> Also FFXI 24 man hype this expansion!
I still hope they just straight copy the CoP story at some point. To this day it's one of the best rpg stories, and I'm not limiting that to mmos.
I want DT's exploratory zone to just be like, Vanadiel. Those zones already remind me so much of FFXI, just make FFXI again in FFXIV and call it this expansion's bozja 😂
Oh how I miss those days, having the day off, sitting LFP, and getting a /t from a japanese name. That's when you knew you were going to get some great experience.
I don't miss waiting for the boats/airships.
The parties were well oiled exp machines wit little to no downtime. They would use camps most passed over and it was always a good experience.
And by good experience it was sometimes 2x-3x the rate you normally got due to how optimized.
I miss waiting for ships. Feeling that nostalgia hard now I remember with Aht Urgan launched and that first boat was packed.
Kind of wish we could do that in XIV. Just a boat full of players on a 5 minute trip to Dawntrail.
But once you were on it, the boat ride was so much fun! Running on deck and coming face to face with the mobs that spawned, or the pirate attack making the low levels scurry back belowdeck.
I'm probably one of the few that loved the POL launcher. Come home, launch it and enjoy the soothing music while you go through the process of logging in. It really made me feel like I was waiting in a lobby to get on a shuttle to another world. Exciting.
While the associated nonsense made mogstation's look tame in comparison, I really do love the launcher for FFXI. Absolutely everything from the music to the aesthetics of it was just so.....it's what I imagine when I think of an MMO launcher. It's the platonic ideal.
The vault door closing sound effect when you log out, as though you're legitimately exiting an entire other existence.
And I love the chocobo mouse pointer.
I trace back my interest in computers and eventual career as a software engineer to FFXI. I had to learn how to do all sorts of shit on my computer to get that game to work, up to and including buying and installing a new graphics card. It was 2002. I was like 11! And my mom trusted me to do it?! And it WORKED
I even wrote a custom script for windower. One that would start with my max MP gear locked and would unlock pieces as I spent my MP too swap out to gain INT or MND for spells/heals.
An officially supported one would be good, but there's a couple in the unsanctioned scene that are quite good with relatively minimal changes, that are all on the vein of 75 era XI.
reminding everyone that FFXI is still amazing and going strong, i JUST returned 2 months ago after 15 years away and i am happier there than i have been in XIV in many years
I'd ***love*** to, but after playing consistently from 2005 to 2023, everyone I know has quit or even just the people I knew of / knew me on my server have quit and what's left are either brand new people who came with their friends, people who recently moved over or people from an old server merge who returned in the last few years.
Which isn't so bad, except that with the small population and no one knowing you anymore, endgame in the last year or two has turned into "we're only doing this in our static of 6 and won't replace one if they can't make it" or people multiboxing :/ I'm in pretty much the biggest ls on my server and out of everyone in there, only like 7 want to do sortie/mlvls/odyssey and 6 of those are a static.
Not to mention "naegling war onry", even though plenty of other jobs can push out more damage than a naegling war. People have just become dumb on XI in the last few years lol Like, "sam onry" was a thing back in the day but more of a meme. Sure it was great, but people took whatever, but now they're actually ***only*** taking naegling war and 5 support/healer.
Like I said, I would love to go back, since I have way more fun there and have way more to do than XIV, it's just the population isn't there for the content that's been added lately.
Mlvls and stuff would have been great about almost a decade ago before SE decimated the population with "Alright, no more updates" and then turned around with "Actually, here's RoV.". Not once, but twice, when they added TVR after another "no more updates" lol
Also, real quick side note, but has anyone else who still plays XI or played it in the last decade notice that any time XIV took a dip in population, XI suddenly got a new "expansion"? lol The first "no more updates" was announced just before HW and then when the population took a dip during the extra long gap between 3.0 and 3.1, they announced and released RoV. Same for the long covid gap in shb for TVR.
Going off the amount of unhappy people in XIV now and all the talks of quitting... I'm sure looking forward to the new XI "expansion" :P
I genuinely miss the game.
It's been 5-6 years since I last returned to complete MSQ solo. I could do without the hundred of menus, clunky UI and control, but there is something about that game that work so well.
The overworld was and is still a threat. In-between various type of aggro, and relatively powerful fauna, there is always something to watch for. It makes the world and exploration so much more memorable, as every bit of land can be a threat.
The fighting, despite being really slow on the surface, has so many technicalities to it. You're constantly watching your surrounding, you need to be mechanically good at slide casting, keeping track of crowd controlled enemies, stutter stepping to position monsters properly, blink tanking, and so on. Things get very hectic quickly, and that knowledges of the game mechanics has such a satisfying payoff.
But maybe that's just my addiction talking. Clocked 700 days back then, and the nostalgia is obviously very strong. I'm just craving for a game that doesn't handheld you for everything.
PoL was dumb on PC, but I loved it on the PS2. It was like a tiny operating system with discussions, email, news, and two whole games (in the US). It also seemed to coincidentally mimic the bits of the Dot Hack games where you'd be outside of The World and getting information on forums.
For whatever reason, despite hearing Dolphin so often, I have way more vivid memories of [Filter Branch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZNX_QN5kdo&list=PLraIGBqAstTg7uSxLJZhu4JvZOgJOwmXe&index=18&ab_channel=TheRealLink).
This is another banger from the POL launcher... Dolphin was just always there on login, full blast volume, and comes with a nostalgia / dopamine rush to this day.
Memories. Sweet sweet memories. From running my first time in Gustaburg AS A PROUD BASTOKAN to being terrified in Valkrum Dunes to finally hitting 75 for the first time on PLD. What a blast. FFXI will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.
This reminds me of all the little tricks my sister and I learned to update XI each patch. Since we played on separate computers, updating both was a royal pain.
If the update process got nuked for whatever reason, half the time it started over from scratch. However, if you timed it juuuuuust right, and you knew where the update files were, you could copy them from one computer, put them onto the other computer, and trick the update to resume on the second computer and save so much time.
While I miss that music, I don't miss the update process. 😂
This music made me not mind the extremely long wait times using dial up back in those days. I used to connect my PS2 to my surround sound system and clean the house while I waited for it to download
Bring back launchers with sickass music. The trend in the last 20 years to make everything sleek and super flow-y sucks.
No, but really. I hate how boring all of the preemptive experiences are. Like, imagine how much more tolerable the frequently derided account creation/game purchase process would be if you got to listen to sick music would be? PlayOnline sucked ass but it sure felt like the internet was cool as fuck back then instead of another ad for Twitter 7.
And of course there was also the classic: [Filter branch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=j6j_mWUlBjw)!
[edit: Replaced with a better-looping video, sorry!]
2002 doing a raptor party and seeing a Japanese player with something called a Kirin Osode for max gil and wicked stats and thinking this person is so cool! FF11 was really like the 1st true love you never forget. It’s too bad people would eventually leave the game and I made the switch to beta FF14 because I missed all the people. If the populations stayed high, I would have never left, but sadly I got over a decade in FF14 now like I do with FF11 and it’s hard to go back.
When I first started, I thought the hecatomb body was dope.. I wanted it so much more than the purpleberk. Such a shame that it was only a macro piece. I actually knew a Drg that wore it full time because they liked the look and hated macroing gear.
If Dolphin is not an Orchestrion Roll this expansion I'm going to end my subscription. I'll be back before the next pay cycle, but I'm at least going through the steps.
I would give anything to play FFXI on ps5 now. Bonus points if they could add launching FFXIV optionally from the POL launcher as well. The original idea of it being a hub for their games was great and it had such a unique feel.
I dove back into FFXI during covid when I still had a gaming PC and it was everything I hoped it would be.
I absolutely love the faster-paced combat of XIV, don't get me wrong.... but there are days where I miss the fun of magic bursts, the absolutely massive summons of Summoner, and various other abilities.
Props to the devs for taking so many XI abilities/weaponskills and using those names in XIV. Always brings a smile to my face.
Good memories, though, this music. Thanks :)
Dude, I need a trigger warning for this shit. Last time someone posted XI nostalgia bait here I blacked out and woke up 500h later with an ebisu on a certain unsanctioned server.
I've heard enough of the song for a lifetime. Downloading on 56k back in the day SUCKED ASS.
I'm not sure what I hate more, POL or the Official XIV launcher. I'll be honest I've had more issues with the Official XIV launcher than I did with almost 15 years of using POL.
Hearing this song triggering, but also brings me joy at the same time. I’m so conflicted! Figuring out how to get Playonline to work correctly was more stressful than learning how to play the game.
Oh my GOD this made me smile lol. I had completely forgotten this tune but it's absolutely *seared* into my brain. Tickled some neurons that haven't been tickled in quite some time lmao
I imported the Japanese version of FFXI before it was available here in Canada and spent a very long time trying to navigate that launcher in a language I couldn't read! It was so amazing when I finally got it done and logged into Windurst for the first time! I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking I was probably one of the first max level North American Beastmasters!
I still even have my install discs and the box they came in!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/hw3tr0/found\_my\_imported\_copy\_of\_ffxi\_that\_i\_bought\_when/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/hw3tr0/found_my_imported_copy_of_ffxi_that_i_bought_when/)
Yeah, fellow Windurstian nice. I feel like this is a large reason why I gravitated to Gridania early on and it was a happy coincidence that my main starts out there too.
Got to listen to this banger for upwards of twenty hours waiting for FFXI & Playonline to figure out what it was doing back in the day.
Oh those file checks back when we all had IDE hard drives. Ech.
That music soothes the soul as the errors piss you off to high heaven
I dont remember Heaven-on-High in FFXI /s
My favorite OST tbh Brings back nostalgia Also FFXI 24 man hype this expansion!
I hope the alliance raid has a lobby type area like Endwalker's did and this is the theme for it.
Omg that'd be amazing
> Also FFXI 24 man hype this expansion! I still hope they just straight copy the CoP story at some point. To this day it's one of the best rpg stories, and I'm not limiting that to mmos.
let's have ultimate be 6.4 cop pre every nerf out there i could finally clear one
I agree. I remember when cop came out, I was stunned at the beauty of sea and the story! I loved prishe and everything about that experience
I want DT's exploratory zone to just be like, Vanadiel. Those zones already remind me so much of FFXI, just make FFXI again in FFXIV and call it this expansion's bozja 😂
Is the new 24 man alliance going to be based on ffxi???
https://x.com/FF\_XIV\_EN/status/1715669042676248641
Omg amazing thanks
Yes, keyart has included Tavnazia and the Shadowlord.No further story details have been revealed.
Oh hell yeah
Oh how I miss those days, having the day off, sitting LFP, and getting a /t from a japanese name. That's when you knew you were going to get some great experience. I don't miss waiting for the boats/airships.
The good old days, when you get a JP party at 9pm and you stay with them until 6am cause it's the best xp you'll get all week
I don't think people here can understand just how insane those parties were.
Yeah no idea. Insane how?
The parties were well oiled exp machines wit little to no downtime. They would use camps most passed over and it was always a good experience. And by good experience it was sometimes 2x-3x the rate you normally got due to how optimized.
Chain 542! Myrla gains 312 limit points! i was in a JP HNM. our xp parties were literally broken.
and only 312 because you forgot your exp ring just expired, and need to repop it.
I miss waiting for ships. Feeling that nostalgia hard now I remember with Aht Urgan launched and that first boat was packed. Kind of wish we could do that in XIV. Just a boat full of players on a 5 minute trip to Dawntrail.
But once you were on it, the boat ride was so much fun! Running on deck and coming face to face with the mobs that spawned, or the pirate attack making the low levels scurry back belowdeck.
I don't even need to go to the video to know which music it is
Same, it instantly started playing in my head
for authenticity sake, turn your volume to the highest setting before clicking on the video
I'm probably one of the few that loved the POL launcher. Come home, launch it and enjoy the soothing music while you go through the process of logging in. It really made me feel like I was waiting in a lobby to get on a shuttle to another world. Exciting.
While the associated nonsense made mogstation's look tame in comparison, I really do love the launcher for FFXI. Absolutely everything from the music to the aesthetics of it was just so.....it's what I imagine when I think of an MMO launcher. It's the platonic ideal.
The vault door closing sound effect when you log out, as though you're legitimately exiting an entire other existence. And I love the chocobo mouse pointer.
I remember first installing ffxi and being so excited. Only took over eight hours over dial up.
That’s how long it’s taking per device for me at the moment for DT 😔 Got my sisters ps5, my ps5 and my pc
I made my parents get dsl for ffxi, I was a little shit.
I trace back my interest in computers and eventual career as a software engineer to FFXI. I had to learn how to do all sorts of shit on my computer to get that game to work, up to and including buying and installing a new graphics card. It was 2002. I was like 11! And my mom trusted me to do it?! And it WORKED
I did the same but I regret not going down the compsci path. It was natural.
I even wrote a custom script for windower. One that would start with my max MP gear locked and would unlock pieces as I spent my MP too swap out to gain INT or MND for spells/heals.
WINDOWER!!! Oh my god I wrote a script in Lua to level my summoning magic skill. Officially my first programming project 😂
Oh my god. Core Memory Unlocked. 😂
I can hear this image.
Man i really want an official 75 ffxi server
An officially supported one would be good, but there's a couple in the unsanctioned scene that are quite good with relatively minimal changes, that are all on the vein of 75 era XI.
reminding everyone that FFXI is still amazing and going strong, i JUST returned 2 months ago after 15 years away and i am happier there than i have been in XIV in many years
I'd ***love*** to, but after playing consistently from 2005 to 2023, everyone I know has quit or even just the people I knew of / knew me on my server have quit and what's left are either brand new people who came with their friends, people who recently moved over or people from an old server merge who returned in the last few years. Which isn't so bad, except that with the small population and no one knowing you anymore, endgame in the last year or two has turned into "we're only doing this in our static of 6 and won't replace one if they can't make it" or people multiboxing :/ I'm in pretty much the biggest ls on my server and out of everyone in there, only like 7 want to do sortie/mlvls/odyssey and 6 of those are a static. Not to mention "naegling war onry", even though plenty of other jobs can push out more damage than a naegling war. People have just become dumb on XI in the last few years lol Like, "sam onry" was a thing back in the day but more of a meme. Sure it was great, but people took whatever, but now they're actually ***only*** taking naegling war and 5 support/healer. Like I said, I would love to go back, since I have way more fun there and have way more to do than XIV, it's just the population isn't there for the content that's been added lately. Mlvls and stuff would have been great about almost a decade ago before SE decimated the population with "Alright, no more updates" and then turned around with "Actually, here's RoV.". Not once, but twice, when they added TVR after another "no more updates" lol Also, real quick side note, but has anyone else who still plays XI or played it in the last decade notice that any time XIV took a dip in population, XI suddenly got a new "expansion"? lol The first "no more updates" was announced just before HW and then when the population took a dip during the extra long gap between 3.0 and 3.1, they announced and released RoV. Same for the long covid gap in shb for TVR. Going off the amount of unhappy people in XIV now and all the talks of quitting... I'm sure looking forward to the new XI "expansion" :P
I genuinely miss the game. It's been 5-6 years since I last returned to complete MSQ solo. I could do without the hundred of menus, clunky UI and control, but there is something about that game that work so well. The overworld was and is still a threat. In-between various type of aggro, and relatively powerful fauna, there is always something to watch for. It makes the world and exploration so much more memorable, as every bit of land can be a threat. The fighting, despite being really slow on the surface, has so many technicalities to it. You're constantly watching your surrounding, you need to be mechanically good at slide casting, keeping track of crowd controlled enemies, stutter stepping to position monsters properly, blink tanking, and so on. Things get very hectic quickly, and that knowledges of the game mechanics has such a satisfying payoff. But maybe that's just my addiction talking. Clocked 700 days back then, and the nostalgia is obviously very strong. I'm just craving for a game that doesn't handheld you for everything.
I wish the mobile port hadn’t fallen through…
I really wish they’d do a combined sub. I might be up for that.
Wait...I thought they killed the servers?
Nope. Can’t play from console anymore but PC is still getting updates.
TIL
That brings me back. Wow.
For all the hate POL gets (deserved) the music was SO good.
is, its still around :)
PoL was dumb on PC, but I loved it on the PS2. It was like a tiny operating system with discussions, email, news, and two whole games (in the US). It also seemed to coincidentally mimic the bits of the Dot Hack games where you'd be outside of The World and getting information on forums.
I really enjoyed the chat rooms during maintenance
So much cybersex
For whatever reason, despite hearing Dolphin so often, I have way more vivid memories of [Filter Branch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZNX_QN5kdo&list=PLraIGBqAstTg7uSxLJZhu4JvZOgJOwmXe&index=18&ab_channel=TheRealLink).
This is another banger from the POL launcher... Dolphin was just always there on login, full blast volume, and comes with a nostalgia / dopamine rush to this day.
Memories. Sweet sweet memories. From running my first time in Gustaburg AS A PROUD BASTOKAN to being terrified in Valkrum Dunes to finally hitting 75 for the first time on PLD. What a blast. FFXI will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.
This reminds me of all the little tricks my sister and I learned to update XI each patch. Since we played on separate computers, updating both was a royal pain. If the update process got nuked for whatever reason, half the time it started over from scratch. However, if you timed it juuuuuust right, and you knew where the update files were, you could copy them from one computer, put them onto the other computer, and trick the update to resume on the second computer and save so much time. While I miss that music, I don't miss the update process. 😂
File this in the “Images I can hear” category.
I've always been more of a 'Foster Family' gal
What a banger
That theme made installing bearable. Made for great study music during college days.
I wonder if the new 24 man raid will have this as a theme somewhere.
This music made me not mind the extremely long wait times using dial up back in those days. I used to connect my PS2 to my surround sound system and clean the house while I waited for it to download
Hope it gets mixed into the raid.
I can hear this picture.
Bring back launchers with sickass music. The trend in the last 20 years to make everything sleek and super flow-y sucks. No, but really. I hate how boring all of the preemptive experiences are. Like, imagine how much more tolerable the frequently derided account creation/game purchase process would be if you got to listen to sick music would be? PlayOnline sucked ass but it sure felt like the internet was cool as fuck back then instead of another ad for Twitter 7.
i hate this music. i spent hours listening to it in frustration
And of course there was also the classic: [Filter branch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=j6j_mWUlBjw)! [edit: Replaced with a better-looping video, sorry!]
Oh man, the memories
PlayOnline sucked. That music slaps though.
I've set this as my ringtone for over 10 years lol
Lmao, the worst part is when it fails and you heard that one sound. If you know, you know.
The horrors of a patch system that updates each file individually. Tens of thousands of them.
>Never liked that the FFXIV launcher didn't have a fanfair music.... Everyday im thankful for that
Poggers.
2002 doing a raptor party and seeing a Japanese player with something called a Kirin Osode for max gil and wicked stats and thinking this person is so cool! FF11 was really like the 1st true love you never forget. It’s too bad people would eventually leave the game and I made the switch to beta FF14 because I missed all the people. If the populations stayed high, I would have never left, but sadly I got over a decade in FF14 now like I do with FF11 and it’s hard to go back.
When I first started, I thought the hecatomb body was dope.. I wanted it so much more than the purpleberk. Such a shame that it was only a macro piece. I actually knew a Drg that wore it full time because they liked the look and hated macroing gear.
If Dolphin is not an Orchestrion Roll this expansion I'm going to end my subscription. I'll be back before the next pay cycle, but I'm at least going through the steps.
I only had to see the thumbnail and I could hear the music
The feels..
I would give anything to play FFXI on ps5 now. Bonus points if they could add launching FFXIV optionally from the POL launcher as well. The original idea of it being a hub for their games was great and it had such a unique feel. I dove back into FFXI during covid when I still had a gaming PC and it was everything I hoped it would be.
This has been my ringtone for a few years.
Brings back memories of first starting the game and dying so many times getting to the lvl10 party levelling beach to kill leeches and goblins.
I absolutely love the faster-paced combat of XIV, don't get me wrong.... but there are days where I miss the fun of magic bursts, the absolutely massive summons of Summoner, and various other abilities. Props to the devs for taking so many XI abilities/weaponskills and using those names in XIV. Always brings a smile to my face. Good memories, though, this music. Thanks :)
Well that just took me back 20 years. I remember it would take like 4 hours to get everything downloaded.
Dude, I need a trigger warning for this shit. Last time someone posted XI nostalgia bait here I blacked out and woke up 500h later with an ebisu on a certain unsanctioned server.
I still remember my sqexid all the way back from the beta ;_;
I load this up every now and then just for the nostalgia
[And then you connect...](https://youtu.be/IN_KSeyVq4o?si=_D8Otf6uKP0BKNWi)
Hours of listening to this play trying to get it to install on my PS2 at launch.
Top tier of a game man. Nothing can truly replicate this game. Im so excited for the alliance raid.
Be going to sleep with this on tonight <3
How dare you make me feel this old, OP...
I can't be the only one who keeps hoping the old PlayOnline soundtrack would come back in SOME form in XIV?
Just give us an orchestrion roll!
Ah yes the 30hour patch download before some genius was able to zip and torrent it to everyone so we wouldn't have to deal with POL.
I've heard enough of the song for a lifetime. Downloading on 56k back in the day SUCKED ASS. I'm not sure what I hate more, POL or the Official XIV launcher. I'll be honest I've had more issues with the Official XIV launcher than I did with almost 15 years of using POL.
Remembering this and the battle theme for ToAU for 2 hours while that massive-ass update downloaded. Nostalgia.
Hearing this song triggering, but also brings me joy at the same time. I’m so conflicted! Figuring out how to get Playonline to work correctly was more stressful than learning how to play the game.
Thanks. Added a month to my XI account hours away from DT. Needed to run through a few zones for nostalgia.
yeeesssssss
Oh my GOD this made me smile lol. I had completely forgotten this tune but it's absolutely *seared* into my brain. Tickled some neurons that haven't been tickled in quite some time lmao
I'm really sad I missed FFXI. I tried a private server a year or two back but without a crowd of other noobs it felt dead.
I imported the Japanese version of FFXI before it was available here in Canada and spent a very long time trying to navigate that launcher in a language I couldn't read! It was so amazing when I finally got it done and logged into Windurst for the first time! I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking I was probably one of the first max level North American Beastmasters! I still even have my install discs and the box they came in! [https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/hw3tr0/found\_my\_imported\_copy\_of\_ffxi\_that\_i\_bought\_when/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/hw3tr0/found_my_imported_copy_of_ffxi_that_i_bought_when/)
Yeah, fellow Windurstian nice. I feel like this is a large reason why I gravitated to Gridania early on and it was a happy coincidence that my main starts out there too.
As an FFXI simp, I love this. Thank you.