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FFXI or EQ2
Impact1986
Member Posts: 14
I'm currently subbed to AoC and enjoy the game for brief periods of time, the fact you solo most of the time is extremely boring to me. the world is very linear and not exactly a whole lot of places to explore. point is im looking for a second game to occupy my time and have narrowed it down to these 2.
EQ2 and FFXI
I want a game that will emphasize on adventuring, exploring and immersion. I enjoy grouping and don't like soloing to level cap just have fun in fact that bores me to death if i wanted that i would play a single player RPG, however I do like being able to solo in these older games at times because it is often impossible to get a proper group together that is required to do lower level content. I like being able to log in and make progress without having to devote my entire day. my play times are from 3-8 hours daily so. healthy population is also important, while I like raiding it isn't the only thing i want to be doing, my goal here isn't to rush to level cap and raid 24/7. I want to explore, farm, raid, advance my character etc.
my concerns with
FFXI - combat seems pretty tactical but very slow paced and repetative. people wont invite you based on your job / sub combo and or Gear. huge time sinks and time devotion seems to be required to get anything out of this game, no PvP. doesn't seem noob friendly. unfair advantages via third party programs. i have heard that a lot of guild and gold farmers use third party programs to auto flag rare mobs. Seems like everything revolves around grinding and then more grinding.
EQ2 - Combat is more action oriented but a lot less tactical, in fact its a spam fest. a lot of content but not sure i would get to see it on my way to 80, not sure how well populated the Nagafen server is for a returning player such as myself. after my first play though i hit level cap but quickly got bored because you simply couldn't do anything without raiding. that is all this game seemed to offer at level cap, I'm not looking to just raid all the time. AA points are awesome but the means by which they are earned might force me to play the game and do things that would otherwise bore me to death.
Comments
Hm, in terms of being able to log on and progress I would knock FFXI off your list. You basically hit the game's most negative feature, and before any trolls/fanboys come to tell me that "how is it negative for an mmorpg?" well the way it is implemented in FFXI is both a blessing and a curse...anyway, I would not recommend FFXI simply because you give the time frame of not wanting to have to sit for 3-8 hours to progress. Progression a bit early is slightly quick, but the problem is that the gameplay is so slow and clunky that farming is an incredibly monotonous chore in relation to most other games and its one of the most prominent game requirements. You won't get invited to most groups if your gear is sub-par most of the time.
EQ2 is rather expansive in terms of world scale but I think that FFXI might be just as large, also. Immersion in FFXI is found in terms of cutscenes and the story line(which to be honest I don't know if it's good or not)while EQ2 is more on story telling of timeline quest chains and various npc dialogues. In a sense EQ2 could also be considered immersive due to it's background. I do think EQ2 would be a better fit to your requirements. You also mentioned exploration, which is a lot more accessible in EQ2 due to less clunky controls. You don't get a chocobo til level 20 in FFXI but you have to wait 4 real earth hours before you can ride it because you can only feed it one piece of grass an hour(part of the quest to get the license)and you can only rent chocobos for certain amounts of time until you can breed your own much later. I think some of the mounts in EQ2 start as early as level 20 and you can use them practically anywhere.
I'm capable of putting in time I just don't want to feel that I have to.
How is the grouping in EQ2 up to 80?
Dunno if it's changed since I last tried it, but FFXI won't go above 1024x768 without some cheesy registry hack. I don't know if that influences your decision at all, but it was a big turn-off for me.
Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
You can solo from level 1 to 80 in EQ2 of course, loosing incredible places, gear, AA advancement, long storylines. You will have much, much , much more fun grouping.
It is very easy to find groups from the level 20 dungeons to all level 80 content these days on populated servers, to tell the truth, it is much more easier to find groups in EQ2 today than in games like Warhammer, Age of Conan, L2, GW and even Lotro. EQ2 community is always up to dungeons, instances and raids... and the content at end game (and all tiers) is huge.
I don't think you can go wrong with either one. If you want your typical mmo fantasy setting, EQ 2 is a better bet. FFXI offers a more unique, change-of-pace world, and would favor exploring more. EQ2 is graphically more polished, but can feel restrictive when it comes to exploring. I haven't gone too far in FFXI so I can't say how combat gets. I have also read the same about hacking in that game. Haven't played eq 2 in a while, but the pvp server was fun when I did play it (when it was new).
Vanguard might be another option for you, with a giant world, a lot of alternative things to combat. Not sure how the population is, though. I previously played on the pvp server which was plagued with some hacking issues way-back-when.
I haven't played EQ2 but I would say from this statement alone scratch FFXI off your list.
Unless you are an extremely casual player you will feel "like you need to put into it" in FFXI. There are tons of grinds, from getting crafted gear to endgame gear (sheer luck). Unless you are happy with never being max level and waiting hours to get groups if you are the wrong class for leveling or questing. It always felt like I needed to put too much time into this game to do simple things to me.