WoW or FFXI?

[Blotus]

I realize I'm getting started pretty late for either of these, but I was looking for some insight from you guys.

Which to invest my time in? What are the pros and cons of each? Which is more popular right now? I'm more a FF fan than I am a fan of Warcraft, but from reviews I've read WoW seems to be the better game. I've also never played a MMORPG.

Advise me! Eric?

[Don]

WoW is better for people who have never played MMORPG, which sounds like your case here.

[Eric]

WoW starts off quite slowly, in fact I remember telling Manshoon how much I disliked it at first. But it grows on you, one of the best games I've ever played. And frightfully addicting.

I've never played FFXI to be honest

[Tortolia]

FFXI has become subject to rampant inflation and the grind hasn't noticeably improved.

Unless you have a lot of existing connections in FFXI, go with WoW.

[Don]

If WoW is slow to you, you definitely shouldn't be playing another MMORPG.

[Eric]

If WoW is slow to you, you definitely shouldn't be playing another MMORPG.

I meant the pacing, running from city to city was working my nerves when I first played it. I was coming from City of Heroes where you got super-speed at like level 14.

[Don]

Travel time on WoW is actually pretty high relative to other games because you move way too slow (even the Gryphons are too slow). The leveling time however is probably the fastest at around 14-15 days for level 60.

[Oracle]

Honestly, I miss FFXI a LOT. But, since the motherfuckers deleted my toon after 3 months of inactivity, and they couldn't retrieve it since I missed the whole "Return to Vana'diel" campaign, fuck em!

FFXI is a very, VERY beautiful game with a lot of content. It also requires a lot of dedicated team play. By this I mean, "you wanna solo? HAHAHA no." Not going to happen. At the higher end of the game, you need a crew that knows what they're doing even if you want to lvl grind at a decent pace. I wont even get into how hard some of the story-based encounters are.

WoW would be the ideal choice for a MMORPG novice. You can solo all the way to 60 if you want to, you can PvP if you want to, you can PvE if you want do. The only real limitation in the game is that if you want to do any of the highest level content dungeons, you need a lot of people and a lot of people who know what they are doing.

IMO, try WoW out. FFXI takes much more of a time commitment, and by that I mean you better have 5-6 hours in a stretch to play, at least when you start getting into the higher levels. I'm not saying this isn't the case with WoW's high level content, but you can still just pick it up and level for a small amount of time if you want, and still make progress.

[Torgo]

FFXI was fun for its time, but WoW would be the better choice by far. It's a more polished MMORPG from what I've seen, and it also has PvP if you're into that.

[kali o.]

WoW is easily the better game (I quit and ebayed...just due to time constraints).

The expansion is out (or out soon). If you join right around that time, there should be lots of new players for you to level with.

Highly recommend WoW.

[SineSwiper]

I miss Renkeis. It was rare to find an MMO that actually required intelligent thought and coordination. Most MMOs are a repeat of the "find creature, hit the attack button, do a few special attacks, loot" scenario. Renkeis let you level up faster by rewarding team play and intelligent action.

[Oracle]

And severely penalize a group if no elemental based renkei for the situation is available. I loved the idea, just needed to be a little more flexible to allow for more diverse group setups.

[Don]

Rewarding for intelligent playing is one of the worst ideas in MMORPG. Every game I know of that really tried that invariably failed. People get unhappy if they can't be as good as someone else because they suck, yet most people are fine if they can't be as good as someone else who plays twice as much as they do.

That said, it is important to make your game appear where being a good player means more than having a lot of time. No game does this better than WoW, which is probably why it's so successful.

[Oracle]

Any why do you think people play games like counterstrike? Some people like their challenge in the flavour of an MMORPG. Games like DAOC and FFXI have shown this (although FFXI isnt really that challenging in gameplay, but challenging as in dedication needed to the game). Those games might not get the numbers blizzard does with WoW, but they have by no means "failed."

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

I'd go with WOW if you've never played an MMORPG. It does a lot right that other MMORPGS get horribly wrong, and is just a beautiful, polished and compelling game in its own right.

Also, Don's a cynic. WOW rewards the grind most of all, but it rewards intelligent play also. Before you know each of the dungeons inside-out they do present a challenge and require each class to play their role appropriately. PVP is also a lot of fun, and surprisingly balanced given the gear and class disparities you encounter out in world and in the battlegrounds.

[Eric]

Mages can still nuke you for 3k from 30 yards out but they complain about Warriors hitting to hard(I.E. 1200).

Nerf.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Where am I, the WOW forums?

Mages need two tricky to acquire trinkets and a lot of +damage gear to be able to one or two-shot anybody. Otherwise, their damage does not scale in the way that melee damage does*.

The trinkets are probably overpowered, but the mage as a class is not.

The warrior as a class is pretty well-balanced, but at the moment itemisation favours melee classes. Hopefully the stuff in AQ and the tier 0.5 sets will correct this.

* A lot of mages are also pissed off about the existance of the trinkets because they're basically required to be as effective in PVP as a similarly-geared warrior.

[Don]

I'd go with WOW if you've never played an MMORPG. It does a lot right that other MMORPGS get horribly wrong, and is just a beautiful, polished and compelling game in its own right.

Also, Don's a cynic. WOW rewards the grind most of all, but it rewards intelligent play also. Before you know each of the dungeons inside-out they do present a challenge and require each class to play their role appropriately. PVP is also a lot of fun, and surprisingly balanced given the gear and class disparities you encounter out in world and in the battlegrounds.

If you got 5 million people playing a game, you can always find a bar lower than yourself and call what you do as intelligent play. To be fair, because there are 5 million people playing this game you will find some spectcularly bad players just due to sheer numbers, so sometimes it does seem like having common sense is an accomplishment.

Diablo 2 probably rewards intelligent play more than WoW, after taking into account of the fact that anything that you actually need to know can be taken care of by a combination of spoiler sites and mods. Now you can say you don't use them. I don't use them either, but playing the game the hard way doesn't make you a better player when there is pretty much always an easy way out.

PvP balance is not even meaningful in light of the gear disparity that exists. A level 30 warrior with a Whirlwind Axe is not balanced against other level 30 characters. A level 60 Mage using Ephmeral/Unstable/Arcane Power at the same time and killing you one hit is not balanced. If you're the guy doing the one-hit kill, you might think it's balanced. The gear imbalances tend to overshadow gear balance because it's difficult to find someone who has exactly the same gear as you do but it doesn't mean it isn't there. This is probably a good thing as people can more easily accept someone that plays twice as much as they do and have correspondingly better gear will always beat them over other reasons.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

If you got 5 million people playing a game, you can always find a bar lower than yourself and call what you do as intelligent play.

You don't need to compare yourself to other players tobelieve the game requires intelligent play. Even playing with people that I know and consider to have some smarts I find running a new dungeon more challenging (and challenging in a good way) than doing 'most anything in most other games.

Of course, I may just not be very intelligent.

Also, note that I called the game "suprisingly balanced", rather than "perfectly balanced". I think we'll never see a perfectly balanced game until DonWangco Inc. launches their first title :).

[Zeus]

Guitar Hero, hands down

[Don]

You don't need to compare yourself to other players tobelieve the game requires intelligent play. Even playing with people that I know and consider to have some smarts I find running a new dungeon more challenging (and challenging in a good way) than doing 'most anything in most other games.

Of course, I may just not be very intelligent.

Also, note that I called the game "suprisingly balanced", rather than "perfectly balanced". I think we'll never see a perfectly balanced game until DonWangco Inc. launches their first title .

The game does a good job on making it look like knowing what's going on would matter. And for things you really do need to know, a combination of:

1. Ask other people
2. Mods

Takes care of the problem. I guess it also depends on how much you've seen before. It is possible if you're one of the trailblazer guys you'd have to do things no one else knows about, but given 5 million people are playing this game, chances are someone will have figured this out before you get there.

Unless 'surprisingly balanced' means you'll be surprised someone who plays twice as much as you will never lose to you, it is still not balanced. I'm not aware of any MMORPG that is successful that is actually balanced. Balanced is not a prerequisite for having an enjoyable game, but an enjoyable game also does not imply it is balanced. The only way the game can be balanced is if you mean you can be on the giving end of imbalance almost as often as the receiving end, which is sort of true for a lot of classes. That is there are some guys who will kill you in one hit every time with nothing you can do about it, and there are some guys you can kill in one hit and there's nothing they can do about it.

The game is most definitely not balanced just like Diablo 2 was most definitely not balanced, but it's still a fun game to play.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

...but given 5 million people are playing this game, chances are someone will have figured this out before you get there.

Quite likely, but just because someone has figured something out doesn't make an experience less challenging if you haven't figured it out (or installed the mod that trivialises it for you). If you're not in it for the grind or the phat loot you can actually have a fun, challenging time in it.

I'm not going to address your issues with balance; we're going to have to agree to disagree, because I'm probably too forgiving and I think you're a pedant.

[Eric]

If you got 5 million people playing a game, you can always find a bar lower than yourself and call what you do as intelligent play.

You don't need to compare yourself to other players tobelieve the game requires intelligent play. Even playing with people that I know and consider to have some smarts I find running a new dungeon more challenging (and challenging in a good way) than doing 'most anything in most other games.

Of course, I may just not be very intelligent.

Also, note that I called the game "suprisingly balanced", rather than "perfectly balanced". I think we'll never see a perfectly balanced game until DonWangco Inc. launches their first title .

Yeah my server is full of mages like that. It's not hard to get into a MC guild nowadays, or even find a ZG group to get the head. ;p

[Don]

Problem with not installing a mod is that it almost seems like some stuff is designed so that you'd have mods to trivalize it. For example any of the mass debuff fights in MC are well above what you can expect even a pretty good player to deal with without some external help.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

You'd be surprised. The global cooldown restricts the amount of de-debuffing you can do to a challenging but manageable level.

[Don]

The global cooldown is exactly what makes it hard to do these things without mods because they can target basically instantly, while the fastest human would need at least 1 global cooldown (1s) to target someone not in your group. That means the best human can cure half as fast as someone just hitting a hotkey with the auto targetting decursive line mods.

It might not seem like curing is a big deal if you're already farmed some stuff, but when the content is difficult, being able to cure twice as fast (or faster) makes a huge difference.

In this instance the problem is probably because cure spells are instant cast so the only difference is how fast you can target someone, and it doesn't make sense to try to get 'better' whether it means reflexes or better priortize who to cure when you got a mod that does the targetting for you and can cure everyone. If the cure spells themselves had significant casting time, you wouldn't have to place as high a premium on being able to target fast since the casting time accounts for most of the time now, and more focus will be on target selection. Granted there are mods that can figure out the target selection for you as well...

Another good example is the mana conserve feature on heals via mods which is well above what any human that doesn't want to continously watch someone's health like a hawk for 3 hours can do. It lets you get basically max healing efficiency out of any healer without worrying about overhealing.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

I'm not arguing against the fact that mods make life easier and more pleasant. That's what they're there for. You will almost certainly be able to run dungeons most efficiently with mods; but mods are not required in order to complete the content in the game.

I can't even remember what the original point of our discussion was, heh.

[M'k'n'zy]

If I might make a recomendation, I would suggest seeing if you can get into the beta for D&D Online. I walked away from my 10 day trial very impressed.

[Eric]

If I might make a recomendation, I would suggest seeing if you can get into the beta for D&D Online. I walked away from my 10 day trial very impressed.

Really? I walked away from it in 10 minutes.

[Don]

I've heard people say DDO as Guild Wars that you've pay a monthly fee for.

As for the point of the discussion with mods, because mods exist, there's an awful a lot of skill that is irrelevant unless you choose not to use them, and even then you'd never be as good as someone who do use them.