WoW/FFXI Compare/Contrast

[Rovec]

kazeken said:

My interent was taken from me before I even finished the trial
From what I did play WoW seems to be a great game. I only got to lvl 9, but I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the first lvls of FFXI. I'd say it's the friends you have in the MMO that decides which one you play. Or if you have the time, play em both.

Honestly, if I didn't have friends in ffxi, I would be playing WoW. I'm a PvP lover, and WoW's PvP is far more extensive than FFXI's. That pretty much sells it for me.

I'd prolly do something similar If all of you just up and croaked or somethin', I'd prolly move to WoW myself. Not because I think either game is better or worse (I've hardly played WoW at all, just a few minutes over at Chad's place) but because I know at least Chad, Cele, and Cyna would be over in WoW lol

[Chadness]

If Celestra hadn't went over to WoW, I'd probably not be playing any MMO (because FFXI's pointless time sinks pissed me off). Now I love the game and I'm deeper into it than I ever was in FFXI and it was a lot less painful to get there, IMO (not easier, per se, just less time-consuming and stressful).

Recently I've started playing a horde character - a Blood Elf. I realized something else that I prefer WoW for way above FFXI. In FFXI, you can have one character do pretty much everything - be any job, start in any city, raise any profession, etc. That being the case, there's less possible variety once you're attached to a character. In WoW each character can only be one job/class and they have to start in that race's starting area (you can, however, have any profession you want). BUT, there are a total of five races of each faction, four starting areas of each faction and about 3-4 different zones to level and quest in at any given level. Each race/class combo is different because of racial abilities (some supporting certain classes better than others), different animations, different starting areas, different voice emotes, different quests, etc.

Variety = good, even if it has a few limitations.

[Rovec]

Guess you and I are different in that respect @.@ The fact I can't use one character for everything kinda drives me away from WoW. In FFXI, it drives me insane when others use multiple characters for multiple jobs (mainly because it confuses the heck out of me ; and the thought of being in a game where everyone you know is gonna have 5 or so characters is frightening @_@'

[Chadness]

That's why, when you open up the guild roster, we have alts tagged as such. And "Main" next to the character they've told us is their main. USUALLY people spend about 75% of the time on their main and 25% of the time on one of their alts. Sometimes when we have a lot of "down time" (like now, because we're not raiding, and those who are level 70 already have little to do besides work on professions, farm or work on rep with different factions), people will be on alts for long periods of time.

Just like FFXI, though, we still have one or more characters for "mules" (as you call them) or bank alts, as we refer to them...to store extra crap (even though our max inventory is about twice the size of FFXI's max inventory).

[Rovec]

So confuzzling ; ; Why have alt characters if ya only use them 25% of the time? @.@' I can understand having say...A priest lvled if your main is war, just in case your raids are low on Priests that day or something, but is it really worth all the time and money spent getting Priest to 70? @.@ (Of course, I understand ya lvl new jobs just for the fun of it too ^^)

For the record: The storage in FFXI has greatly increased since you last played

[Chadness]

Is it worth all the time and money leveling up another job on your character in FFXI? Case in point. Its something new and different when you need a break from playing your main, except you get to play as a different race and try out different leveling zones than you did with a previous character, if you so choose. Usually, once you buy your mounts on your main character, you end up with more money than you know what to do with anyway.

[Rovec]

chadness said:

Usually, once you buy your mounts on your main character, you end up with more money than you know what to do with anyway.

I like the sound of that part lol

[Chadness]

There is definately a LARGE difference in "farming" for money between FFXI and WoW, unless they've vastly improved things in FFXI. I usually farm for about an hour a day, if that. I have various farming spots for various items, usually some type of material used in a lot of professions and such.

I make roughly 200-400g per day in that hour, depending on how many other people are farming in that area. To put that in perspective, the epic flying mount which everyone wants now costs 5000g for the training and 200g to buy the mount itself. That's not really a whole lot of farming to get your mount, considering you'll get about 2000-3000g just from leveling from 60 to 70 (although I still don't have mine 'cause I spent some money on some optional stuff along the way).

Getting gold is real "easy" in WoW, because gold doesn't really make the world go 'round in that game like it does in FFXI, for some reason.

[Rovec]

Why would training the mount cost 10 times as much as buying it? @_@' And wth is training a mount? /panic. I train my chocobo by beating it each morning and racing it against other chickens and it's free! lol

Though seriously, that does sound pretty nice xD I'm fairly sure no one likes farming. Let alone farming for hours and hours just to get enough cash for a RR gorget.

[Chadness]

Well, this might sound complicated, but I'll explain anyway. About six months ago, it was basically the other way around. Take your normal epic riding mount. Currently it costs you 900g for the training to ride it and 90g to buy the actual mount itself. Previous to that patch that changed things, it would have cost you 900g for the mount and 90g for the mount riding skill (the training).

They changed it for a couple reasons:

1) To allow people more of a variety. Previously, the mount itself cost a ton of gold, so if you got tired of your epic mount choice, you'd have to pay 900g to get a new one. Now, however, you pay once for the riding skill training, and you can have as many mounts as you want for a fairly cheap price of 90g (as opposed to 900g each previous to that patch). As it stands right now, because of this, I have three normal night elf tiger mounts, one ram mount and one new talbuk mount. Since I already had an epic mount when they changed the system, I was automatically given the riding skill and I just bought different mounts to mix things up.

2) They made riding skill progress like your crafting skill in preperation for the flying mounts that were being introduced in the expansion. See, in crafting, you have to train at your profession trainer at skill level 75, 150, 225 and 300. They made training your riding skill the same thing: You have to train at 75 for your normal level 40 ground mount, at 150 for your epic ground mount, at 225 for your normal flying mount and at 300 for your epic flying mount. That training itself is what costs the majority of the gold, that way the mounts are cheaper so you can purchase multiples of them if you want, for different variety.

There, did you understand that?

[Rovec]

Yeah @.@ I think I got it. Still a bit confuzzled on one part tho. While watching you play you used Griffon like things in towns to fly from one area to another...so what will flying mounts do? o.< Same thing just...ya dun needa pay for them? Or can you call them on the field and have them take you places? Or are they just like ground mounts but they can fly? xD *confuzzled*

[Chadness]

Gryphons are the primary means of travel in Azeroth and Outland. Flying mounts are basically gryphons you can freely control. You summon them just like ground mounts, and you can fly anywhere you want with them. However, flying mounts are only usable in Outland and only trainable at level 70. Azeroth (the old game world) wasn't designed for flying mounts, and there's still a lot of "unfinished" areas that they don't want you to get to, and if they allowed flying mounts there, it would cause a lot of issues.

Outland, the new level 60-70 level continent (which is actually another planet altogether), was designed from the ground up to accomodate flying mounts. You can fly wherever you want once you have a mount, you're not restricted to the flight paths from point A to point B. And, yes, after you purchase them they don't cost you money to use, like normal flight paths would.

[lizhellsing]

lol i never made that much money on wow... but in wow it IS easyer to get money
tho i like the idea of 1 character for everything more plainly cause i want to keep my own name always....
that's not doable in wow.... you'd have to delete your lvl 70 character... uhm no..

[Rovec]

I see @.@ Does Blizzard plan to allow flying mounts in the original areas at some point?

I agree with you Liz =/ I like to keep the same name on each character. I plan to test out WoW soon, might do a Rovec, Rovie, Roven, Rovin, Rovon, etc kinda deal x3 lol (Sounds like an RMT party >_>!) or just bit the bullet and name each differently xD

[Chadness]

There's a random name generator in WoW, but it usually sucks. >_> As of right now, its not in their plans to retrofit Azeroth to allow flying mounts, although they may allow you to summon flying mounts and use them as normal ground mounts only. You can use them as ground and flying mounts in Outland.

The work needed to be done is just too extensive, as the original world of Azeroth was never meant to support flying mounts, since it was obviously designed well before the idea of flying mounts came up.

[Rovec]

This is true, would be nice if ya could use them in the place of Griffons tho eh? Point A to B travel without costin' a dime.

[Chadness]

Yeah, it would be nice...but I can understand why they won't do it. Too much time and resources when they could be working on completely new content.

[Rovec]

Very true *Finds and downloads WoW while wondering if Goero will hunt him down and kill him*

Just testing it out! @_@

[Chadness]

There are some limitations on the 10-day trial account. I don't think you can level past 20, you can't send/receive mail, you can't trade with other players and you can't join guilds, as far as I know so far. It also only comes with the original WoW game, no expansion content.

If you spend $20 to buy the original game, you still get no expansion content, but when you create an account its a REAL account with 30 days free, so you can level past 20, send/receive mail, trade with other players and join a guild. That's the major difference right there.

[lizhellsing]

lol yeah i use different names now <.<