Realizations About FFXI As A Game.

I was thinking about it earlier today, and noticed that the first version update with the level cap increase had came. Although that had some significance with what i'm about to talk about in this post, it's more centered on the game itself.

I haven't played FFXI in a few monthes now. I quit awhile back for various reasons (school, other interests, social life in the game), but back then I hadn't noticed one of the biggest (if not the biggest) reasons why I had decided to put the game down, which was the longevity of this game.

When you think about it, the primary reason you play a game is for fun, right? I suppose this is pretty solid across the board with all MMOs, but FFXI was really the only one that I have gotten into deep enough to relate, but what is the point of playing a game that basically offers nearly zero variability or value in gameplay? After playing and experiencing most of the things FFXI has to offer, it's kind of easy to understand that FFXI is a game of dreadful repetition and not much else. Take Salvage for example, which was probably the activity that I spent most of my time on while ingame. The whole system of it is as linear as possible: Get this item, kill this monster, hope for it to drop some other item, go here, repeat a few times, kill the boss, exit the zone, and come again the next day to do the exact same thing (Speaking in the sense of the exact same procedure for the four remnant areas.)

I've done Dynamis, HNMs, ZNMs, Einherjar, Sky, Sea, and some other stuff as well (Can't remember off the top of my head.) and it seems like it's the same deal all across the board. Most of the game's possibilities (if not all, bar new update stuff that will also eventually be documented) are completely laid out for you by way of sites like FFXIclopedia and what not, and once you understand that if a monster does X move, you employ Y strategy and deal with it, no questions asked.

After you get the drop you want, then it's great, now you go off to some other area and do the same thing and hope for the other monster to drop that other rare piece of equipment you, or a friend of yours, or even multiple people in your linkshell want.

This is basically what i've realized FFXI is, as an actual game. Sure, it's fun when you first get into that one endgame activity that you have no idea how to do, but after you figure it out, it's all repetition from there on until you get what you want and move on. This is, so far, the basic structure for pretty much everything inside of the game. There is (seemingly) no end either, which is the somewhat disturbing part of this all. With the level cap increase, SE gave the playerbase all sorts of new, powerful items that overshadowed most of the things that the community has been using for years, which is nice in a sense, because we are getting "new" things, but what's the point to all of these insane (omfg haste +7% more than speed belt! etc.) things if we're eventually going to have
things that will be even better than these. If this is what they are giving us with the first update, than it's just a matter of time before all of these items become level fodder in light of level 99~ equipment, and then the economy will again come to a standstill where we will have hagun, cuchulain, blau, etc. equivalents at level 99, then what? It's kind of strange looking at all the comments that people are leaving on these new items that consist of "omfg, this is amazing / i just came / wow SE finally didn't fuck up their update to make us even more powerful"
With updates like this that just bring even more powerful items to the table that destroy previous ones, it just seems more and more apparent that SE is just toying with us with the carrot on the stick that we will never be able to reach, but still have incentives to follow(see: pay money) it.

When I think about playing a game and start playing, what I do is set a goal, or multiple goals for myself to complete in it, whether it be just beating the game's story, or collecting all the little extra gadgets on the side, or whatever. In a way, this factor is non-existant in FFXI.
Beyond accomplishing /your/ personal goals and accomplishments, the game literally has no end, or more like, that is what SE wants. To keep you playing(and playing) for as long as possible before you realize that there is no way to "finish/beat" the game. Is that really the type of game that you want to be playing?

There is also the community side of the game, where you can communicate and socialize with the other players, but is the 12.50$+ you pay every month really justifiable when there are things like messengers and ventrilo available for free that you could use to talk to those same people? If there's no more fun in playing FFXI as an actual video game and not a social gathering, than it just becomes a stylized facebook that requires you to pay money every month to keep using.

I know that people have been playing this game for many years, doing the same activities (Dynamis,Sky,Sea,whatever, and most likely the new WoTG endgame stuff once everyone figures out how it works in a month or two) everyday and still continue to do them, so i'd like to know what those people (and everyone who is still playing as well) see this game as and what drives them to continue on.

I didn't make this post asking people to quit or anything, but i'm just curious to see if the people who are playing are aware of the reality behind what FFXI is.