Is It Safe To Say FFXI Is The Greatest MMORPG?

I don't disagree with you guys, which is why I let my legacy XIV sub lapse, but look at the rest of the MMO market. It's become a graveyard. World of Warcraft is foundering and in an abject state (one year this week since the last content patch, sub base halved). Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns is a big question mark. AFAIK ArenaNet hasn't released sales figures for it, which is damning for a game with the wild success of Guild Wars 2.

It seems like the MMO is a dying genre.

To the OP; Yes.

Just my opinion as a lifetime gamer.

This has always happened in MMOs.

Always.

Including XI.

I tried at first. I really did. Because I came to XI from 6+ years of a Tolkien-based LPMUD experience.

No one -- and I mean no one -- was on board with it and they mocked anyone who tried mercilessly.

Let's not pretend XI was ever any sort of true RPG in that particular sense.

It's always been about playing a Final Fantasy-style game with a bunch of other people.

There's nothing wrong with that, but that's the case. The only people who ever got a pass -- even a little -- were people acting cutesy as Tarutarus. Which...if you read the backstory for those evil little ***, you'll sort of see the irony.

About the only way to get a true RPG scenario going these days is to play tabletop RPGs or get into LARP.

MMO has been dying since WOW and genre has been replaced by MOBA for a while. WOW created a formula that worked very well, followed by one million WOW clones. Ever since then theres nothing new... plenty of games tried to create something new but fundamentally it's still the same old formula as WOW and its just not interesting anymore after playing it for 12 years.

GW2 is just another WOW clone that tries to be different but still a wow clone.

I was really disappointed when Everquest NEXT was cancelled because the concept seems interesting. Unfortunately the formula doesn't seem to work so they had to cancel it.

Until someone come up with a new MMO idea that works the genre will keep dying and shrinking.

Back to the topic, FFXI is my first MMO with extremely immersive online interactions, of course it will be my favorite mmo of all times. Other MMO with less online interactions can't replace it. But for thosr who don't value online interaction as much, it won't be a good game for them.

I wouldn't say it's the greatest MMO ever but it's the only one that kept my interest for long. I am not sure why, I think a big part of that was the way the game would force you to make friends when I started and got me staying for those friends I made.

The differences I noted from the other MMOs I tried were:

-The community, somewhat people are more friendly in FFXI.

-Being able to have multiple jobs on 1 character. As much as I liked wow, having to create new characters to try a new job kinda killed it for me.

-The complexity of the game. Each spells having their own stats for example, leads you to need more gears compare to most MMOs where you just get the highest ilevel set and you're done.

-The lore. I hated doing quest, but those we're challenging and would take you quite some time to complete. You would feel a certain feeling of accomplishment when you done them. Most MMOs have very simple and easy quest.

-The open areas, I hate arenas/dungeons. I liked exping on random monsters out in the open, it gives you a lot of freedom.

-The need to make friend to accomplish stuffs, no dungeon finder/raid finder/party finder ect. Would make you have to communicate and learn to be more nice toward people if you wanted to advance. Most MMO nowadays, people can be *** and still accomplish stuffs because they will use an auto party system.

-Skill means more than gears. That doesn't really apply to today's FFXI but it used to pre abyssea era. If you were capable of playing your job properly, it could balance your lack of equipment.

I think to me FFXI will always be no.1 until it dies than maybe, I will try to become a somewhat responsible adult or something xD

You know, I had a funny thought the other day.

When I'm playing an offline RPG and it's like "Okay, venture across these dangerous lands for some obscure item", I'm ready. When XI asks me to go to some obscure place or like chasing down harvesting points that vanish without ever being touched, I think "God the devs are d*cks."