FFXI Nostalgia

What do you miss from the FFXI of old? Those things we can't do anymore cause it was changed. I miss, to some extent, having to make sure you talk to a NPC to secure a Rent a Room in other nations. When Call Wyvern was the DRG 2hr, and you died two fights after calling.

Strangely enough. I don't miss any of that. I do miss competent players though.

I miss the excellently executed Skillchains followed by Magic bursts that we were so used to back in the day.

Player quality was much higher and people seemed to have more fun working together to achieve a goal.

I miss linkshells in the old sense of the term.

I think about the Rent-a-room NPCs almost every time I go into a house in Jeuno. Not that I take the time to talk to them, but I wonder wtf they even do these days.

I'm not too nostalgic about ffxi, I don't think, at least not specific things. I'm having more fun in 2012 than in 2006. I think I miss, in general, the feeling of being in an actual world - things like aoe stuff actually hitting people outside of the party fighting it. Obviously Vanadiel was never a real world, but it did make a little more sense back then.


The old sense of me what? Huh? You lost me. :)

I miss doing Garrison and Eco Warrior quests with full alliances.

I remember a time before Abyssea and even level sync, where you couldn't have more than 2 levels between the highest and lowest level job or the exp sucked.

I miss having a friend PL me and my buddy when we first started playing FFXI. He'd link a ton of lizards in Valkurm, then we'd just pick off one at a time and go to town. Those were great times.

Aye, I agree I miss old fashioned linkshells. The one I have is a lovely group of friends but it's very small. Miss linkshells having more than 5-8 members (and there wasn't 100 mules). On my older server we had linkshell meet ups and it was brilliant !

I miss taking time with jobs, I remember seeing a friend go from 15-40 in a week and being impressed ! can just sneeze those levels out now.

I used to giggle every time I zoned into Crawlers Next and there was a mass pile of dead bodies !

every dunes pt: GOBLIN TO THE ZONE!

I pretty much miss the newness of it, when I was first playing. How things like Dynamis and Limbus seemed so unattainable. I don't play the ffxi music anymore when I play, so whenever I hear it, I feel so nostalgic to the point of tears. Just reminds me of a specific point in my life that I miss.

I miss(ed) the content geared towards social interaction and large groups. Not so much because it was "Great content" or "Uber challenging" but because the necessity of human interaction meant *** and morons were held accountable for being *** and morons, and thus, their numbers were somewhat in check, or at least inhibited said traits from manifesting.

I miss old friends and the sense of camaraderie with them, and with old linkshells. I left the first linkshell I was ever on because of disagreements over leadership strategies, but I've never found another ls that had the same level of friendship between members as that one did. And when most of my good friends moved on, I never made more friends that I got as close to or that replaced them.

The first time after Abyssea was out that I walked through the jungles outside of Kazham, I was very sad to see that there were just no people in the zones. Those were my favorite zones. I loved the music, the lush and beautiful scenery, and seeing monsters there like sahagin that I hadn't seen before.

I remember where luck and gil were LESS necessary than skill.

Nostalgia is a difficult thing to articulate and justify in tangible terms, but such is the nature of allegory. However, it is safe to say that there are many elements in Final Fantasy XI that have captured my interests and enthralled my senses in utter rapture that left me humbled, both then and now. As much as I would be inclined to mourn the diminish of the very sentiments that drove our hearts to playing the game for so many years, it comes with the blessing of blissful reminisce. To remember what it was to experience and triumph over the trials and tribulations of a game that had boundless horizons to discover and overcome, and each time was brimming with opportunities to meet new people, explore new places, and overcome new obstacles and bask in the glory of that victory, no matter how small. All as the composed score filled your ears with the soul of tenacity, sorrow, and sweet bliss of the world and friends around you.

Granted, not all of these elements are absent with the current trend or direction of the game; and the game ultimately is exactly what you make of it and very people you play with. However, there has been a very noticeable diminish of what made me love Vana'Diel for so many years, as the apparent motive behind both players and developers alike is making the players Demigods with increasing emphasis on inter-dimensional baddies of expansionaly increasing power; more so than the story-driven expansion of our world and unlocking the secrets within and overcome the dire threats that put the world in jeopardy. But as with the tides of the ocean, or the waxes and wanes of the moon; Final Fantasy XI has captured my heart, and it will forever be a part of me, as I will be a fun-loving and light-hearted Adventure in the timeless plains of Vana'Diel.

I miss trying to lead a pack of newbies through Sky.

"Ok, follow me to Byakko..." One hour, 9 deaths later, we make it.

Then of course the guy holding the pops (who doesn't have any maps or sense of direction) announces, "Oh, I was supposed to bring those pops with me you asked me about earlier?"

Good times....good times!

The earliest thing I remember was initially leveling WAR and being able to use archery WS's, I don't even know when they made those RNG or /rng exclusive.

I miss getting a *** over angel skins.

I miss using Charm on bst -- soloing things like Tyrannic Tunnok just cause he was there.

V Claw, I'm rich!

Dude I have a story about Tyranic Tunnok. And it was late 2004 when the NAs discovered sky, on Fenrir we had a rush where everyone were grouping with large teams to go through complicated places such as Ifrit's caldron. Well we (a bunch of noobtastic players at their 60s) aggroed Tyranic Tunnok and it murdered three aliances and half.

It was so chaotic it was ultra fun. We recovered and finished it, but that incident was necessary to make people stop being half assed about what they were doing.

Great times that won't come back.

PLD/WAR being able to hold a Great Axe :X
Magic bursting
skilled players
months of frustration over getting that piece of gear
using bard for hours on end getting chain 250+ and not pissing and moaning about it
the casinos in jeuno
Rolomart (gtfo of port jeuno)
the endless tele shouts
and lastly (for now) difficulty of the game.

Zoning a mob and being dead when you zone on the other side or zoning a mob, then rezone back a minute later and it's still there and kills you.

Dunes and Qufim parties.

One of my favs was when I got to level 75 SAM finally after like a year and a half I loved my first time (and all times) in greater colibi parties with my polearm. :D Dem 2.5-3k Penta Thrusts at 30k/hr ftw.

I started in 2005 but didn't really start playing properly until the 2 handed update on my 33 SAM. Being this job back then made the game really fun for me as being invited to pretty much any event was awesome sauce and the best part was I loved playing it (and still have all the way to this point).

I miss noob armour. Sure you get the 3 Abyssea sets now but they aren't the same, I love seeing noobs around in full AF in an exp pt and think "ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"... But it was all good fun.

While I hated how long it took to level up I also liked it because it gave a huge sense of acheivement when you got to 75, I still have the screenshot back when I was 1 mob off 75 and then another while I dinged. :) Because of this system I didn't level any other job (didn't really need to being a SAM lol) until just a few months before Abyssea when I got COR up to level 72 the normal party way before Abyssea parties were in. There's also the fact that you don't even leave a zone to level up to 99 anymore, it's kinda sad for saying this game has the most impressive and original ideas for zones I've seen in an MMO. :/

I also miss my old LS I was in (SuicideMoogles on Hades)... It was a social and casual gaming LS and pretty much everyone that was in it ever has quit the game now... It's quite sad because some of the most memorable times I had on this game were with them... We all helped each other out (something which is getting rarer and rarer today I find) and we even did some endgame events together in other peoples LS which was fun.

EDIT: Here's some pictures of my good old times:
Also Millionsknives is the guy who won the BG logo contest, that's pretty awesome if I say so myself. :D

Camping HNMs.

I remember arriving into Lufaise Meadows (or was it Miseraux?) for the first time after clearing promies with my friends. The atmosphere, the landscape the music. We checked and saw we were the only six in the zone. It was like 1:00 AM our time, and we were exhausted but wanted to explore. We had no idea where to go and then we sort of stumbled at the Watefall and were all like "holy ***!"

On a lesser note, I remember that cool feeling when something useful dropped in Dynamis when ***was rare. To this day, of all the accomplishments I had in FFXI, none I was more proud of than my Duelsits Tabard, at a time when it was uber rare and the hat was unheard of. I was so proud of that little piece of digital gear lol.

Nice topic by the way. Really enjoy reading peoples' entries on this.

Or when 5 parties would camp right outside of Kazham and 1 mandy would sleep all 5 parties?

I miss being a noob and freaking out each time I saw a new zone with new mobs, or just the same mob type but conning IT ++

I remember the 1st time I zoned into La Theine and saw a Ram in the distance, thought "Awesome, let's get close and check it out!!!" then inevitably aggroing it and running all the way to Jugner forest panicking.

I miss boxed expansions and especially that feeling like ToAU gave us during the first boat ride there. Stepping into uncharted ground and exploring all kinds of new monsters and zones.

I miss when time, money and skill were required to have top notch gear, relics and a maat's cap (even though SMN burns could still get you that one semi-fast).

I miss when players collaborated together like skill chains and magic bursts... and had FUN with the game...

I've been playing FFXIV for a little bit now, it still has a little ways to go for fixing but the game is so much better than beta and has a decently similar fresh and exciting feel to it... 2.0 and future expansions give XIV a lot of hope in my eyes.... XI just gets to look forward to redoing sea and salvage for now... :\

I miss you oldschool XI, i really really do....

I miss being able to go out to the dunes or crawlers nest and find a random group that isn't doing so well and pl them. There was nothing more satisfying to me than helping others, and being able to spend a few hours helping random strangers who I'd probably never meet again was what I loved doing the most in this game.

And now it's basically gone forever :\