Question/Thought

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Now that I have a credit card and a steady source of income, I have been thinking of playing FFXI again. First time I played was about for a week or two only because life decided to mess with me and steal all my free time. That was two years ago.

My character was a low level Taru WHM/BLK on Middy. For other reasons, I also had an unpaid month back in '07 (that's when I last played). Now I have two options:

1. Apparently I can re-activate my old account, but last time I checked (which was like in '07) they only kept inactive accounts around for 3 months. So I am sorta like "WTF? Is this real?" It would save me a few hours of work. (Like I re-activated my PlayOnline thing, but it still says I can reactivate my character in FFXI too, unless I am understanding things wrong).

or,

2. Make a new character from scratch (maybe on a new servers). As much as I like the idea of Elven, I still would prefer being a Taru.

EoFF's FFXI community please help. Also, I am going on vacation soon, so I will only be starting in like a week and a half, enough time to decide. Or even change my mind about playing again.

:D?

Any help would be appreciated as well as tips. Since I am more or less a newb. I have little experience in the game AND it was two years ago when I last played. Honestly, FFXI has been the only MMORPG that ever caught my attention. Beyond RO, but that gets boring. FAST.

[Ouch!]

Square Enix has made the Return Home to Vana'Diel campaign a permanent feature, I believe. This allows you to recover any character as long as you did not manually delete it.

As far as whether or not you should utilize that feature, it's entirely up to you. It's hard to say if you'll lose any considerable progress without knowing what exactly you accomplished on the character you're able to recover. Given that you said you only played for two weeks, I doubt it will be anything substantial. If you'd prefer to play as an Elvaan, I'd say go ahead and do that instead.

That said I'm not entirely sure I'd endorse returning to Final Fantasy XI to start--relatively--from scratch. At this point in the game's life-cycle, a majority of the players are high level. Level Sync helps compensate for the lack of low level and mid level parties, but finding support to accomplish a number of missions and similar activities is becoming increasingly difficult. Also, with the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV, there's not likely to be a significant influx of new players. On top of that, I imagine as soon as FFXIV's beta is released, you'll start noticing a significant decrease in activity in FFXI.

As much as I love the game, I really don't think it's a good time to get started. FFXI has always had trouble being newbie friendly, and despite recent changes that make the early levels significantly less brutal than they used to be, the other changes to the population act as an unfortunate counter-balance. My personal opinion is that your best bet is just to wait and see if FFXIV interests you.

[Loony BoB]

Is it really that bad, Zach? Danielle and I have set up trial accounts and are hoping for something good enough to get us by until FFXIV (we're finally trying to get into that online gaming thing again...). Hopefully we'll enjoy it enough. With no confirmed date for XIV, I can't imagine that we'll be waiting a full year or more just so we can get a taste of what FF online gaming is like.

[Rostum]

I don't really agree with Ouch. I think that the game is more accessible to newer players and has much more activity now than it had a couple of years ago. There's been a large influx of newer members in the last year, and there have been additions to make the leveling progress and early level activities much faster and enjoyable for both old and new members.

However, personally I would never make a new character at this stage. But, I've been playing this game for five years and for me right now is the beginnings of moving on, especially with the announcement and release of all the Final Fantasy XIV information. After so many years of revisiting content in the game, I just can't bring myself to help newer players through it, as much as I'd really like to see them progress. I've also found, while the new additions have made the game more casual, I still just don't have so many hours to do end-game activities as I used to, and some of them are starting to become mundane. But I still find fun stuff to do in the game.

The game is still great. It's incredible in fact; and while I have my most fondest memories and best times back in the day, I still find a lot of fun stuff to do now (having with with Campaign right now). I think the main reason I view it such a way now is purely based on how much time I've put into it.

Also be aware that Final Fantasy XI will in no way resemble or give you a feel of what is to come in the next installment. The game came out in a totally different time and space that current MMO's are at now - so look towards newer MMO's being released (such as Aion) for better reference, as Final Fantasy XI is from the old-style MMO era (e.g. Everquest, Ultima Online, etc.) - it's just such an out dated game design, purely based for the hardcore and still has quite a time sink no matter how many updates they release to try and make it more casual.

However, Square-Enix being Square-Enix, they will try something new and try to reshape how we percieve MMO's generally. At least that's the impression I get with the current information we have about Final Fantasy XIV - I can garantee we won't see this game released until at the very least this time next year. Perhaps even later towards Christmas next year.

To the OP; if you only had a low level character, then I don't really see the point of reactivating it. Go make a new character with your prefered race and start out classes, on a server that you might like (though they don't differ at all, except for friends you may have on one).

If you are on Midgardsormr, you are more than welcome to join my shell, but unfortunately it's not that friendly to newer players in that it'll be quite a battle to get help for low level stuff. This is mainly because the lowest member we have is already around level 50. It's also harder for me to be around due to my time zone and work load. However, it's always a place to hang out! We've done some cool stuff; like battle through the whole of Chains of Promethia expansion.

Anyway, just some food for thought!

[Del Murder]

If BoB and Smitten go to Midgard and plan to stay around a while I will switch servers. This is getting to be too much here!

I don't think it really matters that much if you start over or not. It doesn't sound like you were that far into the game so you won't lose much.

You are definitely in the sunset period of this game rather than the sunrise. That being said I don't see it going away any time soon, and now more than ever there are ways for new players to get integrated quickly. I think this more than makes up for the lower activity levels. You really shouldn't have any problem finding ways to enjoy yourself if you like FFXI in general. I'll help new players in my LS with anything besides leveling. I really hate leveling.

[Loony BoB]

Haha, and I was considering either Pandemonium or Mapoiehgawpupwerhuiertyaiut and went for the latter. Sorry, Murd. xD We're in the early stages though so I don't know if we'll stick around long enough to be able to get to your areas. :( I'm hoping to stick around if we can eventually get to that point though, as I do like the cheap cost by comparison to Eve Online, the other game we're giving a shot.

What is there to do besides levelling? I'm very new to the game. All I've done is mess around with fighting for an hour... after I finally figured out the controls. xD I wish the trial version came with a tutorial.

[Del Murder]

You'll need to level up before you can do anything interesting besides leveling. There are some lower level quests in the starting cities you can do for gil/items/fame.

[Loony BoB]

How far up should I go for leveling before you'd be interested in helping me if I was a new player in your LS? :p

[Del Murder]

I'd help newbs with rank missions at any time. Getting to rank 2 is pretty easy. To get rank 3 requires your character to be level 25. At level 18 you can get your support jobs and I'm usually willing to help with those.

[Loony BoB]

I think the thing I need help with most is understanding what I'm supposed to be doing because I don't know what ranks are or anything to do with support jobs and what help I'm supposed to need. xD

[Ouch!]

Is it really that bad, Zach? Danielle and I have set up trial accounts and are hoping for something good enough to get us by until FFXIV (we're finally trying to get into that online gaming thing again...). Hopefully we'll enjoy it enough. With no confirmed date for XIV, I can't imagine that we'll be waiting a full year or more just so we can get a taste of what FF online gaming is like.
Everything is considerably easier and more enjoyable when you've got another person playing through it for the first time as well. I imagine it gets pretty tedious to have to turn to higher level people to help you with everything every step of the way. I know that's what bothered my girlfriend as she was playing--she didn't like that there were a lot of things that she had to do but was incapable of doing on her own. I imagine starting with friends would make this a less significant issue.

By the way, what are you names in-game?

[Del Murder]

Well you know what a job is right? It's a class, like Black Mage. You are allowed a main job and a support job. The support job acts as half the level of your main job. So if you are level 20 Black Mage and sub White Mage you will have access to every spell and ability a level 10 White Mage does (assuming you leveled White Mage to 10). To gain the ability to equip a support job you need to do a quest in the town of Selbina at level 18.

Ranks you get from doing storyline missions. You start at rank 1 and the highest for each nation is rank 10. They don't really mean much these days but they are fun and there are various benefits from doing it.

Right now you should be fighting crap in the areas outside the starter towns to build experience. At level 10 or so you can start to party, but it might be quicker these days to solo/duo your way to level 18 and go after your support job. As you get higher in level you can venture further from town for harder monsters and better experience.

[Loony BoB]

Ah, okay. I'm still getting the hang of the controls at the moment, I found a manual for FFXI online and am using that. =x Danielle is lucky, she got the name 'Smitzy'. I'm, sadly, 'Loonybob'. :( Stupid old game.

[Ouch!]

They are now in Overture. Come on Del Money.

[Del Murder]

What's overture?

[Ouch!]

Omecle's linkshell.

[Loony BoB]

It's a bit fun now that I've got the hang of it, although poor Danielle trying to fight her way up the levels as a white mage is struggling at the moment.

[Rostum]

To be honest, half the fun is learning the best ways to level. :) As a white mage, she could try out a hammer (not a club, but same catergory) and shield, and pretty much attempt to melee with some cure spells. Try to am for Easy Prey and Decent Challenge enemies - you might get a bit less exp. but you will kill them faster.

[Loony BoB]

So, Murd... when you coming over to our neck of the woods, server-style? :p

[Ouch!]

Yeah, c'mon, Tmoney.

[Rostum]

Seriously.

[Loony BoB]

Especially with Lev downloading the game now to join in. 8-)

[Del Murder]

Smelly is on my server!

If it wasn't going to cost me 50 bucks and I didn't have to quit all the groups I joined then I would already be there.

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, the fact they make you pay is pretty crap. Start a new character. 8-)

[Del Murder]

I just might. It's only a dollar!

[Loony BoB]

Do it! I promise I'll buy us at least one month of subscription post-trial if you do :D?

[Del Murder]

Why do you care? You're asleep during the times I play this game!

[Rostum]

$50 is a small price to pay to be blessed with the presence of Omecle.

[Loony BoB]

Murd, you're online now! So am I! It's all too perfect.

[Levian]

Hmm, I wonder if it'd be possible to revive Smelly. ;o I'm not sure I remember my account information actually.

[Lionx]

If you guys need any help try to schedule it with me. I dont actively play atm but if you need help i will try to make it work :)

[Loony BoB]

Kentarou has been our splendid host for a while, along with a girl called Shawtiie. They're neat. Darkrein has also done us many favours. So it's all good. It's really easy to make friends in this game :D

Lev, Danielle and I will have all expansions as of tomorrow. 8-)

[Rostum]

That's great BoB. :D I am sorry I haven't been on much - last week of the trimester at university this week so I have only been able to get on for short periods...

[Loony BoB]

'salright. One thing we'll need at some point, maybe tomorrow, is someone to help us get a skull for Lev so he can get a subjob.

[Lionx]

When are you guys on and timezone?

[Loony BoB]

At the moment, being on holiday, we're on during most hours that we're actually at the flat from now through to about 14 hours from now. Unless we can find something else to do, anyway. :p But yeah, today is a stay-in-flat day I think, so we'll probably be on for the next 14 hours. Lev hasn't woken up yet though :p Danielle is yet to log on.

[Lionx]

I will log on sometime today then, i do have family obligations throughout the day but probably during nighttime or whenever i will see if you guys are on and help out with that skull if no one else has.

[Loony BoB]

We just got to Jeuno as we're L20 (well, 19 for Danielle, but still). Lev is now sorting out his sub for a bit while we slowly realise there isn't much for us to do in Jeuno as everything is superexpensive xD

[Lionx]

Dang i cant make it today, family obligations. >_< Should schedule on the Overture Forums sometime...be easier and not clutter this out.

[Loony BoB]

There are overture forums now?

EDIT: Ohhhhh. Shows how much attention I pay to welcome messages!