Beautiful video. As inaccessible as the CoP missions originally were, I'll never forget the thrill of finishing the missions and joining the few elite on the servers with the Tamas/Rajas ring. Me and 5 other friends worked harder than I could have ever thought. I think we wiped on some of the fights over 30 times. We leveled new jobs just to finish the story quests together. I haven't had that sort of experience in an MMORPG ever since.

I purchased this game at release, I was so excited😂 I was young, and I learned a hard lesson about graphics cards and such that day when the game couldn't even load the start screen😭 still haven't played it

If they included FFXI sub with my FFXIV sub I'd give it a try but as it is I cant really justify the extra cost at the moment.

Hearing that Zi'tah music reminds me of when I was noob and trying to discover the zones, asking friends and linkshell.. 'Where is Li'telor?' and no one knew. We all found it, eventually.

Horizon server (free download) Is the old days of ff11. Level 75 cap.

Small correction; 14 from the beginning was garbage. It's why they trashed the game and completely overhauled and remade the entire game. It finally found it's footing and started to become a decent game, but it's initial launch was raunchy and painful. If you didn't play the beta and first release, count yourself lucky. The biggest drawback that haunted me when playing it was server side menus. There was a 3-5 second delay when opening the menu, and it resulted in you pressing the button again (thinking it didn't register), which would make the menu close as soon as it opened.

Just stay away from 14

It will steal your heart forever. 20+ years and counting. I still pay for it every month.

Seeing a Gulool Ja Ja in FF11 after FF14 is kinda surreal but neat detail i didnt know that it came from 11, thought it was a 14 original race

I had such a great time with this game in the early 2000s. LAN parties. Weekend leveling binges. Waiting for party invites. Made so many friends, and apparently also so many memories. I dont remember why or when i quit, I just know it was after ToAU release. Anyway, I just randomly bought this game again the other day and starting fresh again and these days playing the game just makes me feel sad inside because a world that used to be so vibrant and filled with life is now just empty and quiet. Ironic that the whole time I used to play, I would always wish I could solo most of the game, and now that I can, all I wish for is to have the people back. Almost every zone I enter brings back memories of fun times, bad groups, good groups, lucky drops, random crap lol. Go back to these exact same spots and now there's just nothing. Something just feels... wrong... about loading into Jeuno and it being completely deserted and no chat spam or lag. I really need a new NEW MMO I can get in on from the start again. There's never been anything that's scratched the itch the same way 11 did, not even 14. I actually was originally going to redownload 14 again and start over on that game but the thought of having to dredge though the whole MSQ line again up to current content was a deal breaker, so 11 it was.

So I'm guessing he never played FF14?

Just to clarify on doing Rhapsodies order, if I let Rhapsodies take me to an expansion, finish it, then move on to the next Rhapsodies quests, will I lose out on bonus rewards like reduced teleport costs by temporarily putting Rhapsodies on hold?

Bro, your writing and story-telling is phenomenal. You deserve way more followers here!

I don't know how someone can peg the end of the golden age at FF XI, I understand FF XII can be controversial but it is undoubtably a good Final Fantasy, the combat may not be for everyone, it definitely is for my brain, but it is well thought out and designed and the story is incredibly well constructed. Its a good game. XIII has a lot of problems and I am much Harder pressed to defend but it is followed by XIV which while had a rough start did land on its feet. I really don't buy into the "gold age" idea, the franchises has a history of tumultuous periods and was opened with one.

Should of added a tip to stay away from Asura lol Sure, it may be the most populated server but literally nobody wants to do anything so they pay mercs to do content for them

I'm going to try to get over my hatred of the playonline launcher and give ffxi another shot, we'll see how that goes after the 12 hours trying to navigate to set up my account, setup my controller, and fix the ui to make it playable on my end. Also, for anyone thinking this is a jab at ffxi, I actually like the game. There are just some things that drive me insane about it.

I've always been oblivious about FF11 and how it fares since its launch and ngl playing FF14 awaken my curiosity and made me think that I might of missed on a lot of stuff in FF11. I tried 11 couple months ago and I even have your guideline on how to follow the story screenshotted on my desktop. My only problem with FF11 that it is a bit overwhelming and confusing to me as a new player even with the FF11 wiki on how to do things I still find it hard. I'm trying to wrap my head around it.. but I won't give up I wanna reach chains of promathia story line 'cause it always intrigued me. thanks for the video and please keep up the videos they are so enjoyable to watch <3

The game system is really a big barrier for me to play ffxi. It's definitely a good story I can feel. Sad it's hard for me to play it. I even can't understand how the teleport system work.

The truth is. I don't remember much of the storyline when I was playing the game in the 2005 or 06. But i remember all the linkshell I was in, all the friends i had made, and all up and down while doing quest, exp levelling, or camping for drops. Glad tat i had played the game. And glad tat ff14 didn't lose tat 'human' interaction, which i still playing today. It's truly a MMO, and rpg at the side.

Love this! Thank you for the great video

FF14 1.0 was actually a lot like FF11.. which was unpopular for the more casual players and players who came into mmos through WOW.. but I, a ff11 fan, loved 1.0.. now its just WOW with FF Lore/Skin..

I'll forever be disapointed they never got to flesh out the rest of the Vana d'iel globe with expansions. Maybe some day when we're even more out of ideas than our current status.

I've been playing since the launch of the asura server, i still play today. Rhapsodies of Vanadiel came out at a time i was actually considering ending my sub, and because of how good it was, i still have my sub today, despite being very casual. I wish more people could experience rhapsodies for themselves but i understand going back is difficult. Truly love rhapsodies though.

it would be a lot better, especially in modern day where most of the expansions have been made a lot easier to go through, if the nation missions were optional. Yeah you only have to do 1 of the 3, but instead of forcing you to do it just finish the main story, let you do it seperately so you can do it later when you beat the game and looking for extra scenarios to play through, would be a lot better received by players.

HorizonXI is maintaining 1500-2500+ ppl logged on (single box) about a year and a half in. Bigger dev team than any other private server, custom battle content, CoP era currently soonish to move into ToAU. Come join the golden days.

Shout out to you, and great job on the low fi bangers.

This video makes me want to re-sub. FFXI had the best system with its sub-jobs and main jobs. Mixing and matching to find out what works well was always fun. As a WHM there was nothing quite like seeing blink tank duos.

ME! I DID! I dedicated a Month to raising my baby Chocobo! And you know what. The name I gave him "Strike ichimonji" has stuck with me to this day, and in many games, The Character i create is "Kaju Ichimonji" People ask if it's because of One Piece, or many of the other Japanese Media with "Ichimonji" in it.... But NO... it's because of MY SON!

I fell off this game in 2012. But played it since launch up to then. Miss those times. Something about the magic feels missing from this current version. Brutal as og ff11 was it was a community.

I wish everyone who love mmorpgs, experienced FFXI when it was not modernized. Yes it was punishing, yes it was time consuming, yes it forced you to find other players, but that was what made it special. I have played a lot of mmos. And i mean a lot as that is a genre i enjoy. None .... And i absolutely mean none, come close to the golden eras of FFXI. There are private servers that mimic the golden eras, sadly i never liked playing private servers. I played a lot of the content back when i was younger, and i wish i stuck around longer before the changes. Damn I'm sad now lol. FFXIV is nice and all, but it's a huge step back from FFXI. At least for me.

Everyone forgot about the Dunes leveling up( where noobs, never lived long enough past the Goblins.

Wow, these tips are really good. Thank you so much!

Finishing every expansions storyline is quite the accomplishment

Honestly 11 was/is the game I still play but no where near how I use to back in the day man holy fck.... I remember during christmas breaks during school and that Christmas Jeuno music hit.......... You had to be there for real not even joking...... Saintpassinus I will always remember this guy, I hope he's doing well, one of the funniest/helpful linkshell members I've ever met , fcking sucks I didn't have social media back then him and this one char Umorane, these two would have me log in just to talk in the ls

Just started playing FF11 and streaming it on my channel Final Fantasy Survives, it's cool to see other channels discussing this game in the "modern era". Keep up the good work

I e been playing off and on since the release and I have so many memories of the friends I have made I do miss the old FFXI I go back every now and then to revisit and fall even more in love with the game by far my favorite game and the game I have put the most time in well over 2k real life days thanks you for all the amazing adventures. Runouni was my character on Seraph/Bismarck

Did the slow menu interactions ever get attention? Took me like 15 minutes just to work out what I needed and didn't and to list 7 items on auction house about a decade ago.

Nah my guy this was the death of 11 the 75 era was the peak and you are right about the dedication it took to play the game but the sense of victory and accomplishment for the time put in showed up literally on the screen through the growth of your gameplay with the jobs and the gear you wore it really meant something to have things and to be good at your job not that you couldn't be good without the best gear but when you were good at something you'd be rewarded with the stuff that would make you better by all those in your LS because they all believed in your ability to help the party alliance and LS now you don't need to be good at all which is most likely because of the fact that most people who play now have never played 75era and only know the new era like you said in your video nothing wrong with that but it took guts and grit to play this game it was by far one of the hardest MMO out of all-time so much so that people would cry in town about it before going over to Warcraft and coming back saying how much easier it was salute to all of the vets from 2002 to 2009 we are legends my friends take pride in knowing that guys and to the new generation thanks for keeping our legacy alive and I'll see you all on Horizon XI Heroes of Vanadiel 75cap is back baby WOOT ❤

My favorite thing about FFXI was the community

As an FFXI Veteran (first played 2005) i can add something about this "FFXI got worse than in the early days" matter. I can clearly say: FFXI is best MMO i played so far. An i played many of them. The thing with MMOs from the "after WoW" Era is that most of them tried to copy things WoW did to get a part of the MMO Player base. WoW defined the formular of "success" that is redefined from every MMO until today. Accessability, simplicity and the monthly, weekly or even daily treadmills the player is send to over and over again. From the beginning WoW felt more like a single player reward machine where you are able to play with others from time to time then an MMO. FFXI was special. with its strong focus on social activities as a way to success and its pure difficuilty it was focusing on a complete different audience. The mechanics had an incredible effect... The players where much more friendly, polite and at last serious about there investment of time into the game. As a result i logged into the game just to chat with my friends i met in there and not to grab my next reward. Now to the point. The changes that where made to the game later took this very important spirit off the game. You are able to progress much faster now when you just level and quest by yourself. The mandatory EXP Parties are things of the past. That was a key feature to socialize for further activities. Many of the old Content now is rediciulously easy when you summon your NPCs. Some of this lend me to the best memories i had in my whole gaming time in the past. I think this are two reasons why older FFXI Players find that FFXI was best in its lvl 75 cap Era. And btw. thats why many of the so called private Servers try to recreate this magic by setting there servers to variations of that time.

THanks for the video! It was so relaxing to watch! and now i finally made up my mind to play FFXI

To me, FFXI is one of the greatest games of all time, period. And I didn't even play it until 2022.

Free private server FFXI Eden check it out ToAU era

What song is that? I don't remember hearing it that melody its beautiful 11:25

Thank you for this great video.

Best game. If ur on odin. We can play. Im a returning 20 year vet

Great vid. HorizonXi and Eden are both 75 locked and great to play on, if interested in this time/expansion era

Being on the PS2 while WoW was only on PC must have been a saving grace. At this point in time, everyone i knew had a PS2 but not many had a PC. Especially a PC with internet capable of running WoW. I have to assume this helped save FFXI for a while

So I just wanted to throw my two cents in here as someone who is a more casual FFXI player who stays subbed to retail but has found myself playing on HorizonXI. I think there is a bit of a disconnect in not being able to see other peoples side of it. 1. I think it's asking the wrong question to say "name me one thing exclusive to private servers, that Final Fantasy XI retail doesn't have mechanically". Notice the words "exclusive" and "mechanically" are doing some HEAVY lifting there. Sometimes the answer is that legitimately less is more, and sometimes just because there is more it doesn't mean its better. This point will run into my next point 2. I know FFXI had an endgame but that WASN'T the main focus. One of the things I hate most about 14 is the fact that its basically "end game" focused, and when they force you to do older lower level content, it feels bad. This problem isn't half as bad in retail today but currently the experience is missing so much, and not everyone wants to start the game "at end game". I think we all have heard that random stat that most people didn't get to endgame in FFXI back in the day, yet the majority who played it loved it. I think that's a testament to just how well the devs were able to craft a real journey and a second life world. People LIKED leveling, and doing random stuff, and farming specific random pieces of gear because of the player driven content specifically. Going out and doing quests or missions or leveling normally entailed you planning to do multiple things along the way since indeed it was a treck. This meant that when you came back it felt like you literally just went on your own journey. Maybe you gained some levels, maybe you unlocked your chocobo, and maybe you completed a mission or two and got a decent piece of gear, or spell to drop. Not saying that retail doesn't have that "mechanically", but it was far less linear, and you actually felt attached to the things you earned, and player driven content meant that it was inevitable that you would meet friends, enemies, or rivals along the way. You had more of those experiences because the game forced that style of gameplay. And personally I get why retail doesn't work that way, and I think retail is probably fine the way it is, but like when I play retail aside from story bits, it just feels like im on a treadmill, as opposed to me carving my own path to tread on a classic style server. I think that's really what people miss. 3. The it's piracy argument is actually ignorant if anyone has ever talked to the people that run these servers. Been around this stuff since early 2010's and SE USED to shut these servers down, but apparently they made some unofficial truce with private servers and as long as they didn't compete with retail, they were fine with it. The reason was because it was actually doing two things for SE. (1) It was driving sales for FFXI when they were dipping(and FFXIV was in a dire situation) and (2) it solved the problem for SE of not having to actually make a private server, at least for now, because they flat out have said a bunch of times they don't think it will bring enough value for the effort. Anyways like I said, I like retail for what it is, and endgame is cool and all, I just personally don't get that same feeling and experience that I get from HorizonXI or other classic servers I've played on. 2.

You had to be there...