I've always been a huge mmorpg fan. I've played so many. Runescape, Ragnarok, Everquest, Everquest II, SWG, WoW, Asheron's Call, etc.

Back in the day, Runescape was the shit. On 56k and a shitty computer(before CS existed), it was the best thing since sliced bread. Then Ragnarok dominated, never liked Everquest much, SWG was the best game I've ever played, WoW is dying, and Asheron's Call is dead.

Honestly, mmo's aren't what they used to be. There are so many new game developers looking for change and some kind of revolution in gaming with all these next gen games coming out. That's not the right idea. Sure, I can understand making some innovative games for people that appeal to them, but what about the old rpg fans? I'll be honest with you, I loved blizzard. Starcraft, warcraft, and diablo were some of the best games I've ever played. When they announced the World of Warcraft... I was so excited. I could imagine myself playing a character in the warcraft world and follow the story of warcraft's history and mold the future. It's nothing like that. Basically, you either grind, quest, or bot to level 70 and either raid or pvp for armor sets. That's not an appealing game to me. And now that WoW has become such a big hit, all mmo's are using it as a guideline. They're not trying anything innovative. They're just making WoW knockoffs and more action or shooter type mmo's.

With that aside, I've been playing Final Fantasy XI for a little over 2 months now. I tried playing FFXI years ago and hated it. I couldn't get into it. I actually tried starting over on it twice and both were failures. This time I went into the game by picking a random server not knowing anyone or anything about the game. That was probably one of the best decisions I've made since the SWG combat upgrade was released.

Unlike most mmo's, I believe FFXI is moving in the right direction. It has a storyline. It has a point to playing. You live the life of your character in the world of Vana'diel and discover the mysteries of the world and how it became to exist and why it is corrupt. It's 5 years old and there are 4th expansion was just released. The max level has been 75 for 5 years. You want to know why? Because of the way they built the game. One character can play every job in the game. One character can do everything in the game. That allows you to actually play the game, follow the story, and do the expansion packs on one character while enjoying every aspect of the game at once. Yes, it's a difficult game. You're forced to party after about level 10. But that makes sense! If everyone is forced to party, then everyone has to party. If everyone can be any job, everyone will have all different levels to level (when I say this, I mean you can change your job at any time. Just go to your home, talk to your moogle, and change jobs.) This means that even the veteran players with 2 or 3 level 75 jobs will have lower level jobs to level as well as all the new people joining. Not only that, but the game is cross platform. You can play it on PC, Xbox 360, or PS2 on the same servers. And it's multi lingual. People play on the same servers from America, Europe, and Japan. This allows 3 different prime times for the 3 different time zones. Therefore there are always tons players online! They speak a different language you say, there is an auto translate feature! You can auto translate every word that you need to communicate with someone in the game. It's brilliant. Not only that, but the game is absolutely beautiful. It's 5 years old, and yet it still has beauty. The designers are actual artists. The music glows with emotion. Have you ever played a final fantasy game? If you have, I'm sure you'll understand.

I'm done ranting. I hope you enjoy Age of Conan when it's released. Take it easy man.