Originally Posted by angry nomad
In FFXI the max level is 75. It can take a very very long time to get there. Let's put it this way, my wife said I had a problem playing that game too much. My highest job level was 54, after about nine months. Of course, I kept switching jobs, because I would get bored. Also I played for 12 to 30 hours a week compared to others' 40 to 60. The community is generally pretty fun. I never did PvP (it was not originally in SquareEnix's plan.)
It is the first and only MMORPG I have ever played.
First I will tell you what I liked about it:
Being able to create your own character, and your own storyline (As in any MMORPG.)
The cool spell animations.
How wide open it is.
A pretty much adult community. Most of the people in my "Linkshell" are in their 20's and 30's. (Join KeitaroPrime on the Quetzalcoatl server.)
It's very social, which can be fun.
The teamwork.
The economy is very interesting.
There are a lot of ways to make money. (Crafting, fishing, gardening, cooking. Monster hunting.)
What I did not like about it:
-It was hard to find a good Linkshell for the first few months.
-Many of the rewards for the quests are crap.
-To get many of the items or advance in different ways, you have to go on long boring, convoluted quests. Also, the only way to get some of these done, is either have someone hold your hand, and walk you through, or look it up online and do it. (I guess it is in the Final Fantasy tradition to send you on exruciating quests with no hint of the reward. I don't know, I only played FFX, and FFIII on the DS.)
-You can spend hours fartin' around by yourself while you look for a party.
-It is very, very hard. A lot of FFXI players consider themselves "hardcore gamers, not like WoW players..." But, sometimes a game is just so fucking hard that the frustration exceeds the fun.
-Even when you start to move up in levels, sometimes the monsters you fight look the same as ones you fought at lower levels, just with different names, and they look, um, just really easy. (Of course they are not, but it is kind of lame to fight bugs and crabs when you did that months ago. Most RPG's I have played, the enemies start to look more hideous the higher you go.)
-You will end up spending more time making "gil" (money) than actually fighting monsters.
-You can waste a lot of time going on a quest in a group to fight a dragon, or some boss, and failing, even with high level people. Sometimes they get cocky, or just forgetful. Twice, I did everything they said to go fight a dragon, But, when it was time after hours of planning, I got left outside, because they forgot to tell me to do a specific prerequisite. (That is when I started looking everything up online.)
-I would probably spend 15 minutes to two hours on the internet every day, just looking stuff up.
-You are pretty forced to purchase additional characters (mules) for storage of your hundreds of items you will eventually acquire. (At $1 a month per character, it begins to add up. Plus it take a LOT of time transferring the items. (muling)
-PS2 graphics.
-The job I really wanted to do, Summoner, is one of the hardest jobs in the game. I unlocked it, but I only beat one avatar. They are very hard to fight by yourself, and you can only do it once a day, per avatar. Plus you have to make a lot of money for the potions and stuff. (I actually oversimplified the description a lot.)
I just want to let you know what you are getting into not trying to discourage you. But, after $50 and installing Playonline, then the game, then downloading updates for both (which will take hours upon hours) I want you to be sure it was all worth it.
