What happened?Follow

Granted it is a while since I visited these forums but I'm surprised they just seem to be collecting dust now.

Did something happen to XIV that caused everyone to leave en masse or did everyone just eventually grow apart from the game?

XIV always had the benefit of being relatively playable without needing outside sources. However, unlike XI, SE was wise enough to start XIV with its own official forums from the start. As a result, you can figure they snag most traffic by default, where the earlier days here more often like a few hardcore players trying to crap on casuals with how they felt the game should be. Fortunately it never really panned out that way and I imagine after a point they got bored flexing.

Site management has been an issue of its own, between migrations and nukes of entire sections, part of me is surprised this place hasn't really plunged into the ether completely unless WoW or Everquest are still somehow big.

Still playing. Most of my outside game community interaction is on official forums, the ffxiv subreddit, Twitter and various Discord groups.

I do miss the discussion here and still check once and awhile.

EQ still has its large following of people, the forums and the rest of sites was set to be left to die after the new owner (editior in chief) came in and basically created a new main page for gaming journalism similar to kotaku, before it eventually was sold off to Fanbyte. There was enough volunteers and a dev for the EQ site to keep the site and forums running for the EQ players that wanted it. The nukes and removals of entire sections were to due space and server issues (causing the site to lag and error out), unable to allocate new resources for the site.

I'm glad to see people are still around. I just started playing again and am really enjoying Shadowbringers.

I'd hate to see Alla fall off the map, I joined back when it was a great resource for EQ, in the infancy of online gaming where there were no real online guides so it was really word of mouth or waste weeks trying to work stuff out.

It was solid through my time in FFXI and WoW as well so I hope it manages to cling on despite all the alternatives out there.

I finished the main storyline on WHM and am now levelling up AST. I could probably top off my WAR and NIN but enjoying healing at the minute so it's interesting to see how the other classes work. Although, I have to admit at really forgetting to pull cards on AST and just focus on healing. I've played WHM too long clearly.

Definitely takes some getting used to playing on PS4. The hotbar design is great imo but on certain classes there's a button bloat and it gets a bit tricky.

Interesting revisionist history you got there.

Now, while I won't disagree that the karma system is dumb, has been abused, and scared away some posters for better or worse, I'd generally argue we had a gross lack of moderation precisely because they trusted the karma system too much to do the job.

Board tribalism otherwise existed well before FFXIAH. BG, KillingIfrit, and the rare bilingual blogs all had their zealots that'd happily chirp that their preferred haunt was superior because <insert arbitrary reason here>. The internet being what it is, I'd assert that a good bit of the time some degree of being a jerk and getting away with it played into those preferences. Some places had more leniency toward hacking/bugs/expoits, or the personalities behind them. That not really being tolerated here isn't something I'd consider a detriment, but earlier portions of this paragraph still apply. Tolerance of meme (spam) or off-topic discussions likes politics is one of those give or take features.

XI is otherwise a different game than XIV. I'd implied it with an earlier post about them having the OF from the start, but the game also largely doesn't need outside sources of information for content. The raider sorts might disagree with that with demands of watching youtube videos/reading guides/following rotations to the letter, but playing blind or conversing with people in the game itself is still a perfectly viable way to play. Unofficial forums falling out of favor should be no surprise in the end. The XI connection kept some of us initially, but the same sort of discussions just couldn't be had with XIV because XIV was literally a more user-friendly game. That isn't debatable. Period.

If the implication is that people only pushed bad info here, I'm going to disagree. I did my part from time to time explaining content to people, ideally in a way where the job you played didn't matter or at least helped indicate what other party members may go through. Until wikis started popping up, this was probably the best place to find XI quest/mission information within specific guides or even just asking on the board. For every person that got salty because a question could've been answered with a search, they could've easily kept their nose out of a thread and an answer likely would've come from myself or other then-knowledgeable regulars. The whole "suck less, noob!" philosophy was never really the point of this place despite some people desperately trying to make that so and even a mantra of other locales.

Casual gamers are not the enemy. It's a sentiment that may sound out of place with me bringing it up, but that's ultimately who I would identify who this place was for. Yes, sometimes people learned things wrong, heard something wrong and repeated it, etc.. That happens. It's the nature of info dissemination. Everyone who played XI was new to it at some point, and with it its learning curve. Sometimes barking a specific formula isn't what someone needs to hear in the moment. Sometimes it's better to give the answer and let them find out how you get from A to B their own way. Some ideologies will clash. Mine sure as hell did when it came to RDM and people "happy" with its status way back when, but I also didn't relent despite knowing I had people mocking and collaborating on other boards to try and shut me up through circlejerking the karma system or skating as close as they could to violating the ToS without doing so hoping I'd ragequit. Contemplating new ideas was certainly part of the fun for myself and others, too. Though, as all routinely updates online games go, some folks tend to get really vocally bitter if what they want isn't addressed with the utmost urgency. I'd been guilty of that from time to time, myself.

Nonetheless, I'm also not ignorant of the fact XIV has its contingent of players who think they should be able to mercilessly rip into noobs, grief others, and so on with impunity. They do this "low key" in their FC chats, discords, or even on reddit where SE can't officially do anything because that's what cowardly little sh*tlords do. They want the perfect game experience handed to them instead of contributing to building the community they're in. They'll whine that no one wants to actually listen to their advice, frequently leaving out the fact they never gave it or did so in an utterly toxic manner that immediately puts the target on the defensive. They think parses justify being a d*ck instead of just keeping it to themselves and focusing on self-improvement. Merely bringing any of this up would likely encourage those same sorts to try and lambast me for being bad at the game, not having a thick skin, or whatever assumption founded on never once actually playing with me. And yeah, that was a convenient irony of my XI time, too.

Long-winded as this post has become, I don't regret my past time here. I certainly never felt a lesser. I've seen and lived the drama. The FFXIAH boards was not a deathblow. SE putting less than the bare minimum into FFXI's future did that plenty.

I mean, I still have my membership on these forums years and years after. But yeah. FFXI 'died', and several, more direct and more accessible groups were created.

People aren't even thinking about things like Reddit and Twitter becoming huge social media platforms where you could follow your own creators and block people at your will, and it all didn't even need any additional systems to do it.

I'll always remember some of Zam with a mix of chuckles and fondness. But I don't think any sort of 'central community' would work out for FFXIV - even though WoWhead thinks they can try.



Edited, Nov 2nd 2021 5:01pm by Hyrist

I check here once in a while and FFXI forums.
I ended up quitting FFXIV and moving to FFXI retail for a while.
FFXIV just wasn't doing it for me. Content was nerfed, cash shop, Glamor gear became more popular than end game gear etc.
Game just wasn't making people play together. I played for a long time, I liked the game originally but it was just so repetitive.
When Eureka came out I had renewed faith in the game and was loving it. To many complained it was to hard so it got nerfed.
I was pretty much on my way out and one of the people I played FFXIV with and main reason we stayed committed suicide. He was a close friend outside the game too. He was head of Zam FC which eventually called Kraken club. He had sent me his ps4 to turn over the keys to some else for the FC right before he did it and showed up a few days after.
So it just felt weird for Tes and I not seeing him and that was the final straw. We went back too FFXI retail.
FFXI retail just didn't feel right either, Our server was pretty dead. Most FC moved on. Asura was just to crazy.
We left for a classic server and have been there since. Hoping for a retail classic server.