesn't say exactly how long is left on other people's auctions, just one of those three things, which I guess is in place to prevent sniping. You then get the object mailed to you. The ingame mail system is like FFXI's but quite a bit slicker. There's a small charge for each mail sent.

The high-level game is unknown to me in both cases. I think WoW has the usual combination of rare-weapon/armour hunting, rare-beast hunting, and whatnot, which sounds much like FFXI's to me. I think that there are certain very hard quests that actually affect the whole game world, or at least open certain areas up to general use. I'm actually lacking knowledge in that area, though.

There are lots of little details that I'm missing, here. The way that mobs don't train after you forever, they give up after a while. This means that, although low-level mobs will still aggro you, you can just run past them, and absorb the damage. I guess it means that you don't spoil it for the low-level folk. The lack of serious death penalty is a biggie, but I'm sure you've read it elsewhere. I find it encourages experimentation, and you really do mind the time wasted getting back to your body is enough of a punishment. It just lets you get back to the fun. The guild system isn't as flexible as the Linkshell system, as you're stuck in a guild once you're in there. The way it works is pretty good, though, with custom titles for each member and different powers assignable to guild moderators. Plus you can have a custom buddy list, and the tell system is very easy to use, which is nice. You can travel all around the world relatively quickly by griffons, which looks amazing, especially the first time you take a new route. There's not really any loading when you're travelling around by foot or griffon, as the world's very nicely streamed. When you teleport or take an underground tram (you'll see :P) there's a loading screen, but it's not too long.

A big difference is that WoW has PVP built in, though to less of a degree on the non-PvP servers. Basically, depending on the race you pick, you end up on either the Horde side or the Alliance side. It's critical that friends you want to play with pick the same side as you, as the two cannot interact. At all. You speak in a completely different language to the other side, so you couldn't even converse if you wanted to. What it amounts to is that you have to watch your step when you get far enough away from home territory. There areas that are inhabited by the "other side", and while they might feel like cosy villages to, say, a Horde player, to you they're living deathtraps... or raid opportunities, depending on your point of view. Yes, you can wander around an opposing side's village, taking out their shopkeepers and other NPCs. On a non PvP server, you have the option of switching your PvP flag on or off, whereas on a PvP server it's always on, leaving you open to an angry Orc or Night Elf, depending on your point of view. However, you probably wouldn't be exposed to such a situation until you reach a relatively capable stage in the game.

Combat! I can't believe I nearly forgot combat. Well, it's similar to FFXI in principle. You sit in front of your baddie, hit attack, and watch your health bars decrease. As a rogue, I had a large number of special attacks to unleash, and unleash them I certainly did. Since I don't use Mana, I had an energy bar that constantly replenished during the fight. Each move took quite a large percentage of energy from me, but contrary to mana, it comes back very quickly. Mana doesn't, to my knowledge, but it can be replenished with a quick drink of milk! Altogether, not that different from FFXI, but like everything else, slicker. Party combat was slightly different. We did have roles, but since most people on our beta server were rather noobish, we didn't stick to them as religiously as people in FFXI do. I certainly made a bad tank, but a damn good damage dealer, and the healers certainly healed me happily. I think with a better organised group, you could really do some damage, especially since each class isn't necessarily as specialised as in FFXI.

Crafting is similar, but slightly better. As a tailor and leatherworker, I used drops to create cloth clothing (for mages) and bags (for more inventory space. Made me veeeeeeery popular. 8)), and another person in my guild skinned leather to let me create rather decent leather goods. A nice touch is that everything you make is marked with your name, thus ensuring a high class brand name to permeate the server with their very trendy Magnakai Leather Boots. As you get better, you can buy more recipes off gradually more elite trainers, enabling you to create decent goods and undercut the NPC merchants with superior products. Again, note the high take-up of Magnakai Bags. A very trendy item this season.

As I said at the beginning, I really think that WoW offers a better overall experience. The client-side bit is infinitely better. I don't think there's really much comparison in that side of things. WoW isn't revolutionary, but it just does everything so much better than anything else out there. The polish and the freedom, as well as the emphasis on just having fun swung it for me, and swung it far. In fact, the only reason I'm not picking it up at retail is that it's too good! I can't spare the time that I know I'd spend on it. If you're in the market for an MMORPG, I can't recommend it enough.

Yeesh, I really didn't mean to type that much... I guess that's what happens when I get going! No chance I'm proofreading it, though. If you've made it this far, through my inevitable typos, grammatical errors, and dull writing style, then, well, you're the masochistic type who probably plays MMORPGs!

P.S. Oh, and Wedge, I think you could use a controller, though you'd certainly need a mouse every now and again. As long as you can map it properly, then I can't see any reason why you couldn't use it for general navigation. Not sure about object selection, though... I would check, but the beta finished a couple of days ago, and my client's now useless!

[Darwock]

I got an issue with some of the statements you've made about FFXI there Magnakai, how much did you play it before stopping exactly?

It forces you to search through new areas, something that FFXI actively discouraged you to do.

Discourages? Whaaa? Quests quite often come with no explanation other than "There's something suspicious in that place! Go and check it out!" If that's not an encouragement to explore I don't know what is. Also consider for example the Selbina clay quest which can't be done without investigating every nook and cranny of dozens of in game locations to try and find those elusive stone monuments.

(Rogue quests had me sneaking through enemy bases to pick the lock on a chest

I guess that means you never used sneaking magic/items to get through a high level dungeon in FFXI either? If you were a thief it may even have been to pick the lock on a chest :P

I would also say it's early days for WoW... FFXI starts off just as open and accessible to soloing and parties, it was only after 6 months to a year or so that it became much more of a challenge requiring co-operation etc, for me at least.

That thing about low level mobs aggroing you and giving up so as not to spoil it for low levels.. well the low level mobs ignore the high levels in FFXI anyway (unless you rest in front of some of them etc). Also mobs DO give up the chase - it may not happen often but it does happen.

Also you kind of breezed over the combat explanation as if it's just a 'point and wait' system in both games.. can't speak for WoW but you've underestimated FFXI if you think thats all the combat is. It calls for strategy, timing, teamwork... the more I play the more I think the combat system is a work of genius.

[Darwock]

Talizker the BCNM battles will no doubt allow for different tactics/teams... me and claude are still confident we can beat our planned level 20 fight with just summoner and thief.. although I am fully prepared to eat my words when we try it lol.

When you factor in the 2hr abilities (which can be used strategically if you're not trying to do one orb battle 6 times for 6 people) then you get a lot more options.

[mikewl]

Thanks for the info Magnakai, WoW does sound good and its likely that I will get it as a secondary MMORPG, I am on many at the moment, FFXI, SWG, EQ2, It will be more for a bit of fun when I want a break from FFXI.

Although there is no way it will become my main MMORPG, too much time invested into FFXI and im just enjoying it too much right now, Rargh makes it a fun day in Vanadiel each time.

The strange thing is I have got EQ2 which is very high end for graphics and im running it on high settings with an X800 XT card and I still think FFXI is the better looking game, due to style, better weather effects and design and the equipment looks far better.

I have heard performance on WoW is very good, much better than EQ2.

[mikewl]

Talizker the BCNM battles will no doubt allow for different tactics/teams... me and claude are still confident we can beat our planned level 20 fight with just summoner and thief.. although I am fully prepared to eat my words when we try it lol.

When you factor in the 2hr abilities (which can be used strategically if you're not trying to do one orb battle 6 times for 6 people) then you get a lot more options.

Guys remember im up for some BCNM40, I still have my lvl 40 equip for Bard and can afford at least 1 Orb for it.

Let me know if you wanna give it a go.

[talizker]

I also like the look of WOW but I don't think there is any way i'm going to find time to play it along with FFXI what with all my other comitments!

Wedge, I think we will just be waiting until we hit level 40 and then go for BCNM40. There are two expensive items that I need and both are possible drops so I am itching to try for them (not to mention the gil I will be needing leveling through the 40's!!!). I have 77 seals at present so should be able to bring two orbs when the time is right. Hopefully level 40 will come round in the next weekish for me

[talizker]

When your subscription ends (either through cancellation or expiring), your World of Warcraft account and characters will remain saved on the server, so that you will be able to return at any time and pick up where you left off.

You will not be able to log in through the game if you do not have a current subscription, but you will still be able to access your account through the Account Administration page:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account

You can use this page to set up a new subscription for your account at any time, which will allow you to log into the game again and pick up your characters right away.

Having just read this about WOW then I may indeed pick it up and try it...

[Darwock]

I've got ..um... 307 seals at the mo, lol. I could do with using some of them up. I'm also trying to get level 40 in the next week (Warp II is spurring me on) but currently only managing about half a level per evening (at 36 right now). After last weekend on Qufim I don't have any more energy for constant levelling :-(

[Daragon]

I've just finished the WoW final beta. To my surprise, I don't see what the appeal about it is. Sure, its got the casual gamer thing going for it, but in the end, its essentially an MMORPG like all the rest and its not ground breaking.

Because it takes so little time to get anywhere, there's no real social aspect to it. Player to player interaction seems to be purely pvp based.

Now it does have some nice touches to it. The thing I was most impressed about is that its a game that believes it shouldn't punish their customers because they somehow died. There are no death penalties if you locate your corpse. I might pick it up at some point if I ever get suitably tired of FFXI.

Another thing thats caught my attention of late, is SOE's improved station pass, which now includes SWG. Basically this means, by paying around ?3 extra each month I get unlimited access to all of SOE's online games including EQ/EQ2 and Planetside which is pretty good value for money imo.