Old FFXI Vs New FFXI

I been on since PS2 release (March of 2004) . I have 2 young children now (2y/o 6m/o) . Where in Old FFXI dedicating 5+ hrs every night took me about 2 years to get SMN75 and WHM+RDM 60+ then another 2 years to get full SMN relic , finish Lving RDM , Starting brining BLM up from 40 (i still miss Static EXP Tuesdays . best memories there . Holler Emma^^). only took me about 3 weeks to get SMN WHM RDM BLM past 85 .
Being able to log in , play for 2-3 hr and actually get something done is way better then spending the same amount of time trying to organize ppl to get something done .

Which reminds of how I feel about "old vs new ffxi."
Old felt like exploring and living in a world. New feels like playing a game.

Old felt like exploring and living in a world. New feels like playing a game.

Abbysea was made for all those lazy people. It gives them a venue to get gear to compete with the others that had to grind out years to get their assassin's armlets (for example). Can easily tell who they are. They're the Blm's nuking with Igqira Manillas, the Thf's WS'ing in a Dragon harness, etc. etc. til they get their Eradico Mitts or their Loki's Khaftan, respectively.

wall of text with quotes.

I honestly can't agree with most of this, 99% of it is you baww for Se making the game easier to those who don't want to spend months getting one piece of gear. I do agree that some gear is way to easy to acquire, but things like the pop systems and other things in Abyssea seem fine, improving drop rates for older gear is also a good thing, there no longer as disired, why should they be as hard to get? Also, for your rant about mobs and areas and such, you completely missed the aspect of alot of this games story when you said, also consider abyssea is post-apocalyptic and was destroyed by powerful monsters, with only few people servivng to tell the taile and possibly finding a way to save there world. We never considered what would happen to Vana'del have we not saved it countless times in countless expansions. Prehaps this is kinda like a dimensional mirror, and what exists due to non-existance of our players in this other world. Also when speaking of the gigas you seem to forget that according to the storyline and if you have ever been in Vunknel Inlet you would know that that area is the original home of the gigas, in the regions vana'del we can explore. while there are still some mobs that don't make sense existing in X area, and its simple to see that the design of the areas wasent as creative as it was, consider the effort put into it was still good, if not you wouldent be coming anywhere near anything that has to do with this game.

Only shitty Melee jobs are DRK and PLD? You must have played with lolDRKS because i've never seen a PLD break the 3k dmg in Dynamis.

the Thf's WS'ing in a Dragon harness

What's wrong with this unless I'm being dumb?

Another simple solutio for SMN burn whould be resists on more than 3 monsters... making it hard for burn.

Well, that's the thing--Before, you could "judge" a player's amount of effort put into the game by his or her quality/rarity of gear, amount of missions accomplished, level, etc. (I use the term "judge" loosely because, undoubtedly, there were exceptions.) Now that SE has effectively leveled the playing field, there's no distinction--Whereas only the most "passionate" players had full Salvage gear or whatever, now, like everyone's been saying, everyone and their mother has Atmas and Twilight gear; AF3+2 only takes a matter of time and luck in order to obtain it: Gear of epic proportions no longer has as much value as gear of less epic proportions did before Abyssea.

I mean, we're not even talking about EXP, even. Where, y'know, the "EXPERIENCE" in "Experience Points" meant something--or, at least, was more significant back in the day. Back then, sure, you could have a crappy WHM, but at least you had a crappy WHM that had at least some experience in healing, buffing, hasting, etc. But now people who've leveled jobs 30-90 have essentially become the equivalent of people who had BOUGHT their characters with several jobs pre-leveled to 75 "back in the day.

Elitism does suck--Elitism in the sense that gives you something to boast about while, as in any game, you truly have no unique, superior aspect about your character that no one else could possibly obtain; not elitism in the sense that manifests in your ability to understand the numbers behind the inherent mechanics of the game. But now that Twilight gear is (arguably) the best gear and is easily obtained--Hell, now that we have Primeval Brew that essentially makes you God for a good amount of time--it no longer matters how much you know, how much effort you've put in: all you gotta do is put it on, drink the brew, and pwn stuff.

Obviously I could be totally off--I haven't played at all in the past month or so, and have absolutely no experience in Abyssea. So I mean it when I say don't take me seriously. There are Abyssea NMs which, I'm sure, take a considerable amount of skill and experience to take down. But it doesn't take away from the fact that the FFXI experience is now worth less. Not worthless, but worth less.

Pretty sure this statement qualifies as- baby makin music OOooOOoo