(03-18-2014, 02:03 PM)Koninbeor Wrote:(03-17-2014, 05:10 PM)Ignacius Wrote:(03-17-2014, 03:44 PM)Magellan Wrote: @Arma: Personally I don't find leveling all that easy (cuz I find the story and quests in this game a grindy slogfest) but I am certainly with you on your last point. Mini -games accessible to all levels would be a nice start.Â
Honestly, they will probably get there eventually. SE pays a lot more attention to their game than most devs do, and 4 major patches a year is pretty ambitious and impressive. But outside of rp, Â have not found the most cordial community :/ though I'm not referring to anyone on this site.
Hey, I played EVE online for like 9 months. Â I was also into Battlefield 2 for a while. Â Believe me, FFXIV's community is like walking into a Mormon church compared to a really toxic community.
I don't find EVE to be a toxic community at all. With EVE, you know EXACTLY what you're walking into. EVE is all about competition, and the competitive spirit shines more brightly in that game than in any other I've ever played. Yes, you get some people who are just overly mouthy. Yes, you get some people who complain too much. That said, I've never once played a game that didn't have those types of players, and even RP is not immune to these types of players.
You have to have an understanding in EVE that when you undock, you ARE going to lose your ship. You might not lose it right away but on a long enough timeline, even the mightiest of Titans gets blown up. The people who thrive on PVP in that game are the ones who fully understand that their ship will explode in a fiery blaze of glory and just want to blow up as many things as possible before it happens. Never once have I participated in a toxic fleet. Those players are immediately muted and if they disrupt fleet ops, they're just flat out kicked. Playing EVE does require thicker skin than with most games simply because of the nature of the game. It's kill AND be killed, not kill OR be killed. I absolutely love it.
Also, my character is advancing while I type this message on my lunch break at work even though I'm not logged in. Gotta love that.
Oh, I've been in Amarr space for local chat. Â Trust me, you might be able to get a clique together you won't hate, but the community as a whole? Â FFXIV is a giant leaping step up over that. Â I've played more hardcore PVP games in my time; I thought EVE would be different because it was in space and very distant (as in the entire game feels like it's played at arms-length). Â It's not. Â It's essentially Quake in slow motion with extra grindy bits.
As far as I'm concerned, EVE Online proved once and for all what the strengths of the MMORPG genre by simply not having them. Â It's fun enough on your own; I can't complain that the game wasn't fun when no one was around to bother me. Â I suddenly realized, after about nine months, that I hated seeing everyone in EVE. Â People in my corporation needed things, but we didn't have anywhere "new" to go or anything "new" to see; solar systems are solar systems. Â So my only interaction with them was to gain materials or data cores in order to expand our base of power so we could get more materials or data cores. Â Sort of the grind without the reward. Â Everyone else was, best case scenario, going to simply leave and ignore me. Â Even in high security space, people would aggravate you for no reason other than space is empty and they're bored.
More importantly, that competitiveness isn't balanced by anything else. Â In essence, EVE reminds me a lot more of a game like Battlefield than a game like World of Warcraft. Â After you're past the PVP learning curve, there's just not much to it. Â The game is nothing but a PVP sandbox with a couple extra essentially levequest-style things thrown in. Â Minimal epic arcs. Â Having played games that wrench you a lot harder than EVE does in a PVP sense and enjoying a few of them, you'd figure this wouldn't be that big of a deal. Â But everyone who isn't you or yours, they're out to essentially disrupt you, no matter what it is you're doing or why you're doing it. Â Even if you've just hacked a relic site and they have no way to tractor your goods, they'll ram you just for the sheer dickishness of it. Â So after nine months, the second I saw a ship on my overview that wasn't part of my carefully maintained circle of "trusted" corpmates, the only thing that ran through my mind was that these people needed to just leave me alone. Â I wanted nothing to do with anyone randomly walking by.
Which, I thought, was where MMOs were going, but FFXIV goes a complete 180 away from that.  You want to see people.  It's not just chat that's better in FFXIV (I really haven't talked to anyone who's gotten on my case), but it encourages cooperation and makes you happy to see people.  Your nodes are your nodes for gathering, so you can do it with friends and all get the benefits.  During FATEs, you want there to be more people so you're hoping they'll dismount and help out.  You get EXP for helping people kill things even if they're not in your party, so saving people isn't a complete waste of time.  You can both get credit for a kill and loot even if you didn't start it.  Very often, in the case of FATEs, there are things happening in the open world you can't handle solo.  You gain something by having other people running around in your area.
As an MMORPG, I just think FFXIV is stronger for that very reason. Â The MMO open world cooperation means it's different than just playing a game of slow spaceship Unreal Tournament that doesn't end. Â FFA PVP is a little overrated, considering I could get my teeth kicked in through just about a thousand game titles, most of which don't hassle me to check market volatility to earn game currency. Â There aren't that many where you're hoping, and in my case happy, to see complete strangers. Â Even in WoW on a PVE server, you figure they're there to steal your kills.
In FFXIV, everyone, even outside the community, has been really helpful. Â Hell, even the guys near the Armourer trainer were giving me mats without expecting anything in return (I did have some things they needed when I asked). Â Not to mention the people here, who are flat out the nicest people I've ever played a game with. Â EVE's RP community is hospitable, but you'd be amazed how thin their skin can be OOC (I essentially was tripping over people all running around taking offense to everything I said the last months I was there). Â Unfortunately, you can't pick an RP server, either, every troll, sadfaced teen, and internet scum you didn't want to ever see get to play on the same server as you. Â No avoiding the toxic people if you want to avoid them. Â They can even look you up and declare war on your corp for no reason other than it's cheap to do it and the RP community made you blacklist them so that you didn't argue on the forums.
In the end, I don't think there's anyone happier to be playing FFXIV than I am. Â Or would be if my mobo wasn't shot.
