It pains me to say it, but FFXI has actually improved.

[Quinton]

The whole gameworld blows every other MMO out of the water imo.  Too bad forced grouping is such shite.  Also they really should add some non foozle whacking, non crafting minigames.  They don't have any do they?

These are all the assorted minigames I can recall from FFXI:

Crafting:
about standard fare, breakage is a bit sucky, strangely addictive from an inventory management puzzle perspective at times.
Alchemy was decent money for me back in the day
HQ success rates tend to make crafting highly favor max-level crafters from a profit standpoint
Hardcore crafters hold all kinds of insane superstitions about what direction they should be facing, game day, phase of moon, etc.  Some of which do seem to have some statistical impact on HQ and breakage, but mostly are just noise.

Fishing:
I found both the original and the new (anti-bot-measures-included) fishing to be pretty tedious.
It was decent money when people were buying moat carp by the boatload or during the various rusty cap madness bits.
Used to be a popular thing to bot.

Chocobo Racing:
ride from point a to point b across some number of zones
various prizes (xp scrolls included I think), limited number of times you can do it per some external amount of time

Escort Missions:
Make sure NPC makes it from point A to point B alive.
Reward includes cash (first time) and XP scrolls (repeatable).
Repeatable weekly.
5 or 6 different ones available.
Generally need at least a small group, though at higher levels maybe not.

Gardening:
Grow plants in pots in your moghouse.  Feed them crystals.  Get various results.
This used to be extremely good money.  A couple friends of mine had many alt characters just to have the max 10 pots per character for growing tree cuttings into saplings.  Saplings were used to grow trees to get high end crafting components.

NPC Adventuring Buddy:
Quest available at lv30 to get an NPC buddy you can summon periodically.
Helpful for soloers or small parties.  Can give NPC buddy different weapons, etc to use.
Can have NPC buddy adopt different playstyle (healer, tank, fighter, etc).

Auction House:
Some people consider this a fun minigame ^^  I used to make some money at times buying things that were underpriced and relisting them higher or listing them in another regional auction house where there was higher demand, etc.

Chocobo Digging (what's the real name for this?):
Can spend greens to make chocobos you're riding dig for stuff.  Mostly gets you junk, last I heard.

Seasonal Event Quests:
Random silly holiday events usually involving small groups of people trading random items to get a certain set to get some event-specific gear or house decorations or fireworks or food or items that transform the appearance of your character for a bit.
My absolute favorite one of these was a "test of courage" one they did where you and a partner get warped into some very high level zone temporarily reduced to level 1 and made invisible and need to find each other to return for your prize.  This was a total blast and pretty cool in that it let even brand new players get a glimpse of some cool areas they would not safely be able to see for a long time.

There's now some kind of pokemon-like minigame.  Don't know the details.

Make your own fun:
The sorta informal bunch of random friends linkshell (guild) I was part of hosted random events like "naked race to Jeuno" -- everyone set to a level1 job with no gear equipped and see who can make it on foot to the central city (Jeuno) from a starting city first.  Prizes distributed for 1st/2nd/3rd place, etc.  Totally silly but fun anyway.

- Q

[Hoax]

I wish I had a higher level character to fall back on...

I had THF35, WAR1X, NIN1X if I remember right.  Oh well if I ever feel like I HAVE to play a diku-based mmo this'll be the one.

[Quinton]

I may start playing again when the next expansion is released.  The CoP expansion a couple years ago was a total blast.  Some of those missions were pretty crazy-hard but it was a *lot* of fun and it was a nicely epic storyline.  You really do feel like you're saving the world when the final battle in the story is with the giant, banished twilight god in an arena where you can see the planet below you.  Very stylish.

I got a ways up there.  BLM75, WHM43, DRK34, most other jobs in the 10-20 range.  I did finish BLM leveling after they adjusted the XP requirements for 55-75.   It's a little less harsh now.  When I started level 63 was the halfway point XP-wise from 1 to 75.  Though with a good party and well-optimized foozle-whacking 8-10K XP/hour was possible, making even 44K XP for lv75 only a couple evenings of grind.  The renkei combo stuff made combat a bit more than button mashing, though still not a totall thrill-fest.

- Q

[Quinton]

What server are you on?

Midgardsormr.  It seemed to have a decent and active population and so far hasn't disappointed.  Hardly crowded by any measure, but enough people running around to find parties.

I totally missed this when I first read the thread way back when.  Midgard is a good place.  Keep your eye out for CurseTheYagudo or FantasyInsanity folks.  There's a ton of really great people on the server overall, but those guys I did a ton of gaming with.  CTY was originally just a handful of friends who had started playing together at launch.  We got pretty big but remained pretty silly all the way through.  It's good to know they're still out there, cursing the Yagudo, as they should be. http://cursetheyagudo.org/ for all your Yagudo Cursing needs.

- Q

[Kitsune]

I hit 30 over the weekend and with a liberal dose of help from a bored linkshell member unlocked the summoner job without nearly as much hassle as some of the horror stories have described.  I also unlocked beastmaster, as it was a quick little quest from Jeuno.

I'm now also completely fucking broke.  I can see how the gold sellers found fertile ground in FFXI; I'm only getting at best 3k per hour with fishing, the best money-maker I've found to date.  The tradeskills are gaping maws of money-devouring until you throw a couple million gil into them to raise them high enough to start making items that people will pay for, and with white mage as my main job, I lack the offensive power to farm rare monsters for their drops.  All of the money I've made so far has been going into buying the spells I need, my equipment is mostly level 11-ish.  Thankfully the white mage is seldom attacked, so having terrible gear isn't affecting me that much.

I've never been the best at making cash in any game; saving for my mount in WoW was a looooooooong process, and it's that much worse in FFXI.  Scary thing is that from everything I've heard, FFXI's economy is the best now that it's been in years.

[Margalis]

When you get to level 40 you can start doing BCNMs, you might even be able to do some now. BCNMs are a good way to make money. I do BCNM 40 "Under Observation" because it drops both Utsusemi: Ni (400k) and Peacock Charm. (2 million) Even a terrible run should net you 10-20k+.

I believe that BCNM is the most value for the number of beastman seals.

If you are only making 3k an hour it might be better to farm silk or bees. Bees drop beehive chips and honey fairly often, both of which are somewhat valuable. The gustaberg area bees all drop nice stuff, except for the level 1 bees.

If I were you I would raise Summoner from 1 to 12 or so, solely off of bees. Not only will you be raising a helpful subjob for WHM but you should end up with a few stacks of beehive chips, honey and wind crystals.

If you were on my server I'd send you some money...

Pretty soon I'll need to make money again after I finish buying the level 51 HQ staves, maybe I'll discover some better tips I can share with you.

[Tige]

Fishing:
I found both the original and the new (anti-bot-measures-included) fishing to be pretty tedious.
It was decent money when people were buying moat carp by the boatload or during the various rusty cap madness bits.
Used to be a popular thing to bot.


Gardening:
Grow plants in pots in your moghouse.  Feed them crystals.  Get various results.
This used to be extremely good money.  A couple friends of mine had many alt characters just to have the max 10 pots per character for growing tree cuttings into saplings.  Saplings were used to grow trees to get high end crafting components.

- Q

By far the best implementations of fishing and gardening ever.  Oh Noes!  It's watersday, so sorry need to run back to moghouse and harvest.  Can I get a warp please?  I'll brb.

[Kitsune]

The bitch to FFXI is the high cost of getting started in most money-making ventures.  I looked first at mining.  200 gil per pick, picks seem to break about 1/3 of the time when mining, and I dug up primarily iron ore.  Iron ore is a non-stacking item, to make it stackable you need Blacksmithing at level 20 to smelt them into ingots.  I spent about 7000 gil to raise Blacksmithing to 7, then ran out of gil and crystals.  At the rate things were going, it looked like it would run me another 20-25k to get Blacksmithing to 20 to be able to refine and sell the iron ingots.

The other thing I was finding in the mine was silver ore, and that's a whole different deal with Goldsmithing 20 to make ingots.

Once I actually get those crafting skills, a stack of iron ingots seems to go for a tasty 35,000 gil, and silver ingots for 25,000.  Very good money for someone who's never had more than 20k in his pocket.

The fishing is dirt cheap to do, but sloooooow at giving any sort of return.  Moat Carp go for 2,000 a stack, but it takes at least half an hour to get a stack of the things.

I have around 45 beastman seals now, so once I hit 40 I'll be able to give that fight a whirl and pray for a lucky drop.

[Margalis]

Hmm...as a WHM it may that BCNM might be hard, I kind of forgot how dependent some BCNMs are on job. That particular one has 3 enemies including a powerful one that is usually kited by a RDM while your buddies take out the weaker mobs.
(I'm a RDM) But there are probably other BCNMs you can do that pay out roughly similar on average.

Also you may be able to see back to the fishing guild for more than the AH, not sure.

[Quinton]

I'm not sure what the market is like post-correction, but I managed to make some money or worst case break even doing alchemy up to level 70-something back in the day (before and during the hyper-inflation).  Hard to compete with the lv100+ alchemists, but still some good money in basic consumables.

You do need some cash to get started, which is definitely the hard part.  Until them farming ingredients is a way to trade time for gil.

Actually one way to pick up some decent spending cash is just to level some jobs from 1-10 (the range at which soloing is not that horrible) -- the crystal drops alone can be some decent cash if you're fighting things that drop the more useful/valuable crystals and materials like beehive chips and so on are somewhat valuable once stacked (or useful for crafting).

- Q

[Reg]

Plus doing level 1-10 in a subjob is a great way to pick up lots of beastman seals for BCNM's as well.

[Tige]

I sold stacks of fire and wind crystals in Jueno.  Many times you could just buy a stack in Sand (fire) and Wind (wind) and resell in Jueno at 2x the price.  Fishing at the guild in Wind is the spot until you get your skill up and you can make a few bucks but I still think gardening is the way to a good solid income.  After a couple of good harvests you are on your way.

I don't remember if the bcnm fight at your level is that group of bunnies or the orc.  If it is the bunnies, you are going to need help.  To this day my eye twitches every time I see a rabbit.

Hey Margalis and Reg.

[Reg]

Heya Tige. You thinking of reactivating for a while too? If I remember right I'm just at the point where I have to start thinking about doing that horrible quest before I can level my whm job any more. :)

[Tige]

Thinking about it after hellgate London runs its' course.  I'm close to that fight to level past 70 as well if my character is still around.

After that run we made at the NA release I was broken when it came to mmos.  It would be cool to go back and check out all the new stuff.  Tempting.

edit:  I went and checked out the ffxi playonline site.  Looks like they banned upwards of 9k accounts today for gil farming
        http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/2447/detail.html

Stuff like that makes it even more tempting to see if my character is still there.   

[Reg]

Well I checked out the Return to Vanadiel thing and since it's only been 2 years since I last reactivated I'm pretty sure my guys will still be there. The Return to Vanadiel program is going on until next April anyway. They seem to have it all automated at this point. I don't know why they don't just make it a permanent thing.

It'd be fun if we could get a few of the old Watershellers back together there for a month or two.

[Tige]

I think as soon as some of the shiney wears off of hgll I'll see if I can get my old character up and running.  If so I'll resub and do some fishing and gardening until I get familiar with stuff again to go face Matt.  If I can get through that without slinging my laptop out the window I'll probably stick around for at least a few months.  If Matt hands me my ass on a platter a half a dozen times I'll burn my ffxi dvds.

Numtini - you game?

[Margalis]

Maat?

What server were you guys on? I've been playing FFXI on and off since release and I just hit level 50...I've barely made a dent in COP and I'm on mission 4-3 still..ha.

[Tige]

Maat?

That's him.  If my pld is still there I think he is around lvl 67/68.

We were on Valefor.  I thought you were with us for awhile, must be mistaken. 

[Kitsune]

If you decide to return, two things:

1. Sign up near the beginning of a month, not the end.  I hear that Square is still doing that retarded 'we bill you for the whole month regardless of whether you sign up on the 1st or the 30th' thing.  I have yet to be billed by them, my trial ended on the 15th, so I'm expecting to be billed for two months come November 1st.

2. Use the 'return home' thing if possible, you'll get an anniversary ring that casts a spell that doubles your experience gain for what amounts to 30,000 free experience.  The experience rings in game only give a 50% experience boost for 7,000 experience, so that anniversary ring is a very very nice toy.


And if any old-timers are from Midgard, I will totally pay for your first month back in exchange for a few hundred thou of your giant piles of inflation money.  I'll be damned before I give money to cheaters, botters, and sweatshop goldfarmers, but I'm not at all above handing an honest player some cash to spare myself a few weeks of being a teleport whore to get the money to start on the tradeskills.

In related news, Square just banned 8,000 people for botting today, an act that fills my hateful heart with dark joy.  I haven't yet encountered anyone that seemed to be a bot or cheating in any way, nor has anyone approached me with offers to sell gil, which is a fair sight better than in WoW, but I've heard the stories about how bad it was back in the day and am glad that steps are being taken.

[Tige]

I don't think I ever had more than about 150k at any given time.  Maybe 200k once or twice but that was in between selling stuff off to upgrade stuff.  Once I got the class armor things went a bit more smooth as I didn't need to continually keep upgrading armor.  That is until you forget and sell off your stuff for your subjob. 

Damn, it's tempting to go back and check it out.  Not to grind but spend some time with the rest of the game.  That pokemon thingy looks kinda fun but I'm sure thats not cheap either.  I have to return a pair of wireless headphones to circuit city, wonder what I'll do if I see that $20.00 kit on the shelf.

[Margalis]

I was sitting on 2.5 million after a successfuly BCNM run, but I just started buying the level 51 HQ elemental staves so now I'm basically broke again.

[Reg]

You sound like you're just a couple levels ahead of my guy Margalis. 50 is where you have to do the first quest to allow advancement to 50+ right? And I remember I was pricing those staves too and being all traumatized over it heh.

Does FFXI have server transfers yet?

[Margalis]

I think it does have server transfers.

Yeah, I'm level 50. I have one of the three items needed to advance, a random player helped me get it in return for me helping him open the banishing gate. I have a couple of friends who will help me get the other two when they get a chance, in the meantime levelling subjobs.

[Tige]

It has server transfers, think it's $25 for a move.
 
I'm so weak.  Circuit City had the all-in-one dvd.  It was silver and so very, very shiney.

I didn't have all the required information to complete the online restart.  Called playonline, within minutes they had me up and running.  I wouldn't have had to buy a new dvd if I had my old ones but no worries as they give you a registration exemption on your account once everything is verified.  Installed the dvd, logged in, attached the latest expansion pack to my account and poof, good to go.



What server are you on Margalis?

[Margalis]

I'm on Ramuh - thinking of moving?

[LK]

If they got rid of the death penalty or instituted a XP debt system (Any future XP earned applies to debt, if you are logged off your debt slowly works itself off), I would soooo be all over this game.

Meh.  It's a shame because the game does a lot of things right.

[Margalis]

How often do you die? I haven't died in party play in months. One thing is that the general strategy now is to kill more weaker mobs instead of fewer tougher mobs, so it tends to be safer.

[Kitsune]

I don't consider the exp loss to be that terrible of an issue in the long run.  The bulk of a character's power is determined by their skill ranks, and you don't lose skills for any reason.  I've been in some parties that blew through a level in an hour, leaving my skills fairly atrophied, and a couple of deaths to slow down the exp flood and let my skills catch up a bit was something of a back-handed blessing.

WoW, on the other hand, can completely fuck a player, leaving them with useless equipment and no cash to repair it, and without the equipment they can't go out and earn the cash.  People hold up WoW as a shining example of player-friendly penalty-free death, but it can be absolutely merciless when it comes time to repair high-end equipment.

[Rasix]

WoW, on the other hand, can completely fuck a player, leaving them with useless equipment and no cash to repair it, and without the equipment they can't go out and earn the cash.  People hold up WoW as a shining example of player-friendly penalty-free death, but it can be absolutely merciless when it comes time to repair high-end equipment.

Ohh come on man, that's complete horseshit, especially now. 

Too bad this game doesn't have a WoW like solo path to the end game.  Seems like a lot of cool shit to do.  Group optimal doesn't work well for me. I absolutely loved the atmosphere for the little I played.

[Reg]

That's what it comes down to really. They've lightened up a lot from the early days but it's still very much a game for groups.

[Kitsune]

Ohh come on man, that's complete horseshit, especially now. 

You dare invoke pedobear for your house of lies?  I've raided in WoW and seen the exorbitant repair bills suffered by the tanks afterwards.  And they didn't even die, that was just from a successful day's fighting.  At least FFXI doesn't shaft you with steady item degradation.

Too bad this game doesn't have a WoW like solo path to the end game.  Seems like a lot of cool shit to do.  Group optimal doesn't work well for me. I absolutely loved the atmosphere for the little I played.

I soloed too much in WoW, in my opinion.  It's like I was playing a single-player game 90% of the time.  I could have taken steps to party more often, but all too often a PUG was full of imbeciles who had no idea how to work in a party.  (True story: As a paladin in the Deadmines, I was using the Seal of Justice to keep low-health mobs from fleeing and aggroing everyone around them.  I kept seeing the floating skull animation appear over their heads, and it was confusing the hell out of me as to why they would be displaying a fear effect.  Eventually I turned to the party warlock and asked, "Uh, you aren't fearing these guys, are you?"  And it turns out he was.  If I hadn't been keeping the seal on them, that idiot would've sent them running to reinforcements.)  Unfortunately FFXI is too far in the other direction; while everyone's a decent party player from having to be in parties to advance, soloing isn't much of an option when you don't feel like taking the time to find a party.

[Lantien]

(white mage) OLD SCHOOL.  Sup Tige, et al.

Loved my time in FFXI, until the grind ate me alive.  Played me some WoW, enjoyed that until I realized I wasn't having fun anymore.  Haven't touched an MMO since.

I have exactly zero interest in getting back into FFXI, but I still have fond memories of playing (and dying).

[Tige]

Heyas Lantien

I completely understand about the lack of mmo playing after ffxi.  I tried a couple but never made it more than a month or so.  Having said that I did just resub to ffxi to look around.  So far I've just been sorting out my stuff and haven't even set up my macros, let alone join a group.  I have been getting alot of invites, so much so I went invisible so I can get re-acquainted with stuff.  For the foreseeable future I'll be traveling around, fishing and gardening with grouping a distant third.  It is still the best looking game, I went out to one of the beaches included in one of the exp packs to clam and fish, it was most excellent.  They've added additional texture options which run very smooth. 

It was nice to see the XP/level has been cut dramatically.  Total of only 27k from lvl 66-67.  I think before I left it was around 40k+ to level.

[Dren]

Watershell unite!

Howdy all.  Fun to see a lot of names from the past.  Just need Tortolia to show up.

No, I'm not starting FFXI again.

[Reg]

I wonder what became of Tortolia? He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.