Quote Originally Posted by darkchrono
Like I said it may have an engaging story later on. But to get there you have to go through a ton of very mindless and boring random encounters to even begin to hint at that story or stories.

Where as single player rpg's have the ability to engross you in the story right off the bat.

From what I have experienced through playing it myself and through reading critic reviews and player reviews alike is that FFXI is very similar to online games of the past. Where you have to go through alot of tedious and often boring encounters so you can actually become powerful enough to delve into the storyline.

One thing that I have always wanted to try to do and tried to do in FFXI is to not really go on any quests but instead just run around and explore the countryside without having to worry about leveling up or fighting monsters. But yet you can't even do that because if you try the monsters will come up to you and attack you and since the more powerful monsters are further away from the towns unless you have gone through hours upon hours of tedious leveling up you will most definitely get killed.

So no FFXI is not that game that can engross you into a world and into a story just as well as an offline rpg can.

Why pay $15 a month to do things that you don't even want to do.
*ahem* I know for a fact that most of them either havent played, or never got that far to be worth judgin it.

I saw on a webpage he even said there wasnt a battle system with this game, you just stand there and watch the person slash with his sword to the monster, no special or powerful skills.

this is what lead me to buying it, to prove him wrong, and I did.