How to quit a group in World of Warcraft. ⇒
3 October 2006, early evening
If I understand things correctly, in Final Fantasy Online people never leave the groups they join till the quest they are working on is done. If you need to leave the game, you are expected to commit seppuku out of embarrassment and shame.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
“Guys I gotta go, my goldfish is on fire.”
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Well, in FFXI, it has been a long time since I’ve partied with groups of people that weren’t accomodating. Most JP’s that I play with will ask you if you have 3 or 4 hours to party with them before they even invite you. And if you play with NA’s, most everybody will tell you ahead of time if there are any potential reasons for them to have to leave early.
In WoW, you basically lose out because there is no real social obligation to do anything with anybody until you get to level 60 and start doing raids, and even then it’s only if you join a serious raiding guild.
In FFXI, if you become a known ‘fake disconnector’ or known as a bad player (always has to afk, leaves unnanounced, doesn’t understand how to play, etc), word gets around and you won’t get invites anymore. Social responsibility is pretty important in a game where you can’t really do anything worthwhile without at least 12-18 people.
Before people reached endgame, it was really hard for non-serious players to organize 18+ people to help kill a quest mob to get mid-level class specific gear. The ones that have bigger, more serious guilds (and more friends) obviously got things done faster.
There are still a lot of people in FFXI that have not beaten the 2nd expansion (3rd expansion has been out for over 6 months). Mostly because it requires a group of 6 people to stick together through about 3 months of running around fighting NM’s, questing, and beating instanced battles like this , this , this , and this
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by Iluvitar on October 3 2006, 9:41 pm #
IMO it’s not quite as sunshine-and-lollipops as iluvitar makes it sound, especially when it comes to quests (say, “genkai” (level cap break)) where a bunch of unrelated people will get together to farm some item(s). It’s pretty ubiquitous that someone will loot the highest on a drop, and within a few minutes, oops, they need to go.
that said, if you’re partying for experience, the situation is typically a lot better, because most people recognize just how much of a grind it is. So people are generally better about being clear about how much time they have to play.
to expand on the JP/NA thing, Japanese parties typically form in Jeuno (main high-level city) and seek transportation from there. When one person needs to go, the whole party makes its way back to
Jeuno together (for safety/convenience) and everyone says goodbye. People who still want to xp seek up a new party. NA parties tend to form in Jeuno and head out to the field, but as players need to go, they generally try to find their own replacements, who’ll teleport/chocobo/airship out to the zone on their own, show up, and “tag out” the player who then finds his/her own way back to town.
much of the social dynamic in FFXIO is informed by Japanese culture, simply because there are still so many JP players and they had the chance to shape customs in the game as it was out there for a year before dropping in NA.
by Weiguo on October 3 2006, 10:41 pm #
My genkai experiences were pretty good.
Genkai 1 (lv50 cap): Spent a day with about 30 people farming all the items (3 items each) and we got over a dozen people through their genkai. Then I also farmed all the items with my static again since they weren’t around when we had the big guild teamup.
Genkai 2 (lv55 cap): Spent a day with a group of about 25 people and beat each NM twice to get about 20+ people through that. Even had to walk from San d’Oria since not everybody had the teleport crystal.
Genkai 3(lv60)/4(lv65)/5(lv70): Solo.
RDM & WHM Artifact Armor: Got invited by a friend whose linkshell was doing it. Had about 20+ people there and got 5-6 RDM and 3-4 WHM’s their AF’s in 1 run.
Zilart Expansion Missions (Sky): Went with my linkshell and did all of Zilart in 1 day for 15-18 people.
I think the biggest deal is making sure you do events with mainly people you trust and know won’t just ditch you after they get theirs. That’s why people with static xp parties, or tightly knit linkshells get further faster.
You basically have to find friends you can trust from the get go when you start your adventure, rather than only finding friends when you’ve completed the journey.
by Iluvitar on October 4 2006, 12:20 am #