Haven't posted about FFXI lately... and a new MMO.

[thistlechaser]

So amazingly burnt out on FFXI. As soon as BLU hits 75 (should be tomorrow), I'm taking a break (semi-break, will still go to CoP static and events). Funny that I had actually wanted to level BLU in parties (unlike most of my other jobs), but I couldn't get any. So very annoying, I only had a grand total of two XP invites since level 50.

I ran Damask to Bastok (ugh, Jeuno <-> Bastok sucks) so he could start gold. Did 1-20, which was more painful than cloth 1-90. Hate gold so much.

Dynamis continues to be dry. As it's zero fun, it's hard to keep going when I get nothing. (If I were collecting for just one set and needed only one piece or two, I could understand getting nothing on a regular basis. But I'm collecting for six sets and need a ton of pieces still...)

Irony: I decided to start leveling BLU because the BLU body dropped to me. Now, 60-something levels later, I still have only that one piece! Ha ha ha ha. It's been my main lot for months, too.

While lurking on my LJ random image sites, I found some pictures for a really cute MMO I never heard of. Ether Saga. Googling showed me that it was in beta, so after jumping through hoops for a beta key (seriously, it took me almost an hour of signing up on boards and doing various tasks -- you had to make a forum post, answer a random user's technical question, and other such crap like clicking on a minimum number of banner ads). But, since I'm going to go on a MMO vacation, I thought maybe this new game could take the place of WoW -- and it'd be free!

I spent way way longer signing up and installing than I did playing. Meet Thistle, an animal turned into a boy with a pet fox who is in love with me -- seriously, it's scary. Scary and poorly translated, the fox keeps calling me his princess. Or is there something about Thistle that we don't know?!

The game was amazingly odd. The characters all spoke full sentences (whatever the text dialogue was), but it was in some foreign language. Sounded like Japanese but not quite, so I'm going to guess Korean. The background music was really funny, generic "Chinese" music you'd hear in a Chinese restaurant.

The controls killed me. "Click a place on the screen and your character runs there" is so amazingly clunky. You could use W-A-S-D as well, but that's backwards than what I use on FFXI (number pad), so it was frustrating to try to make that work.

I spent most of my time killing tree stumps with my fox boyfriend pet. I'll give the game one thing: Mobs respawn in about 5 seconds. I didn't have to walk at all to XP, they just kept respawning as soon as I killed them.

I feel like I should write more about FFXI, but I can't think of anything else I've been doing. I think I've been blocking it out of my memory. That or beating on walls in Campaign for 12 hours a day has rotted my brain.

Comments

[socksofjello.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Korean MMOs.

If you pursue this game, be prepared for lots of tedious mob-clicking, nonsensical quest-running, and loads of poorly translated dialogue. Don't forget the whole micropayment system that grants players with more money than sense an 'easy' button through better equipment and mounts.

I know nothing about Ether Saga other than what you've posted here, but I feel pretty confident in my assessment.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha. That about sums it up, yep. It's free, but you can use RL money to buy lots of things (I didn't even glance at what). Mob clicking to fight, then click again to get treasure! (At first the double clicking annoyed me, then I remembered that it's not that uncommon -- WoW does it as well). All in all, the game felt like a cute, bug-filled WoW knockoff.

I was really enjoying all the pop-up error messages with no text at all in them! That made it a challenge.

[southern-hell.livejournal.com]

It's Chinese, Perfect World is their other MMO which is one of the most popular free MMOs. Localization isn't anywhere near done at this point, although if PW is any indication it will be poor. That's basically what all free to play MMOs are like, though Ether Saga is one of the better ones game-play and graphics wise, from what I've played it is the best period although I prefer the graphical style of Granado Espada the water effects and such are more well done here.
The main thing about free MMOs is there is little attempt to try to disguise the grind. You start out already at level 10 with kill 30 50 70 100 of this mob then come back to me so I can say you did a good job; what draws people is how much they like the job mechanics which seems to be the main weakness so far in that the current job states aren't very unique or fun. Somehow in FFXI it's not as obvious that you are doing the same grind without even being prompted by a quest to do so, it's funny to me. I am gonna play this one for a little while and see how the transformation and pet systems flesh out, it's a neat idea and even though it's all Engrishy the quests are cute with everyone thinking you are the coolest person they've ever met as you journey to attain the gift of immortality from the Gods.

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

There's another (Korean, I think) MMO called Runes of Magic which is very WoW-like -- to the point where I'm wondering if Blizzard may sue them for plagiarism -- but the translation and dialogue is not that bad. I haven't played very much but the game mechanics are fairly WoW-like as well.

Perfect World looks nice and it's game mechanics are somewhat interesting, but the dialogue and translation is a little poor. It also suffers from the "huge world with empty spaces" problem -- the world looks big and pretty but it's just empty space in between towns and Points of Interest.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

quests are cute with everyone thinking you are the coolest person they've ever met as you journey to attain the gift of immortality from the Gods.

In my very short time playing, that amused me muchly. One NPC said something like "Thistle? I don't know you! Therefore you must be a god!". *snickers*

And yeah, I did like the pet idea. If I hadn't stuggled so hard just to move around, I might have stuck with it a bit longer.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

which is very WoW-like -- to the point where I'm wondering if Blizzard may sue them for plagiarism

There are so many games out there that are WoW like, you'd think people would want some variety. If I ever left FFXI for another MMO (not going to happen, when I leave FFXI that's it for MMOs) I wouldn't want just another copy of FFXI.

Well... I guess the only exception to that would be if I were banned from FFXI or the servers shut down before I was ready to quit. If it wasn't my choice to leave, then I'd be happy to play a copy...

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

There's another MMO that's being *properly* localized for the US -- Aion. It looks fantastic and I'm going to try get into the beta if possible, but I'll probably still buy it.

Read the lore, it's got a cool backstory.

http://www.aiononline.com/us/

Who knows, this may replace WoW for me.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, nice lore and beautiful art! Wonder when in 2009 it comes out... it tempts me.

[citizenbleys.livejournal.com]

I've been taking a break from FFXI since my linkshell disbanded and I have 5 friends on the same WoW server. It can be fun if you don't do the same crap everyone else does. Screw levelling and grinding for en epic mount, just do retarded random crap.

Last week I took my blood elf mage and streaked through Ironforge. I intend to make a video of it and use Yakety Sax as the background music.

I still think FFXI is a better game, but what's the point when all of your friends are gone?

[southern-hell.livejournal.com]

Random info~ WoW-like is a very misleading comment since it was certainly not the original MMO to use that style of interface and questing that most free MMOs adopted, nor was it even Blizzards first MMO. :P If Blizzard could sue a free MMO for plagiarism then Blizzard could be sued by Sony Online Entertainment and/or NCSoft, though I believe the fact that NCSoft is being sued for that very reason by the people who technically have the patent for it proves they were the first major company to use and profit from it with Lineage.

Aion will not have an EU/NA beta. The reason it's being properly localized is because it is a MAJOR pay to play MMO coming out this year. Everyone who is jaded with FFXI and WoW, who was disappointed with the lackluster releases of LOTR, Age of Conan, Vanguard, and Warhammer and who have been waiting 4-6 years for the next new installment of Lineage will be playing this game. It has already been delayed in its English release for over a year, but the Chinese and Korean betas are over and they are saying it will be released by 3rd quarter 2009. Whether the suit against NCSoft will cause any further delay remains to be seen. They are also concurrently developing Blade & Soul which will focus more on martial arts and anime style single pvp than on fantasy style and world pvp. And they have a running contract with AreaNet to distribute and I'm not sure what else the Guild Wars series.

I'm going to check out this Runes of Magic beta. I haven't ever stuck with a free MMO but it's a good way to get me interested in FFXI again during the wait for Aion where I can get back playing with all my friends that quit^^.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I still think FFXI is a better game, but what's the point when all of your friends are gone?

I think that's a big part of it for me. So many of my friends are gone. I'm lonely on a regular basis. I still have the same LS, but it's different than it used to be years and years ago.

FFXI is a game you play for the social interactions with RL people. When you lose those people... :/

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting! Thanks!