So Just How Addicted To FFXI Were You?

Found this video online and I found it fascinating.



I've done 12 hour days on the game and played until 3am in the morning as I was an EU player, which is pretty bad. But I never lost a job or a partner over it.

But then again, I never did Sky Gods or Dynamis. Guess I wasn't that hardcore.

This pretty much. Didn't drop out of school or lose any jobs. Makes me look back though first time logging in and seeing that message "Don't forget friends, family, etc". Always laughed at that quote, unfortunately it was true to a few people.

Personal latest was 7am to get a Jormungand kill, back when it was a big deal.

Its a true story, I can relate to it for more than one point.

The moment you stop and find yourself without anything to do is one of the most depressing, you really need to find something, anything otherwise you will end going back to playing.

But with a bit of strenght, its possible to return your life without having to be connected.

There is still life outside Vanadiel! Believe it!

what do you mean 'were'

It holds a special place in my heart, but I never went beyond playing for fun in my free time. I think the deepest I ever got into MMO addiction was avoiding taking up other hobbies.

I was addicted for sure. Some of my favorite screenshots I still have are:
1. clearing those CoP crag zones with an alliance of 18 at lvl 30 in 2005 (group picture)
2. dual tanking brown byakko as war/mnk with thfs (and FINALLY getting my chance to lot the ever so EPEEN byakko Haidate!)
3. getting mpk'd in crawlers nest when people were zoning scorpions to the entrance (GOOD TIMES!)
4. dynamis wipes!

I miss the early years of ffxi, the first 5-6 years were great! The last few years were fun too, but I miss the small accomplishments that made the game fun like getting to chain 5 in a PUG, stuff like that. After a 2-3 hour xp grind with people i just met was awesome! the feeling like "damn we rocked the hell out of that xp group" and made some cool friends along the way was what it was all about for me.

remember when you had to "turn your party flag on" and waited for an invite? Looking back now, those were the times I had the most fun. Crazy right?

Bored in Sky much? Things like this happen on a regular basis.

I used to play 24/7.

I'd sleep between Cezrberus/Tiamat/Fafhogg/*insert similar stuff*'s wondows. This quickly killed my health though so I stopped after 8 months.
I used to play around 14-18h a day when out of this 24/7 spiral. I'd play at work since it was encouraged, it helped.

I guess it was just like being Ash in Pokémon for me: I wanted to catch all those items, fight all those fights and see all there was to see.

At least I owe my professional success to this, so there is no regret in what happened. 10/10.

For some reason, this used to happen to me a lot when I was a teen. I'd be bored and so on.

As I got older, I just started to feel like there wasn't enough hours in the day to do everything I wanted.
This feeling is even stronger now.

Did you break it? What's high score mean?

(paraphrasing).

Still addicted to the game. I was in the bathroom the other day and thought I was hearing sandy music playing through my vents.

Don't regret any time I've put into the game and actually wish I could of dedicated even more time.

Started playing when I was in middle school (continued on through HS, etc) so it wasn't too crazy to just come home after track practice + finish homework then hop on for the rest of the night.

The addiction was there but my worries about school and anything else came first. I wasn't able to enjoy my time online unless I had done everything I needed to get done for the day. It is still like this for me now that I'm in my 20s.

The game made me run my days on a schedule. How much time for HW? How much time for practice? Hang out with friends on Friday for 2 hours? It was internal though, I wasn't actually buying planners to do all this in. I wasn't THAT crazy.

Got in trouble a couple of times for being up at 3-4AM on school nights but the parties were too good so I wasn't about to log out.

I could have been addicted to drugs but nope, the FFXI life chose me.

Not at all. I played a lot but never vomited when I didn't get too.
This isn't a matter of addiction as much as self control. Did I lose my sense of control. Hell ya, a earlier post up ^ defined me pretty well.

I started in 05 after a divorce and a double surgery. I had hella time to spend on something... anything. Growing up I played FF1 all the way up to 13x2 and a little tiny bit of 14. FF has been part of my life since it's release on NES.

I quit WILLINGLY for five years. Missed every min of it, in my free time while I didn't play I'd get bored, my mind would wonder even though I wasn't playing I'd still resort to ideas of what to do on XI. The game def had me mentally.

I'm not addicted to XI, I'm addicted to something to do, someone to talk to, somewhere to go.. fun!

I recently moved to Oregon, don't know anyone, anywhere and SSI deemed me disabled (Got ran over by a 2 ton trunk when I was younger). Nowa days this is a relief from the prison life I live.

This video made me go and apply to a bunch of jobs. Finished my classes a month ago and just waiting on graduation in November except I haven't really done anything in the last month so I was literally the person in this video

Got this game back in 2005; I was a senior in high school.

The summer between my last year in high school and my first year in college, I went to my grandma's house in CA (LA area).

I played an average of 15 hours a day, up to 18-20. I left my grandma's house 6 times that entire summer and went a month and a half at 18 years old without putting on a pair of shoes.

I spent $28 bucks on a 3 month vacation (I went to gamestop to buy a new controller when mine broke; which also counts as one of the 6 times I left my grandma's house).

My grandma gave up trying to get me to come to the dinner table. She'd just leave it in the microwave, and I'd come out at around 2-3am and get the food/eat.

Still consider it the best 3 months of my life to this point, lol

Edit: lol was also enough to drop my high school gpa from 3.8 to 3.5 in my senior year alone.

The number of times I didn't wake up on time for school or woke up with keyboard prints on my face @_@

Still am. I just love FFXI too much!

I've purchased other games for my consoles and they're still in shrink wrap. In fact, some of those games, now have greatest-hits releases! :P

I have tried to quit several times. But I just seem to come back. Granted it is not as fun as it once was due to the small server populations and most of my friends leaving. I still find fun in the game so its just enough to keep me hooked.

What is this "were" stuff? lol
He should come back and play again. He would have so much fun.
^o^

I was quite addicted at one point of the game. I started playing October 30th 2003. I was 13 at the time. I spent every waking minute doing it. By December of the following year (2004), I had Red Mage, White Mage, Summoner, and Bard at 75. Which was rather intense. I remember being in a major endgame linkshell and spending most of my time after school farming Sky and Sea. I would wake up every 30 minutes in the middle of the night (on a school night, mind you) for king windows. I was pretty addicted. It was bad. Thankfully, I never let my schooling suffer. I maintained straight A's all through middle and high school.

My biggest regret? Not sticking to my "quitting" in 2007. I sold that character. Made quite a pretty penny off of it. I don't know why I came back.

Well I'm pretty addicted atm,

I have chosen this over my gf. I have a son from a previous relationship and have him at my flat fortnightly, so thats when I tale more of a break, but my gf hates this game.

Insidently, it came about because I had quit ffxi (thought for the last time after the lvl75-95+ abyssea golden era) but I started getting a tad depressed in myself late last year, with 2 things that I missed and enjoyed throughout my early adult life way back. It was a '***I'm 31 why isn't life as enjoyable or fun as during my early 20's-life kinda crisis'. The other things arn't possible anymore due to massive changes in culture, lifestyle and music, but ffxi still exists. After playing late last year, trying to manage time on this, time with gf, etc etc its come to it and I let her go.

It's mostly by choice, well; IF it was my choice I'd have the game and the girl, but I'm very happy playing, I'm 32, enjoy the game massive amounts because it really is a great game to play atm - Masses of new content has been introduced, there is only 2 more updates to come so its a fairly exciting time imo, Ninja is top 3 melee DD but only real Ninja's know it because we spend a life in the shadows and it is kept in secret because we want more buffing (in more ways then one).

I miss her when it comes to bed time and in the morning because thats the one time ffxi isn't around. I feel the game will plod on long after November, but I know at some point it will become stale, but until then I have my outside life, I have my inside life, but I can't see me wanting to join them both together anytime soon.


Oh - Has anyone noticed this - I dont know whether its become some kinda thing, but when your out and about you don't /check to look at armor. I think the psycology of being /checked, and /checking ppl runs deep in the ffxi community . . .

I picked up the game on PS2 launch and had no idea that this was going to happen. FFXI came along when I actually was exiting my teenage years and was finishing the high school era. I started working and every other moment of free time was put into FFXI.

I always went nuts on final fantasy games and achieved as much as I could. Who ever knew that this would end up being a 10 year+ ride of crazy.

I actually called off work and got into a huge argument about being sick so that I could run with my CoP static and get my rajas ring (thank god we won that time or I would have called off for nothing lol).

I played this game through college and even after graduating. When I met who would eventually became my wife, she picked up the free trial disc at Gamestop just so she could see why I was so into the game. She ended up getting hooked herself. Even if she wasn't very good she still loved playing with me.

I had a gaming laptop and I was always playing in-between classes. I paid for guildwork premium so that I could remote chat with friends and linkshell members during class or whatever.

We moved into a new apartment together and had very little money. We paid for our subscriptions but couldn't really afford to go out on many dates or out to eat that often. We could barely afford our subscription and to eat lol. It's so crazy looking back. We've been gone for almost 2 years but we returned last week just to see the final patch come through and explore what's changed over the last few years together.

It's been a blast so far this week. I know they said that they won't do any major updates, but hopefully they still do seasonal events and small stuff/changes (even if it's tiny/stupid).

just to add a few of the "small things" that i miss from the early years:

1. getting a crawler nest party and racing the other members of my party from jueno to CN even though they had no idea we WERE racing!
2. that "oh ***" moment when you fall off the ledge in garlaige citadel trying to pull a bat.
3. getting lost in den of rancor and sneak only lasting 5 DAMN SECONDS!
4. goblin smithy's...
5. putting party flag up: no invite...no invite...no invite..."gets a bite to eat" comes back...purple /tells and party invite MISSED...DAMNIT!
6. checking AH for YELLOW TEXT YAY!
7. emergency Escapes!
8. linkshell gathering for an event and we're all ready to go until..."Someone go change to /whm for teleport please!"
9. being the designated "warp ***" lol
10. 30 minute Kirins, hell maybe 45 minute Kirins.

I'm sure there are many many more! I miss those days.

Bought the PC version on european release, started playing on a huge heavy laptop that didnt even have a graphics card! Luckily found an amazing little program from Toms hardware that emulated graphics hardware so i could play, although the laptop ran so hot i had to suspend it over chairs to stop it from turning off after half an hour or so.

3 pcs, two house moves, two engagements, a baby boy and many other things later and i'm still playing ffxi......

Well the guy in the video is a quitter. I disagree with him that it's a sickness and a terrible time. I had and still have a blast casually not as crazy as before. I met my wife through the game as well because this paladin needed a white mage it's a staple in any party or alliance.

So to the video guy I am not a quitter. And I agree that if he came back he would have a blast.

I could lead this nation and still have time to enjoy ffxi

:advisor : Mr president Isreal is on the phone

: me : : grabs phone: stop starting ***around the world Isreal you have till the time I am done with this dynamis farm run to apologize to the international community.

My main addiction era was 2007-2012, if I wasn't at college, work or another mandatory RL event I was probably in game.

I was super passionate about my SMN and worked hard at improving it in both gear and performance, (HP- set to force conjurer's ring latent kind of dedication) and nothing made my head swell up more than when I'd change someone's low opinion about the job.

I have never regretted my time spent on FFXI, Vana'diel felt like another home to me thanks to the friends I made, the adventures I went on and how the devs made a world that was truly immersive and felt alive (at least to me :3)