The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.playonline.com/comnewsus/200 ... ">*huggles SE*</a>

This is one of the best sounding MMOG patches I've ever seen. I can count the actual number of nerfs on one hand, and even those are arguable.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>It does sound good. For a company with no MMORPG experience (which fans were constantly reminded by reviewers) Square/Enix has done an awesome job thus far, the short length of this patch helps to prove it.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You have a freaking gigantic content patch. New stuff everywhere. New features, new spells, new textures, new critters, new quests, a complete auction house reorganization, extra furniture storage to make decorating your mog house worthy, and so on, and so on.

The only two bugs in sight are relatively minor; the first has some sporadic crashing to desktop from mog houses. The second increases the lag time to fire off macroed spells/abilities; this ranges from annoying to fatal, but is generally of minimal importance.

And within 12 hours of the patch you have an emergency hotfix that completely remedies both of them. In the case of the macro lag, not only did it fix the new problem, it seemingly has taken care of some of the pre-existing macro lag (which was sporadic and not lifethreatening, only vaguely annoying).

This is not how these games should run. Patch days should be nightmares. The servers should be going down in flames. The new content should be glitchy as hell. We should be seeing complete server rollbacks, "emergency fixes" coming a week or two later, and enough bad karma to lead to the industry-wide acceptance that unless you have migraine medication, you do not play on Patch Day. (the second rule of MMOGs is you do not play on Patch Day).

And yet this works. I don't know how to react to this; I'm inclined to think I should be pleased.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Yes, be pleased. As usual Square owns.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm inclined to think I want this game on PS2 now damnit.</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>One month. :)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>True, but they do have a pretty close relationship with Sony, which owns part of Squeenix</div>

<div style='font: bold 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Ok, I don't know when the date got pushed back AGAIN, but now March 2004. Great.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I wonder if they'll keep it up? Or if they'll get like Blizzard and release a patch once every 2 years.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Ff it is anything like Sony's Everquest at all then that is just confirmation to me that I probably wouldn't like the game. I am generally open minded with games, but I found the Everquest/Ultima Online formula to be completely pointless and uninteresting, I very much dislike games like that.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>ity's been march for a long time now</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Then just forget there even is a FFXI, and everyone will be much happier.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>and Blizzard has never done a MMORPG either... and for that matter, there's like only 2 companies or so that have made a 2nd MMORPG. The guys who made EQ certainly didn't do a MMORPG before. Shows how much fans know.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I can't think of many MMORPG that's actually successful that prides on having patches not crash the server. And yes, that includes EverQuest. I remember more hardware server fails in the last 1.5 years (probably 3 server crashes, something completely beyond their control) affecting my playing experience in EQ than any patching issues.

And nerfing is good. That's what makes EQ good. They're not afraid to fix what's broken and they're not arrogant enough to assume that they got everything right the first time.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Seems I hit a nerve.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>Hey when it comes to PC games you are the first person I listen to and I do respect your opinion. But first of all he never said cooler. he said better. WHich from my experience in eq, which was 2 years worth before I quit boy you must not have been on much. for the first couple days after an update the servers were so bogged down it was no fun to play....not only that but they crashed. And hey, being proud of having a good patch system is fine. cause it is better than all the others. no lagtimes in gameplay is great and also the added content makes it fun to drop what you are doing and explore. Oh and you make the point that nerfing is good and that they do it in eq and that's why it's good. Hey guess what, you don't have to nerf something to make it more even. They strenthened certain magics and made it so you actually have to be behind a monster to use sneak attack which I very much agree with. They added stuff to make it more balanced and also took stuff out to make things work how they should. Not only that but with the changes they made they actually based it on player opinion and discussion on their boards. Say EQ ever listened intently to the player base. I highly doubt it. I remember it taking them a week or 2 to catch errors. it took square 12 hours to fix the problems. heh, I'll shut up now.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>The only thing that I think they really need to fix still is rangers, since if/when PvP is put in, they will be able to clear out a hand full of people at a time :P

But this is quite a good patch. A lot of good additions with some fixes that were needed and it doesn't seem like things have gone over the top. Oh, and I don't think he was saying this patch is better than whatever-fuckin-patch-in-EQ that you are thinking of Don, he's just stating that it's one of the better ones that he has seen in the general MMORPG field. You sure have a way of taking offense or actually making something concern you more than it actually does :p On that note, I've been playing DAoC since release, heavily enjoyed it, and yet this is a better patch than I've seen Mythic roll out in quite some time. And I hold DAoC in higher regard than EverQuest :p</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>The only thing that I think they really need to fix still is rangers, since if/when PvP is put in, they will be able to clear out a hand full of people at a time :P

But this is quite a good patch. A lot of good additions with some fixes that were needed and it doesn't seem like things have gone over the top. Oh, and I don't think he was saying this patch is better than whatever-fuckin-patch-in-EQ that you are thinking of Don, he's just stating that it's one of the better ones that he has seen in the general MMORPG field. You seem to be using a holier-than-thou attitude on this subject like the rest of us have next to no MMORPG experience and that you are the local MMORPG guru. On that note, I've been playing DAoC since release, heavily enjoyed it, and yet this is a better patch than I've seen Mythic roll out in quite some time. And I hold DAoC in higher regard than EverQuest :p</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>The only thing that I think they really need to fix still is rangers, since if/when PvP is put in, they will be able to clear out a hand full of people at a time :P

But this is quite a good patch. A lot of good additions with some fixes that were needed and it doesn't seem like things have gone over the top. Oh, and I don't think he was saying this patch is better than whatever-fuckin-patch-in-EQ that you are thinking of Don, he's just stating that it's one of the better ones that he has seen in the general MMORPG field. You seem to be using a holier-than-thou attitude on this subject like the rest of us have next to no MMORPG experience and that you are the local MMORPG guru. On that note, I've been playing DAoC since release, heavily enjoyed it, and yet this is a better patch than I've seen Mythic roll out in quite some time. And I hold DAoC in higher regard than EverQuest :p

<i>And nerfing is good. <b>That's what makes EQ good.</b> They're not afraid to fix what's broken and they're not arrogant enough to assume that they got everything right the first time.</i>

There are a few nerfs in this FFXI patch, and like I said, nothing over the top. Claiming than nerfing is what makes EQ good only increases my dislike for the game.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>hahaha I didn't know we had an EQ Zealot on the board. Verant's a draconic company that doesn't give two shits about its customers-- just your money</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Isn't caring for the customer a means to that end, tho? Hehe ok I feel dirty for saying that in an EQ topic >:D</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Yes I am also bothered by this. The fucking media keeps whining about the next MMORPG coming along because the company has no prior experience... NOT SHIT! It's still a relatively new field for companies to get into, and you have to start SOMEWHERE.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Yes I am also bothered by this.  The fucking media keeps whining about the next MMORPG coming along because the company has no prior experience... NO SHIT!  It's still a relatively new field for companies to get into, and you have to start SOMEWHERE.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I can't believe how many people still fall for the 'we care about customers' gimmick. All that means is that our product isn't as good as it could be so we pretend the delay was because we actually care about gamers. Blizzard's the master at doing this with their ridiculously bad schedule (hello Act 2 & 3 in bonus campaign of War 3 or a 4 month beta of Diablo 1.10 that basically wasn't changed at all).

EQ is the juggernaut that has and will still crush your favorite MMORPG of the week at least until Worlds of Warcraft come out, and although you can tell yourself why your MMORPG is cool, it's still just another MMORPG as long as EQ exists.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't really understand why you'd praise a patch for not crashing your server unless you're a disgruntled EQ fan or all the other MMORPG you've played are the ones that never worked. Heck there hasn't been a serious patch issue in EQ for years in a game where the number of things that can go wrong after a patch is exponentially higher due to much, much greater content (EverQuest has about 4 or so times the content of any new MMORPG right now). Even World of Warcraft that is being heralded as the savior of MMORPG by many disgruntled EQ fans is made by a company that has some ridiculously bad bugs (dupe, PK hack/bugs in Diablo 2 for example), most recently the realm servers for Diablo 2 from duping attempts.

And acting like nerf is a bad thing is a personal pet peeve of mine. It shows that you have absolutely no clue of how balance in a MMORPG works. If someone is too strong they need to be nerfed. There is simply no other way around that. You can dress it up and make it look like you're improving everyone else but if everyone gets stronger, then the game has to get harder too to maintain the same level of challenge, and that is the same as nerfing except you indirectly nerf everyone else not just the overpowered parties.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I am reminded of the Penny Arcade strip where one of the two bought a game and it had nothing in it and you had to wait for the patch to play the game. A patch is not the game. In EQLand where 50% of the MMORPG market lives, we don't say "Oh yes the December 16 patch will come out, the Warriors will rise once again and all will be good." As for the argument this patch bring Santa or whatever it is no different from the patch I've heard in Asheron's Call. Trying to disguise part of an expansion as a patch is not what I want. You know what happens when you get something for free in a patch? That means the development team isn't working on the next expansion or some crucial balance issue or something. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You get something for free in a patch but you lose it somewhere else. It's not to say that it's somehow bad, of course, but these freebies aren't being bestowed out of the goodness of the developers. For that matter, they're not even necessarily good for the game because chances are something else could've been fixed instead.

On the nerfing issue, there are way too many inept MMORPG developers/PR people trying to make a selling point on 'we don't nerf people like EQ'. It's a really poor trick and all successful MMORPG have learned that nerfing is a good thing because no developers are ever good enough to get everything on the first try. Of course fans still clang onto this belief that if their piece of the pie doesn't taken away from them that somehow makes the game better. I think FF11 might have a chance to top UO/SWG and become the #3 MMORPG on the market (behind EQ/DAoC) but consider FF11's been out for 2 years now and it still hasn't caught up to DAoC it doesn't seem like it will ever catch up to DAoC so far as contents go. In today's market you have to have something REVOLUTIONARY just to have a chance not to get instantly squashed by the EQ juggernaut (and DAoC mops up the rest at #2 spot). FF11, from what you guys have said, is certainly not. It will probably survive, but it's not going to change anything to this market.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Asheron's Call had some great CONTENT patches, but they were frequently buggy as shit, and there several notable patches that actually necessitated server rollbacks due to dupe bugs and stuff.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't suppose you could possibly consider the possibility that they've done the nerfs in the past and now they can appropriately tweak some classes upwards?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Of course if you're too weak the right solution is to make you stronger rather than making eveyone as weak as you. If one class is absolutely worthless you don't make all the other classes worthless to fix them. But, the only solution to someone being too strong is to nerf them because bringing everyone to that level either trivializes the game or it forces you to remake the game harder which is basically the same as nerfing eveyone else anyway.

And since no MMORPG has been free from both kinds of problems, saying nerf is bad means you don't understand the kinds of balance issue that exists in MMORPG. Someone will always be too strong, and they must be nerfed.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>"And since no MMORPG has been free from both kinds of problems, saying nerf is bad means you don't understand the kinds of balance issue that exists in MMORPG. Someone will always be too strong, and they must be nerfed. "

I've played and followed MMOGs for many years, Don. I know how the industry works, and I know that game designers can err on both sides of the nerf/buff spectrum. But in this case, the changes they made didn't overbalance things at all.

Let's look at some of the patch changes, so I can put them in context for you?

Keep in mind that all of the 2-hour abilities, excluding the Dragoon 2 hour (Summon Wyvern) are emergency abilities that are pretty much designed for use in emergency situations.

"The accuracy of physical attacks for high-level characters has been increased."

Common complaint is that melees miss far too often without severe reliance on +DEX equipment if they didn't choose Mithra. This change benefits anyone who uses a melee weapon at all.

"While using the job ability "Manafont", black mages will no longer have their spell casting interrupted when taking damage.
However, spell casting will still be affected by status effects such as Stun and Silence."

Manafont gives the black mage infinite mana for the duration. Because of this, they will be casting their most powerful/expensive spells repeatedly. They WILL get aggro. They will get hit. This means that they're not wasting their time trying to fire off spells that get interrupted. A useful change. Black mages were not gimp before this and are not gimp now.

"Upon activating the samurai job ability "Meikyo Shisui", TP will automatically be raised to 300%."

The Samurai 2-hour ability. It sets the cost for all weaponskills to 100% TP, whereas normally a weaponskill drains all of it (whether you have 100% or 300%). This is an emergency ability that lets you pull off a skillchain by yourself. This was an ability that didn't function in an emergency situation, because unless you are planning ahead, you are not going to have 300% TP available. This is not a nerf. Samurai were not especially gimpy before; they are better off for this.

"The summoner job ability "Astral Flow" will now last for three minutes.
Also, while the ability is in effect the MP cost for maintaining an avatar will be reduced to zero."

Another 2 hour ability. This gives summoned Avatars (Leviathan, Ifrit, etc) access to their most powerful attack. This lets them use it longer, and it also lets the summoner use their summons to their full potential without worrying about losing even more MP from keeping the summon summoned. This is a useful change, and again, makes the 2 hour worth more in the kind of situation where it's needed.

""Sneak Attack" will now only be successful when performed from directly behind an enemy.
The positioning for "Trick Attack" remains unchanged."

A nerf? Arguably. It means that thieves can't do a backstab from the side of the critter. Makes sense to me. Are thieves too strong? They're considered to be an important part of high level parties, but that is NOT because they are too strong. It because Trick Attack is an important ability for making sure the party tank keeps the aggro from the monster. This is not a nerf based on thieves being too strong.

So look, cut the sanctimonious crap about us not understanding the logic behind MMOG patches and design changes. We understand it just fine. My whole point behind posting this was to point at it as an example of what we can expect from FFXI content patches, and my follow-up was to point out that unlike pretty much any North American MMOG we've seen, not only was the patch almost completely bug-free, the glaring problems were remedied in what is uncharacteristic speed for North American MMOGs.

If you want to read more into it than there is, then that's your own prerogative, but don't expect us to continue responding to it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Balance is not an issue I heard about in FFXI. Even the races are balanced. There are some minor issues with the game, but I can count those on a single hand.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>What he said.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>As I've said before, Square-ENIX is a big fucking dog. Square-ENIX shits companies like 989 for breakfast. Before EQ, we never heard of 989 Studios. Shit, we're not even talking about Square any more...it's Square-ENIX. That's like if Microsoft and IBM merged into MS-IBM.

That said, their MMO product is fucking brilliant, even from the first ten minutes. Just the PlayOnline interface tells you how polished a game it is. You're not fucking around with some crappy interface that relies on stupid ideas. It's not a EQ clone, unlike damn near ever other MMO out there. No corpses, no "steal kills", the excellent skillchain/magic-burst system (as well as XP chains), an economy that parralels the stock market.

Yeah, lemme tell you about the economy. When you play EQ or any other EQ clone, you start out buying stuff with copper and silver. As you progress, you get gold and then platinum. So any time you create a character, the odds are good that you're going to run into some super rich lv60 player who throws a couple platinum coins your way, making you proportionally rich beyond your wildest dreams (at least for 10-20 levels). Of course, to the lv60 guy, a couple platinum isn't much to him, so he's not missing it.

FFXI doesn't have this problem. Everybody is somewhat poor, and then ones that aren't are spending time at making money. Quests and crafting skills ACTUALLY MATTER. It's not a game based on just powerleveling your way to the top. You generally spend half the time leveling and half the time making money, thus making it look less like a mindless trendmill.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, but most companies who make MMOs don't have ANY GAME experience. Who the fuck is Mythic before DAoC? Turbine? Funcom?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Of course i can make enough money to buy stuff, but only when i stop lvl'ing to specifically concentrate on it, which is the way it should be i would think.

I've finally bought all the appropriate gear and scrolls for my sad little lvl 12 white mage and will now focus back on lvling soon, weee.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, but the auction house idea was brilliant and i love it.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>In the interest of fairness, Mythic had made a few online RPGs (mainly for AOL) before DAoC.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Of course i can make enough money to buy stuff, but only when i stop lvl'ing to specifically concentrate on it, which is the way it should be i would think.

I've finally bought all the appropriate gear and scrolls for my sad little lvl 12 white mage and will now focus back on lvling soon, weee.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, the auction house idea was brilliant and i love it.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm sorry, he might actually like this patch. He stated it. OH OH WAIT!! Don says his opinion is pointless!

Second, I'm 100% sure that world wide, FFXI has more subscribers than DAoC, and that was in August 2003 before FFXI was released in NA :p EQ still had a big lead then, (by about 200K) but again, that was before FFXI came to NA. http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/11/2 ... ml?tid=206 shows FFXI at around 430,000 users, and EQ at around 500,000. With the release of the PS2 version of FFXI, I'd say it's a safe bet to see FFXI pushed up to #1, if not a very very VERY close second to EQ.

And FFXI won't change anything in the market? The first major MMORPG with a translator so you can play with people on the other side of the world. The first MMORPG to be brought to a console, opening up an entirely new market.

FFXI has surpassed DAoC in both subscribers and content (if you disagree about the content, dude, wake up. DAoC's content is reaking garbage. It has RvR, that's pretty much it. And is now hoping to get a little more recognition with the latest expansion, although it's basically what made me quit and go to FFXI). Even if FFXI HADN'T caught DAoC by now, FFXI was just released in NA. That basically doubles it's market potential, if not more.

<i>It will probably survive, but it's not going to change anything to this market.</i>

Heh, it'll do a hell of a lot more than "survive" :p</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Who said nerfing wasn't neccessary? It's just retarded when a patch comes out and goes over the top, or when things stay over powered too long. (IE: DAoC Berserker Left Axe, Savage DPS, etc.)</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>"EverQuest has about 4 or so times the content of any new MMORPG right now" - Where are you pulling these numbers from, the number of expansion pack boxes on your desk? :D</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And I mean content, not the number of zones or number of square feet of scenery, but even if you want to count those, no other MMORPG out there can come close minus Ultima Online. How can they be? EQ has been around for 5 years with more expansions than anyone can keep track of. Of course a large portion of the content doesn't get used very much. People are content to stay in the safest zone they know of (think Bloody Foothills in Diablo 2) grinding XP or whatever. But that's not really the point. The content that exists in EQ is huge. There's just no way a new game can come close to the massive infrastructure and progression EQ has built up with years of content. I'm sure the reason why Ultima Online for some unknown reason is still somewhere between #3 and #5 has to do with its long-lasting history. When you've a game that's been out for a long time you automatically get a head-start on newcomers in terms of content, and that's why ever since Ultima Online was made only 4 games max (EQ/DAoC beat it for sure, it remains to be seen if SWG/FF11 can stay above UO) have exceeded it, and none have surpassed EQ. It's not an accident that they're also two of the oldest MMORPG around. If you look at the 4 biggest MMORPG right now (minus FF11's skewed Japanese numbers, since you can sell Pong Online for 500K subscribers in Asian countries due to lack of competition), 2 of them were the first 2 MMORPG ever made (big ones anyway), another one is made by the makers of EQ and lives on the EQ/Star Wars name, so that leaves DAoC as the only significant MMORPG that managed to stake out a name for itself in the 5 years or so of MMORPG history. The content advantage is huge in this industry, and even the runner ups have a content head start that is hard to over come, never mind the EQ behemoth.

And new games can't get much bigger than EQ was at start. It'd just be ridiculous for any new game to try to start with as much content as EQ has today. It'll be a balancing nightmare and most likely an utter failure.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I believe they have around 300K Japanese subscribers and that might as well be 0 for all practical purposes. In the totally closed PC market of the Asian countries where non Asian PC games are virtually nonexistent, it hardly matters how many copies of Pong Online you can sell to the Japanese or the Chinese or the Koreans. If you want to look at skewed numbers Lineage reports at something like 3 million subscribers. I believe Lineage is actually a little bit bigger than EQ since it is the national sport of Korea after all, so if you translate this to a more believable scale, 3 million -> about 500K then that means Final Fantasy's 300K Japanese subscribes are worth about 50K, put that with around 130K US that brings you to the far more accurate figure of 180K (which isn't too bad for a newcomer, really, given DAoC is the only MMORPG that amounted to anything out of newcomers). Note that while I do not think FF11 overreported their numbers like Lineage did, I do believe this is an accurate representation of having a ton of people subscribing to your service in a country with no foreign competition.

Of course FF11 will survive on the stupidity that is the Asian PC gaming industry (although FF11 can be on a console game, I really consider it a PC game). It'd take a spectcularly bad game to fail in a competition-less industry such as that. The Asian PC industry is about 5 years behind that of the US/Euro PC world so any halfway decent game will do just fine there. But whether it can actually succeed in the non Asian countries is quite questionable. Minus the 300K Final Fantasy core players from Japan, FF11 only has from the usual pool of disgruntled EQ/DAoC/UO/SWG players to draw from and 130K with a name like Final Fantasy doesn't really bode well for the future. I do not think it will overcome #2 (DAoC) very easily. DAoC has a solid content lead ahead of FF11 and this is very hard to overcome.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>From various FF11 threads I've read FF11's economy sounds like a mid-age EQ server economy where there's a good deal of abundance but not to the point you can just buy your way to uberness. It's really not that important whether you're perpetually poor or perpetually rich though. It all balances out in the end by the content, at least that's what it ought to be. Economy, from what I've observed, is more of a hassle in a MMORPG then anything useful. Maybe it's just because US players all suck to trade with but I don't care how good a system you have, trying to trade with someone who's the equivalent of 'my exceptional unique for your Zod rune' in Diablo 2 is going to be a futile gesture. No matter how good your economic system is, it won't changed the fact that you're trading with a bunch of idiots. The auction house sounds awful a lot like EQ's Bazaar but there's a limit to how far you can get with an automatic system before you actually have to talk to people. Though hopefully you never have to sell or buy anything rare enough to actually require talking to people, because it really sucks.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>First of all, the auction house has no player involvement besides the fact that a play puts an item on it, sets a reserve price, and waits to see if someone bids. You can look to see what the last 12 or so transactions for the same item yielded, to get an idea of what price you should be looking for. People undercut, and it sucks, but that's the way the real world works. On the bright side, I've become quite good at gouging. I'll find an item that has none for sale in one of the other cities, buy a few from the central city, and move it to another auction house, selling it for double sometimes. Or you can buy an item out and jack the prices. Doesn't seem like a LOT of people do this, but if you like to gamble rather than camping that one named mob for hours and hours for a loot drop, it's a good way to make cash.

You can also put items on yer personal Bazaar. Basically, you have items in yer inv, set a price on them, and then someone can examine you at any time and buy them if they wish. I haven't made one sale this way, mind you.

People blame the NA players for the price drops in tradeskill items because they undercut. While that may be true, it also has to do with the fact that there are just more people period, especially lower level ones. This means there is going to be a huge influx of said items, so it's only natural that the price will drop.

Personally, I love the AH system, and it actually makes economy MEANINGFUL. There's always a way to make money with the AH around, as long as you are not a retard and buy shit and sell it at a huge loss. You really can't afford to do that since not much money is to be made just fighting normal enemies. Sure, they might drop the occassional beast coin you can sell, but nothing to amount to much. The real money is in crystal, which every mob drops, but the easily sellable/widely used ones are to be found at the early levels (1-15) when you are soloing. The way I managed is make a shitload of money at 1-15, but what I needed, and then played the market moving some items around. It paid off for a while, but I'm having trouble moving my last set of equipment. Live and learn I suppose :D</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>so by your definition we need to keep nerfing until all the characters are so damn weak and pointless that the game would start to suck. (D2 for exaple) if you think the only way to fix things is to nerf em you are insane.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>I looked at what you read and can only think of 2 words.....idiotic fanboi. my god man get your head out of your pompous ass.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>EQ - It essentially had 0 competition when it started, besides UO (my light comments on UO explained later).

FFXI - essentioall had 0 competition when it started, besides the english speaking japanese playing other MMORPGS (let's compare this to UO on population basis).

Now you may be saying, UO had a lot of people, EQ must have pulled a lot away from that, so there really was competition. True, EQ still had to get its foot in the door, but fully immersive 3D worlds and a lvl systems and whatever bells and whistles made a game so completely different from UO that it created its OWN audience, as well as take some "disgruntled UO players" as you would put it.

So now, FFXI is the word when it comes to MMORPGs in Japan, just like EQ is in NA. And here you are saying that the Japanese numbers are irrelivant? This is the first generation of hardcore MMORPGers in a market, this will be THE audience to lure away to other MMORPGs when they come out in Japan. The fact that Square Enix created this audience in their market, AS WELL AS put their product into an already existing market, makes all numbers relevant, in my opinion.

I agree more time needs to pass before we truly know how FFXI compares "world wide", but the current numbers show that FFXI really does have a good thing going for itself. We just need to see how many people stick with it. If the NA PS2 release does as well as Square Enix hopes, it will have the potential to take the #1 seat in the genre. You don't think the PS2 counts when we're talking about a PC game market? You think the numbers from PS2 subscribers shouldn't count? It does and they do. Square Enix is just doing it again, broadening the target market.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>*removes verant's penis from Don's mouth* ok hopefully this will help</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't care if EQ has content comparible to the number of hydrogen atoms in the Sun. If it's not being used, it might as well not even be there.

DAoC has this problem. As soon as they added something new, pretty much everything before it became irrelivant (besides, as you say, the best and safest spots to grind away the xp or to quest in).

Now FFXI has something I haven't seen in any other game so far. Every zone that I've ever been to has some EXTREMELY important purpose. This could be a great place to XP in, a place where you need to quest to advance your country rank, and places to go to do job related quests. Now you may say, yea so what, every game has something like this. True, but from what I've seen so far, there are ALWAYS people in EVERY zone, ranging from n00bish to the lvl 70 japs. Like you said, for a game to just start out and have near as much actual content as DAoC or EQ is near impossible. But, if everything is used frequently, it makes the game feel more "complete" than a game where you can be exploring, running through zone upon zone without seeing ANYONE. FFXI managed this MMORPG like an actual Final Fantasy game (go figure). Even the n00bish of n00b will have to see pretty much every zone once, exposing them to the entire game. Unlike in DAOC when you do a /who 30 to find people around your level range to XP with and you see 90% of them in the same zone.

In no way am I arguing that FFXI has more "actual" content than EQ, since I personally don't know how much "actual" content EQ has myself. All I'm stating is that from what I've seen of EQ and from what people like you say, a good portion of the game goes nearly unused. FFXI seems to handle this very well. Even with an expansion out, all of the old zones are still used frequently.

I may, however, be comparing this moreso to my view of DAOC were I could be running through Lough Derg for 30 minutes and not see a soul besides the people passing by on horseback.

Then again you could have read my first sentence and stopped there, I just felt like babbling on to actually show you that I have a reason to believe what I say :p</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I personally undercut everyone in EQ when I sell something. I take the lowest person's price and drop that by like 20% because I'm only interested in getting rid of the item as soon as possible, and I don't think there's anything you can do to make a meaningful economy when you've people like me who simply do not want to participate if possible. Economy is a pain to participate in, and it should rightfully be as transparent as possible. Heck we already have to partcipate in the real one, I'd rather not have to be forced to participate in a virtual one as well. However, no matter how few coin actually drops, money still enters the economy and they also do not leave easily, so eventually you'll still have an overabundance of money. But inflation tends to take care of everything anyway...

Automated selling systems help to a certain extent but there's at some point you just have to talk to a real person to sell anything. Since it appears half of the people you're dealing with in a MMORPG are people who spam Diablo 2 trade channels with useless offers, I really doubt you can make a trading system that works with such people. From most EQ players I met, most would rather the economy to be just a transparent way of converting loot to money rather than being forced to actually participate in it actively to get anywhere, and I think that's the right idea.</div>