NOTE - this is a copy of a thread I posted on the FFXI main forum. I'm posting it here for the large number of FFXI players who come here looking for a good comparison of the games. While the two games cannot truly be "coparison tested" I wrote this review from the perspective of an FFXI player, and I hope it's useful.

** Disclaimer - The following is my opinion. I do not assert it as any sort of truth, nor would I imply that I am "right." **

I promise right now that I'm not going to make any stupid or biased conclusions in this post. I will also NOT bash FFXI, like so many fools who have written on this topic before me. My goal in starting this thread is to write a good review of WoW from the perspective of an FFXI player who actually LIKES FFXI.

Also - comparing the two games is somewhat like comparing apples to oranges - they are very different, but if you're hungry, either one can satisfy your appetite.


Contents:




Introduction

Graphics & Sound

Soloability

Leveling speed

Casual Players

Transportation

Interface

Combat

Playerbase

Money

Crafting

Auction House

PvP

Price

Still working towards a conclusion ...


Introduction

FFXI is a great game. I have very much enjoyed myself over the past year. I have not yet made up my mind as to whether I'm going to retire from FFXI. Right now, I'm playing WoW Open Beta, and considering it's free, I'm having a great time. I have read numerous posts and threads comparing the two, but no one has given a good comparison. Complaining about FFXI does not make for a good review about WoW. I want to address a few of these complaints. All of the threads I've read have been full of the following BS:

"I've been playing FFXI for a year and ..."

"I hate forced grouping" - Then why the hell did you play for a year? "Forced Grouping" (or synergistic perfection, as some would put it) starts around L12-14. You'd have to be a complete idiot to play for a year and not realize that FFXI is NOT a solo game! Really people - partying *IS* FFXI, and after a year, you should know that, and know how to spend time productively while waiting for party, etc.

"I'm sick of it being hard to earn gil." - Well, you're right. It's hard. If you don't like that, FFXI is not the game for you. However, when everything is expensive and hard to get, there is a certain satisfaction in getting there.

"I think all of the 15 jobs are boring. CoP sucked because ..." - Some people don't get it. 15 jobs is more than enough for what FFXI is all about. FFXI is not about being an super-anticonformist. It's about being an effective team member. The 15 jobs give you 15 alteratives ways to contribute to parties.

That's enough about the complaints. Too many people play FFXI and want to be the "Hero." Somehow, after a year, they are still the figurative RDM/NIN because they want to be cool, individual and look UB3R...

Anyway. I have no complaints about FFXI. I enjoyed my 72 days of gametime. Yes - there were parts that made me feel like tearing my hair out - but it just made it that much more satisfying to accomplish them.

Graphics, Sound, Etc.

Both games have their own unique style of graphics. WoW is more cartoon-like, and FFXI is more realistic looking.

I still find the FFXI scenery beautiful. Everything from the quality and detail of some of the mob sprites to the detailed zone backgrounds still catch my eye even after a year.

WoW features more cartoonish graphics. Although the "realism" is lower than FFXI, Blizzard's art crew did an excellent job. Everything looks right - it all fits. I have seem some breathtaking scenery (The Griffon Ride from Stormwind to Ironforge for example takes you over a huge mountain range, and you fly by dragons).

Many people have complained about FFXI having the same mob sprites over and over. I hate to break this to you all, but WoW has the same thing. WoW scores a point though in that they vary the colors more - but nevertheless, they have about 40 mob types that get reused over and over just like FFXI.

WoW has nice background music. So does FFXI. I'm personally tired of the FFXI music, but that's only because I have heard the same tunes over and over and over. I'm sure that if I play WoW for a year, I'll feel the same way toward WoW.

WoW gives you significantly more options in terms of customizing your character. It allows you to vary things from hair style/color to facial hair style, size of certain features (I.e. fangs, ears, etc., depending on race) and face design.

One thing I really miss from FFXI is that super-satisfying leveling sound. WoW has a pretty cool leveling animation, but it just doesn't have the same satisfying *Ding*

Soloability

To put it simple - WoW is soloable and FFXI is not.

That is not a point against FFXI. Those who enjoy FFXI will tell you that one of the greatest pleasures in the game is a great party. As a RDM, I personally love good parties. I love supporting the mages and melees and watching the Exp roll in because I'm doing a good job.

BST is the soloing job in FFXI. Those of us who have tried it (and those who were patient enough and actually leveled it past 55) know that soloing as a BST is without doubt the most difficult job in FFXI. It can be done - but you need intense patience and dedication, as well as skill.

WoW is soloable. Every job, including mages, can solo at any level (or so I have read). You can solo for experience faster on your own than you can in a party. The reason people party up is to do the harder quests. Quests in WoW do give Exp upon completion, and some experienced players have told me that a good party can do a handful of hard quests and get more experience than they could grinding on their own. Nevertheless, as for the typical "kill the mob, get experience, rinse and repeat" you can do this solo at any level. It should be noted that you can farm and work on your crafting skills at the same time.

While it is nice to be able to solo when you desire, being an experienced FFXI player, I find it somewhat lonely. I've partied up a couple of times to do harder quests, but I've found that a good portion of the players have no interest in partying at lower levels. I have a feeling that many of them will have no interest in grouping at any point if they can avoid it. I've even heard people whine because they couldn't finish a quest without help. It's somewhat ironic to hear WoW players complain about "forced grouping."

Leveling Speed

FFXI is a slow game in terms of leveling. I don't see this as a bad thing for the most part. Early levels don't take *that* long, but they do take long enough than you really appreciate each level you gain. High levels in FFXI are LONG, but again, it makes you appreciate your level.

I've been playing WoW for a week. I started off as a clueless newbie. I'm already L18 and a half. I can still go out solo and grind/farm/craft and get a level in 1.5-2 hours easily. To be honest, I find it a little bit unsatisfying in this respect. While I enjoy getting new abilities and all the other perks that come with leveling, levels go by so quickly that I have actually forgotten what level I am! I've actually had to check...

Now - getting to L18 in a week is not so bad. The server I'm playing on is a week old. What kind of disturbs me is that yesterday I saw a player running around the city on a mount! Mounts are L40+! I took a look at him - L42 Night Elf Rogue. He's undoubtably a closed-beta player who already knows his way around. Nevertheless, the fact that it is possible to get to L42 in less than a week is both a good thing and a bad thing, in my opinion.

Blizzard has said that they didn't want the Experience curve to take forever. They have said that they want players to be able to level up quickly for three reasons:

They don't want players to be bogged down by the exp curve

They are planning a lot of high-level content, as well as Hero classes

They want players to be able to level up multiple classes
Only time will tell if this will be a good thing. At this point, most of the high-level content is still under development. Hero classes have not been implemented and the Raids (Super hard Dungeons that require multiple parties at high levels) are still being developed, aside from one that was just added in the last patch. In theory, making the game this way seems like a good idea, but only time will tell us how well Blizzard executes this.

Casual Players

FFXI is undeniably a poor choice for casual games. By casual gamers, I mean those who don't have the time or desire to play for hours every day. FFXI takes a lot of time to advance through the game, and at higher levels it is hard to do anything useful unless you have a few hours to play at a time.

WoW in contrast is a lot more friendly to the casual gamer. You can play for an hour or for ten hours and if your skill is the same, you can do 1/10 as much in 1 hour as 10. There is no looking for parties (except when you want to) and exping for an hour can be fun and productive.

Transportation

FFXI has a few modes of transportation that you gain access to over the long run. Chocobos are accessible to players at L20+. Warp is available to BLMs at L17 and /BLMs at L34. Warp II is provided by BLMs at L40+. Thiefs get Flee at L25 and /THFs get it at L50. Airships are available at rank 5, which typically means L40+. There are also insta-warp scrolls which are available at a cost starting at L1. On top of all that, there are six telepoints that you can be teleported to by a WHM L36-42+. All-in-all, there are a number of transportation options that you gain access to over the first 40 levels.

In developping WoW, Blizzard has gone out of their way to make the transportation system as friendly as possible to new and casual players. First of all, every new player gets an item that will transport them to their Home Location (Home point) at will, the only limitation is a one hour cooldown timer. Personally, I found this feature extremely convenient as a new player.

Blizzard has also created a network of ships that can be accessed by players of any level. The ferries are free and run every 3 minutes. As well, there is a network of Hippographs and Griffons connecting the towns/cities that you can ride (for a small fee) once you have walked to that location.

On top of that, Blizzard introduced mounts. I don't really know much about them, but I understand that you can call them when you need them. You need to be at least L40 to buy one. There are also high-end mounts that require L60 (which is the level limit), and they are even faster.

There are also a number of job-specific running enhancements. At L20 Hunters get Aspect of the Cheetah. I know that some other jobs have fast-running abilities as well, however I apologize but I don't know the details.

Interface

The FFXI user interface takes a little while to master, but once you get the hang of it, it's very effective. The macro system is very good. Control is good.

WoW interface seems just as good. The only difference is that it's more graphics-based and is a lot easier to pick up. I had the UI figured out by my second day playing, which is faster than I learned my way around the controls in FFXI. I would not say that they are any "better," but surely easier to pick up.

One big difference is that FFXI can be played with the keyboard along with a gamepad. WoW is mouse/keyboard based, and does not support a controller.

WoW is also open to custom UIs. While I don't know much about this, there is all sorts of information around, and a UIs that can be downloaded.

New ** (EDIT-add)
Combat

FFXI combat is relatively slow and intensely strategic. By mid to high levels, a good party will be making use of a long list of combat tools to accelerate kills while minimizing downtime. There is also a strong need to cooperate with your team in order to be successful.

In FFXI, skills, abilities and spells are learned slowly over many levels, but most skills, abilities and spells are substantial.

WoW combat is extremely fast in comparison. While it is an overstatement to call it "hack n'slash," it is fast. From what I have seen and read so far (which I admit is limited), Group combat is focused on fighting multiple mobs. There are exceptions to this - which include some very difficult boss fights. For example, the last patch added a fight against a dragon named Onoxia and the current best anyone has done is to get the dragon down to 80% HP. Evidently, Blizzard wants people to work together on that one in a way that they are not used to.

As for single-player combat (soloing), it is not nearly as hack n' slash as people have made it out to sound.

Personally, I play a Hunter. In FFXI terms, that's like Ranger meets Beastmaster. Anyway, my typical fight goes as follows:

Send my pet after the mob, telling it to use an ability to grab hate when it gets there

Shoot the mob w/ a "Concussive Arrow" (slows mob movement, chance of stunning) and make sure I hit it before my pet does, but not too early to give it a chance to charge me before my pet hits it with growl (Provoke).

Shooting at the mob from a distance, using other ranged abilities to manage hate

Watching for and fighting links (for which I have to use Melee because ranged attacks can only be used at medium to long range).

Every class gets a wide range of abilities and even Warriors have enough tools to make combat strategic. Warrios, for example, have three fighting stances, which allow them to use different abilities. For example, in their defense stance, they have a taunt ability. They also get "Rage" which is similar to TP, except that different abilities require different amounts, and Rage is built up pretty quickly (5-6 hits on a mob and it's ready to go for a more basic move).

One of the things that keeps leveling interesting in WoW is that you get new abilities every 2 levels. You get LOTS of abilities in this game. Between abilities (which you buy) and talents (which you learn and pay if you want to unleard) there are always different ways to improve and customize (to some extent) your character.

Player Base

This one scares me.

I have had both positive and negative experiences with players on WoW so far. Many of the closed beta players are already sitting up on a high horse, and calling us "n00bz." I've seen closed beta players call people Noobs in the general chat channel becaues they asked where an area was, or something along those lines. I guess you find that in any games (I.e. some of the PC players and their stupid attitude when PS2 players started FFXI).

The other thing that I fear are the 13-year-old Diablo II crew who will level up on PvP servers to do nothing except grief other players. The PvP system rewards winning fights against players your level or higher and takes honor points away from those who beat up on lower level players. Nevertheless, I would predict that there will be a good share of kids who due to psychological stress in their real lives will be leveling up to high levels fo the specific purpose of bullying lower level players. Oh well... I'm just going to learn to play on a PvE server before I go anywhere near the PvP servers.

The third thing that concerns me is that the *whiney* casual players all going to flock to WoW. Those same players who hated FFXI and played for a whole year just to complain will be flocking like sheep to WoW. This is actually a good point for FFXI players - you will be happy when they're gone.

Money

Gil is hard to earn in FFXI. There is no denying it. Whether you choose to farm, craft, BCNM, camp NMs, etc., you have to work for your gil. Also, in FFXI, earning gil is a seperate activity from Exp'ing. There is an upside and a downside to this. The upside is that everything tends to feel more valuable, as you have to work for it. When you win a BCNM60 fight and get the Spectacles drop, you are 200k richer (assuming that you're sharing the profits) and you feel GREAT! The downside of course is that to many people, making money has become tedious.

In WoW, money seems plentiful. You can find much of your equipment off of the mobs you kill. Good drops are rare, but can come from any mob. There is higher-end loot that you have to try a bit harder to get, but you will never feel poor if you don't take time off for the purposes of money-making. So far, I have always had more than enough money to support my character.

Blizzard has aimed to cut out online money selling, and have tried their best to make bots useless. Fishing is more fun in WoW, but is too complicated for a bot to do. The idea is that because you can support your character without taking time off to earn money, less players will be inclined to buy their money online. Time will tell if they are right.

Another big difference is that in WoW, most valuable items "Bind" to you when you equip them. What this means is that once you use an item, it is yours forever. You can not sell it back to other players or trade it. The only thing you can do with it when you're done with it is dump it to an NPC. This takes most of the value away from even the best items. You buy it for yourself, and when you are finished with it, you sell it to an NPC and say goodbye. It's an interesting twist.

Crafting

FFXI crafting takes time and dedication. The rewards for getting to the top are extraordinary though. A 90+ Goldsmith who's spent millions of gil to get there can use his skill to earn a great living without leaving town. Building your crafting skills is hard. Regardless of the craft you choose, you have a long, expensive path to high levels. Between synth failures and the inherant losses of many of the recipes, it takes hard work, dedication and a lot of gil.

WoW crafting is easy in comparison. You can get materials while you level. For example, I'm a Leatherworker and a Skinner (you can only choose 2 tradeskills). I skin beasts that I kill, which raises my skinning skill. I then save up skins and hides for a couple of days and then leathercraft for an hour. There are no lost materials, and as long as you're making something that is "challenging" for your skill level, you gain skill every time. So far I'm at 160 skinning and 124 leatherworking (the skills go up to 300). While leatherworking is getting a bit harder (more items required per synth) it is still extremely easy. The downside to that is that there are many, many other leatherworkers that can make all of the same things that I can. I have a feeling that high-level crafters are going to be very common in this game and that the only real use for my leathercrafting is going to be making my own leather armor.

One interesting thing is the system by which you learn new recipes. You have to get trained in a recipe in order to create it. Most recipes can be taught to you by a trainer, but other ones can only be attained through rare random drops, quests or from the Auction House (from people who got it as a drop). These higher end recipes seem pretty cool in theory, but the few that I've got so far were common enough that there was still no profit in it.

Nevertheless, I have fun leatherworking and I have made most of my own armor. In FFXI it is usually impractical to make your own armor, which is unfortunate. Although there's no real benefit to it, I like seeing <Crafted by Jordster> on my armor.

Auction House

I'm going to assume you all know how the FFXI AH works. In WoW, the Auction House is only in the main cities (there is one major city for the Horde and one for the Alliance, and it's quite a journey to get there). Unlike the FFXI auctions, WoW auctions have a real bidding system, kind of like eBay. Unlike eBay, when you bid, your bid is shown. When you put an item up for auction, you specify an auction length (2 hours, 8 hours or 24 hours) and you pay a fee (varies by auction length). You can set a starting price and a buyout price.

So far, I don't like the auction system in WoW. First of all, when you place a bid, you have to pay the money up front. If you lose the auction, the money is sent to you in the mail. Secondly, if you want to win an auction, you have to stand around the Auction House watching to make sure you are not outbid. Now, you do get notification of being outbid, even if you're out adventuring, but unless you want to trek all the way back to the AH, you are out of luck.

Also, there is no limit to the number of auctions you an have at once (well there might be a limit, but I had about 20 items up for auction last night). The AH seemed to be flooded with items, which is good for the buyer, but I found that most of my items did not sell. Also, the fact that servers are divided by time zones means you have to put your items up for auction at a certain time or there's no way it's going to sell.

Although I have not enjoyed the AH so far, I'm obviously not very experienced with it. The server is a week old and the economy obviously has a lot of growing to do. In a few months we will be able to tell if Blizzard has some method to their Auction houes madness.

PvP

FFXI added the Ballista event about 7 months ago. I've tried it a few times, and it is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, due to their somewhat complicated scheduling method, the game you want (I.e. L60 limit) is often at a time that would only make sense if you lived in Japan. Sadly, this has limited my opportunities to play Ballista with my friends and LS buddies.

WoW was designed with a much stronger emphasis on PvP. You have a choice between a PvP server and a PvE server. PvE servers still have PvP events, but they are consentual. On a PvP server, members of the Horde and Alliance can attack each other at will. I have not dabbled in this enough to be able to comment much. Sorry.

Price

FFXI costs $12.95/month plue $1.00/month per additional character.

Blizzard has announced a more complicated price scheme for WoW. If you pay monthly, the cost will be $14.95/month. If you pay for three months at a time, it will be $13.95/month. If you pay for six months at a time, it will be $12.95 / month. Blizzard allows you to have up to 8 (or maybe it's 10, I'm not sure) characters on each account, so at least there are no additional charges.

Who wants to pre-pay 6 months on an MMO? Or even 3 months? My life is not that predictable, so I know that if I play WoW, I'm going to be paying $14.95/month. Then again, I currently have 2 mules on FFXI, so I'm paying $14.95 / month as it is.

Still working on a conclusion ...

I've played FFXI for the past year and WoW for the past week. Although I've taken quite a bit of time to learn my way around the game, I have a long way to go. Like most of the people who have written on this topic before me, I have only just begun to get into WoW. Unlike the people who wrote before me, I realize that right now I am infatuated with WoW, and that a lot more play is required before I'm ready to make my decision.

I still have two weeks of Open Beta left before the game goes retail. I should get to try out a lot more of what the game has to offer by then. I still have no idea if I'm going to retire from FFXI, and I'm going to keep my mind open.

I hope this info is useful. Another shift at work successfully passed posting

He he !!!
Fajne )