FFXI vs WoW: Day one thoughts
Sep. 27th, 2005 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserAfter about two hours total (1 full hour to install from 5 CDs, 1 hour to download patches/updates/whatever), I was able to log into WoW for the first time. (Non-FFXI people: That's a really big difference right there, FFXI would have many, many hours of downloads.)
The opening movie and the background music were both amazing, but luckily I had known that the actual game would look nothing like that (I would have been seriously disappointed if I hadn't known in advance). The movie made me want to play: it had me grinning, it made me want to fight and adventure and have fun.
Character creation was easy as pie. I boggle at people who complain there's too much to do in the customization. (You have a number of options for four settings. It probably varies by race, but mine were face style, hair color, facial hair, and body color. There wasn't a big difference from one end to the other -- you could have ended up as nearly all black or nearly all grey. Other races probably vary a lot from that.) You got to pick whatever server you wanted to go on (man, WoW has like 50 of them!), including options like PvP and RP.
There's a line on the game's box that says something like "You can play without ever reading the manual!", and that was basically true. I, however, being the obsessive person that I am, read and skimmed it while eating dinner and during the install/downloading time. But once I started playing, I found I really hadn't needed to do that. (Other than one point: I wanted to change the keys you use to move. I had read about changing binding, so I knew it could be done.)
I had gone into this wanting "simple and non-challenging" and that is what I got in spades. No offense intended to WoW players, but WoW feels like it's made for small children. Big, bright, shiny buttons to press, so many sounds and noises. (So many NPCs talk! I mean talk out loud! So very strange.) The game seriously, seriously, seriously holds your hand through everything. Example:
NPCs who give you a quest you have a high enough level to accept have a symbol over their heads (if you're not high enough yet, the symbol is a different color). The symbol changes once you complete the quest. (If I'm remembering that correctly, anyway. It changes when you're done and can pick up your reward, right? I know it changes at some point.) If you get a quest to get X drops off mobs, as you kill mobs the game displays how many of those drops you've gotten so far! Like "9/15"! You don't even need to remember that you're collecting them for a reason! o.O
I'm embarrassed to say I'm still having a little bit of a hard time telling NPCs from PCs. (Or perhaps there are few to no PCs around the area I'm in.)
Oh, aggro is handled very differently, too. Heck, mobs in general: You hover your cursor over a mob to get its name, type, level, etc, and if it's aggro all that text is in red. I think I like actually needing to loot the bodies, that's nice and realistic. (Though now and then I forgot to do it.)
Instead of just learning your abilities as you do in FFXI, you have to buy them from a teacher. I like that a lot. (And I have to look up when I get a pet!)
The screen feels very, very, very "cluttered", but I suppose with the lower quality of the graphics that the cluttering won't take away from things as much.
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gbeans: You've gotten your wish, sort of. I'm a Hunter on the game, which is sort of like a RNG/BST type job.
This is me fighting. You can see the "widescan" I get. The map is always there in the corner, and the mobs are always on it (unless I click the ability off, I assume). Seriously handy! You can see the quality of the graphics though. :/
This is me! But it's from the login screen, so it looks better than in game.
That second screenshot brings up a big issue I'm having with the game. I can't figure out how to move the camera! (I had wanted to take a picture of me in-game, but I couldn't get the camera to swing around to the front.) I assume the game just doesn't permit you to play in first person? But I'd like to be able to see more than my back during a fight.
It's not fair to judge a game based on only an hour of play, but at this point in time I can say that there's no way in heck that this game will ever replace FFXI for me. Was it a waste of its $50 cost? I think that's something I shouldn't make a decision on yet. I'm inclined to say it wasn't worth it, but how much of a game can you see in an hour? I'll be giving it lots more chances over the coming days.
Edit: Ha ha, I keep editing this post to add more things I remember. Here's another: I love how all of your clothing shows on your model! I changed my cape and it looked different!
Oops, and two more things. I got to level 4 and never had to sit once. Your HP regens on its own, fast. Even when I was killing things fast, one after another, by the time I reached the new mob I was back to 100%. *boggle* That's good, but... wow.
fyrebird: I lost your comment somewhere (gmail does something really strange and "stacks" comments, so I keep losing them), but I had thought you started playing! Oops. You get to be a lost sheep then, too. :P
The opening movie and the background music were both amazing, but luckily I had known that the actual game would look nothing like that (I would have been seriously disappointed if I hadn't known in advance). The movie made me want to play: it had me grinning, it made me want to fight and adventure and have fun.
Character creation was easy as pie. I boggle at people who complain there's too much to do in the customization. (You have a number of options for four settings. It probably varies by race, but mine were face style, hair color, facial hair, and body color. There wasn't a big difference from one end to the other -- you could have ended up as nearly all black or nearly all grey. Other races probably vary a lot from that.) You got to pick whatever server you wanted to go on (man, WoW has like 50 of them!), including options like PvP and RP.
There's a line on the game's box that says something like "You can play without ever reading the manual!", and that was basically true. I, however, being the obsessive person that I am, read and skimmed it while eating dinner and during the install/downloading time. But once I started playing, I found I really hadn't needed to do that. (Other than one point: I wanted to change the keys you use to move. I had read about changing binding, so I knew it could be done.)
I had gone into this wanting "simple and non-challenging" and that is what I got in spades. No offense intended to WoW players, but WoW feels like it's made for small children. Big, bright, shiny buttons to press, so many sounds and noises. (So many NPCs talk! I mean talk out loud! So very strange.) The game seriously, seriously, seriously holds your hand through everything. Example:
NPCs who give you a quest you have a high enough level to accept have a symbol over their heads (if you're not high enough yet, the symbol is a different color). The symbol changes once you complete the quest. (If I'm remembering that correctly, anyway. It changes when you're done and can pick up your reward, right? I know it changes at some point.) If you get a quest to get X drops off mobs, as you kill mobs the game displays how many of those drops you've gotten so far! Like "9/15"! You don't even need to remember that you're collecting them for a reason! o.O
I'm embarrassed to say I'm still having a little bit of a hard time telling NPCs from PCs. (Or perhaps there are few to no PCs around the area I'm in.)
Oh, aggro is handled very differently, too. Heck, mobs in general: You hover your cursor over a mob to get its name, type, level, etc, and if it's aggro all that text is in red. I think I like actually needing to loot the bodies, that's nice and realistic. (Though now and then I forgot to do it.)
Instead of just learning your abilities as you do in FFXI, you have to buy them from a teacher. I like that a lot. (And I have to look up when I get a pet!)
The screen feels very, very, very "cluttered", but I suppose with the lower quality of the graphics that the cluttering won't take away from things as much.
gbeans: You've gotten your wish, sort of. I'm a Hunter on the game, which is sort of like a RNG/BST type job. This is me fighting. You can see the "widescan" I get. The map is always there in the corner, and the mobs are always on it (unless I click the ability off, I assume). Seriously handy! You can see the quality of the graphics though. :/
This is me! But it's from the login screen, so it looks better than in game.
That second screenshot brings up a big issue I'm having with the game. I can't figure out how to move the camera! (I had wanted to take a picture of me in-game, but I couldn't get the camera to swing around to the front.) I assume the game just doesn't permit you to play in first person? But I'd like to be able to see more than my back during a fight.
It's not fair to judge a game based on only an hour of play, but at this point in time I can say that there's no way in heck that this game will ever replace FFXI for me. Was it a waste of its $50 cost? I think that's something I shouldn't make a decision on yet. I'm inclined to say it wasn't worth it, but how much of a game can you see in an hour? I'll be giving it lots more chances over the coming days.
Edit: Ha ha, I keep editing this post to add more things I remember. Here's another: I love how all of your clothing shows on your model! I changed my cape and it looked different!
Oops, and two more things. I got to level 4 and never had to sit once. Your HP regens on its own, fast. Even when I was killing things fast, one after another, by the time I reached the new mob I was back to 100%. *boggle* That's good, but... wow.
fyrebird: I lost your comment somewhere (gmail does something really strange and "stacks" comments, so I keep losing them), but I had thought you started playing! Oops. You get to be a lost sheep then, too. :P
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 09:19 am (UTC)I hated WoW when I first tried it. Now I have two level 60 characters and a ton of alts. -_- Coming from FFXI, WoW graphics did take a bit to get used to; I hated them at first as well. Ultimately, I got used to it and it wasn't even something I thought about until I read this. The newbie zones always seemed a bit more "cartoonish" to me than the rest of the game, anyways.
My advice is to tough it out until at least level 20 (which doesn't take that long to get). I hated my current character for the first 10 levels or so, but as I got more abilities and talents, it really picked up and I'm really having a lot of fun. My other advice is to give PvP a try at some point. Again, coming from FFXI, I didn't think I'd care about PvP and rolled on a "Normal" server. But after giving PvP a try, I found out I loved it, and ended up moving to a PvP server.
Good luck!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 02:41 pm (UTC)Thanks for the advice! I have tons of downtime in FFXI right now, so I'll have plenty of time to give WoW a fair shot (hopefully further than 20, too!). And yep, I'd love to try PvP, I just want to get my feet under me before I try something new and different like that.