Ffxi

Oh one more thing. Do you think this game will end up with everyone having bots? That's what kinda pissed me off about daoc.

Well, I'm off the mall to get a copy. Told all my DAOC friends so if I give the thumbs up, hopefully I can easily get them over to play with me without too much world pass issues.

My problems with this game:
1. Scarcely is there any roleplaying
2. Communication is complicated (50% Japanese speakers, 50% English speakers; lots of "gestures" are used to communicate)
3. Leveling is difficult for Black Mages--especially when groups of people of the same level don't want to lug around a caster unless he/she is a white mage. Booo.
4. I think I have seen about 15 different monster graphics, total. I've been to several places, too. Not enough diversity in monster appearances.

Other than that, it's lots of fun. And like I said, would love to meet up with some people who want to create a roleplaying group and are all at similar levels, so we can fight together.

"A Word to Our Players

Exploring Vana'diel is a thrilling experience.
During your time here, you will be able to talk, join, and adventure with many other individuals in an experience that is unique to online games.

That being said, we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence.
Don't forget your family, your friends, your school, or your work."

lol

Dae, how are you suppose to roleplay when these aren't exactly standard RPG races/classes. Like how are Tarutaru's suppose to act? Jump around and go 'weeeeeeeeeeeee!' all day?

Weeeeee!

Alright I had a chance to play and after finally getting the settings down, here's my take.
Combat sucks. You basically target, go into attack mode, and walk up and watch what happens. No styles or reactive styles. The camera becomes fixed in combat mode which limits a lot of different tactics.
It's a hassle just to start the game. You gotta launch the PlayOnline app, go through a mess load of menus just to get in the game.
Graphics are ok so far. Nothing too spectacular but that doesnt really matter.
I do like that you don't even need a mouse to play. You can switch targets easily. There are a lot of /slash commands which you can macro. But only having 2 bars for macros kinda sucks.
It seems very stable and smooth so far. No lag issues of any kind.
You can't alt-tab and still stay in the game. This sucks bad. Even worse, I got booted out of the game when I got an instant message.
The camera is kinda tricky to get used to but it's not too bad. I do wish the camera would lock behind the toon so I don't have to manually rotate it around.
There's no setting to change your keyboard setup. Grrr. I have my keyboard set up for ASWD movement. I like it this way but it would be nice if I could assign my own keys also.

All in all, this just seems like a very dumbed up version of a real MMORPG. The presentation is great and all but the weak combat really kills my deal. I'll still give this a chance and try out the different facets of the game like crafting, quests, and of course fishing but I don't see myself playing this game longterm.

Ah well you can change the keyboard settings. My bad. Anyway, I'm going to try to create/delete toons until I get on Midgardsormr

Cambat more or less equals EQ combat + abilities. As you level you get more abilities - weapon abilities that you can cast when you get enough tactical points, and job abilities which have 2 hr (RL) timers.

Also if you time things right in your group (or so I hear) you can 'chain' abilities or specials or somethign and get bonus stuff to happen.

And I am actually not having any trouble leveling at all - I'm a lvl 6 monk Galka. HP up the wazoo and I can deal some damage. And man that hundred fists bonus? Wooooo bambambambambam. Thats just fun. Wish I could do it more than once every 2 hours, but I can tear through 2 even cons with it so I can see why its limited. Alek is dieing more than we would like as a Mithra Black Mage. I was only guessing about leveling. It does fit the formula for a level grind.

There are lots of quests, and quite a few have cut scenes which is a nice addition.

Well basically the point of this is that I *think* battles get more complicated later in the game, and actually require a lot of group tactics on timing and stuff. But to start its just click attack.

Well I tried like 10 times to get on a server with one of you on there but with no luck. Maybe a World Pass from one of you ??

As for now I'm a human Thief named Chef on the Caithnith server.
My handle is Chef 00-1094878

I could get you a world pass. Like I said, send me an e-mail at [email]scob0872@fredonia.edu[/email] and I'll respond witht he worldpass specs. Also... you know how you said the camera angle doesn't change in battle? That's because you have the enemy locked. Unlock the enemy and you can manipulate the camera.

Things I wish I could do:
Log in with less than 12 mouse clicks.
Log out with less than 6
Have a mini-mode of the map (so I can see the map and the game at the same time)
Have a hot key for my status screen

erm. Thats all I can think of right now. If you know a way to do any of these let me know please!

I couldn't find an official forums, is there one?

Hehe, I hear that Ama.

Iron, check your PM here.

Weeeeee!

Just get me a ladder and I'll bite your kneecaps :P

If it helps Alek, Tarutaru black mages also die alot. In a horribly cute way.

Oh yeah, and the annoying Playonline client and no windowed mode / alt-tab sucks bad. The interface is alright once I discovered where to remap the keys :) Now I play with keyboard only.

And don't buy stuff from NPC vendors, you can get it cheaper at the auction house (ingame ebay).

Tradeskills are.... expensive. Buy a fishing pole for 200 gil, snap it on 6th attempt with nothing caught yet. Buy a pickaxe, go mining, mine a piece of tin ore worth 2 gil and break your pickaxe for 245 gil on first try :/

Overall, it's a mix of things from various MMORPGs, nothing really new and exciting, except the fact it plays in a FF themed world :)

EEE!!!

I had so much fun last night. We had two parties in an alliance totalling something like 6-9 people all the time and we went to the Tahrongi Canyon and fought Dhalmels and Goblins and Yagudos (oh my). The experience was great 'cause of the group bonus, the fights were a lot easier, we picked up like a BAZILLION crystals, and we were all at Lv11, hehe. Yippee.

Thanks a lot Lyra! I'm on Midgardorama now. I'm still Chef.

SOME things are cheaper from the Auction House than merchants.. I easily lost around 2000 gil from players who thought it was fun to rip off the newbs coming in. ^.^

It was funny Chef.. last night I saw someone on with your name, and I asked if they played Second Life. He said yes, so I went into this big shpiel.. then he said he was Japanese and didn't understand much English. Oh well!