[quote name='georox']Let me stop you there. All FFXI had, was grind levels over and over, or grind quests to level over and over. It's nothing new, it just looked pretty at the time, and has the Final Fantasy name attached[/QUOTE]
ooooh let ME stop YOU there. If that's all you saw, then you either never made it to endgame or were only interested getting to endgame content and nothing else.
[quote name='georox']Defias/Van Cleef/The king being kidnapped stuff starts around level 12-16, and goes through endgame if you actually pay attention and read the quest log and see how the NPCs interact when turning in quests.[/QUOTE]
But again, not epic storylines, but little more than side-quest chains that don't contribute to an overall main story just lore of the land.
[quote name='georox']Onyxia stuff had good story, the Ahn'Qiraj gates opening event was amazing, and honestly, I love the direction they went in Lich King for some quests having cinematics now.[/QUOTE]
Same with Onyxia. yes, the gates opening looked cool but an epic battle with giant Anubis monsters is not relevant to what I was saying. I will agree the cutscenes were a nice touch to WotLK (I do have friends that play WoW so I am not totally ignorant what goes on there), too bad they are generic and don't really involve the player.
[quote name='Izod517']Not going to turn this into a WoW / FFXI discussion. I loved both games for their own reasons, but to claim WoW lacks endgame is just ignorant. It's endgame was far more in depth and developed than FFXI could have ever hoped to be - it also required far more group coordination and advanced battle tactics. As advanced as FFXI's fights got until recently were: "stand here." FFXI's endgame was one of two things, standing around 4 hours hoping to out claim a bot, or farming for pop items for hours. PvP in WoW is optional. There are PvE servers. Also (at least since BC - I realize this was different in Vanillia) endgame gear from PvE does little for PvP. FFXI did have a decent story, but its easy to claim that because of the cutscenes, ultimately WoW has a much richer lore and more in depth stories, it's just not as linear and thus harder to follow. Every quest in WoW has some sort of story - many of which relate to the lore of the world. It's not 'bring me two bat wings and I'll give you 100 gil." To say WoW was repeative in comparision is laughable - FFXI is very grind heavy, countless hours are spent in XP parties, even after level cap to get merits. Most of what you do in FFXI is get gear to XP faster.
Regardless as long as you liked the game that's all that matters, different strokes for different folks. I just don't like misinformation. Again I liked both for different reasons but I'm not under any assumptions that FFXI was something that it is not.[/QUOTE]
Let's be fair here, I never said WoW lacks endgame content, and I never said FFXI wasn't repetitive, there was no misinformation. My point was that there wasn't anything TO WoW other than the stuff you do endgame which again is all about fighting monsters to get better gear to make it easier for you to do.... what? Fight monsters better? Kill the opposing team better? Kill people in PvP better?
Also, something else you need to be fair about. the endgame strategies in FFXI were far more complex than "stand here". Anyone who has fought Absolute Virtue, Pandemonium Warden, Dynamis Lord, or any of the final bosses from the storyline missions will tell you that. Yes, one SMALL part of endgame involved waiting around for hours for monsters that only spawned once every 24 hours (or 3-7 days in some cases) in the hopes of out-claiming other shells, but there are tons of other endgame materials that were much more involved. Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar, Nyzul, Assault, and Salvage, just to name a few. But you know this already having played for 5 years.
And not EVERY quest in WoW has a story. WoW has just as many throwaway "fetch me this" or "kill this for me" for a mild reward "quests" as FFXI does. But you made my point when you speak of the storyline. I don't really see any richer lore out of WoW than FFXI except for the fact that (as you said), it's non-linear and harder to understand so therefore there is nothing there really for me to care about. When I read a book I like to do it from beginning to end, not read the chapters randomly and hope that I can piece it together afterward.
And I will admit WoW's endgame probably is far more developed than FFXI. They have a hell of a lot more revenue to work with considering that they marketed the hell out of it over here and in WoW you don't have to deal with half your server not being able to speak the same language as you. Plus Blizzard really knew their 'target audience'. I mean I suppose if FFXI had included the ability to fart or made the females scantily-clad with huge breasts, it might have made more money as well. LOL
I have not once said that FFXI was better than WoW or that WoW was a bad game. This whole thing started because someone jerk decided to call a game that I personally liked, "horrible" and I decided to defend it.
Yes, I made a comparison to WoW because the point I was trying to make was based on what I personally want out of an MMORPG. And that is to have a reason to keep playing it. And repetitive endgame crap (found in both FFXI and Wow and pretty much any MMORPG out there) is not it.
The difference I was pointing out was that FFXI had something WoW didnt and that was a lot of story-driven missions, with cutscenes, and epic, LINEAR stories with final bosses and everything at the end. And when I am done with the storyline, I take a break, sometimes 2-4 months at a time.
Sure I will do some of the more involved stuff like Limbus and Einherjar, or the Zeni Monsters and Sea Gods, but I have a life and don't have the kind of time it takes to devote to all that repetitive endgame stuff that ultimately serves no purpose.