Think I'm going to give FFXI a spin for a bit.

[Bigfish]

Title more or less says it all. Going to go play FFXI for a while, I think. Still need to get it installed and some accounts set up, but I'm going to see about running my own 6-man party, PLD/NIN, SCH/WHM, RDM/NIN, BLU/NIN, BLM/WHM, SAM/WAR. Seems like fun if only for the chance to try the game out having a full party available on demand, as well as some of the more crazy things I can try, such as synhcronized combat.

[Dominian]

FFXI was my first mmo and the aspect that you had to group for pretty much anything was fustrating as hell, so boxing it would be kinda cool!

[Bigfish]

FFXI was my first mmo and the aspect that you had to group for pretty much anything was fustrating as hell, so boxing it would be kinda cool!

Yeah, finding a group is THE single biggest challenge in that game. I'm going to start with some fresh characters and see how that goes. Ideally I'm going to try and pull off a 6 weaponskill skill chain, both for comedic value and just to see how much damage a group can do if organized enough. It would be nice to be able to just waltz in to certain mission fights, TP up, and unleash hell on the boss.

[maxel]

This sounds intriguing to me as well. What is their stance on multiboxing? I'd hate to get max level then insta-banned.

[Bigfish]

I don't think they have a problem with it. I hardware box though, so while SE may have an issue with Windower, my set up falls outside most "Don't use 3rd party programs" clauses.

[jettzypher]

i love FFXI, just play wow too much and the combat system, controls, and everything or so different, i get messed up sometimes. plus i know one person there so its really boring when hes not around...

[d0z3rr]

Sounds like a challenge. Keep us posted on how it goes (with screenshots!!). Looks like we may need a FFXI section soon!

[Duese]

If you ever need a game to take a break from WoW on, it's definitely FFXI. I put in my time in FFXI, all 4+ years of it.

The most I ever did in FFXI was 4 box, but the game definitely catered to boxing. If you have a G15 keyboard, look for FFXI windower and an addon called G15Binder. It will let you bind your G15 keys directly to an instance of the game and on top of that, you don't need to use keybindings to call the command. It's all based off a script.

The missions in that game were incredibly fun and the in game FMV's are phenominal. The way they use Level Sync and Level Caps in that game really makes it a lot of fun and challenging. The initial game and first expansion pack don't really have much for level caps, but most were designed around lvl 50-60 characters, so they aren't to bad. Once you start on the missions for Chains of Promethia, you only need to be lvl 30 for the first few missions. Then lvl 40. Then level 50. It takes until about half way through before you go into a mission uncapped and those fights are rediculously hard usually. I did a little bit with the most recent xpack but from what I played it was pretty nifty. They have another xpack on the way too, but it's more of an addon pack instead of an actual xpack.

PLD/NIN, SCH/WHM, RDM/NIN, BLU/NIN, BLM/WHM, SAM/WAR

Go all melee or go all nukers. Mixed groups do all right, but once you start getting into the 50's and 60's, the best stuff to kill for xp is either insanely magic immune or has huge AoE that wrecks melee. Start out with your PLD as /WAR. You don't get a lot out of /NIN until 74 where you turn from a tank to a DPS role in the party (since everyone turns DPS at end game). Either take a SCH or a RDM, dont' take both. You really wont need the healing once you get rolling. SAM/WAR = GODLY. I will warn you about BLU's, they take a lot of work to learn your blue mage spells. If they are played right, they do pretty well but the heavy hitters (war, sam, drg) will still win in a dps race. Their are a couple rough patches while leveling, but once you hit the 55-57 region, hit the xpack areas and your paladin will be casting more heals than your healer does. You'll spend the majority of the time casting haste and refresh and watching things die in <10 seconds. If you go 4 Sam's, 1 healer and a Pld tank, things will die so insanely fast it won't even be funny. You'll just spam your WS button and they will be going off constantly the way they get TP.

I haven't played the game for about a year, so I might be out of date on some of it, but I do have a few friends who still play and actually my main account is still active with a 75 blm and nin with like 10 other jobs 60+.

Stay away from end game though. It's pretty rough. The elitism in end game for that game rivals warcrafts.

SE may have an issue with Windower

I've never heard, seen or known anyone who has ever been banned for using windower. While blizzard's policy is strictly upheld, SE's policy is a CYA and not something they hammer back at their playerbase. If you've ever played Asheron's Call, Windower is in the same boat as Decal was in that game. It's not supported by the developers, but they didn't go out of their way to not allow it.

Actually, the people who develop Windower keep everything closed source and they do it for a reason. What Windower can do is way more than what it currently does. The developers of it basically said that the back end on Windower can be abused if it is not policed. So, it's not open source, you can't develop any addons for it, you can only put in the addons they have available. As a programmer, I hated it, but it's allowed them to keep SOE/FFXI from going after them and probably the only reason why windower is still around for the 6-7 years it's been around.

So, long story short... I wouldn't worry about windower getting you banned. (Again, unless something has changed in the last few months. I did check their messageboards and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.)

[Bigfish]

Go all melee or go all nukers. Mixed groups do all right, but once you start getting into the 50's and 60's, the best stuff to kill for xp is either insanely magic immune or has huge AoE that wrecks melee. Start out with your PLD as /WAR. You don't get a lot out of /NIN until 74 where you turn from a tank to a DPS role in the party (since everyone turns DPS at end game). Either take a SCH or a RDM, dont' take both. You really wont need the healing once you get rolling. SAM/WAR = GODLY. I will warn you about BLU's, they take a lot of work to learn your blue mage spells. If they are played right, they do pretty well but the heavy hitters (war, sam, drg) will still win in a dps race. Their are a couple rough patches while leveling, but once you hit the 55-57 region, hit the xpack areas and your paladin will be casting more heals than your healer does. You'll spend the majority of the time casting haste and refresh and watching things die in <10 seconds. If you go 4 Sam's, 1 healer and a Pld tank, things will die so insanely fast it won't even be funny. You'll just spam your WS button and they will be going off constantly the way they get TP.

Well, my intent wasn't to set up the most optimal party that rakes in XP as fast as possible. I'm more interested in seeing what I can do with very long, perfectly timed skill chains and magic bursts. That and see how far I can get in the missions. I may end up switching the party make up around. I already decided to change the SCH/WHM to a WHM/SCH.

The basic idea is to have the PLD/NIN tank, the WHM and RDM Melee on top of casting, while the BLU and SAM do their thing. BLM Bursts where appropriate. At this point I'm still in the conceptual phase, but my idea is to just have fun with the set up and bask in being able to enjoy RDM and WHM melee. Well, that and experiment with the class's functionality, which is to say I've always thought RDM and WHM got side lined to pocket healer a bit more than I would have liked to have seen.

[Marious]

Ah man I use to love this game! I was never into raiding on it though never got to max level to do it, ended up being BST and leveling with 1 or 2 others as BST it was a blast to be able to do this, now MBing it would probably be a blast, definitely keep us posted on your progress on this. I had a galka as my main char had a few others but they where pretty much mules. I don't know something about the galka just did it for me, for one they have a hell of a handycap and are more challenging to use if you go into any caster role but the fact that you can go back home and change to any job was great we dont get that in WoW. I tried most of the jobs in it as a galka, WHM, RDM, BST, NIN... cant even remember what the other jobs where anymore been so long since I played, I started WoW when it launched and left my FFXI account alone, my friend which now plays with me on WoW was a full WHM healer that did all the raids for ever with the LS we where in and then he spent some time in City of Heroes then eventually I talked him into coming to play WoW with me, he has a full epic'd out Lock and loves it, I keep on trying to get him to heal for me so I can just concentrate on my boxing and tank and DPS but he cant get the whole healing thing in WoW which has to be a whole hell of a lot easier in WoW then it was in FFXI. He still gives me crap about getting my account lost with his scorpion harness and his great caster rings lol I think he had that one Emperors Pin also and I lost that too lol.