Final Fantasy XI

I have advice for anyone who has ever, or may ever, consider complaining about World of Warcraft for ANY reason. Play FFXI for a month. I guarantee, that by the time you've finished, being raped out of your time and dignity by this pathetic excuse for a game, you'll go back to WOW, with the constant assurance that, no matter how bad it gets, well at least it ain't FFXI! It's like leaving your country and, coming back with a renewed appreciation for what you have. At least the police here don't beat me for chewing gum! This game is the ultimate example of the Asian "roleplaying" mentality. That change is scary and actually presenting a game that simulates roleplaying, is far less impressive, than watching the same asymmetrical outfit wearing clown in an anime movie jump around, pockmarked with menu selections. Beat the same stupid setup until time ends. Grind, grind and grind to fight a big monster every other month, so you can get gear to grind again for better gear, to grind for better gear, so you can grind for better gear to fight a big monster that takes 18+ hours to kill. Where'd the fucking "role playing" go? The latest contradiction to the pre-game warning -to not let FFXI interfere with your life- manifests at the apex of Sage Sundi and his team's remedial game design philosophy, in the form of Pandemonium Warden, a non-instanced boss (that means only one group gets to fight it per spawn period, in many cases 24 hours or more) that is apparently designed, to take over 18 hours to kill. These assholes have no business making mmo's. Their game appeals to people who want absolutely NOTHING more from an MMO than grinding pathetically designed mobs with unforgivably unbalanced characters -that the developers admit to caring little in maintaining the balance of- after overly long travel, that follows waiting for five other people, with the exact right job combo, who are also within two levels of each other and, proceed to do nothing more than activities that other MMO's decided wasn't important enough to require a huge production to accomplish. All these fancy requirements and the game looks like shit. Bland character designs, washed out Earth tones everywhere. The fuckers are so lazy that you literally use a new weapon every 5 levels or so (if you can actually afford to pay thousands for a piece of beginner armor) and the shit looks the same minus a palette swap for the first 30 levels. EVERYTHING takes a long time, because it keeps the sheep playing longer. Simply, because the goal is placed further away, rather than being challenging or providing quality varied content. This has made the player base arrogant to the point of comedy. It's more rewarding? Bullshit! Walking, instead of driving, a long way to taco bell, while dodging falling rocks when you don't have to, doesn't make the chili-motherfucking-burrito taste any better you nutsack! You just beat yourself over the head to get it, when a sane person would have been eating hours ago. Life is full of things designed exclusively, to kick your ass. You don't need to pay for a game to simulate the same feeling, as a homework assignment or, the non-stop action of waiting for a bus. I'm surprised this game doesn't have a DMV and annual taxes. You wouldn't punch yourself in the eye to make a staring contest more challenging, why the fuck would you need a rabbit to have a billion HP just to make you feel like you haven't pissed away the last hour fighting enemies -that wouldn't even be considered mobs in other games- with an entire party! That doesn't make the game hardcore, it makes it retarded. Anyone. ANY. ONE. Can do that. Anyone can simply up the stats on stupid animals to boss caliber. Most choose not to, on account of it being absolutely stupid. Square didn't bother making the group dynamic better or making partied combat more fun, they just made soloing more frustrating. Mobs can hit me from 30 yards away while I run and don't leash? Up yours. Crafting failures result in wasted materials? Sit and spin. "Auction House" is just guessing the selling price and paying exactly what you guess if you win, even if it's way over the asking price? Get bent. 20 minute boat rides? Fuck you. Stores that close? Kiss my dick. Half the classes are useless? Fuck me! Only three classes can solo with any reasonable progress? Go to Hell. Food can't be bothered to tell you what it does before you eat it? Piss off. Death shaves off 10% xp? Losing hours and hours of already boring work, makes me want punch you pricks so hard, time would end. Chocobo raising is the only way to get a mount? Thanks! After blindly fumbling through the Square-typically, uninformed, drawn-out ???-filled process of paying 4000gil for each carrot I feed my bird, I now have a whistle -with limited charges- to summon my mount and when it runs out, I can pay more money to fill it up. Fuck you fanboys, I'm not pissing away my time paying a greedy, underhanded company to have a game punish me till endgame. Take your dynamis and sky and fuck else and shove it far up your ass. WOW is fun from the get go. Hell, end game isn't even fun: I want to avoid competing with 50 other 75th level parties for the single 24 hour boss spawn so I can try for a <1% drop...only to have a another party out "provoke" us, Not go out of my way to experience that bullshit day after day. Sage Sundi, has created some great concepts and then immediately fucked each and every motherfucking one up, with needless bullshit that only appeals to kids who have no responsibilities and tons of free time, that hate to have to make choices in RPG's. "All WOW players can solo. So I figure, since Square has beaten it into my brain that only one method of play is possible, I assume you HAVE to solo. Choice? What the Hell is that? Quests? Story should be delegated to nonsensical cut-scenes. I'd rather grind monsters in a forest for no apparent reason, with my selection of maybe, three attacks with huge cooldown times...then brag about how the story is such a draw." Anyone who tells you this game gets better at 30 is a fucking liar. It's the same fucking shit. Only, the number of classes you can get away with in parties is almost halved. Yippee! I can't wait to be shunned by more people for picking a class I like. Why design a game to be fun and ride on it's own merits? When you can ride the Final Fantasy name to success with tired, broken systems that will never get fixed or improved, just added to. New classes? Like puppet master? I can't wait for another class that the player base is too chicken-shitted to allow into their parties or, a new area full of fights that are ten times as grating, only to win rewards that are some how five times worse than the prizes three expansions ago! Square can now shit in the fanboys' hands and, the fuckers will thank them for it.