Masochistic Enough To Do Two Timesuck Mmos

Last month, one of my real-life friends twisted my arm hard enough to start WoW.... (and you really can't miss me in the armory if you were to look... lol)
So now I'm curious as to how many people are still active on both FFXI and WoW, and how you manage your time to keep in contact with both ends of the table.

I personally spend most of my FFXI time with people in Japan, so I've been going work>wow>ffxi>sleep>work....

I made a character on Nazjatar, got to level 70, then quit. I might try it out again when the new expansion comes out.

Same, made a character got it to 70 and quit also. I am currently playing Age of Conan now along with FFXI. It takes a bit of balance but it's not too bad considering i don't seek PT on FFXI all day anymore.

And here's the (nooby) question of the day: Which is better, FFXI or WoW? >;D

IMO, they both have good parts and bad parts, so it's really hard to say which is "better" - I think it's more like which cup of tea you prefer.

If you intend your MMO to include lots of text-chatting with friends, the FFXI chat interface, at least to me, excels so much over the WoW chat interface. (I really hate the inability to send a one-liner to the guild during a lively party conversation without changing chat mode twice in WoW... that and you can't expand the chat log to fullscreen by default.)

I think WoW is better suited for "low-level solo playing", but then, thanks to Campaigns, it's gotten much easier to casually play solo in FFXI as well. (Though, it's just a matter of whether or not you can stick it out in FFXI until you get the support job and get to the Crystal War times.)

I found that WoW is a lot more quest-driven so you will always seem to have something to do (with the mind-boggling number of total quests you can do, and how they give tons of xp and money if your level isn't too high for it) - but if you want drama in your quests then sticking to FFXI might be better, as I don't think you'll get special cutscenes in WoW quests.

Two things from FFXI that I wish they would implement in WoW (esp. coz I rolled a priest): /anon and colorcoding solo/pt people.

i would say wow and ffxi are equally good. they both have lasted a long time as far as games go, though FF has lasted a bit longer. as far as game experience goes i think its much easier to level in wow vs ffxi. now the real question is when diablo 3 comes out will it be better than wow.

correct me if i am wrong, but isn't wow a single platform game? ffxi is 360 ps2/3 and PC. i think that right there shows that ffxi potentially reaches more people.

I agree, they are both good in different ways.

While I have to take a break from FFXI periodically, I always know i'm comming back, and and excited when I do.

One of the things I like best about FFXI is it is multi-platform. I would not say it allows it to reach more people, but a different set of people. FFXI was the first contemporary MMORG I played because I did not have a good PC but did have a PS2.

I do wish that SE would release a version that would work on all PS3s. Then if I'm really dreaming; that they would help with the project to get WINE to run it. It would be nice (and good for the game) if FFXI was a six platform game. PS2, PS3, 360, Windows, Linux, Mac.

WoW is definitely more friendly to the "casual," solo player because it allows you to still "get stuff done" with less uninterrupted blocks of time.

FF, meanwhile, can sometimes require a minimum of 4-5 free hours at a time in order to really accomplish anything of value.

However, this doesn't mean that WoW players are any more casual or less hardcore than FF ones: industry statistics show that even self-identifying "casual" WoW players log more time in-game per week than average player time investment in any MMO ever created to date. The only difference is their self-perceptions and Blizzard's marketing.

Personally though, if I'm going to sink X hours a week into either FF or WoW, for say... 4 years, I prefer a game where you can't get maximum level in 3 weeks. I find that I actually enjoy games that take 4 years to reach the top and experience some content, but that's just the Bartle Achiever archetype in me. It simply makes my 4 year investment seem more significant by contrast, even though being an MMO developer, I realize that all achievements in both games are ultimately worthless, transient binary anyway.

I'm kind of taking a "break" from FFXI, I guess... but I know that after a while I'll be back full-force (and gonna get that SCH up to 75...) and still love every moment of it. Over the years, I've noticed that FFXI seems to have A LOT of people "coming back" from retirement.... and I'm starting to wonder what the "return" ratio is for WoW comparative to FFXI.

I'd have to agree that FFXI reaches out to people who never really played a MMO before because they can be played from console gaming devices. I think FFXI also reaches out to the people who are into "anime-style" game graphics (though, this seems to be a common trait in most Asian-made MMOs)...

Seeing that I'm at lv43 one month into WoW, yet all the 3+-yr veteran guildies say "you lv so slow!!" I kinda have to agree with Jaerik on the "I prefer something that you can't max out in 3 wks" bit. On one hand, I really would like to race up to 70 so I can enjoy the endgame content that all the veterans do; but at the same time, I need some sense of accomplishment towards the character that I have raised. I know that it's all a fleeting dream, and the data that we consider as "achievements" will be sent to dev/null when the service ends, but the memories will remain.... and you can't create memories if you don't take your time and enjoy the game :)

I just recently canceled my WoW account after 2 years of playtime. Before that I had played FFXI for over a year.

Both games are very fun, and have their own strong points. I actually stopped playing WoW for the same reason I stopped playing FFXI. I got burned out on endgame. I've been leveling beastmaster now on FFXI and it's tons of fun. I would like to go back to WoW once the expansion comes out, but I'll probably try to stay out of endgame.

I guess the internets aren't really srs bsns. QFT

A couple Xmases ago I got a copy of WoW so I could game with my cousin during vacation. I was active in the game for a couple months, but only really played for about 2 weeks. Got my Tauren Druid to about 40-ish before I put the game away. It seemed a bit on the easy side compared to FFXI, and wholly antisocial. I think I only ever teamed up with one person that wasn't my cousin, and they washed their hands of me once the quest was done. I feel so dirty...

Damn you for making me do that Bartle test when I'm supposed to be working. :/


The test results seem a good indicator why I'm so biased to FFXI. :P

Didn't see the graphical form of the Bartle test thinger. That's kinda nifty.

I play both games, but I'm rarely active on both at the same time.

I'll usually alternate between the two, which gives me a nice break from one game while being able to put all of my focus on the other, and also so I'm not overwhelmed with monthly fees.

I've always been more of a casual player though (relatively speaking). This type of play style probably won't go over so well with raiding guilds or endgame LS's.

It becomes progressively harder to think of your gear/levels/etc as having inherent value when you work for an MMO, and can reach over and physically touch a server cluster rack that contains the entirety in summation of 700,000+ users' years and years of time investment.

You realize there's literally nothing stopping you from reaching over, opening the user's character records (which is one small 3k file in some MMO's, or just a few rows in a DB server in another), and deleting it. Poof. On some Windows platforms (original Everquest for example) it's literally as easy as right clicking the equipment file and sending it to the Recycle Bin.

The user could call up and complain, indignant that their four years of time investment just vanished, but because there's no inherent difference in value between the database row that contains a relic weapon versus a database row that contains a bat wing... well, binary is binary, and the binary is gone. According to the binary, the code, and the system, they have the same value. The service moves on. If you quit, the company has only lost one ten-millionth of their overall revenue, and they still get to keep the $720 or so you've already given them for your previous subscription, so they really don't care very much. Besides, your constant complaining is probably costing them more in man-hours than the $15/month you're giving them already, so it's better for them if you quit already.

It sounds very cynical, but it's important to keep that perspective when you play these games, and realize that their only value is in providing FUN. Too many people continue to play after the game is no longer fun for them simply because they feel they have to, in order to preserve the "value" that their characters/gear/etc has. In actuality, there is none.

Now I know why WoW is so alluring at this moment in time... I have more places to explore than I do on vana'diel!!

It's kinda sad to think about how all our years of fun will someday disappear, but then we can say the same for offline games as well - format the HDD/memory card, or the battery runs out on that battery-backup cartridge, and the hours and hours we spent on the game all go poof.
But hey, the memories remain, and that's what counts, right?

Yup, the memories and the fun still make it worth it. =)

I wonder if someone could start that 3D character printing thing they have for WoW and do FFXI characters. That's one way to preserve your 1's and 0's in meatspace when the servers get turned off.

there was a tool that show you character models with all sorts of equipment...
but i don't remember if you can put them against backdrops.

are you talking about alanta viewer?

AltanaView*

http://www.figureprints.com/

Found what I was talking about. This would be cool as hell to have for FFXI.

Wow.. that would kick *** to have. ^^

for FFXI =D

Try 4 :) I play FFXI, WoW, SWG, and AOC. All for the love of the MMO. I completely agree with Jaerik, but really that's all RL is too. Memories. If you do things for the money, your just a RL gilseller. But what's even more important than the memories is the bonds you share with ppl that like the same thing you do. Everyone thought Myspace and Facebook and Meetup were wonderful things, when that thing has been here all along. Ppl who REALLY like gaming and RP's will always source together.

Another thing about it just being memories... I've pretty much turned all my close relationships in-game to RL relationships. This is what's great about playing multiple MMO's, you meet EVERYONE. Some will zerg in and zerg out trying in vain to prove something but never really get there. I play 4 MMO's for basically one reason. To have a broader RL.

How many people do you know in RL that had to {Focus} with someone that doesn't speak their language for 8 hours at a time?

I tried playing FFXI and WoW concurrently, and ended up giving up WoW because I just did not have the time for both.

Honestly, FFXI is going to be the last MMO I play. I love the idea, I love the community, but the time sink is just too much. Especially for FFXI, you can't do ***quickly in this game.

Although, I am going to give the Star Trek MMO a try, at least. It's prolly gonna suck (most ST games do ;;) but I'm a big enough Star Trek nerd that if I don't check it out, I'm gonna hate myself until I die ^^

Let's hope SE learns from their successes, mistakes and other MMOs to make Rapture super-awesome ^^

I dont see how you could even consider playing a second MMO... unless either FFXI just doesnt interest you enough, or you have a severe lack of real-world responsibilites.

The majority of players I know in FFXI have real lives... they're not kids. This means they have to work for a living... to pay thier bills or support their families.

Anyone playing FFXI seriously knows how much of a time investment it becomes when you reach "endgame." Between work, the game, maintaining some sort of social life, and still managing to find time to get a good night's sleep... it really does become terribly difficult to find time for anything else, much less wasting another 3-4 hours a day on another MMO.

If you're splitting your time between MMOs, you're really only hurting yourself. It means you're a casual player in both, so you'll never see the best either game has to offer. Either that, or you have nothing else to do with your life and can afford to spend 8 hours on one game to log out and spend 8 hours on another before you pass out for the night... and well, thats just sad.

After two months of mainly WoW, I think I've found my answer... "play the game you want to play when you want to play it, after all even MMOs are just games". I mean, when I have the chance to login to FFXI "just for fun" nowadays, everything is so nostalgic that it really is fun again.

From around when my taru celebrated her 6th birthday mid-June, the "interest" factor from FFXI has faded to the extent that I've stopped caring about some of the endgame content. I still run my dynamis LS because I love the guys in my LS -- they always guarantee me at least 5 huge laughs every run, all the while taking down the Lord or Heart and stuff.

Once you figure out what gear you really want/need, how much time you need to "invest" for you to get that particular gear becomes apparent, and it becomes easier to "manage" your time - whether it be spending time on other stuff in Vana'diel, in real life, or other MMOs if you so please. Right now I'm pretty happy with my setup, though I'm sure it's not the best out there - I personally haven't had much gear shout at me "YOU NEED ME" so I feel my weekday evenings are better spent with real-life friends in WoW (since we live like 2-hours-by-car apart, it's easier and cheaper than going to movies and such) than all by myself in FFXI (this is partially my own fault as I don't actively seek out NA friends in FFXI... and never will)...

In the end, I have come to the conclusion that Jaerk was most likely accerting from the get-go: that FFXI, like WoW and all other MMOs, is something you do to have fun with people who control the other characters around you. I feel that the "best they have to offer" is not the uber-kewl endgame gear/content, but the interactions you have with other players (though, this can include uber-kewl content runs).

I now find someone to be in a very sad state when they consider endgame content to be a "must-do" and that the more players "miss out" if they don't do it. I see plenty of FFXI players who will never camp an HNM nor run Salvage constantly, as well as plenty of WoW players that never raid - and I know both sets of people are still enjoying the respective games to the best of their knowledge nonetheless, despite not being a part of every facet of endgame content.

I'm an FFXI fan all the way, but if there was something from WoW that I would like FFXI to have is the ability to click on a piece of gear or an item in the chat log and it brings up a description of it and it's stats.

Reading all of the posts I was taken aback a little, for whatever reason someone may retire or quit or just put the game down for a break or for good - but how would you feel if you went for whatever reason to pick it back up to find you were too late; the servers were just "shut off" for the last time? If you knew it was going to happen just before you decided to leave would you have left in the first place? I came back from "retiring" I suppose it's called recently (for personal reasons) and since I read this post I asked myself what would I have felt like if I tried to return to find the place I had spent so long and founded some of the happiest gaming moments since super mario had gone poof while I wasn't looking.. wow, I have no idea :/ good thread :D a forum that inspired nostalgia who'd have thought it lol

(Good god, death knights are fun... so I'll be on WoW for a bit longer before I return to Vana'diel to level Scholar.)



This is one place that the jp players have an advantage - there is a fan-made "IME dictionary" that lets you conjugate (for lack of a better term for the kanji selection process) item descriptions into the chat box. But even then, you still can't link quests in the chat box... Now that we have item name autotranslators, I think a quest name autotranslator would be great... though a heck of a lot of work for SE, FFXI still has far fewer quests than WoW so it should be possible.



That would be a total bummer for me... and I'd keep thinking, "If I had known, I'd played so much from the server shutdown announcements... and stood in Vana'diel on the very final seconds of existence"... I guess that (and my affinity to my jp friends as I've mentioned before) is why I haven't completely retired (i.e. still pay for accounts)... though I don't see FFXI going away any time soon (and I sure hope not!), especially because they haven't mentioned anything about their "new MMO" yet... and even if they were to launch the new game, I hope they'll keep FFXI around - even if they have to trim down the server count.