The Ideal MMO

[Liquid]

So, I was chatting it up with some friends at work about MMOs. It seems like no game developer has really taken the ball and ran with it completely yet....but it'd be so easy (okay maybe not that easy) to pull in mass amounts of players if you had a great MMO with all the bells and whistles. Problem being that these days you almost need a big name to break into the market from the gate. So, if EA decided to do an Ultima Online 3....or if another current MMO developer like Blizzard made the "ideal" MMO.....what should it have?


Here are my ideas.....

Home building – Only issue here is how to decide where players can purchase and build on land in a fair manner and not overtake non-city areas with homes. The system should come standard with a large variety of different building materials, furniture, and colors. Some of which can be made by crafters, special items from bosses and quests, etc.

Guilds – Allow Guilds to construct towns for their members and friends.

Guild Funds - A guild can choose the method in which guild funds are handled. Each guild can have an actual bank account. Transactions can be handled by approved trusted members only. Or a guild can choose to only allow transactions through a majority leadership vote. The guild has the option to choose the method.

Guild Leaders - A guild's leader is chosen by whomever starts the guild initially. From there, a majority number of members can vote that leader off leadership if they choose to do so. At that point an anonymous vote can be performed to see who the new leader will be. There will also be an option for a leader to step down as guild leader in order to hand leadership over to another member if they no longer wish to lead.

Towns – Maybe have instanced towns and cities that are solely player built and governed. These would be in specific areas designated for an instanced town. Maybe you need the approval of a GM, a specific large amount of cash, and you have to have so many people sign a petition to fully approve it? I dunno. Property taxes that go to guild funds? The guild can choose the set tax for members and non-members of the guild.

Town Sieges – Allow anyone to be able to enter the instanced towns by choosing which town they want to enter when attempting to zone into the specific area. A rival guild could then lay siege to another guild's town if they chose to do so. This could get complicated in working out the details for how this would work.

Farming – Can farm for crops for cooking and materials. Certain crops take longer to grow, etc etc...all the normal crop crap. It'd all be optional, but along the same lines as maybe Harvest Moon?

Livestock – Raised for food, meat, eggs, etc. Also raised for materials, bones, wool, fur, etc. Can be bred for more livestock,etc etc.

Fishing – Should be able to fish from shore or on a boat in a lake or out on the sea. Maybe could even be effected by weather and season, in where you will need to check weather reports before going out.

Hunting – Bow fishing, deer hunting, duck hunting, oh my! Maybe even have seasonal hunting and if you violate it, you are a possible fugitive if seen? Maybe a penalty? Fish and game officers laying the smack down if they catch you? Whatever.

Auction House – Either the typical AH everyone is used to or you can try to limit crowding of one specific area by changing it into a bazaar type area (think flea market or strip mall) where each category of the AH is split to a separate store or booth in a particular large area set aside for AH crap. Or just the conventional one everyone is used to and they just have to get used to the crowding lag.

Shops – Allow users to open shops in their areas to sell items that they make? Or maybe just force them to stick with the AH idea.

Movement – Running, jumping, swimming, climbing, crawling, swinging, etc.

Mounts – A variety of different mounts offered (like WoW.) Ground only mounts, flying mounts, possibly even water only mounts. (Zomg I can ride Echo the Dolphin!) Each with their own set of perks and colors. These can be raised from birth, caught wild, or possibly even bought used. Also, you can possibly have a method to increase your mount's stats via training, food, or age.

Mount Breeding – Maybe you can even breed your mount with a friend's mount and create a more skilled mount with possibly better stats and different colors?

Mount Racing – (Yes, I'm stealing these ideas from Final Fantasy.) Racing against CPU controlled mounts. Maybe each large city has different racing circuits? Options to race other players? Options to bet on races? Flying mount races? Underwater mount racing? Epic!

Pets – Allow pets of multiple varieties just for show at home. Possibly also allow multiple classes to use different pets out in the field, but maybe a certain class that can have pets of higher levels.

Arcade – A place to play simple games just for fun, but actually cost you a little bit of fake money to play. Maybe a high score can yield special one time items? (Gold Saucer anyone?)

Casino – A place to gamble against the CPU or maybe even against other players? Maybe even allow a guild to build their own casino within their town. Player vs player games would have a rake. The rake would benefit the guild bank. All CPU won funds would also go to guild bank.

PKing – Maybe different servers or just different areas where PKing is or is not allowed? I like the idea of murderers being labeled as such. Maybe even worse penalties for killing low levelers or those a certain number of levels below you.

Battle Arena - Think FFVII Battle Area here, with prizes to win and all that fun jazz. Of course, there would also be a PvP Battle Arena as well, like WoW has.

Kids – Some people actually get married in games. What if they could have kids? What if these kids grew up over time and then you could use them for slave labor at your farm? Wouldn't that be awesome? Lol. Or you can just sell them on the black market as a slave? Whatever.

Armor/Clothes – Allow you to make, alter, or design clothes. You can craft with certain items to make them stronger or add specific stats to them. Change their colors? Maybe add emblems to them? Guild emblems?

Weapons – Allow a variety of different weapons. Possibly the same ideas as for Armor\Clothes?



Anyone with other ideas? Who would be the best publisher to make a game like this?

[deonchan]

Step 1) Take WC3. EQ2, WoW, WAR, FFXI, NWN2, Connan and old school UO and combine them into one

Step 2) ?????

Step 3) PROFIT!

[Liquid]

Step 1) Take WC3. EQ2, WoW, WAR, FFXI, NWN2, Connan and old school UO and combine them into one

Step 2) ?????

Step 3) PROFIT!

lol, don't forget Harvest Moon, Derby Owners Club, maybe some Sim City, The Sims, Second Life, etc, lol.

[PyronIkari]

Everything you just wrote has so many inherent flaws that I'm not really wanting to go through and point out because it would take too long.

The reason your MMO fails in a general state though, is that because it is far too complicated. MMO's that are too complicated fail to reach the general audience, thus the fanbase would be too low to make it work in a semi-feesable way.  MMO's start witha  community, but if the game is too complicated, the community is not there. That base requires HUGE AMOUNTS of players to maintain, and with complexity alone, it will never reacht hat number.

2ndly this type of MMO caters towards player created, and although it's not a huge audience, many MMO players play for questing and story line. That's one of the reasons FFXI was so popular, the storyline and quests were incredibly well done and written. The MMO you speak of sounds more like... a fable type world where you are free to do anything you want, become and create anything you want, instead of playing into a set path world, with specific builds and specific ways to play. This once again goes against the general user base.

[Liquid]

Everything you just wrote has so many inherent flaws that I'm not really wanting to go through and point out because it would take too long.

The reason your MMO fails in a general state though, is that because it is far too complicated. MMO's that are too complicated fail to reach the general audience, thus the fanbase would be too low to make it work in a semi-feesable way.  MMO's start witha  community, but if the game is too complicated, the community is not there. That base requires HUGE AMOUNTS of players to maintain, and with complexity alone, it will never reacht hat number.

2ndly this type of MMO caters towards player created, and although it's not a huge audience, many MMO players play for questing and story line. That's one of the reasons FFXI was so popular, the storyline and quests were incredibly well done and written. The MMO you speak of sounds more like... a fable type world where you are free to do anything you want, become and create anything you want, instead of playing into a set path world, with specific builds and specific ways to play. This once again goes against the general user base.

Yeah, I can see what you are saying and I can also see why no company will ever make anything like this. But it's nice to dream.

I played Final Fantasy XI Online for about 2-3 years off and on and it was so limiting. There was so much you couldn't do and so many things that made the game less enjoyable. It would just be nice if a developer actually tried a little harder. Maybe take some tips from Blizzard and do something that players actually want to be done.

Ultima Online had more player input. You could build houses, rob houses, rob people, have a farm, get a castle, etc. People still play that game. Infact, I just read about a new expansion for it being released by EA next month. Crazy old game still getting expansions.

And no game is complete without epic quests and storyline. There is no way any game would succeed without them. It would just be nice if some games offered these side options once those stories and quests were completed. Plus, not everyone has the time or options to quest or do missions each time they play. Most of the good stuff and higher level missions, quests, and monsters take multiple players to do. What if your friends aren't logged on? It'd be nice to have other options available.

Seriously, how many times have you wished that Square would offer Chocobo racing and raising like they did in VII, but in another game? They haven't done it since. I mean, they did add it rather recently in FFXI, but you have to do so much and waste so much time in order to even be able to get to that point. It's ridiculous.

I've been wishing Square would add in a Battle Arena, Chocobo Raising\Racing, Arcades, and Card Games into all their games since the release of FFVII and FFVIII....but they have not done it (FFX had something close to a Battle Arena, but it was Bosses only, it was still fun though.) Also, one of the funnest things was being able to fly and control an airship, but they've stolen that from us too. =\

Given, I loved FFXII and it is one of my favorite FF games...but it could have been even better with some of those above things.

[Stythys]

the ideal mmo? it's called eve.

and now dust :D

[Liquid]

the ideal mmo? it's called eve.

and now dust :D

Never played Eve. :-X

I'll have to view the vid at home. Work blocks out videos.

[AnimeEmperor]

the ideal mmo? it's called eve. Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I fixed your post...

[PyronIkari]

Yeah, I can see what you are saying and I can also see why no company
will ever make anything like this. But it's nice to dream.

I played Final Fantasy XI Online for about 2-3 years off and on and it
was so limiting. There was so much you couldn't do and so many things
that made the game less enjoyable. It would just be nice if a
developer actually tried a little harder. Maybe take some tips from
Blizzard and do something that players actually want to be done.

Like what? What was limited about this game? The only thing they did
was make it incredibly hard to leech high level missions as a low
level and and that you actually had to earn your place in groups.I was
quite pleased with accessability etc, you had to earn things in this
game, instead of just ride on someones back and get anywhere you
wanted.

Ultima Online had more player input. You could build houses, rob
houses, rob people, have a farm, get a castle, etc. People still play
that game. Infact, I just read about a new expansion for it being
released by EA next month. Crazy old game still getting
expansions.

The issue with UO was that, these were merely status points. Towers
and castles really accomplished little, and there was no leveling or
anything. It was a trainer based game. So everything in the game was
basically bottable and that's all it became a race to get stuff
without actually doing anything.

And no game is complete without epic quests and storyline. There is no
way any game would succeed without them. It would just be nice if some
games offered these side options once those stories and quests were
completed. Plus, not everyone has the time or options to quest or do
missions each time they play. Most of the good stuff and higher level
missions, quests, and monsters take multiple players to do. What if
your friends aren't logged on? It'd be nice to have other options
available.

All games have other options though. Trying to get drops, crafting,
fishing, or other skills etc.even just farming for money.

Seriously, how many times have you wished that Square would
offer Chocobo racing and raising like they did in VII, but in another
game? They haven't done it since. I mean, they did add it rather
recently in FFXI, but you have to do so much and waste so much time in
order to even be able to get to that point. It's ridiculous.

Ah, assumptions. You can chocobo raise at level 1. It's time
consuming, and costs money, but it does not take a lot of time to get
to this point at all. The thing was that, this is a *side* option, in
which it ebing a side option had no real huge payoff for doing so. A
fast Chocobo when you need one anywhere you want, isn't that huge a deal considering, you rarely spend time traveling on land for that long on the world map in a place where you weren't able to get a chocobo in the first place. It's useful, but not something that is super amazing.

I've been wishing Square would add in a Battle Arena, Chocobo
Raising\Racing, Arcades, and Card Games into all their games since the
release of FFVII and FFVIII....but they have not done it (FFX had
something close to a Battle Arena, but it was Bosses only, it was
still fun though.) Also, one of the funnest things was being able to
fly and control an airship, but they've stolen that from us too. =\

Given, I loved FFXII and it is one of my favorite FF games...but it
could have been even better with some of those above things.

There is technically a battle arena in FFXI. Einjander. But not for solo'ing.

The thing with soloable stuff is that, the prize can't be that good. If it's something anyone can do at anytime, and the prize is something amazing, then it messes with the economy as well as a number of other stuff. If the prize isn't that good, what's the point of doing it? It's an ungodly impossible balance to create.

So it's impossible to create an ideal MMO. There's so much thought that has to be put in, and it's impossible to be able to do everything perfect without taking away from something else. And even more, it's impossible to please everyone. At this moment, FFXI is by far the best MMO I have played for me. I've played... quite a many. FFXI is the only one that provided me with actual challenge and at the same time had an amazing story and missions that I actually *wanted* to do just for the story over getting the prize at the end of it. The strategies between different bosses varied so much that there really wasn't any two extremely difficult bosses that were fought the same way. And most importantly, there was many different ways to play each class without relying on "skill sets". Gear spec'ing completely changed how each class was played, and subjobs allowed a lot of classes to play in ways they traditionally not seen as.

Most people think FFXI is crap though. Because all they saw was that leveling was really hard and you "had" to do it in parties.

[Stythys]

the ideal mmo? it's called eve. Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I fixed your post...

uh....yeah no

[Liquid]

Like what? What was limited about this game? The only thing they did was make it incredibly hard to leech high level missions as a low level and and that you actually had to earn your place in groups. I was quite pleased with accessability etc, you had to earn things in this game, instead of just ride on someones back and get anywhere you wanted.

I loved that they made high level missions harder and made it tougher to leech, but some things became tedious, time consuming, and out right annoying because of some of their methods.

I learned to be skilled as a BLM Taru on the Alexander server from day one. I was in the first NA LS to kill Kirin back in the day on that server. He's hella easy now, but back then it was epic if your group could defeat him. I was in the first NA group to take down Fafnir, Nid, Aspi, KB, Bahamut, Tiamat, Jorm, Vrtra, Dynamis Lord, etc etc. I was the first to take Tarutaru to Warrior 75. (Thank you to awesome JP friends who invited me to late night leveling parties. ^^)

I tried the game out again earlier in the year (after being away for a couple years) and it was scary. People didn't even know wtf a skillchain was or how to magic burst. Wtf happened? Nobody has any skills anymore. It's all easy button. No more monster trains either. *tear* The game is no longer about skill. It's all about who has the most money for the best gear to make their job easiest. A person these days isn't judged on their skill. They are instead judged on the equipment they have. It's lame, but that's the way it is now.

So what was or is limiting about the game? Some things are really small. There is no jumping, swimming, flying, etc. (I never really got hardcore into WoW, but being able to do those things alone made it a lot more fun.) Other things are much bigger.....

The game became an endless rape of your time because in order to do any of the new instances, bosses, or whatever.... you had to complete an endless task of repeated steps. Like, I have to buy expensive cameras and film to take pictures of monsters on a daily basis in order to turn those in for points in hopes that some day it will be enough to allow me to purchase a pop item for a monster that may or may not drop an item that I want or need. I don't have the time nor the gil for that crap, but not being able to get the best gear is just depressing.

Or, I have to do assault missions on a constant basis in order to try to keep earning points so that I could spend these points on doing another instanced battle that I may or may not win with my group and then I may or may not get an item there.

Not to mention that any good items you want, you have to compete against 20-70 people for them. Absolutely terrible odds in getting the item yourself unless you are high ranked in your group. Hell, even if you are high ranked the odds of your item even actually dropping in the span of a few months can be low.

I swear to God I've been to Dynamis-Xarcabard hundreds upon hundreds of times. I think I've seen the BLM AF2 hat drop...ummm twice? MAYBE 3 times? The only reason I even went to Dynamis was to get priority on getting that damned hat. IT NEVER DROPPED! That is a 3-6 hour event! (I forget the exact time after all the time extensions.) So many hours wasted. Yes, I'm a little bitter about that.

Basically the game, to Square, became.... "How can we find further ways of wasting a players time so that we get to retain our monthly cash flow?" Rather when it should have been; "How do we make a more enjoyable game for our fanbase so that we can retain them for future expansions and releases down the road?"

I can rant forever about this....but let's move on.

The issue with UO was that, these were merely status points. Towers and castles really accomplished little, and there was no leveling or anything. It was a trainer based game. So everything in the game was basically bottable and that's all it became a race to get stuff without actually doing anything.

Status points? If you want to say that about UO, then can't you really say that about any MMO in existance? Just about every reason you join the end game in an MMO is for status and for items that can bring you status. Basically everything you do for gear in FFXI is for status, otherwise you wouldn't do it. Each piece of gear makes you better at your particular job, thus giving you better status in that job. Do I really need a Speed Belt? Well, no...but it would sure give me the status and appearence of a better equipped player.

So yeah, that gear can actually help you in battle, as where castles and towers do not, but there are lots of gear that are mainly just for looks. +1 Cursed gear for example? Not needed. It is soley for showing off. It doesn't really raise stats much from the original set. It's merely to show other people how rich you are and to show off. There are other full gear sets that are not needed, but people walk around in them to show off that they have them all. Just about any MMO has some ways a player can show off their "status points."

I can see your botting comment, but people find ways to bot and hack every game. FFXI had fish botters. Harvesting bots. Zone jumping hacks (Jump from one side of the zone to another or to a predetermined zone coordinates.) Speed (running) hacks. Hacks to move around your own dead body. People have programs that use auto macros to cast their spells for them in certain situations without them touching anything. Example: Tank gets poisoned, whitemage auto casts poisona. There are easy crafting bots to help limit tedious crafting of the same items. AND not to mention the huge issue in FFXI: HNM claim botting.

All games have other [solo] options though. Trying to get drops, crafting, fishing, or other skills etc.even just farming for money.

Let's talk about FFXI some more. Any good drops these days take a decent sized group of players. You can't do anything solo anymore unless you have a good soloing job leveled. Even then you're SOL in most cases. Crafting is only for the rich and the gil buyers. You cannot craft items to help you level and still turn a profit, at least you couldn't on my server. Fishing was boring.

Farming for money solo is a joke. In most cases in order to make decent cash you need a good high lvl solo job with great gear to make a decent turn in cash. But, this was at great risk of death and EXP loss.

You couldn't farm decent low level items because gil sellers horded those areas and mobs. If you wanted to try to get an item from an easy NM or HNM that you could take on, then you had to compete against claim bots.

Ah, assumptions. You can chocobo raise at level 1. It's time consuming, and costs money, but it does not take a lot of time to get to this point at all. The thing was that, this is a *side* option, in which it ebing a side option had no real huge payoff for doing so. A fast Chocobo when you need one anywhere you want, isn't that huge a deal considering, you rarely spend time traveling on land for that long on the world map in a place where you weren't able to get a chocobo in the first place. It's useful, but not something that is super amazing.

lol, not really an assumption. I have to try to find time to feed it every day from birth and train it in certain ways in order to try and get a better bird once it reaches a point where I can ride it. (I hear it's around a month?) You are typically in a far off location from the place where the bird is being raised, so traveling there becomes tedious and time consuming.

I tried to raise one once, but alas I did not have time with a full time job, g/f, family, friends, and then all the end game repetitive group events that I had committed myself to.... PLUS continious leveling in order to try and keep myself from delvling due to dumb people causing wipes.... Not mention trying to keep up with the mission static group I was in... then trying to keep up items and points to participate in other end game events. I have a lot of fond memories...but.... *Sigh* I hate that game now, lol.

So...then once you can finally ride that Chocobo...it's very slow and stupid and you have to train it and feed it daily to improve it's skills. It's incredibly tedious and time consuming. Games are made to be FUN, not annoying. Right?

There is technically a battle arena in FFXI. Einjander. But not for solo'ing.

I only got to try it a few times...and the LS I was going with was not that skilled. (Hint: I was always told to come Taru WAR\NIN and use my Ridil\Maneater combo. They could not keep hate off me and most of their mages did not know what a '-na' spell was.)

The thing with soloable stuff is that, the prize can't be that good. If it's something anyone can do at anytime, and the prize is something amazing, then it messes with the economy as well as a number of other stuff. If the prize isn't that good, what's the point of doing it? It's an ungodly impossible balance to create.

I think FFVII did a nice job of this? Allowing you to earn points in the Battle Arena through various fights that got harder and more complicated each time you tried and the higher you leveled. But, in these games you would have to gear a different arena type for each job type, which would make it more complicated. A solo battle arena would be ideal because you wouldn't have anyone else to depend on. There wouldn't really be a means to cheat the system.

So it's impossible to create an ideal MMO. There's so much thought that has to be put in, and it's impossible to be able to do everything perfect without taking away from something else. And even more, it's impossible to please everyone. At this moment, FFXI is by far the best MMO I have played for me. I've played... quite a many. FFXI is the only one that provided me with actual challenge and at the same time had an amazing story and missions that I actually *wanted* to do just for the story over getting the prize at the end of it.

I agree. It is impossible to please everyone and there is always going to be someone who doesn't like something or the lack of something. However, it is possible to please a majority.

FFXI is the MMO I have played the most of. If it was not for the tricky way I got pulled into the community by forced partying, then I probably wouldn't have played the game for over 3 years. Damn Square for forcing me to meet people online and make friends. *shakes fist*

The strategies between different bosses varied so much that there really wasn't any two extremely difficult bosses that were fought the same way. And most importantly, there was many different ways to play each class without relying on "skill sets". Gear spec'ing completely changed how each class was played, and subjobs allowed a lot of classes to play in ways they traditionally not seen as.

Gear spec'ing was a great option, but then it got to be where people would expect you to have sets for each spec type of your jobs. That's too costly and takes up too much room to do that with all of my jobs.

I had a main of BLM, so I'm expected to have -enmity gear for certain situations where hate is drawn too easily or the tank blows, +INT, +elemental skill, +enfeebling, +dark, +enhancing, -HP +MP to use latents for certain items, magic bursting gear, fast cast gear items, resting MP+ gear, HQ elemental staves of each elemental...and that's just ONE of my jobs.

"Zomg, you don't have ******* piece of equipment? What a newb!" *Taru ankle stab*

Most people think FFXI is crap though. Because all they saw was that leveling was really hard and you "had" to do it in parties.

I liked how they forced party play. If it wasn't for the party play then I would not have met so many varieties of different people from different countries and cultures. I would not have had the chance to make as many friends and to get the opportunities to enjoy every aspect of the end game. I actually liked the game and some of the community aspects, I'm just bitter over many things that I did not like about the game. (Mostly drop rates.)

I remember I had one Japanese buddy that didn't really speak any English and I don't really speak any Japanese. We would simply find ways to chat solely using the translator text. Awesome guy. Very friendly. ^^

So in closing: Basically the biggest flaws I saw were in the end game. Almost all of it provided an unending abundance of drama and wasted time. The stories were great, but those were all quickly finished and then all that was left was the end game. Yes, it could be fun and also quite challenging in first completing an event or boss, but then all it became was repetitive killing for drama causing items that almost never dropped.

[PyronIkari]

Most of this post is basically "I want to achieve a lot, whenever I want, without ivesting time for it".

Most of the stuff you name isn't that time consuming. Assaults can be done in like 30 min with a good group. At most 50 min with a bad pickup group that can still do it.  Photo taking only takes like... 15 min a day.  Dynamis and other instanced events took around 3 hours. Yeah, instances in WoW used to take that long too, till they turned it into easy mode, and people do them in like an hour max now.

MMO's take time, that's the point of them. I've done Hella dynamis' as well, and I've seen lots of drops, certain items dropped a lot, others, I rarely saw. But I can honestly say, I have seen atleast every AF drop atleast 5 times. And I barely did dynamis, only 2 times a week for about a year. I saw two thf glovesd rop in a month, me getting one of them.

As for solo'ing for gil... you just need to know where and how. I made so much gil it was kinda idiculous, but my luck is horrible. I bought DH for 25mil, and after two months it dropped to 5mil. I got THF knife drop 2 weeks before the changes that dropped it down to 80k, etc. I've made 30mil in a month before solo.

[Liquid]

Most of this post is basically "I want to achieve a lot, whenever I want, without ivesting time for it".

Well, not exactly... but it would be awesome if after 3 years of playing a game and trying almost weekly to get an item....that it would actually drop? lol. Given, I heard they increased drop rates in the last year or so? But, when I was going with a new LS it still wouldn't drop. We got plenty of other items though. I got NIN hands. I don't even have a NIN.

It's just that with actually having a full time job and some form of life away from the game... it can be hard to make time for all the little events and errands to do the big fun stuff on a leisurely time schedule.

If your LS is doing a run of an event right when you get off work, it sucks that you just can't go because you were at work and didn't have time to complete all of the prep work for it so that you could go.

Most of the stuff you name isn't that time consuming. Assaults can be done in like 30 min with a good group. At most 50 min with a bad pickup group that can still do it.  Photo taking only takes like... 15 min a day.  Dynamis and other instanced events took around 3 hours. Yeah, instances in WoW used to take that long too, till they turned it into easy mode, and people do them in like an hour max now.

Yes, the events themselves alone are not bad if you are just wanting to do those events. But, now you have to do events in order to do events? I mean, it's cool if that's how you unlock an event, but having to constantly repeat those events over and over again, even if you dont want to do them....just so you can do another event? Meh..... I've already been forced to complete countless quests and missions just to get to where I can even access the event areas. Why do I have to waste time doing other events on top of that just to get points to spend to do another event? It's just annoying and a waste of my time.

If I'm going to do something to get items, then I want to just do that one something and not have to do 5 other somethings each time I want to do that one instance.

MMO's take time, that's the point of them. I've done Hella dynamis' as well, and I've seen lots of drops, certain items dropped a lot, others, I rarely saw. But I can honestly say, I have seen atleast every AF drop atleast 5 times. And I barely did dynamis, only 2 times a week for about a year. I saw two thf glovesd rop in a month, me getting one of them.

We went off and on for 3 years. I think we had more Shadow Mantles then BLM hats, lol. It really sucked because we had nearly a full alliance of BLMs sometimes. (That is honestly pretty fun in Dynamis when you can just group nuke almost anything to death.)

As for solo'ing for gil... you just need to know where and how. I made so much gil it was kinda idiculous, but my luck is horrible. I bought DH for 25mil, and after two months it dropped to 5mil. I got THF knife drop 2 weeks before the changes that dropped it down to 80k, etc. I've made 30mil in a month before solo.

Yeah, when I came back to the game the economy had failed like that. Everything was severly cheaper than I had purchased it for.

Back in the day myself and 4 other BLMs started a mercenary group opened to the public for the KSNM Operation Desert Swarm, when it first came out. I think I made a good 50-100 million off it before Square killed the drop rates in the KSNMs. Later, other ways to get those items came out, thus killing prices.

Not long after that I got robbed of pretty much all my gil and expensive gear for BLM, WAR, and NIN. (My fault for putting my trust into someone I had been gaming with for 3 years and had used my account before.) Some friends helped me get the necessary gear back for my jobs, but I never did find another good way to make money after that.

[PyronIkari]

Those events leading to the events aren't that long either. No mission really takes that long to accomplish, it's just a long string of missions to do things. CoP seemed to take forever when I was doing it, but when I went through it again, missions went by so fast. The longest mission is the doll escort mission which was like an hour and a half to do. Some missions I finished in like 20-30 min when it literally seemed to take hours when I first did it.

Drop rates have increased? I dunno, I haven't played in a few years.

As I said, it's luck based. BLM Hats seemed to drop fine in the LS's I ran with. I had full Drk AF2 and Thf AF2 within about 3 months of playing. My g/f at the time had full AF for PLD, NIN, BRD, WHM, WAR in like 2 years. The thing with that is, most AF2 sucked anyways. AF2 was for show for the most, just to say you had full sets, most of them were completely worthless. There isn't a single AF2 DRK that is even worth owning at all.

Dynamis was worthless for my jobs minus THF boots and gloves, and I got those both in a month. I basically ran just to be TH whore and help others get sparklies.

Dynamis was really not worth running for the most part, it's best goal was to make the LS money via currency(or to get Relic for someone) in terms of gear prior to Treasures, Sky was really the best way to go and HNM's during the pops.

Crafting took money, but between how I farmed, and stuff, I easily could have crafted a skill to 100.

The economy balanced out finally. The bad inflation disappeared, and RMT got a lot less prominent.

Nothing really "TOOK" that long itself, it was just the end goal was far away because there was so many small things towards it. Personally... I LOVED this. The game took work, it took missions, and stuff like that. Wow, isn't even a questing game or anything anymore, it's just a rush to level cap then run instances until you deck out.

Why I hate WoW, is why a lot of people love WoW though. And why I love FFXI is why people hate FFXI.

[Liquid]

Well, missions were fun and challenging. I really liked that aspect of the game and the stories that went with them. Have you done the Wings of the Goddess missions? Did you ever finish Treasures of Aht Urgan? All fun and challenging missions. I actually liked how they did the Wings of the Goddess expansion, but I didn't stick around for the release of all the missions. They actually forced you to complete challenging quests, some with bosses, in order to unlock access to missions. But, the quests were all chained together and related in a manner like missions. So, it was like doing two sets of missions. On top of that, there were different quests and stories for each of the 3 major nations.

Did you hear about how you can level sync your entire party to the level of someone else within the party? If you are all level 75 and the other guy is 30, then you can all level sync down to level 30. You can still wear level 75 gear, but the stats are dumbed down to be level 30 compliant while the sync is activated. Then you can all EXP in a lvl 30 area. This made leveling a lot easier and meritting more open for all jobs.

I dunno if it was around when you played, but what I didn't like was having to do Assault missions over and over in particular zones in order to get points in order to buy an item to do an instance with my LS. I think this one was called Salvage? I don't have time for pickup party Assaults with people who never really learned to play the game right.

I liked aspects from both WoW and from FFXI. If WoW had a method to force a community aspect, like FFXI did with partying....then I'd probably have played it more. The only thing I ever really did was kill stuff solo and complete a ton of quests. It got boring fast.

[david]

Ideal MMO?

Maplestory

:P :-X ??? ;D :D ;)

jk

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

Ideal MMO?

Maplestory

:P :-X ??? ;D :D ;)

jk

NO RUNESCAPE!

Maplestory can be a fun one, but nowhere near perfect.
Needs moar PvP IMO