Is It Safe To Say FFXI Is The Greatest MMORPG?

These other MMORPGS don't give the same feeling that FFXI does it's strange. Is it the soundtrack? the storyline? The battle system?

Yes.

Pretty sure its safe to say it WAS the greatest MMORPG.
Don't think it is anymore
It was the difficulty, which made FFXI so good

It's extremely subjective.
But surely it is safe, no one is going to harm you for saying this don't worry!

Somebody just lit the Draylo signal.

I can only say it is the MMORPG I enjoyed the most of those I tried.

Regardless of whether or not FFXI is the greatest MMO of all time, Square-Enix can't, in my opinion, be faulted for their business model.

The fact that FFXI STILL commands a monthly subscription after 14 years is worthy of a little respect - particularly amidst a slowly dwindling player base.

Its definitely still my favorite. I continue to try everything that comes out but i always come back to XI.

In the early mmo days I loved the hell out of Everquest from its release all the way through the shadows of luclin expansion and its super hard raid content.

Yes, I would sooner say that it's one of the most successful, rather than it's the "best". Of course the most successful MMO is likely WOW.

The game world is definitely well-designed in my opinion. When I was new to the game, it felt like it had a tone of mystique, which made me stick with it. It also has the benfit of being one of the longer running supported MMOs, so there's a lot of content (even if a large portion of it isn't relevant for end-game anymore).

It is because you started to play when you were much younger and nostalgia is a very strong glue to keep you attached.

XI was a good MMO for it's era but there are other MMOs with legacies like Eve. Eve is actually a pretty strong contender for being a pretty big *** deal in it's own right.

XI is memorable more for it's shenanigans and player dedication to the world than anything else. The dev team hated their customers for years and SEs incompetence did nothing to help the game, the devoted/obsessed fans did most of the heavy lifting there.

Subjectively you can claim whatever you want.

If you go by receipts as votes, and exclude the people who play both (or hell, even count them ALL for XI, it doesn't matter), WoW is going to curbstomp it to Promyvion, through the Dark Portal, and all the way back to West Ronfaure.

I think XI is the best, but WoW is solid too and clearly has far, far more loyal followers.

my personal reasons why I still like it:
+ Job+subjob flexibility allows for some pretty varied playstyles
+ situational gearing, less vertical gearing, situational equipment swapping.
+ One of the few remaining open+sanbox type games
+ Its not a autoparty finder+themepark style game
+ I like not having to dance around and move my character out of target marked areas like ffxiv
+ Multibox friendly, but also still soloable, and trust system allows you to fill party gaps if you just play with a couple friends.
+Extra content id's allow extra gear+loot storage, and leverage login campaigns (this is probably one of the reasons why the game still gets enough revenue to keep going and sticks with subscription model).

Eve is up there too, I have no idea on its sub numbers, but I do know I see it talked about far more at this point in the general gamerverse.

I really loved playing EVE, it has some really amazing highpoints (epic space battles with hundreds of ships, corporate sabotage and spying stuff+drama) but I also had some really boring lowpoints where I would jump through gates for hours on end with a covert ops ship and find nothing to get recon on or fight.

Depends on the person really however if you look at it in a total subs stand point that would be WoW sadly. I think even XIV has more subs now than XI did in its prime but that's possibly because MMOs are more widely accepted now to a wider audience than they used to be.

Like people have pointed out having a sub based MMO 14 years on is a massive achievement. SE even went back on themselves and kept updating with battle content ever month etc even though things like that wouldn't be happening. They are even making large scale adjustments like the 2 hander acc issue with such a small dev team.

For me FFXI is still the best MMO I've ever played the huge storylines and expansive lore are something that just shouldn't be missed for any FF fan. They really do put some of the newer FF titles to shame really CoP, ToAU and WoTG with a little fleshing out could have been stories in a single player main title. It still keeps me coming back every now and again but the latest time back was a nail in the coffin there's no one doing much. Apart from checking marbles I might actually finally be done with XI.

FFXIV though is slow ripping the title away that XI holds as being my greatest MMO. It's well balanced, has good interesting content, though not everyone's cup of tea but you can't please everyone all of the time, the story like FFXI is expansive and very engaging and overall it just plays better.

WoW was a better executed MMO but catering to a broader audience resulted in the kind of fractured community that XI insulated against by being so daunting. All of our relationships in XI were forged by ***being so difficult to accomplish that it was beneficial to group up and make connections.

Once Abyssea unraveled that, the game trended downward because it removed that insulation to prop up some quick subs after XIV blew up on the launchpad.

XI was a beautiful niche game. I want to say it occupies a space like Lineage II in that most people don't talk about it but it had a solid base.

Everquest and WoW are definitely your top dogs in the genre.

I wouldn't say greatest, but it's my favorite and that's all I care about

The simple answer for me: the community.

Yes, its the best game ever made atm.

I think it's safe to say it's the Shantottoest MMORPG out.



I guess, technically, FFXIV then becomes the second-most-Shantottoest MMORPG...



(*ric flair voice* Whether you like it, or don't like it...sit down and look at it--because it's the SHANTOTTOEST...GOING...TODAY! WOO~!)

You never know if there's any FFXIV fan lurking in the corner with a baseball bat.....

You can't honestly come into one of the central communities for a thing and ask for a fair opinion.

There are places on the internet where you could ask "Is Kim Kardashian the greatest human being alive?" and get a near unanimous YES!

It's been a great game, and there are things that I'd say they've done better than anyone else, even themselves (the job system, subjobs) but the development team is the among the slowest to respond to problems and trends.

XI did have a great community and it still does but it feels more like remnants of the old community.. but I guess a lot of the old grindy group-centric MMOs had this. Other games that placed less emphasis on grouping, apparently have less appealing communities.

What about Runescape?

Every other community honestly is too accepting of bads. XIV is falling apart because instead of offering a helping hand or outright shunning the *** out of people for not being able to press 1-= in the right order or moving out of the bright orange circles they sit there and just act like those people arent cancer and praise them for doing 200 DPS at max ilvl and failing every mechanic out of the like 10 mechanics in the game.

FFXI was so great because of sites like this and the community around it who actually wanted a fun gaming experience that they could log into for the day for however many hours and actually get something done that they wanted to do. Instead of wiping for hours pretending that, in any way, is fun.

No. The majority of MMO players don't even know this game exists.

MMO's are a fading away so yes :P FFXI comes from the start of this genre.

All games are starting to have online components; so, FFXI and Everquest will be remembered as the first of online game play.

This almost has to be sarcasm. A large part of endgame through WotG was being online at specific times and coordinating schedules with other ls's or ignoring them (dynamis). If you didn't have a static to XP with, a whole lot of the XP grind was just waiting for an invite or building your own group and shouting...and shouting.

greatest mmo or game? idunno... maybe.



greatest time sink with impossible to achieve goals, made impossible by the developer... yes... an amazing time sink and i loved every minute of it.

Greatest? No.

Most subjectively memorable? Yes.

There will be other games, different people, different time sinks. Nobody can take away the fun times you've had, tho! Unless you suffer from amnesia or somesuch.

I've tried other MMOs and I keep coming back to FFXI. Mostly because of nostalgia. I keep disappearing, too. Mostly because of nostalgia, LOL! Whatevs! I'm confusing me.