Are You Playing In FFXI-HORIZON Server?

Not really, they have near given up trying to stop botting already and they only have one server, so they added goblin fish bot killers. There are also people dual boxing.

They had people with lushangs in literal days and they had no idea how they did it, they had to beg the people abusing it to tell them how they did it. There is already RMT on the server, and that will only get worse.

I don't want to dog on it too much but come on now.

They had to devote their resources to improving the login server software, because what was originally available for private servers was woefully inadequate for their number of players.

They use MAC address matching, block common proxy and vpn, and make it difficult enough to multibox that you don't see the trains retail does, much less the 500 lv1 galka spamming starter areas for sparks.

There are still bots, but if you report them they are promptly dealt with. Large gil transactions are all audited and you can't just buy millions, though I'm sure some people may have RMTed for small amounts. I don't think you're giving a fair assessment.

I was considering it for nostalgia's sake. Ended up not doing it due to lack of playtime that would be required on a 75 era server and used to all QOL we have on live version, or retail the cool kids says.

They do a better job than the staff at square on policing, but still far from sufficient.

And having corrupt staff at all is just instant pass. (which is every server, not every member of horizon, to clarify)

Any examples? I'm curious.

There is no one to hold them accountable, it's common sense they're going to do shady ***.

Any argument or complaints you ever have is instantly countered with:

"I do this for free"

Argument over.

Complain more? banned from server for being annoying.

Also calling them developers is a stretch in the first place, because they have no dev tools to change or add new things to the core code of the game.

Retail is the only singular source of new content this game will ever have, and that's why it's so important.

they have tools to create new items, tools to create new npcs, tools to create new mobs, tools to create new cutscenes

they also have ghidra if you really need to change 'the core code of the game'

it's pretty clear you're biased against them, i'm not even playing the server i'm just comparing them to the previous private server attempts

They are running a pirate server for a game that is currently in active development, why aren't you?

The FFXI Private Server Cycle:

1. New person talks about how 75 era was great and a new server will bring back those days.

2. Server launches, people have fun for a while.

3. Owner makes changes/hacks or is revealed to be corrupt/incompetent.

4. An incident happens and many go back to retail.

Repeat.

I was interested for a little while. Got on it and realised I hated that Era.

I agree with the comments on the Devs people are making. I can't see it advancing too much. It's buggy as hell too.

Their changes are very hap-dash and poorly implemented. They do not take criticism.

My 75 days will never compare to what a private server can offer. I was playing with family then. Also, I now have a life and responsibilities to attend to, sadly.

Can’t wait to see how HNMs will go in Horizon

Just because i’m curious, if they have all of these tools to create new things, why can’t they remove items? like Warp rings for example? It’s on the list of items but you can’t purchase.

It's not necessarily that they can't, but that they haven't. Those dialogues are modifiable, but there are an awful lot of them in the game and it's not quite as simple as just deleting one line of text.

Don't really understand why it's a good thing to be biased under any circumstances. You can dislike what they're doing and still give a fair assessment of it. Further, I personally don't feel like they're harming SE in any meaningful way. I think it's just as likely that people who got drawn back into horizon will end up on retail as people who were on retail will move to horizon. Interest in FFXI is always a positive.

First private server I've played on, primarily because it's free.

I usually start up my XI account in Nov/Dec to play through any new story that has been added since I stopped playing, but this year I was having a hard justifying spending the money, so I figured I'd give HorizonXI a shot playing with a friend of mine from back in the day.

They've kept lockstyle and wardrobe 1+2, but the wardrobes are unlocked after certain milestones. Experience points is definitely different atleast from what I've seen in dunes. I'm not a fan of level-sync right from the start, as most groups I've been in want to stay in dunes until 29 via level-sync. But I'm willing to put up with it getting to play "XI" for free while I get my fix.

The balance feels really bad/dev preference driven/kill any form of "era feels" to me

They may intend for this to be buyable later on, if enough players request it, so its set much higher that what is shown so they only have to change the cost to enable it.

They did add the new Thief's Knife and the follow up quest that gives the TH+1 necklace. Was actually kinda funny, since the quest requires the old items that were rumored to secretly increase TH odds like lucky egg and 4-leaf mandy bud.

Thanks for explaining, Thorny :)

I've said it has positives many times, as it acts like a limited free trial of the game to ff14 / old vets. However promoting the game to retail players in a glowing fashion (when you know full well it has massive flaws), negates any of that and turns it into a negative entity.

You are highly respected in the XI community, seeing you heap praise on it to to retail players when you know it's pretty broken and flawed is a little annoying.

Private servers are not a replacement for retail, they are barren wastelands in terms of content creation and they are not only flawed as a product in many ways but the people running them have issues too.

You're attributing your opinions to me. It has flaws, sure, but compared to prior private servers they are far fewer and being actively addressed. If you look at servers like Eden or Wings or Nasomi, they are staffed by a handful of people who's primary goal is playing not developing. They get 1-2 developers able to work with the codebase on occasion, do some small fixes, but don't put real work into anything.

Horizon has numerous active developers with large understanding of their codebase and compartmentalization of tasks. They have organization between their staff, and while their process for developing balance changes is horrible, their processes for resolving bugs and adding content are leagues ahead of any other private server project.

Retail just pushed out an update that crashed people for stepping into the wrong area, while providing no meaningful benefits, and took over 2 days to fix it. It is not an exaggeration to say that horizon's codebase(including underlying parts like LSB) has had more dev hours put into it in the last year than retail has had since the launch of Adoulin.

They are starting from a lower point, because the initial codebase is heavily flawed, but they are making amazing progress and devoting far more resources to it than SE ever will. It is feasible that a point will arrive where they catch up with their technical debt and generate content at a faster rate than SE does.

As I have said, I will not be playing Horizon. I have neither the time to waste on a 75 version, nor the interest in playing a game that's balanced the way they are balancing it. I am not recommending it to others. I am painting a fair picture of it, as someone who's been aware of most things going on for major private servers in the last decade. It is not as stable as retail, but it is leagues ahead of every other private server and it is not fair to stomp on it with your biases. Where it ends up is completely up for debate, another year of work at the pace they currently have could make it into an absolutely amazing project, or they could stagnate like many others have.

I think somewhere along the way they really got caught in their own Hype. The original message was "we're a focused set of devs that will focus on getting as close to era as possible."

Then it was "We will do some changes to jobs."

Then it was "Play and find out how we've *** up your favourite jobs."

All this on a backdrop of heavy, heavy nostalgia for being 14. FFXI in that era is a beast that will eat your time. I had it when I was 14, I don't now.

What killed it the most for me was thinking: "Am I going to end up doing Dynamis on a schedule...?"

"Play and Find Out" in regard to job changes is terrible for a game that takes this long to find out.

I think so too balance wise, I think a lot of people will also realize they don't have the free time for 75 era anymore :p

Exactly some people will maybe end up making one 75 in 1-2 years and if they don't like changes then what?

I reallllly wasn't supposed to say anything, but I'm gonna:

Draylo is actually playing and didn't want anyone to know. You can PM him for a LS pearl here. My boy already hooked me up. :D

All jokes aside:

I'd rather go replay one of those FF 1-6 pixel remasters than a private server experience again. I'm actually thinking about playing through FFIX on steam as I haven't played that game in a decade and a half and as we all know it was phenomenal.

I don't know if it will take that long with the WotG exp changes to EP mob ranges, level-sync, exp bonuses from signet post 50, and exp rings. It definitely could though. Especially for those of us who have jobs.

TBH I don't really remember what it was like post 60. I played THF and had to solo the final few levels up to 70 with many many bloody bolts. BLU was out before I got to Maat fight, so I switched and never looked back.

Can someone send the asteroid on this thread already.

I played on Horizon for a little bit and still play every now and then. It was fun starting up although frustrating at first with 800 people in the same zone, but that's less of an issue now. My big question with all the doom and gloom of how bad it is from several posters is when do you start accepti g that it is "good". At first, people were saying okay wait a few weeks it'll die down. Well its been a few weeks and now there's almost 1000 more players on average per day when i check. Issues are happening and theres a lot but they are addressed rather quickly. I keep hearing a lot aboit dev bias or it being heavily favored towarda them, and it may be, but the community is growing and it seems that its not effecting their playerbase. I prefer retail but horizon is doing good.