Exactly. A game where endgame is strictly PvP just ain't for me. I -want- there to be missions, quests, and other shit for me to do to keep me busy. Hell, the crafting system does that for me, too (in addition to Dynamis, Limbus, Gods, and the other "standard" endgame activities that I do with my HNM/sky shell). And I can't wait for the expansion to hit - even more stuff to do:)
Re:Before anyone points it out, FFXI doesn't count
on
No WoW for the 360
·
· Score: 1
Wah.
So you don't like Japanese-style RPGs/MMORPGs where it actually takes time to do shit. Boo-fucking hoo.
A lot of the shit you talked about are things I -LIKE- about the fucking game
- Level limit quests at 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70. They weed out players that DO NOT BELONG at end-game. It's designed to force people to work together and know how to play their chosen jobs. The neat thing is you've only got to do them once per Character.
-As other posters have mentioned, the FFXI control scheme is utter crap. You move using the numpad. The camera is adusted with the arrow keys. There are no hotkeys - pressing a letter starts chatting. (No, Control-Letter key combos don't count as hotkeys.)
So go into the config menu AND CHANGE YOUR FUCKING KEYBOARD SETTINGS. You can, y'know. I use asdf to move around - you just need to set the damned thing to the "compact" keyboard type. Oh, And you can customize your keybindings. But you wouldn't know that because you never really played the game, now, did you?
- The POL viewer is an annoyance at -worst-. I click through it, and it doesn't add much more time to get into the damned game than going through WoW's interface (and then waiting in the queue for your realm server...) You also seem to completely ignore the fact that the viewer is for use with other SE online games - none of which have seen release here in the US, and probably won't because we're whiny fucks who bitch about the tiniest little inconvenience like it's the end of the world.
- Quests/Missions : explain how they're lousy. You have to go to the correct NPC to get the mission or quest, then you go do it. Some (hell, pretty much all of them unless you're a 75RDM/NIN and even then you can't solo everything, -especially- the later Zilart and all of the Promathia misions). (Oh, and you're forgetting the job-specific equipment quests, the race specific gear quests, each set of city missions...) There's a lot of content to the game, it just doesn't cater to those people who don't like Japanese-style RPGs.
- Crafting - what's so bad about the crafting system? The fact that y0ou can't take every skill to 100 on a single character? Cry me river, and go create a couple of mules if you want more than one max-crat (like me, bitch). Yes, it -is- repetitive, and I get tired of critical breaks on combines that I'm 80 levels over the cap on. Y'know what? That's the worst of my complaints with a system that has made me literally tens of millions in gil.
I could keep going, but it's fairly obvious that you're not the kind of player that I'd want to be doing end-game activities with anyway - you're impatient, greedy (inflation is present in -all- games, as is gil/gold/credit/whatever farming), and aren't willing to do what is necessary within the rules of the game to accomplish whatever it is you wanted to accomplish in the game.
Yes, the most recent bug is pretty damned serious, and I hope it's fixed soon. The download process, in general, had been a major sore spot for me, but it's gotten a -hell- of a lot better over the last year (or so). The last 3 major updates have gone absolutely flawlessly for me, and this most recent one is the first time anyone in my linkshell has had a problem in about that same amount of time (all related to the bug previously mentioned).
BTW, WRT travel times - if you actually do the nation-specific outpost quests, there isn't a single zone in the game you can't get to in 5 minutes or less. Period. Even without them, the only place it really takes me longer than 10 minutes to get to, from Jeuno, is Sea Serpent's Grotto (and Norg, and mostly because I hate the jungles and don't know the way as well as I should - it should really only take 5), and {sky}. I can be in {sea} in 3 minutes. Tops. I fully expect that getting to the areas that will be opening up with the expansion in April to take significantly longer (provided there's no OPwarps or teleport-{location} quests), at least, initially.
I also must repeat myself - the
Re:Before anyone points it out, FFXI doesn't count
on
No WoW for the 360
·
· Score: 1
As 0racle said, in much more flowery language, you're full of shit.
I don't mind the textures and models in FFXI one iota. I'm playing because I find it fun and engaging, not because it requires me to have the most powerful PC in the fucking universe. Besides which, throw 64 people into a single zone and tell me you don't have a problem seeing everyone, even with the "dated" textures and character models. I'm not arguing that the engine doesn't need an update - it does. However, the textures and models most definately do not suck nearly as badly as you'd like to think.
Console game ported to Windows then to XBox360. And put -everyone- on the same servers, regardless of geographic location (I think this was both a good, and a poor decision, for a huge variety of reasons, but I'll not digress further).
There are other, MUCH more substantial complaints that one can make about SE and FFXI. The graphics, tho? That's about as petty as it gets. I've seen far too many pretty games that I just couldn't get into (and yes, WoW is one of them, and I, personally, HATE the style used in WoW). I'll take a game that I -can- get into, dated graphics and other problems and all then a pretty game that I can't get involved in because it just doesn't cater to what I want in a MMO.
And y'know what? There's a half million people who -don't- mind the interface enough to not play.
Of course, if people would actually play using the "compact" keyboard layout, it's really not nearly as bad...I can't stand the "standard" keyboard layout, but compact works well for me.
(For the record:200 days playtime, 75BLM, 59WHM, 3 crafts at, or over, 80, etc. I play the game several hours a day, every day - just like the WoW Fanbois.)
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR LIVE TO GET THE FREE VERSION OF IT.
This is how FFXI is -already- being handled on XBox360 - XBox Silver is all that's required, the rest is handled by PlayOnline - SE's interface to their online games (and FFXI specifically).
I would argue that the only thing innovative about Ultima Online was taking the pre-existing MUD concept and applying graphics/sounds, etc to it and moving it into a 3-D environment...Don't forget the Meridian59 is from around the same era, and I'm sure there's others that I'm forgetting.
UO coming out was a forgone conclusion considering the types of discussion we were having on the hardcore developer mailing lists at the time (you'd be suprised just how many people cut their teeth on network and games programming, -and- got their name out in the community, playing with MUDs in the early to mid 90's, and for some the '80s - Alan Cox comes to mind, immediately, actually, as an old AberMUD developer).
Digression aside, UO is definately not one I'd consider innovative - took an existing game concept, prettied it up, and marketed it. Nothing more.
SOE proviced the GM's for the NA side of FFXI, but they do not run the game for Square-Enix. All of the development, systems management, etc is handled by SE. SOE strictly handles (and poorly, I might add) in game grievances.
3. Intel = server CPU. This is a very high margin area that AMD continues to fail to penetrate
If you are referring strictly to the high-volume, sub-$25k/machine market, you're only kinda (barely) right. If you are referring to any other segment of the server market that Intel and AMD both play in (ie. 4-way, and >$25k), you're wrong. Dell sold a whopping -4- machines that cost greater than $25k last quarter. -4-. Clusters are accounted for as lots of little machines, and while Intel has greater share there due to volume, AMD's presence in the cluster market is anything but insignificant. Saying that AMD is failling to penetrate the server market would have been true two years ago. It's not been true for a while, now (cf. Q32004 AMD's share in servers was 8% - for a company that effectively had -0- prior to Opteron, that's significant).
AMD's current share of the overall x86 server market is some 16% now. Calling 16% insignificant is a stretch, at best. This is particularly true in light of the near -40%- share that AMD has in the 4-way market. Of course, that's Q3's numbers. Not Q4's (which were announced yesterday -.40/share before the one-time Spansion spin-off charge). Judging by Intel's -miss- of their market estimates, and AMD's blowing theres away, I'd say that their server numbers are up, yet again.
Much as I hate to break it to you - this is SoP. End users Do. Not. Get. Root. Even allowing SUDO access to change file permissions, copy, or even move files is just asking for trouble. Installing software or libraries? Hell no. Not on a live system.
If they have a development-type machine at there desk, that's one thing (just don't call for support if you break the damned thing). Even then, my preference is that they have limited access.
On large, shared systems, users get as much, and as little, access to do their jobs as necessary, and absolutely no more than that. I have to keep the system up for other users, I can't have power-user #1 screwing things up by changing permissions on something they really shouldn't be touching (let's take the compiler for example...)
A little knowledge makes one dangerous, and I'd just as soon noone other than those paid to admin the machines have access.
And to be specific about what things are included in mandatory spending:
Think Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Both of which, combined and possibly even individually, are a larger portion of government spending than what we spend on the military.
INCLUDING the War spending (in fact, we could easy quadruple, maybe even quintuple, war spending, PER YEAR before military spending got into the same ballpark that these programs are in).
I'll bite my tongue on the Constituionality of the programs, and the War. Just stating facts here, not opinions;)
IMO, Instances are antethical to the entire idea of a persistent world (which -NOONE- has gotten right yet, IMO).
PVP is compeltely dependant upon the story of the world involved, however, WoW certainly has done it right, here (no lost exp on death, etc).
There are problems I have with the game (ie. that it can basically be soloed, for starters, although most of the instances cannot be) but I'm really not going to go into them (and besides, I'm biased having been a MUD developer and currently an FFXI player...which has a -truly- player driven and controlled economy, the big thing I look for in a game).
Except that there are a lot of folks that don't -want- their OSS work to be commercialized by anyone else, if they're not going to do it themselves.
The BSD is a great license, but that is actually a -weakness-, IMO - that anyone can take BSD code, make a new product out of it, and not have to release those changes back to the community.
In my case, this is actually a load of bull. I've never had a significant problem with a CPU that couldn't be pointed at some external issue with the platform - be it cooling, the MB chipset sucking, etc. Things that Intel -does- try to "Do Right" by us on.
That said - I use AMD CPUs pretty much exclusively in my work. Xeon 64bit wasn't there when we needed it (Feb of last year) and Opteron beats the shit out of Xeon on the stuff we do and finally, I can get -real- dual-core Optys -now-, not bolt-ons using the same damned broken shared bus that Intel x86 has been beating on forever. Price, as a matter of fact, is no longer a consideration. I know I'm paying more for AMD. I'm also getting the product I want and need.
Itanium -could- actually fit into my DC. Everything we do is compiled by us, locally, and it's entirely possible that we'd benefit from it. However, even at 2k/CPU I can't justify the cost when we're looking at driving the CPU number up (our jobs are of the type where the more chunks you can divvy your dataset up into, the faster things get done - so the more processers, the better - it doesn't matter if that Itanium gets my process done in 45hours while it takes that Opteron 55 hours if I can throw twice as many Opterons at the problem and get it done in 30 due to smaller data chunks).
Depends on the circumstances. If your downsized out of a position, that's usually a decent time to take the plunge back into school:) General frustration with current emply, etc are also cited reasons for dropping out of the workforce and back into school (either to finish the BA/BS or to get an advanced degree).
I'm in my late 20's, have 6ish years of pro experience under my belt, I'm closing in on 6-figures, and I'd -KILL- to be able to afford to go back to school (Culinary School, to be specific - I -miss- cooking in a professional setting, or Law School - all about the Benjamins). But, like Sebastopol says - at this point I'm pretty much stuck because I I'm 1. in a really cool position with a killer employer, and 2. I gots bills to pay (2x car payments, mortgage, daycare (2kids), etc).
Yah. The PT I mentioned in another post was camping the anthill in Western Altepa - I, personally, hit 2 levels in 3 hours. I was 2k from 43, and ended up at 1k into 44. Much coolness there. We didn't have a BLM with us, but we have a SMN with Shiva. Distortion chain with Blizzard II (and two-houred another one for fun) absolutely -ruled-. We never hit chain 7s, chain 5 once, lots of 4s and 3s. We kept running out of beetle's to kill because another PT was on the other side of the hill. >. But yeah - the advantage of the non-standard areas is the complete lack of competition. It's great!
Amen. My wife started playing at the PS2 release (only she's on the PC) and dragged me kicking and screaming into the game mid-July. I started off as a War, got to 20 and decided I'd really rather be the dude that -wasn't- getting hit all the time, and switched to WHM. I -do- hate the PTs where people just "drop" and don't come back, or whatever. You can tell when a party is filled with people that are experienced and have a handle on their jobs - it's a blast getting through Qufim or the Jungles in one 4 or 5 hour sitting:) My -biggest- complaint, tho, is that other NA players don't seem to want to level outside of the "standard" areas. Battalia and Sauromugue Champain can be decent alternatives to Qufim and the Jungles, for example:)
The RDM pimp-suit (damn it looks fine) is the -only- reason several friends of mine have for playing RDM. Once they get Refresh they start hating the job, but they just can't stop til they have that hat. *lol*
Me? I want my WHM AF. Got AF1 done (Marchelute's a pansy when fighting a level 70 PLD ^^), and I've got 6 levels to go before I have to deal with Genkai1. Luckily, I'll have a similarly levelled THF, so -hopefyully- we'll get the drops more quickly.
Hmm...you have me wanting to spend time on RDM this week...
Slashdot Mirror
Than you must have missed last spring's census where the number was actually closer to 600,000, most of them NOT Japanese.
Exactly. :)
A game where endgame is strictly PvP just ain't for me. I -want- there to be missions, quests, and other shit for me to do to keep me busy. Hell, the crafting system does that for me, too (in addition to Dynamis, Limbus, Gods, and the other "standard" endgame activities that I do with my HNM/sky shell).
And I can't wait for the expansion to hit - even more stuff to do
So you don't like Japanese-style RPGs/MMORPGs where it actually takes time to do shit. Boo-fucking hoo.
A lot of the shit you talked about are things I -LIKE- about the fucking game
- Level limit quests at 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70. They weed out players that DO NOT BELONG at end-game. It's designed to force people to work together and know how to play their chosen jobs. The neat thing is you've only got to do them once per Character.
-As other posters have mentioned, the FFXI control scheme is utter crap. You move using the numpad. The camera is adusted with the arrow keys. There are no hotkeys - pressing a letter starts chatting. (No, Control-Letter key combos don't count as hotkeys.)
So go into the config menu AND CHANGE YOUR FUCKING KEYBOARD SETTINGS. You can, y'know. I use asdf to move around - you just need to set the damned thing to the "compact" keyboard type. Oh, And you can customize your keybindings. But you wouldn't know that because you never really played the game, now, did you?
- The POL viewer is an annoyance at -worst-. I click through it, and it doesn't add much more time to get into the damned game than going through WoW's interface (and then waiting in the queue for your realm server...) You also seem to completely ignore the fact that the viewer is for use with other SE online games - none of which have seen release here in the US, and probably won't because we're whiny fucks who bitch about the tiniest little inconvenience like it's the end of the world.
- Quests/Missions : explain how they're lousy. You have to go to the correct NPC to get the mission or quest, then you go do it. Some (hell, pretty much all of them unless you're a 75RDM/NIN and even then you can't solo everything, -especially- the later Zilart and all of the Promathia misions). (Oh, and you're forgetting the job-specific equipment quests, the race specific gear quests, each set of city missions...) There's a lot of content to the game, it just doesn't cater to those people who don't like Japanese-style RPGs.
- Crafting - what's so bad about the crafting system? The fact that y0ou can't take every skill to 100 on a single character? Cry me river, and go create a couple of mules if you want more than one max-crat (like me, bitch). Yes, it -is- repetitive, and I get tired of critical breaks on combines that I'm 80 levels over the cap on. Y'know what? That's the worst of my complaints with a system that has made me literally tens of millions in gil.
I could keep going, but it's fairly obvious that you're not the kind of player that I'd want to be doing end-game activities with anyway - you're impatient, greedy (inflation is present in -all- games, as is gil/gold/credit/whatever farming), and aren't willing to do what is necessary within the rules of the game to accomplish whatever it is you wanted to accomplish in the game.
Yes, the most recent bug is pretty damned serious, and I hope it's fixed soon. The download process, in general, had been a major sore spot for me, but it's gotten a -hell- of a lot better over the last year (or so). The last 3 major updates have gone absolutely flawlessly for me, and this most recent one is the first time anyone in my linkshell has had a problem in about that same amount of time (all related to the bug previously mentioned).
BTW, WRT travel times - if you actually do the nation-specific outpost quests, there isn't a single zone in the game you can't get to in 5 minutes or less. Period. Even without them, the only place it really takes me longer than 10 minutes to get to, from Jeuno, is Sea Serpent's Grotto (and Norg, and mostly because I hate the jungles and don't know the way as well as I should - it should really only take 5), and {sky}. I can be in {sea} in 3 minutes. Tops. I fully expect that getting to the areas that will be opening up with the expansion in April to take significantly longer (provided there's no OPwarps or teleport-{location} quests), at least, initially.
I also must repeat myself - the
As 0racle said, in much more flowery language, you're full of shit.
I don't mind the textures and models in FFXI one iota. I'm playing because I find it fun and engaging, not because it requires me to have the most powerful PC in the fucking universe. Besides which, throw 64 people into a single zone and tell me you don't have a problem seeing everyone, even with the "dated" textures and character models.
I'm not arguing that the engine doesn't need an update - it does. However, the textures and models most definately do not suck nearly as badly as you'd like to think.
Console game ported to Windows then to XBox360. And put -everyone- on the same servers, regardless of geographic location (I think this was both a good, and a poor decision, for a huge variety of reasons, but I'll not digress further).
There are other, MUCH more substantial complaints that one can make about SE and FFXI. The graphics, tho? That's about as petty as it gets. I've seen far too many pretty games that I just couldn't get into (and yes, WoW is one of them, and I, personally, HATE the style used in WoW). I'll take a game that I -can- get into, dated graphics and other problems and all then a pretty game that I can't get involved in because it just doesn't cater to what I want in a MMO.
And y'know what? There's a half million people who -don't- mind the interface enough to not play.
Of course, if people would actually play using the "compact" keyboard layout, it's really not nearly as bad...I can't stand the "standard" keyboard layout, but compact works well for me.
(For the record:200 days playtime, 75BLM, 59WHM, 3 crafts at, or over, 80, etc. I play the game several hours a day, every day - just like the WoW Fanbois.)
Live Silver is FREE.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR LIVE TO GET THE FREE VERSION OF IT.
This is how FFXI is -already- being handled on XBox360 - XBox Silver is all that's required, the rest is handled by PlayOnline - SE's interface to their online games (and FFXI specifically).
I would argue that the only thing innovative about Ultima Online was taking the pre-existing MUD concept and applying graphics/sounds, etc to it and moving it into a 3-D environment...Don't forget the Meridian59 is from around the same era, and I'm sure there's others that I'm forgetting.
UO coming out was a forgone conclusion considering the types of discussion we were having on the hardcore developer mailing lists at the time (you'd be suprised just how many people cut their teeth on network and games programming, -and- got their name out in the community, playing with MUDs in the early to mid 90's, and for some the '80s - Alan Cox comes to mind, immediately, actually, as an old AberMUD developer).
Digression aside, UO is definately not one I'd consider innovative - took an existing game concept, prettied it up, and marketed it. Nothing more.
PROVIDED.
Damn me and my typoes.
SOE proviced the GM's for the NA side of FFXI, but they do not run the game for Square-Enix.
All of the development, systems management, etc is handled by SE. SOE strictly handles (and poorly, I might add) in game grievances.
3. Intel = server CPU. This is a very high margin area that AMD continues to fail to penetrate
.40/share before the one-time Spansion spin-off charge).
If you are referring strictly to the high-volume, sub-$25k/machine market, you're only kinda (barely) right.
If you are referring to any other segment of the server market that Intel and AMD both play in (ie. 4-way, and >$25k), you're wrong. Dell sold a whopping -4- machines that cost greater than $25k last quarter. -4-. Clusters are accounted for as lots of little machines, and while Intel has greater share there due to volume, AMD's presence in the cluster market is anything but insignificant. Saying that AMD is failling to penetrate the server market would have been true two years ago. It's not been true for a while, now (cf. Q32004 AMD's share in servers was 8% - for a company that effectively had -0- prior to Opteron, that's significant).
AMD's current share of the overall x86 server market is some 16% now. Calling 16% insignificant is a stretch, at best. This is particularly true in light of the near -40%- share that AMD has in the 4-way market. Of course, that's Q3's numbers. Not Q4's (which were announced yesterday -
Judging by Intel's -miss- of their market estimates, and AMD's blowing theres away, I'd say that their server numbers are up, yet again.
Much as I hate to break it to you - this is SoP.
End users Do. Not. Get. Root. Even allowing SUDO access to change file permissions, copy, or even move files is just asking for trouble.
Installing software or libraries? Hell no. Not on a live system.
If they have a development-type machine at there desk, that's one thing (just don't call for support if you break the damned thing). Even then, my preference is that they have limited access.
On large, shared systems, users get as much, and as little, access to do their jobs as necessary, and absolutely no more than that. I have to keep the system up for other users, I can't have power-user #1 screwing things up by changing permissions on something they really shouldn't be touching (let's take the compiler for example...)
A little knowledge makes one dangerous, and I'd just as soon noone other than those paid to admin the machines have access.
And to be specific about what things are included in mandatory spending:
;)
Think Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
Both of which, combined and possibly even individually, are a larger portion of government spending than what we spend on the military.
INCLUDING the War spending (in fact, we could easy quadruple, maybe even quintuple, war spending, PER YEAR before military spending got into the same ballpark that these programs are in).
I'll bite my tongue on the Constituionality of the programs, and the War. Just stating facts here, not opinions
If you want multi-player Final Fantasy then -play- Multiplayer Final Fantasy:
:)
Final Fantasy XI.
Neener
IMO, Instances are antethical to the entire idea of a persistent world (which -NOONE- has gotten right yet, IMO).
PVP is compeltely dependant upon the story of the world involved, however, WoW certainly has done it right, here (no lost exp on death, etc).
There are problems I have with the game (ie. that it can basically be soloed, for starters, although most of the instances cannot be) but I'm really not going to go into them (and besides, I'm biased having been a MUD developer and currently an FFXI player...which has a -truly- player driven and controlled economy, the big thing I look for in a game).
Except that there are a lot of folks that don't -want- their OSS work to be commercialized by anyone else, if they're not going to do it themselves.
The BSD is a great license, but that is actually a -weakness-, IMO - that anyone can take BSD code, make a new product out of it, and not have to release those changes back to the community.
It's called leeching.
In my case, this is actually a load of bull.
I've never had a significant problem with a CPU that couldn't be pointed at some external issue with the platform - be it cooling, the MB chipset sucking, etc. Things that Intel -does- try to "Do Right" by us on.
That said - I use AMD CPUs pretty much exclusively in my work. Xeon 64bit wasn't there when we needed it (Feb of last year) and Opteron beats the shit out of Xeon on the stuff we do and finally, I can get -real- dual-core Optys -now-, not bolt-ons using the same damned broken shared bus that Intel x86 has been beating on forever.
Price, as a matter of fact, is no longer a consideration. I know I'm paying more for AMD. I'm also getting the product I want and need.
Itanium -could- actually fit into my DC. Everything we do is compiled by us, locally, and it's entirely possible that we'd benefit from it. However, even at 2k/CPU I can't justify the cost when we're looking at driving the CPU number up (our jobs are of the type where the more chunks you can divvy your dataset up into, the faster things get done - so the more processers, the better - it doesn't matter if that Itanium gets my process done in 45hours while it takes that Opteron 55 hours if I can throw twice as many Opterons at the problem and get it done in 30 due to smaller data chunks).
Nor me.
In fact - cdbee - go fuck yourself with a live hand grenade.
The world will be better for it.
YM User. Singular. HTH. :)
GT3 != GTA3.
The OP is referring to the Gran Turismo series of racing titles.
Not Grand Theft Auto.
And mines bigger than the vast, -VAST- majority of y'all. :)
Suck on it
Depends on the circumstances. :)
If your downsized out of a position, that's usually a decent time to take the plunge back into school
General frustration with current emply, etc are also cited reasons for dropping out of the workforce and back into school (either to finish the BA/BS or to get an advanced degree).
I'm in my late 20's, have 6ish years of pro experience under my belt, I'm closing in on 6-figures, and I'd -KILL- to be able to afford to go back to school (Culinary School, to be specific - I -miss- cooking in a professional setting, or Law School - all about the Benjamins). But, like Sebastopol says - at this point I'm pretty much stuck because I I'm 1. in a really cool position with a killer employer, and 2. I gots bills to pay (2x car payments, mortgage, daycare (2kids), etc).
Doh!
This reads to me like a straight up piece of marketing trash from the technical training school.
Take parent with a -VERY- large grain of salt...
Yah. The PT I mentioned in another post was camping the anthill in Western Altepa - I, personally, hit 2 levels in 3 hours. I was 2k from 43, and ended up at 1k into 44. Much coolness there.
We didn't have a BLM with us, but we have a SMN with Shiva. Distortion chain with Blizzard II (and two-houred another one for fun) absolutely -ruled-.
We never hit chain 7s, chain 5 once, lots of 4s and 3s. We kept running out of beetle's to kill because another PT was on the other side of the hill. >.
But yeah - the advantage of the non-standard areas is the complete lack of competition. It's great!
Amen. :) :)
My wife started playing at the PS2 release (only she's on the PC) and dragged me kicking and screaming into the game mid-July. I started off as a War, got to 20 and decided I'd really rather be the dude that -wasn't- getting hit all the time, and switched to WHM.
I -do- hate the PTs where people just "drop" and don't come back, or whatever. You can tell when a party is filled with people that are experienced and have a handle on their jobs - it's a blast getting through Qufim or the Jungles in one 4 or 5 hour sitting
My -biggest- complaint, tho, is that other NA players don't seem to want to level outside of the "standard" areas. Battalia and Sauromugue Champain can be decent alternatives to Qufim and the Jungles, for example
The RDM pimp-suit (damn it looks fine) is the -only- reason several friends of mine have for playing RDM. Once they get Refresh they start hating the job, but they just can't stop til they have that hat. *lol*
Me? I want my WHM AF. Got AF1 done (Marchelute's a pansy when fighting a level 70 PLD ^^), and I've got 6 levels to go before I have to deal with Genkai1. Luckily, I'll have a similarly levelled THF, so -hopefyully- we'll get the drops more quickly.
Hmm...you have me wanting to spend time on RDM this week...