[robearz]

So yeah... I first played FF XI in 2003-2004ish, I got my warrior to level 31, but when wow came out my rl friends all left to play it, so I left too. So... 5 years later and I can't stand WoW, and I was thinking about giving FF XI a try again. I always loved the game when I played it,and I've always loved the FF style/music/graphics/stories, but I was thinking it would be hard to start a new char from level 1(my old acnt doesnt work anymore) since everyone is most likely 75 and I don't have my friends to group with this time. Is now a bad time to start playing?

[Takelli]

It isn't hard to start up a new character to start playing again. There is level sync which allows players to temparaly reduce their level to the lowest (Or target player's) level but the minimal level requirement is level 10. Obtaining money is fairly easy if you know how and have the paitence. Due to a lot of high level players, they can actually help you do quests/missions even faster. So, I wouldn't say it is too hard to start over again, its just that it can be difficult to make a party to level.

[Armando]

Starting over from scratch is definitely easier now than it was before. Just don't expect the people at Valkurm and Qufim to have gotten any smarter.

[Lunaryn]

It's really a question of the experience you're looking for. The way people play the game has changed drastically. So-called 'burn' parties have gone from novelties in far-flung regions of the game to the way xp is obtained, period. PLs are less of a party staple than they have been at some times, but still much more so than they were at the early times in the game. xp/hr rates have increased dramatically and the difficulty curve in party xp is much different. Most of the time you will find parties use level sync to avoid level ranges where they don't like the camps. Staying in Qufim until you're around 37 and can move on to the new low-level colibri-burn party camp is somewhat common, assuming you don't get into an Astral Burn in Korroloka and shoot up 10-15 levels in 3 minutes.

Basically, the xp grind is 'easier' and you can shoot up to 75 far more quickly. OTOH, it's far easier to reach 75 without having a clue what your job is really capable of, the disparity between the demands of xp/meripo and the demands of endgame is greater (today's level grind is far worse at preparing players for anything but grinding xp), BLMs are still SOL unless they love soloing... Plenty of old complaints are gone, but there are plenty of new things to complain about, including in some cases complaining about losing old complaints Makes me feel old, ranting about how much better it was 'back in the day' precisely because it was worse.