Final Fantasy Eleven FILLS ME WITH THE URGE TO KILL

[Lago_AM3P]

I am so sick of this 'game'. I thought it would be really cool to play Final Fantasy with other people, but the lack of a coherent story, the extremely stupid economic system, and the need for hyperefficiency is filling me with THE URGE TO KILL

I got up to a Monk 21 / Warrior 10 after seriously three months of work and I am just fed up. Also, I put this game on my Playstation 2 hard drive and now it won't read any other CD I own.

Anyone else have this game? Anyone think that they can tell me something that will not make me chunk the hard drive out the window and start stabbing cat girls?

[Lago_AM3P]

Oh, yeah. The Final Fantasy XI forums are the nastiest, dick-wavingest forums you'll find on the Internet.

Try getting help from them. I just dare you.

[Josh_Kablack]

I dunno. I kinda like it.

I mean, it's not like I'm ever going to actually play the game, but it keeps amusing me via rants like yours.

[Maj]

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1095650176[/unixtime]]Oh, yeah. The Final Fantasy XI forums are the nastiest, dick-wavingest forums you'll find on the Internet.

Try getting help from them. I just dare you.

I want to ask you something then.

Look at this:

http://p202.ezboard.com/btallonzektimes4735

If the FF11 boards are worse than the PVP server everquest BS, then what we have here is a true anethema to society.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Based on a True Story!

Of course, this problem is true with ALL MMORPGs.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

I never really liked MMORPGs in the first place. About the best there was was Ultima Online when it first came out, and that was solely because you didn't play it like an RPG, you were just a dickhead who went around abusing skills, screwing with people and ruining their day. But it was fun. It was fun mainly because you had some kind of goal, just to be the biggest dick you could be, and watch people get pissed at you because you pickpocketed them, or used a bard skill bug to turn thier pet dragon against them as you watched it kill them. But then they fixed ultima online and made it more normal and then it sucked like everything else.

All the other MMORPGs suck completely, especially everquest, mainly because they aren't really RPGs, there's no story, there's nothing to actually do other than endlessly fight monsters and bring up your character who actually becomes weaker as time goes on, so you need bigger and bigger groups of PCs to actually fight anything competetive. Killing PCs isn't actually fun because you don't get to keep anything from their bodies most of the time except some minor gold maybe, and they don't even let you try to screw them over by guarding thier corpse. The world doesnt' actually change, and overall it just sucks.

For MMORPGs to work, PCs need to actually have real stuff to do, not just kill monsters randomly and collect loot, I mean actual quests that mean something to the game world. It's just not an RPG until there's some degree of interactivity, until then it's just cooperative Doom, with a shitty ass combat system.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1095713166[/unixtime]]. Killing PCs isn't actually fun because you don't get to keep anything from their bodies most of the time except some minor gold maybe, and they don't even let you try to screw them over by guarding thier corpse.

Actually, in everquest you can do that. They basically took away any and all rules for PvP.

However, now you'll have to wait for a long time, because now you spawn in this weird funeral zone, and you're mega screwed to the point where you can barely walk for 10 minutes.

Therefore, you can guard the body, but you'll be waiting for a while now.

[RandomCasualty]

1095727493[/unixtime]]
However, now you'll have to wait for a long time, because now you spawn in this weird funeral zone, and you're mega screwed to the point where you can barely walk for 10 minutes.

Wow, I didn't hear about that one...

That sounds really lame. Just what you want to do, waste another 10 minutes doing nothing after you just died. So they're designing it even more heavily around the premise that its players have no life and thus nothing better to do than waste time doing nothing.

And I didn't think EQ could get any worse.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1095754464[/unixtime]]

1095727493[/unixtime]]
However, now you'll have to wait for a long time, because now you spawn in this weird funeral zone, and you're mega screwed to the point where you can barely walk for 10 minutes.

Wow, I didn't hear about that one...

That sounds really lame. Just what you want to do, waste another 10 minutes doing nothing after you just died. So they're designing it even more heavily around the premise that its players have no life and thus nothing better to do than waste time doing nothing.

And I didn't think EQ could get any worse.

Keep in mind that only applies to when a player kills you. When mobs kill you, it works as before.

If you're on a PvP server, it's a pain. but it does keep those damn monks from bind rushing you until they do finally kill you, I always hated that.

My wizard took out this lizard monk twice, only to die the third time, and got camped. Bah.

[rapanui]

I've thought of a way to make MMORPGs interesting, but these solutions are probably somewhat difficult to implement.

1. Go ahead and charge for server upgrades and maintanance, but don't release expansions that give access to more of the world to other players, because that just kills believability.

2. Instead of having some sort of predetermined story, have the players influence the history of the game world.

Those two above have been implemented in one way or another in some games. However, the following idea might be harder to implement/fully follow through with, but it would add a cool element to the game.

Basically, add "difficulty" levels.

The Treadmill Whore: So, you like power and are willing to work (er... play a lot) for it, but don't want high risk? Then this difficulty setting is for you. You have a -25% experience penalty, and only have access to Basic classes. However, when your character dies, he respawns automatically with all his gear, and only the moderate penalty of having failed the quest he was on (if any).

The Average Guy: You have no XP penalty, you have access to some advanced classes, but when you die, your loot is up for grabs and you fail whatever quest you were on.

The Serious Player: You have a +25% XP bonus. You start at a slighty higher level than most. You have access to all the advanced classes. The catch is, when you die... you DIE. The character is gone for good. Your character is likely to be important and may be selected as a Quest Giver or Guild Leader, and indeed you will probably have a larger stake in the history of [insert name of MMORPG].

Of course, PvP wouldn't be allowed in cities unless both parties agreed to it so that assholes couldn't just gang up on the people playing at the highest difficulty.

What do you think?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I think that if they ever left the cities, everyone would gang up on the anyway.

How about this: in PvP, you can't take anything from people unless you can lose stuff too.

For example, the "treadmill whore" guy can't loot anything off a player. The average and harcore guy could loot anything off someone. (Well, not a treadmill whore person.)

Although there will be treadmill whore people who will harass one of the harder people nonstop to be an asshole, so that's out now.

How about you can only PvP with people either your difficulty, or lower? Only hardcore people could PK other hardcore people, normal and hardcore people could kill aveage guys, and everyone kills the treadmill whores? I kinda like that setup.

[Username17]

Although there will be treadmill whore people who will harass one of the harder people nonstop to be an asshole, so that's out now.

More importantly, there'd be treadmill whores who teamed up with a hardcore player to harry a more experienced character down to little health for the hardcore character to finish off and loot. All for a cut of the spoils as it were.

Fundamentally, I don't think you can have free roaming PvP. If PvP happens at all, it should happen in designated battle zones or arenas or something.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

That's why I left the PVP server on everquest, got tired of level 65 clerics accomanying level 14 warriors in order to kick my ass endlessly, not to mention the level 14 has gear that would be more appropriate on a level 50 char.

Now, I can just fight the same mob over and over again for hours in peace. Until some monk starts traiging everything in the zone right to where I'm at, then feigning death so it becomes my problem.

[MrWaeseL]

what's traiging?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

It's meant to be Training, but I got clumsy fingers,.

"Training" is when you run around, and get a lot of hostile monsters to follow you. You then run somewhere, and somehow leave so the monsters forget you were there.

(Feign death works like that. So does leaving the "zone", or casting Gate, or whatever.)

So, you basically dragged a lot of hostile monsters to where they don't nomally appear. (For example, when some idiot monk gathers up the entire legion of the Blackburrow gnolls, then drags them all to where I'm killing the relatively non-offensive giant snakes that live elsewhere in the zone.. God, I hate monks in everquest.)

[RandomCasualty]

1095910956[/unixtime]]
Fundamentally, I don't think you can have free roaming PvP. If PvP happens at all, it should happen in designated battle zones or arenas or something.

Sure you can... Ultima Online pretty much had that in its early days, before they screwed it up, and it was cool.

The reason it worked though was because all characters were essentially mortal. After 20 hours of playing time you could become competetive. More often than not the winner of a PvP duel was the guy who struck first, as opposed to the guy with the more powerful character. Now obviously it was hard to tackle groups of PKs (player killers), but you could do so by approaching from the cover of the trees and blasting them one at a time and similar stuff.

And when you killed someone you got to loot their entire body, everything except the spellbook was now yours. You didnt' bother ever going back and searching for your corpse, becuase by the time you got back to it, the vultures would have already picked it clean. But it wasn't like equipment was tough to get in that game either so it all balanced out.

The thing with Everquest is that it's too level based. You get jumped by some guy of a higher level and you're just screwed. Levels really need to give diminishing returns in those games, so that the people who play 20 hours can still have fun versus the guys who play 400.

And that's what's always sucked about EQ. It's just a contest of who has no life and can invest the most playing time into it. Doesn't require any skill whatsoever.

The game basically has to be something that is going to allow player skill to be a more significant factor than simply levels and equipment, which will in turn make PvP a lot more fun.

[Username17]

Sure you can... Ultima Online pretty much had that in its early days, before they screwed it up, and it was cool.

I am truly disturbed about your description of wandering around stabbing people while they were in the middle of mining ore or skinning rabbits as "cool". The thing where you could be a total cock to people without consequences wasn't "cool", it was annoying as hell. You tried to do productive things but you couldn't, because there were so many raging assholes running around that you'd never complete any task alive.

It was a study in perplexing anti-social behavior, and I am getting a really low opinion of your social skills by the fact that you are describing that sort of human interaction as "cool". It's like complaining that it isn't nearly as awesome to kick over the sand castles of small children now that there are parents all over the beach who will yell at you.

-Username17

[rapanui]

"How about you can only PvP with people either your difficulty, or lower? Only hardcore people could PK other hardcore people, normal and hardcore people could kill aveage guys, and everyone kills the treadmill whores? I kinda like that setup."

No, I'm kind of thinking that PKing should only be allowed if someone accepts a formal challenge. Even then, you'd have to leave the city or risk getting caught for arranging "illegal deathmatches" or something. Guild Leaders could also challenge other Guild Leaders and create special War Zones, where PKing between members of different factions becomes essentially free for all (simulating a war-like scenario). In order for there to be concequences to "dying in war", even Treadmill Whores killed in a war zone would have a 1 day non-respawn penalty. That means that going to war is a tough choice, but the rewards could theoretically be worth it.

And yeah, I agree with Frank: anyone that thinks being a psychopathic dick without concequences makes for a fun type of gameplay is nuts.

EDIT: At least in an online game that tries to simulate a society of some sort. Grand Theft Auto single player is a lot MORE fun when you play like a real psycho.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I still think it's a shame they never did an online multiplayer (Though possibly not Massivly-multiplayer) version of GTA. You could call it Liberty City Survivor!

-Desdan

[Lago_AM3P]

I also want to say that almost all MMORPGs I've seen (with the exception of City of Heroes) treat all characters as clotheshorses, with the victory and glory going to the character who has the stupidest shit in his equipment slot.

That was annoying enough in Dungeons and Dragons, but at least you didn't have to work at it. Spending 2 weeks of trying to earn enough money to get 3 days of fighting monsters? Fuck that.

[Draco_Argentum]

1095948746[/unixtime]]More often than not the winner of a PvP duel was the guy who struck first,

So its quickest to the draw, eh? That sounds like a great way to stop people fighting at the drop of a hat wild west style.

[RandomCasualty]

1095952287[/unixtime]]

Sure you can... Ultima Online pretty much had that in its early days, before they screwed it up, and it was cool.

I am truly disturbed about your description of wandering around stabbing people while they were in the middle of mining ore or skinning rabbits as "cool". The thing where you could be a total cock to people without consequences wasn't "cool", it was annoying as hell. You tried to do productive things but you couldn't, because there were so many raging assholes running around that you'd never complete any task alive.

It was a study in perplexing anti-social behavior, and I am getting a really low opinion of your social skills by the fact that you are describing that sort of human interaction as "cool". It's like complaining that it isn't nearly as awesome to kick over the sand castles of small children now that there are parents all over the beach who will yell at you.

Yup, but the thing is right now that playing MMORPGs cooperatively sucks. You fight a bunch of predictable AI monsters and shit, and you do it over and over again with no quest or purpose. If you die, your items are preserved nicely for you and that sucks.

A PC can kill you but you are just mildly annoyed and he gets little out of it. So basically you spend hours logging time on a game that just plain sucks.

The whole point of having other players in a game is that they give you opponents who think, and who can possibly be better or worse than you and do stuff you'd never expect. And that perpetuates the idea of the constant living breathing world of a campaign.

In an actual D&D game. You might be sitting in a tavern and all of a sudden ruffians jump in and start fucking shit up. You could be on the road and suddenly attacked by a powerful force. The world isn't neccesarily nicely proportioned with monsters of your level always around.

So it's cool IMO that you might be going to the local dungeon to fight some monsters and encounter a big band of player killers outside who are shooting everyone in sight who comes near and stealing their swag. Because it adds a reactive and random element to the game, and it makes it exciting. In Everquest, I basically know where I'm going and what to expect in every zone. People aren't going to bother me for the most part because there's no point to.

In ultima online you never knew what was going to happen next. You'd be in a dungeon and all of a sudden you'd just get jumped by some clan of PKs and find yourself in a fight for your life. Are these guys being asses? Well maybe, but they're also making the game fun because random unpredicatable ambushes are cool.

When you're around in the wilderness and some guy passes by maybe he does pick your pocket and steal some of your gear and then you've got to chase him down and get it back, or simply let him get away wtih it. But that's shit that makes the game fun.

I hate that whole "just leave me alone" attitude some people have. They just want to be able to sit there mining or doing some other task, amassing their personal fortune oblivious that there are other Players in the game. I mean if you want to do that, there are plenty of single player RPGs you can play. If you are playing something multiplayer you should expect that others are going to want to profit from your misfortunes and that you aren't necessarily going to be able to live a solitary existence. If you want a game where you're alone and the world waits for you, then play a single player game, there are plenty of them out there.

And of course you get to do some of these things yourself when you want too. Because they're interesting and fun to do. You can jump some guy mining and take him out. You can be one of those guys waiting outside a dungeon picking people off. Or maybe you can try to pickpocket people and get away with it. Or if you want, you can go after the thieves, and the Player killers. Or maybe you do a little bit of both.

And you get such a sense of accomplishment and happy and less happy memories doing stuff like that, that you won't get from killing your 243rd orc pawn in Everquest.

I have many interesting stories to tell from the short period that I played ultima online and basically nothing of worth to say about Everquest. One game was fun and exciting, the other was dull and boring. Cool stuff happened all the time in Ultima, whether it was surviving a surprise attack, tracking down the thief who stole your spell component pouch or just being an ass and getting some guy's dragon to turn on him, the game was just fun to play.

In Everquest, nothing unpredictable ever happens, the world is designed solely for people who want to creature farm and the world doesn't react to you at all. It's as tedious as working a minimum wage job except you don't actually get paid to play it.

Until we can actually design a game where your quests are fun and exciting, the focus of the game should always be player versus player. Players think, stupid AI controlled orcs don't. So the orcs should be the chumps on the side and the players should be doing the cool stuff and part of that role requires people who are going to be the villains of the world.

It's the reason deathmatch is more popular in first person shooter games than cooperative mode. You have two opposing teams fo players and you let them play, and blowing another guy's head off with a shotgun is just part of the game. That's how MMORPGs need to be.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1096076665[/unixtime]]. In Everquest, I basically know where I'm going and what to expect in every zone. People aren't going to bother me for the most part because there's no point to.

This statement proves that you have never set foot on any of the PvP servers on everquest.

That means you have as much authority to speak about the PvP situation in everquest as Pat Pulling does giving advice on how to re-design polymorph. (Well, if Pat Pulling was still alive, it would be.)

You obviously haven't been corpse camped for hours by fungi twinks at level 8, you haven't been bind rushed by monks, you haven't had 14 pandemoniums mana burn you at the same time, then send you tells about how you have a small penis.

In short, if you think no one messes with you in everquest when it comes to PvP, then I'm a nukular technician.

[RandomCasualty]

1096097263[/unixtime]]
This statement proves that you have never set foot on any of the PvP servers on everquest.

I have before, and I didn't experience any of the things you're talking about.

I think I might have gotten into a battle on EQ once and died, but I really didn't care. The thing with EQ was that you're really a jackass if you kill people on it because you dont' get anything out of it. I mean, you don't get XP and you can't loot the guy's items, so beyond just being an ass there's no point to doing that kinda thing.

In ultima it actually gave you their items when you killed them, and the respawn system didn't allow you to constantly harass a guy by spawn camping him. You just killed him, and then it was over, which was cool. You had all his items, and then he had to rebuild and you were richer.

I haven't played EQ for years, I admit so maybe the situation has changed there, but fundamentally PvP in EQ is just an annoyance where in UO you'd end up getting totally wiped clean when you died.