So Just How Addicted To FFXI Were You?

Since I started XI also:
Multiple playing devices, two engagements, an 8 year old boy (who is playing FFIII on the DS and is loving it now he can read well) multiple occasions of 12+hour sessions, an early XI drug addiction & an Alchl addiction during abys era(which was fine playing pissed because I was just a MNK or NIN in my abyssea static, just engage+chill+WS etc), and after 4-5 long-term-ish breaks FFXI still has the power to take over my life especially after its gone thro some kind of update that changes the game forever and due to how much fun it currently is.

I would burn vacation time from work just to play a week straight without interruptions getting about 2-3hrs sleep a day during that time, and that sleep was while sitting in my recliner and only because I passed out. I'd wake up usually dead, kicked from party, or booted from abyssea.

I found out what a wiki was and spent time at work reading up on jobs, gear, and play styles before I even had that job unlocked.

I fit every facet of my life around the game, including what shift I worked depending upon when the LS wanted to do runs. I got my wife hooked on the game just so I could play more without her griping about wanting to do something.

I was pretty addicted. I started from the beginning. I played through high school, college and even a short marriage. Then work took me to Aisa from 2008 to 2015. FFxi saw mw through most of it.

It kept me safe though. Things that ffxi has done that no MMO has ever since is create a good job system. I do miss logging on and hunting the last three updates of blue mage spells. I miss playing my Sch like a samurai. Feeling a sense of accomplishment getting my sch his 99 empy staff the Saturday before they released delve gear and had the REM blowout.

SE kinda pushed me away. Some Asia providers blocked SE. So I get a vpn. Then SE would block Asia credit cards. Then I buy gamecard. Then that gamecard they supported went out of business. So it was a hassle to even log in and pay over time.

I tried out ffxiv, while the story is great, way to many repeat instances with no reason to redo them excluding get points for one new item every two or three weeks. It just lacked wht ffxi has.

I playing Archege now, but i still desire to log in ffxi to mess with my blu and sch. I checked the 119 empy lis seems so few people have them, even years later. I remember the HMP's 40-60k when I made mine.

Good luck to all those still exploring the world.

I think I'd term it "dedicated" rather than "addicted," but:

• Pulled an allnighter a few times due to getting into a good XP party.

• 8AM CoP mission static that often went until midafternoon.

• Events 8-11 and Salvage 12-2 probably 5/7 nights a week.

• Camped ~five consecutive Tiamats in 8 hour shifts with two other LS mates.

• I would "take naps" midafternoon in college, which was actually just a reason for me to shut my door and not be bothered while I soloed in sea.

hi my name is volkom. I'm 8 months sober now from XI. I had varying levels of intoxication/addiction with the game from playing 80+ hours a week to letting my pc run all night long waiting for NM spawns. Ignored going out with friends and would seldom leave my room unless i had to. I remember farming sky/sea and trying to farm hagun constantly. Doing dynamis late at night followed by salvage. Also remember spamming bcnm 40 for utsusemi ni scrolls. Had a lot of fun pre abyssea and met a lot of cool and interesting people.
Post abyssea found myself staring at my character just sitting in town for hours upon hours listening to the music. Would occasionally run in circles or just sight see. Later on would solo farm dynamis and salvage and would literally give away all the currency/alex drops right after without hesitation. When dynamis restrictions were removed found myself entering 3-6 times a day and just casually farming. didn't really even make progress towards a relic weapon. Just wanted to see if i could improve my farming.
Then CSGO came around, now i traded one addiction for another.

College -> HNMLS -> College -> HNMLS -> College

Didn't help the Ex-GF also played FFXI during college meaning my social life was about as fruitful as an ashen wasteland. Being part of running an HNMLS is a good exercise in how to flush hours looking for a Sandworm that probably popped in bumblefuck nowhere and depopped like a ***.

I have never been addicted to FFXI no matter how much time I've put into it, and you, dear reader, most likely haven't been either.

An addict chases his first high through exact repetition and ruins himself because the drug will never be that good again. FFXI has been about new experiences, acquisition, and mastery. The experience changes as you improve. It's the same as the pursuit of mastery in any other discipline except the pressure is entirely on you to decide what is enough progress.

I'm not saying nobody should have regrets, though I don't: it's time-consuming and doesn't produce many transferable skills. Even so, calling video game "addiction" as such is a pretty gross misunderstanding of what addiction actually is. There's a reason they considered and rejected it as a diagnosis for the DSM-V.

How high is the ocean?

How deep is the sky?

MMO can most certainly cause addiction. People can ruin their real life because of them. They stop going outside, spend all day gaming forgetting interactions, duties and even health. And it can happen without actually finding any enjoyment in it, just the need to keep doing it because the more you grow estranged with the outside world the harder it is to go back to it and thus you hide at an increasing pace into the virtual world(hikikomori aren't crazy, they're suffering a lot). This can happen with the internet in general.

When people are getting fired from their job, ruining their marriages, throwing money at RMT they can't afford and shirking RL responsibilities, you're addicted. And that's something observed in my HNMLS alone so there must be countless other stories of the same across servers.

XI's endgame also had the nasty habit of turning even the best people into crude caricatures of their normal selves complete with ***talking, MPK, embarassing statements and general immature behavior all to snatch claim on a turtle that was gonna drop 3 ores

estranged*

I'm sorry.

nothing to be sorry about, I was just trying to help.

How addicted was I?

- I haven't played in 2.5 years and still lurk these forums once a week or so.
- I still message friends every now and then even though we have no other common interests.
- Back when I played on Xbox, I got a red-ring-of-death one day and very nearly screamed (then found out the cord had come mostly out and that was the problem. Before you criticize, that moment is when I realized I had a problem.
- Someone above called Abyssea the golden era and I started typing the raging reply in my head.

It's not that I wouldn't come back, it's that I know better, because I will let it suck me back in.

Balance issues aside, this game had the best job system I've ever seen. Subjobs just make sense, and no game has ever done it better (even 14 when lasted I tried it [dec '13]).

There are plenty of pursuits that, when pursued obsessively, can ruin your life. We would not generally call them addictions, though.

"Obsession" is probably a better term than "addiction" if you'll let me define terms willy-nilly, where an obsession is attached to an identifiable (if remote or even fantastic) goal, something you are engaged in the behavior for, and an addiction is about [EDIT: the surrounding context and feeling of] the immediate act itself.

Like, we all think back fondly of those interminable XP parties, but at the time we were spending hours in them because we wanted to reach a higher level, not because we valued the partying itself. I'd call that obsession.

I have heard this (the part I bolded) about some drugs, but there's several drugs I haven't heard it about, as well as alcohol.

But actually, even if in a longer-scope, isn't that exactly what happened to a lot of people as we stuck around through XI's worse eras? Or the people that roamed solo after their friends left? They were searching for the first "high" (that took place for weeks, months or years) and never really found it again.

Really? You don't know anybody who gets drunk to recreate great experiences they've had involving alcohol?


They stuck around generally because there were things they wanted to do and at their most pathological they kept struggling with no real progress/hung around doing nothing because they could not accept the goals that were driving them so fiercely were no longer attainable. Many more of us quit in dry times and happily came back and played just as much as before when new goals presented themselves.

I guess what I'm getting at here is the focus for most players who've been told they're addicted is a goal, and we've played for so long and so fiercely because this game, being an MMO, moves those goals fairly frequently.

I would bet my hat that a great, great number of people will be shocked at how easy they find XI to let go after content updates end.

mix up your j/o game, son

anyway, I probably overstated it with "exact", but yeah, masturbation could be a potentially addictive behavior but it doesn't matter because it's harmless.

It can be extremely unhealthy too.

Wish there was a down-vote with how inaccurate this post is.

I can remember smashing my ps2 with a shovel when I was 16 because my addiction to this game had gotten so bad. I ended up installing on my PC within a month. I eventually managed to take 3 years off starting my junior year of high school, but even that was only due to a stronger drug addiction taking a front seat. Now FFXI is my anti-drug, although it's still not a very healthy replacement addiction. I fantasized about smashing my PC a few days ago actually, but I know myself well enough to realize it would be a futile effort.

I can relate to most of the things in the video. People are just wired differently. For those like me with intense obsessive-compulsive tendencies, playing for 60+ hours continuously with little food can be regular. Not advocating it, just keeping it real. I somehow manage to go to class and do work, but it can be very difficult. Almost akin to staring a bag of dope down on the table in front of you.

k


People can waste time doing things they like at the expense of other things they ought to be doing. It doesn't make those things unhealthy.

I have a coworker who spends basically all of her free time reading. She doesn't get out, at all. Is reading unhealthy?