FF14 – Aspects of WoW I Hope They Implement

Having played FF11 for 2 years (2004-2006) I’d like to offer Square Enix some advice about their upcoming FF14. Most of this is from WoW because let’s be honest. They did something right.

Linked Auction Houses

While there were a few AHs linked in FFXI (Sand’Oria and Rabao come to mind) I would hope that they link all AHs together between the main cities. It would keep you from having to have alts in all the cities, keep you from having to ride the airship back and forth, and help lower level players find items they need to survive. I can’t tell you how many times my ditsy self has forgotten an ingredient for cooking and had to travel all the way back to Sand’Oria just to get the item. Very time consuming.

Have More Solo Content

Some of us have jobs, lives, families, friends, etc outside of gaming. Sometimes we only have an hour.. or maybe two to log onto a game and do something. FFXI did not allow that. There was nothing you could do in game for an hour or two. You couldn’t level; you couldn’t continue on with the story. You had to dedicate at least 3 hours in order to do anything important when logging in.

Crafting and Synthesis Changes

I can’t tell you… how horrible it was to finally get a big drop from a god or dragon, w/e.. to only lose the drop in a failed synthesis because SE decided to spit in your direction, or because the moon wasn’t in the 3rd quarter of Ares, or because a bird tooted in the ballpark of your general area. It sucked. Change the synthesis (WoW term: Crafting) to not lose items based on LUCK. Fail them all you want, but don’t make us lose the items!!

Larger Drop Percentages

This, I must say was the biggest reason I left. Hours.. and I do mean HOURS of your time on fighting Nidhogg to end up with a.. Fire Crystal. A god damn crystal. (WoW term: ..like Linen Cloth) The amount of time you put into FFXI you never got back an equal reward. Never. I played for two years.. and never got back an equal rewards for my time playing. Yes I was in an HNMLS. (WoW term: ..erm Top Raiding Guild)

Make Farming Easier

I’m not saying everyone should have millions and millions of gil (gold), but make it so we can at least survive on our own. Back in my day the best way to make money was to  camp Notorious Monsters, NMs, (Rares and Elites) hope they drop the big money prize and sell it off. Then there were the BCNMs (..small instances) again.. hope they drop the big money prize and not just a crystal and sell it off. None of this could be done by yourself unless you were camping a lower level NM so you had to get a group of people and split the profits. It was.. annoying.

Make Side Quests Fun.. Not Just a Rep Grind

Quests! Side Quests! I don’t want to give this Elvaan 200 bat wings I bought off the AH for a quest just because I need the rep! More side quests please

You may look at this list and think.. “Wow that game sucked why did you play it so long?” Because there were some things that FFXI did right. Things that WoW doesn’t have.

The Story

When I logged onto WoW I had no idea what the story was. Never played any of the previous Warcrafts. I just knew there was a war going on and we all wanted to kill each other. I didn’t know what started the war, who the leaders were, why we were still fighting, nothing. I knew nothing. I honestly still didn’t know anything until TBC hit and I actually went and looked it up on the Internet. I wanted to know more about Slyvanas and from there I learned about Thrall and more about the races. Point is, I had to go out of my way to find the story.

The story is right there in front of you in FFXI. Why you’re fighting, who the big bad is. You’re literally moving the story a long as you go through missions. You’re getting cut scenes left and right. You feel involved.

The Connections

Being forced to make friends to even level caused you to have connections. I still have friends I talk to from FFXI. I love them to death.

Many factors forced you to stay on your main character. To be known by your main. The ability to change classes was amazing. No need to log onto an alt. Speaking of alts in order to have another character you had to pay an extra $1 a month per alt. This really helped my altaholic attitude. (25+ characters on WoW <.<) This forced you to gain a good reputation. You couldn’t just switch to a different character with your ninja loot and start fresh. At least not as easily as you can in WoW.

This is not to say people don’t make connections in WoW. Some do. Some find very deep connections. However I think that FFXI has a greater success rate. lol

If Square Enix learns from their mistakes I think FF14 will be a great MMO.

Related Posts

1. Making of FF14 – The Realm of Eorzia – Youtube Vids
2. Last Names For Your FF14 Character
3. Open Beta for FF14 to Start September 1st.
4. Final Fantasy 14 Character Creation E3 Video