Level 75 Content

Yeah, I hit Ose yesterday for 1985 damage on a Howling Fist as level 66 Monk. No way in hell I'd get a number like that back in 2006.

Back in 2006, you were lucky to hit Ose.

Private servers only really attract a very specific kind of person, it's just not the same anyway.

Playing on private servers, here's a metaphor that's both accurate and easy for anyone to digest:
Imagine being a volunteer in-mate (player), playing against the guards (GMs and dev team) and every time you win, the solution is the electrical chair (delete your character).

Argue as much as you will, private servers players only exist to keep the server owners/staff team entertained.

I know some private servers have issues but could you elaborate on this? Perhaps an anecdote?

Private server GMs aren't paid, so they have no reason to be unbiased. On all of the major private servers, they also have their own characters sitting in prominent endgame shells. Thus, the GMs are dishonest. Caelic(currently high influence in wings) was selling gil while on Eden staff, not too unlikely he's doing the same on Wings now. Gweivyth appeared to be giving Nynja favors under the table, because it got Gwei more donations on his patreon.

It's not really the fault of any specific server, but when GMs are only being GMs because they already want to play on that server, there's an inherent tendency toward favoritism or outright abuse of power.

Their only reason to be unbiased is when they're given that status with good faith that they will act as such. But of course, that apparently isn't always the case. I think there are GMs who act the way they're supposed to.

Same goes with my knowledge of forum moderators. Most are not paid, so they too have no tangible reason to be unbiased, which is why you so often see mods ban or silence people who disagree with them or their buddy yet you see the same person(s) violating the rules and despite repeat reports, nothing ever happens. Yet those same people "swear" that never happens, probably the same way some private server admins swear all their GMs act appropriately.

I don't understand why these servers are even allowed to run, many with donation systems in place. All it takes is a cease and desist letter and they will shut them down.

If there was a 14 private server that would be nuked from orbit.

Plenty of MMO private servers were shut down due to cease and desist. Sometimes, it just takes knowing some legal loopholes.

I used to play on Lineage 2 private servers all the time, they'd often eventually get "shut down" and I put that in quotes because they would just save the characters and data, and just move to a new URL/name and email us to let us know they've moved haha.

I think it just takes time and if SE cares enough to shut them down >_<

The only good thing about 75 era was having lots of people and friends to mess about with. Everything else was difficult. Sure, it was all new, but most people leveled up jobs and that was it. Most players didn't have the time to fit their schedule around an endgame ls. I spent most of my time helping players get subjob items, Ancient Papyrus, Exoray Molds, escorting them through G3, and other things. 99% of those players aren't around anymore, or they left the game two weeks after I helped them without as much as a thank you. It was a nice surprise though, when some of those players helped me out later, after they "grew up".

Yeah, it was a fun time, yet not one I would relive. It's impossible to relive that, you can try to recreate it all you want, but the past is the past and should be left as such. The game has changed so much, as has everyone else. Those who remain, many have nothing better to do. I'm not speaking for all here, but I'm sure there are many who only play out of habit. Back then, we got sucked in, but it was the good kind. Many noticed this and got out before it became the bad kind. Those who were able to move on, they look back on this game with happy nostalgia. The rest of us, we see how the game is now, and much of what happened back then is not happy nostalgia. We knew how tough it could get. The game has been made fairer and easier. There are no cutthroat endgame linkshells. No time spawned NMs where we all fight over the claim. Now, we have much like what we had then, swarms of bots and RMT, while those who try to play normally get shafted.

On smaller servers, you struggle with a feeling of loneliness (I'm not giving SE extra money to remedy this, it's on them). You may see others in the towns, but out in the field and dungeons it's quiet. You remember how it was back in the day, when you'd see people running all over. A newbie would be getting chased through Gustaberg by some Quadavs, you would throw out a cure, kill them, and make a friend. That feeling of us against the enemies, it has been lost. All it is now, is getting together, blasting through content, and then complaining we have nothing to do. That is, if you can find people to do content with. Not everyone is able of doing this easily. I can't imagine how this would feel on a private server at 75 cap, it would kill the point of the game. There is no novelty for me. If you lived it, you know the #1 thing that made it worthwhile were the friends you made. Everything else was secondary.

Agreed.

The game was a product of it's time. Back then, you actually had to earn the things you got. Not like today or today's style of MMOs where rewards are given freely or for the most trivial/frivolous reasons. People who are used to that would not want to go back to earning what they have.

So many memories of the good old days. Back then, HNMLS drama seemed frustrating. Now, we can look back and laugh about it. The game was a real adventure at the time. And you're right, the biggest thing were the interactions with people. Sure, we have interactions today but they just weren't the same. We can describe it until we're blue in the face. It just won't compute in the brains of newer age gamers but we remember.

I have one private server experience which I won't name here because nobody was too terrible to me, but I had been gaining levels at an exceptional rate due to using a boosted Exp/Sparks payout on Yagudo Bead necklaces RoE. Even though you outclassed the ones in Giddeus by far, you could still get exp from getting 2x necklace to drop and it's a decent drop rate even w/o TH. I was probably doing beehive chips as I think that's a RoE thing too.

Day one I had a job leveled high. Day two I noticed the exp reward had been nerfed a bit. Day three the exp was nerfed into oblivion. All I wanted to do was level my job without needing other people and it worked fine. I must have been being spectated in some way because the nerfed were basically the direct result of me leveling so high so fast. It burnt me so I left for retail.

In many modern mmorpgs the developers are so afraid of people quitting that they make them faceroll easy these days, it's near impossible to not figure out how the game plays and get to level cap and do dungeons. As such you don't really need anyone else for anything at all, there are no roadblocks at all to speak of.

I like that even today on ffxi, you can come across people that are totally lost and experienced players can make a huge difference to them. It's not "talk to this npc and they will help you" or "follow the arrow", it's a veteran player asking "do you need some help?" Or they can be stuck on some mission or fight and be really down cause they keep failing and as a last resort ask in yell and someone can help. That's why FFXI feels more real than other games, because other players really matter and people need help. Even today you see people going out of their way to help, when they don't have to at all.

FFXI is still a game that is prepared to lose players to build the community aspect of needing other players at certain stages.

75 content threads are almost always "I wish I had more free time and less responsibility like in the old days" threads.

This is so true and a huge pet peeve of mine. All challenge and sense of role playing are out the window now-a-days. It's all a conglomeration of 123 combos, tunnel linear content, pay-to-win and no real sense of accomplishment.

Heck, the President of Blizzard personally sells raid completions for WoW. I don't understand the obsession today of people not doing anything for themselves. Why even play?

This is the main reason I quit playing online multiplayer in FPS/RTS games years ago. So many people flaunting their scores like it's a part of their personality, all the while using hacks, pay-to-win, or quitting at the first sign of losing. They don't want to play the game, they just want the bragging rights of winning and the opportunity to belittle the people they "beat".

I've been playing on eden for the last year and have been enjoying it quite a bit.

They lack that sense of adventure. You don't need to band a group together, discuss a game plan, travel through a dungeon full of creatures that will slap you stupid if you get caught, and then face a challenging foe as a party.

You just hit a button and the game automatically teleports you to the boss with a group of anonymous people. Then you mash buttons so hard you can't even acquaint yourself with them. They might as well be AI and it might as well not even be an online game...

Actually, you want to talk community...

I very frequently overhear conversations between my friends about how they got matched with "the shittiest noobs" in their random dungeon groups. Because there's no way to communicate or help new players, they're seen as a burden. Like how DARE you not have this boss mechanic memorized! Reported!

you know to this day no one back there ever explained that point system to me.

if you can explain it to me if you know cuss thats something i really really want to know for history and fun.

well they are not wrong lol

You kids get off my lawn!

Exactly. I think it just boils down to people who amount to nothing in real life so they want to be noticed in cyberspace.




I don't (too much) mind people doing some flaunting of scores. Some people get excited about that sort of thing and may not be the most couth in expressing it. I only roll my eyes when people flaunt about achievements they didn't really earn. This game, the people who botted their success then pretend like they're "top tier" players or brag about how many mythics they have. Makes you wanna say "Yeah, your bot did great in salvage! I'm proud of it!"

And yes, it's even worse when they condescend people amidst it too. I've seen it in-game and here in the forums too. The funny part is that any comments that mention this, those people (they know who they are) never upvote it lol.

Cant agree more. The thrill of trying to win something hard was and still is a big part of 11 for me. oddy makes me freaky cuss its so much going on at once lol

please someone explain that point system ***to me.

You got points every time you turned up for something, and if you lotted something they reduced your points.

This would be fine in a normal (or even current FFXI) mmo but back then drop rates were very low and claims were hard, this meant you had people in your shell with way more points and even if you went to everything you could not overtake their points lead cause they did too.

From the standpoint of a linkshell leader it was great cause people were always turning up to stuff.

In the shells I was in you needed a minimum amount of points to be eligible to lot, but only lost the points if you actually won an item. You could also opt to pay double the points the item was worth to be the only one allowed to lot it or something.

No idea how it worked when the linkshell was completely new. I assume when it was new it was just the officers working. It always seemed like, except for a few really rare drops or drops for jobs they hadn't leveled yet, Officers always had like 500 points more than anybody in the shell. I remember one complained before, "I don't need anything, so my points are practically worthless." Because he had almost everything he cared about in the game at the 75 cap heh.

Only ever felt sympathy for one pair of LS leaders. Was in my first endgame shell. They were sad that the shell didn't have enough people at the end of CoP, because they wanted to do Sea/Limbus instead of Sky. They wound up quitting because even though the LS helped over 20 people with COP, it was going too slowly for them. They did my 4-2 Ouryu with me.

I sorta wonder if they changed servers and kept playing though. They had all of the sky gear. Alaana and Anri.

This is how our LS worked too. There were 3 people who could give someone points, the shellholder, myself and the leader of the clique I mentioned. I caught on that he was giving his clique points for hanging out somewhere and trying to call it a "LS event". For a while, people were wondering why these 5 people were always spending points yet always seemed to have capped points.


You could lot but if someone had capped points, only people with capped points could lot against them... which goes along with the aforementioned comment.

It was hard back then for most LS to stay alive. I was with the longest running NA one on Leviathan and I'd seen many come/go. I remember the history behind most of them and was talking about it to one of the few people from back then who still play.