Questions so broad, they baffle the mind...

[Tsai Dun]

Alright, first of all, I nearly wet myself when I finally found a website 100% dedicated to FFXI and all of its glory. Second, there are a few topics I have discovered on these forums and some I probably won't post because I cannot remember them all. Oki, here it goes..
1.) How exactly does "Hate" affect you in battle as far as skill usage, speed, attacking, and so on.
2.) Are there any penalties for switching jobs, not using jobs for prolonged periods of time, etc.., and if not how often can you change them.
3.) Is there anyone who can rattle off the ENTIRE list of magic, both white and black or show me to a *reliable* list.
4.) What's this I hear about Exp Loss for actions such as healing, summoning, and other.
5.) And finally, how many servers are there, are there any differences between them, which one's supposedly the best, and what is a World Pass and how are they usefull.

1,000 thanks to everyone and anyone who can answer my n00b questions. :handsdown :handsdown :handsdown :handsdown :sweat:

[Maxim]

1) "Hate" is an invisible variable that's generated every time somebody in a party makes an action. If you create too much of it, the monster your party is fighting will switch targets and start attacking the one who has the most hate. So if the white mage in the background is healing way too much, he or she will generate hate and the monster will switch from whoever it was attacking (usually the melee tankers) and run towards the white mage. Due to this, the melees usually need the Warrior's level 5 taunt ability, which is almost like an instant hate generator that can be used once every thirty seconds.

2) You can switch jobs whenever you want and there are no penalties for not switching or switching too often.

3) The list on this site is reliable for the most part. New magic and bard songs are added every other major patch so the list on this site doesn't have all of them listed. However, it's still one of the most reliable and up to date when you compare it to all the other import FFXI websites.

4) You don't lose EXP for healing. But, if you are a Beastmaster and you have a tamed monster still alive after defeating another monster, you get a small percentage of the total experience gained taken off. If the tamed monster dies or is released before completely killing the target then there will be no EXP loss. If the monster you tamed is a high leveled monster, then there will be EXP loss regardless of whether it dies or not after battle.

5) There are like 20-something servers if you include that new one they added recently and the North American Beta Test server. There isn't a huge difference between the servers, although some of them house more players than others. One of the differences there are between servers is economy (such as the average prices of items being sold in the auction house). There's really no best server, although most people try and get on the same server as their friends, and that can be done by World Passes. World Passes must be bought by a person on the actual server, and it's a code that can be used to get on that specific server when you make your character. When you create a character, the server selection is random so the chances of you getting on a server you want is 1/20. With a World Pass, you can get on it without having to rely on probability.

[Tsai Dun]

Awesome. Thanks man, you really nailed that World Pass thing for me. Oki, two more I just thought up whilst meandering through this site of infinite wisdom and lore :eek: .
1.) PvP? Yea or Nay?
2.) As far as the Mog House goes. Common sense lends me a hand in order to imagine that there would be any given number of people who start an account and Square couldn't predict the number and build that many individual building for each player. So I assume that the Mog Houses are like, you walk into the entrance and you either instantly arrive inside your house or you speak to a Mog behind a desk or something and you can opt to be taken to your room. Oh, and I also read in a thread somewhere that you can go into other people's homes but they can't enter yours. I figured that was a typo, but i'm just wanting to make sure. **Also, can you invite or allow friends to enter your house?

[Maxim]

1) Player versus player is already implemented into the game, but Square hasn't unlocked the ability to actually start PvPing yet, so right now think of player killing as dormant. Square said that they'll allow PvPing once the game's storyline gets to the point where PvPing makes sense. Right now, there's no meaning in letting people club each other over the head so there's no PvPing.

2) Nobody but you can go into your Mog House but you, and that rule applies to everyone else as well. In order to go into your Mog House, you go to town and zone through a section in the map called the Residential Area and it automatically takes you to the interior of your home, which is basically a one room shack with no bathroom (or anything else for that matter when you first start). You go there to store items, pick up money or items sent to you, change jobs, grow plants, and heal. There is no neighborhood or anything that shows the exterior of your house.