Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia Review

[@Lightsaga]

Massive respect for adding the mothercrystal info to the wiki.

[@radandpaisley]

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

[@dcarpenter85]

Back in the day PC was the dominant platform for this game. Most players were on PC. The barrier to entry on PS2 was quite high since you needed the HDD and the network adapter addon (which was bundled with the game, but cost $99 US ) plus a keyboard to chat. This plus the fact that the game launched a full 6 months earlier in North America on PC than it did on PS2 meant most players started on PC. You didn't really see a large influx of console players until the 360 launch in April 2006.

[@micenabled9418]

FF11 could also be played on dial up

[@standpoint_]

One of the best expansions of any MMO. So many memories: finally getting to Lufaise on my birthday. My Sunday static cracking up over me falling off Parradamo Tor many times. And all the death involved with subligar and swift belt runs.

[@vicenarian340]

While I can't speak for the classic players, the expansion and all of the wacky things it makes you do between great story missions was still incredibly fun to play through today. Thanks for sharing some of your experiences, the game may be easier now, but the mimeo mirror mission is still soul-crushing.

[@michaelrogers1771]

Man swift belt runs were something....the random aggro, fomors popping on top of ya....

[@Sporkonafork1]

Of any game.....

[@Tempest0777]

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.

[@vegasa2067]

Same. I remember my linkshell and I were some of the only people in Sea because of how hard the quests were to complete. I stopped playing ffxi in 2009 and started playing ffxiv a couple years ago thinking it would be similar….it wasn’t! But it’s still fun and honestly more accessible as an adult with responsibilities. Can’t camp fafnir or tiamat for 12 hours anymore lol.

[@douxmachine]

almost cried watching this. I've recently begun playing horizonxi, and this video basically sums up what made me come back and what brings me such joy and immersion in the ff11 world. i don't think any other MMO has quite made me feel like I'm truly occupying a worthwhile cyber-self as well as ff11 has, did, and still does. There's an unforgettable and haunting wonder to the game that I don't think will ever leave me. Thanks for making this. See you all in Vanadiel!

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for the feedback, and thanks for watching!

[@douxmachine]

@@vicenarian340 of course! I'm using your vids to try to convince my friends to at LEAST jump on retail to experience the story if not join me on horizon. Lol. Your vids are great, criminally under-viewed.

[@vicenarian340]

That means a lot! I hope the videos help convince them, FFXI is criminally under-played.

[@prevbean]

Some of the best memories loading up play online and getting lost in the world of Vanadiel. It was like getting transported into a different world. I love your expansion reviews and you sound really young yet still have much love for this old game.

[@vicenarian340]

I'm barely older than this game, so I suppose I am quite young for someone with this much passion for the game lol. I'm really glad you're enjoying the reviews.

[@wilddragonchase]

great review! i cannot stress how valuable your perspective is in sharing FFXI with the rest of the FF community. my hope is that more players get to experience and enjoy FFXI and its story as more attention is brought to it. also thank you for the shoutout :) looking forward to your reviews of the other expansions

[@vicenarian340]

I appreciate this a lot. And no need to thank me for the shoutout, you've been a huge part in the making of these, so thank you.

[@darwinmonzingo9738]

you all rock I /salute you ALL

[@chriscaventer596]

I was in a competitive endgame HNMLS, as an officer, and one of the top 10-15 NA LS at the time. the shear difficulty of this expansion forged an incredibly close community - both positively (I have real friends from this game even 20 years later) and negatively (drama and toxicity). There was something particularly special about this era, due to its opt-in-to-the-madness nature, as a competitor to all the chat about WoW. Chains of Promathia was something incredibly special, with a story (and intensely difficult tuned content) I will never ever forget, and I am sort of sad you can't access the 'zeitgeist' of that time. Nevertheless, tremendous video and glad to have a trip down memory lane - and very glad you are enjoying FF11. Cant wait to check out the rest of your videos.

[@chriscaventer596]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3LIgoigoNSlq9k

[@chriscaventer596]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3madZ-uiKytoZY - tiberion

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for this write up and the Links! I didn't get notified for your comment for some reason, but I'm glad I came back and saw it. It's awesome to get feedback from someone of your caliber, and I'm really glad you enjoyed!

[@kenslizle]

C.O.P!!!!! Soooooo unexpected and Im here for it!!! Bro you are on fire with these FF11 retrospectives!!! Thank u good sir!! May the holidays bring Kraken Clubs and Gold chests full of Gil!! We the FFXI community /salute you!!! After I watch this Im watching em all again lol 🎉

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you! The ToAU essay will genuinely take a while for me to finish, but I'll be working my way through the rest of the expansions. I'm glad you've enjoyed them so far!

[@TheQman69]

I ran an endgame HNMLS from nearly 12 years from Zilart release in Japan to Seekers release. COP content was not brutally difficult on release by any means. It was harder than the normal exp grind and required a party to communicate vs just rush through a mission. The harder part was getting the core party setup, with the right gear and spells, who needed to do the level capped fights or were willing to do it again to help your team out. There were expensive spell scrolls, like Erase, Utsu, Refresh, Ballad, and Sleepga II, that were required to be successful which someone who was leveling their first job would not have the money or time to get when they hit that level. COP almost always required a NIN tank because PLD or WAR tanks got hit very hard (expensive Utsu scroll and tools at the time), a BRD to help with +acc/+atk on very tough bosses and ballad (many expensive scrolls, instruments, and inventory chaos), a WHM (expensive Erase, time-consuming teleport scrolls, and nobles tunic was very expensive), BLM (expensive Sleepga II and all their DPS spells cost money on top of ele staves and Weskit were ridiculously expensive back then), and finally 2 DD but most people tried to get a THF for SATA, and SAM/THF because it was easily the highest melee DPS and SATA partner at the time even with mediocre gear. No body wanted lolDRG unless they were good. MNK generated too much mob TP which caused them to spam TP attacks often (they didn't have subtile blow buffs yet). DRK wasn't great at the time because /THF was bad for them and almost always required in SATA setups. RNG was stupidly expensive to play due to ammo costs and many found it boring because it didn't auto-attack with ranged. That very specific party requirement made it very tough to pull together the right team at random so you almost always had to form a static and hope that static stayed together through the end. COP also required players to prepare some specific, though still easy, ways of fighting various bosses such as Diabolos required you to have Poison Potions so you did not fall asleep and slowly die. Tenzen fight had a time limit when he enraged and killed everyone with a skillchain AOE. Holy waters, echo drops, and more were needed. This level of preparation was never required in exp farming so it was new to nearly everyone. COP required parties to communicate throughout a fight which was very rare for the time as Discord and Vent did not exist. PC players had an advantage here as they could jump in an internet phone chat room together for free. PS2 players had to put down their controller to type, or find a PC to voice chat. All of these things added up to make it have hidden difficulty. Each one of these made someone likely to quit before finishing too.

[@vicenarian340]

That's one thing that new players can't quite experience. The brutality this expansion has towards the players has been lost to time.

[@TenchiHawkwing]

Hah, kinda funny considering I tanked everything except Promy bosses on PLD. /WAR for everything except Ultima/Omega which I ended up duo tanking with a WAR/NIN and had a RNG using stun bullets. I also find it kinda funny that some people found it extremely difficult while others found it kind of easy. I definitely remember being intimidated by some fights like Snoll Tzar after hearing of people going 1/33 or other crazy things whereas my group went 1/1 due to overprep. I can definitely remember farming for Mistmelts and CCP Polymers, etc. It really would depend on who you ask whether the expansion was easy or not.

[@vegasa2067]

Yeah….my group and I had to farm for days before moving onto the next mission because you needed level sync gear for every level. And I was a blm so I already had to farm spells and gil for all the elemental staves. It was like having a job. I think back on it fondly but my god I do not have that much free time anymore lol

[@Iwinfiltrator]

horizonxi has been great for me experiencing all this content the way it was meant to be, with other players and not just trusts, server has honestly been the fullest private server ive ever been a part of, all times of day you can find quite a few amount of players in almost all the zones, been a great experience so far and its actually goten a bit more popular over time, probably due to the vandiel FFXIV alliance raid that was announced

[@vicenarian340]

I might not play on a private server, but I really like what that server is doing, and I hope to see ToAU get added some time soon. I'm glad to get some feedback from a Horizon player!

[@YouDontNeedToKnowWhoIAm-]

Great work 👏🏻

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

[@rienzirico2499]

This is such a wonderful video. Unlocked so many amazing memories, and I learned some trivia about the expansion that I never knew. It’s so important that the history of games like XI is preserved and celebrated. Thank you for doing this x

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for watching, and I'm glad you enjoyed!

[@Neriek]

Love these videos! I commented on the RotZ video about how the zones there were made more with the side quests in mind and you just mentioned it in this video too. One thing I will say about this expansion, and the reason so many people struggled was the level capped zones. Promyvion for example was level cap 30. And your equipment didn't scale down in the game when under a level cap until much later, well after Wings of the Goddess was released. So while the community would always help people with missions if you did a shout, people were less likely to with CoP because you needed a full set of equipment for each level cap, inventory was incredibly limited, and armour was expensive so you couldn't really buy and sell just to help. Because of this, I think a lot of players lost track of what was happening in the story because it'd take months between progressing. I did 2/3 Promyvean crags and it took me months to do the third, and when I did I got lucky enough to find someone who wanted to run through the whole thing. Doing it under level cap was the best experience for me, but I think it was awful for excluding other players from experiencing the story.

[@vicenarian340]

Your comment on the RotZ video was still really enlightening, particularly about how RotZ had to finish the content out for so many jobs. So thanks for that. I can't imagine what the Lufaise Meadows music sounded like to those of you who finished the promyvion zones while the level caps were in place. I'm really glad you're enjoying these videos!

[@Samota0]

Almost teared up at the end. It hurts to know of the inevitable shutdown that is to come. First ever P2P MMO w/ fond memories...I was 14, now 34, enjoying FFXIV, but sometimes I wish I could back in time.

[@JaumCaboclo]

Joguei essa expansão fazem uns 2 meses, e tive uma das melhores experiências de Final Fantasy com ela. Gostaria que mais pessoas falassem sobre esse jogo. Por favor continue fazendo conteúdos de FFXI 🙏🏼

[@vicenarian340]

¡Gracias por la respuesta! Me alegra que hayas disfrutado el vídeo.

[@Gelvsta]

olha quem aparece, hahaha

[@JaumCaboclo]

@@Gelvsta Eu mesmo kkkkkk se me aparece vídeos de FFXI eu já saio clicando

[@ce-xiv1334]

Keep these coming! Cant wait for ToAH!! BLU, COR, LFG!!! Edit: Yes, SpaceRoast XI remixes are INSANELY GOOD! I have heard them all!

[@vicenarian340]

I've already got most of the footage for ToAU, but the side content added in that expansion takes a while to get a feel for. I'm currently raising a chocobo just to get into chocobo racing. Pankration is next on the list lol. So it may be a while.

[@ce-xiv1334]

@@vicenarian340 All Good! Cant Wait! I have played XI since 05 and it is truly an amazing game, even if it is a little dated for current philosophical gaming beliefs. These days, sometimes I sub just to feel the game and re-live the glory days! Oh and play the REAL BLU job! XIV dropped the ball on that one!

[@alanlee67]

CoP missions did a lot of interesting things to to test the player. Climbing the mountain in parradomo torr. Dealing with true sight and true sound. Testing your group's spike damage ability such as the snoll tzar fight, as well as your party's ability to crowd control in the mammet fights. There were also very interesting fights like ouryu and the airship fight against the weapons that were great set piece fights. Surprising variety in a battle system that is essentially still a turn based RPG.

[@vicenarian340]

You're exactly right. All of the odd things the expansion makes players do was something I deeply enjoyed. I'm just glad I don't have to do the Snoll Tzar fight at lvl. 75 haha.

[@alanlee67]

@@vicenarian340 Yea. Some party comps just couldn't get past certain fights. It was just a thing we had to deal with.

[@frogradar]

Fuck Three Paths though. Three Paths can DIE.

[@Bowkowsowman]

I just completed this story tonight! It was quite good. I played some of it back during release, but i didn't have the opportunity to finish it. I really respect how long you spend in each individual mission in this game. Nice video!

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you! I looked for expansion reviews back when I first started playing, and there weren't any. So, I decided to make them myself. I'm happy you enjoyed!

[@timothyd.6760]

Great video. I’ll never experience a moment in gaming like crossing Promyvion as a kid. I kept failing with groups of random people. I helped to buy all my newb teammates their potions, led the team and acted like a commando hugging walls and tactically avoiding aggro and giving out orders, haha. Between that and the music, it was terrorizing. When I finally beat it, hearing the Lufaise music was unreal. I was so damn happy.

[@vicenarian340]

I hear how much trauma the promyvions caused. It must have been crazy leading groups through there.

[@Triclone8706]

I remember going to best buy and buying this game box. And the joy my friend and I had when we were waiting for playonline to update.... just love this game and always will.

[@vicenarian340]

That's awesome to hear! Thank you for watching.

[@Peanutchy]

The PlayOnline music at the end hit me like a ton of bricks. You gotta give a nostalgia warning for something like that, man.

[@AFriendRemembers]

Thanks for explaining the history of this expansion. I got about half way through it - and the change in gameplay style compared to the base game and zilart was shocking - I can definitely see the spark of how FF14 would approach storytelling being formed here. Am disappointed that I couldn't get to the Promethian ending but - with 2 and a half months to get as much out of this experience - it captivated me and really began to explain why the faithful who adore this game sing its praises as much as they do.

[@vicenarian340]

I appreciate the comment. Chains of Promathia's gameplay takes a huge step forward, and WotG might be the peak of interesting gameplay loops. That expansion has you doing a lot of fun and interesting mini games while progressing the story. I can't wait for your FFXI video, and your perspectives on the more recent entries too!

[@sonicbacon123]

I kind of have less and less to talk about gameplay wise as I get deeper in so I'll likely be discussing mostly the narrative from here on. However, I am really enjoying you diving into all the content even if it's just to get a taste. I was laser focused on the narrative so this is an informative and interesting way to learn about all the systems and content I only skimmed wiki pages for. It reminds me of how I play 14. I love 14 so I try and do everything in it at least once. I just recently finished most of the sidequests before canceling my sub for a break. You really encapsulated why CoP is such a big deal from all angles. Historical, content, story, etc. I think it's harder to grasp from my initial run where you heard the hype but you just binge the story and go to the next expansion. And the story with its very large and enjoyable cast of characters is complex and sometimes convoluted. And with the game's simple presentation and sometime lengthy gameplay sections between actual story bits we discussed before, it certainly made this a much more difficult story to enjoy for my group. I was definitely doing some rereading mid scenes and wiki browsing to stay refreshed or ensure I understood what just happened. This ultimately makes me like the next two expansion stories more but there is still great stuff here. Prishe was my personal highlight. The CoP wrap up bringing me to tears. I'm curious as to what you thought about the short Tenzen betrayal haha I felt it was definitely the devs wanting the player to get to fight him and he's quick to apologize and rejoin. That moment caught me off guard. Also as hard to follow as it could be sometimes I can't help but praise it for not holding the players hands. Like you said most of the characters don't fit neatly onto one side. You can't necessarily trust everyone is being forthcoming about their motived. It makes for an epic story of twists and turns.

[@vicenarian340]

I thought it was a great way of characterizing Tenzen and his passion about the topic. Particularly because, of how valuable the Phoenix blade is to the far east, Tenzen betrays everyone and then uses it up to protect them. Tenzen was making what he believed to be a necessary sacrifice. Seeing how his perspective changes over the remainder of the expansion was a thrill for me. It also is his "breaking free" of Promathia's chains. In this arc, he symbolically conquers his apathy. I'm loving these comments man. Fascinating perspectives. Can't wait to see your views on the next few expansions!

[@MiharuHiramu]

I got into XI through Horizon and so far doing the promyvions etc has been such a great experience, I've fallen in love with an MMO again.

[@vicenarian340]

Horizon is a gem! While I might not ever be able to play through it, I'm really happy that the old school gameplay loop is being preserved.

[@SabrinaAliceOleary]

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

[@MokuTom]

2k days playtime? are you talking about 48k hours in game? o-o

[@Zellos101]

One of the best reviews I've seen on Chains of Promathia. I've always stated to other FF fans that CoP is one of the best stories in the FF series, as well as FF11's music is one of the best OST but people never believe you no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise and just state it as nostalgia. By giving the game a chance, even in 2023 I'm surprised but you simply just get it! Even without the systems not being the same as they used to be, you've done enough research in your reviews to somewhat understand what they game is trying to convey without experiencing what it was original like. FF11 is coming to FF14 with it's crossover 24-man alliance raid series for it's next expansion in summer 2024 and most FF14 players were not as hyped as they don't know how great 11 is but hopefully with your reviews they will have a better glimpse in the high quality that 11 had to offer :)

[@vicenarian340]

It isn't just what FF11 had to offer before, but it's still a phenomenal game today. Much of the experiences you mentioned in your previous comments are no longer accessible to us modern players, but outside of the game's becoming far more accessible, what it did great back then in terms of story and player freedom still holds up today. No new player today will ever experience the joy of getting through the promyvion zones while they were level capped. But that doesn't change the contrast between the Promyvion soundtrack in a minor, dissonant scale accompanied by a larger-than-life depth of field showing off dark alien environments with the beautiful 4-based scale of the Lufaise meadows soundtrack, it's more realistic depth of field, and bright colors. The beauty of that moment isn't what it used to be, but it's still a magical moment. And this is far from the only magical moment in FFXI. The videos I've been doing on FFXI have been for the modern experience of the game. I can only imagine how impactful the game was back then, but it still holds up so well, that it's my favorite FF game today. The first time I saw Sea, or the Undersea Ruins, or the Walk of Echoes, and the special ways the game builds up to each of these moments. The soundtrack, the sandbagging experience of the 75 era endgame content, I could go on and on about how much this game does so great. And starting the game, I feel overwhelmed with how much phenomenal content there is for me to try out. Thank you for the comments you've left, they really help my perspective of the game. If you have any more insights on how my videos could improve moving forward, I'm all ears!

[@Zellos101]

@@vicenarian340 Yeah I completely understand that your videos are based on a modern players PoV and I understand how the game has changed over time and glad that the story experience and world still holds up. But as I said in my other comment outside of the story/world, players in the retail version only get to see a glimpse of what the game offered in the first few expansions with doing the actual content, doing these solo are nowhere near comparable with doing them in a group of 6 or 18-30 players. I would say that you mostly play the retail version to experience stories and the newer content they added, however private servers do exist for those that are curious and wish to try out what the original 75 era experience was like for the first 4 expansions so newer players can experience the same struggle/joy just as it was in the past but I would highly recommend it if you were to play it with a few friends. The experience is what made the game for me and many others so I would recommend that you at least try out the game on a private server sometime in the future if you have the free time. If you decide to try out a private server this could be a new idea for you to make some videos and comparisons between the 2 versions if you wish delve deeper into the golden 75 era "FFXI what the golden era like?" :) Also just some insight/info on the game's history on why many players quit: 1. Due to the lv cap increase with the introduction of Abyssea, this made 4 expansion worth of content completely pointless as they were all designed around lv75 and all the gear and relics/mythics that players spent yrs to get became irrelevant as they were replaced with better gear which were miles easier to get from Seekers of Adoulin, the content there was also barebones having to replace 4 expansions worth of content was a disastrous grave error from SE. It took them far too long to fix these issues with upgraded older pieces of gear and newer content but it was too late as many players had already jumped ship. 2. Too many players were cheating, using speed hacks, wall hacks and bot claiming etc SE did nothing to ban these players that cheated and I believe that SE did nothing about it because the player population was already dwindled so made no sense to ban the little players they had left, this imo completely ruined the game. (which is still also grey area even in FF14 today with third party tools) 3. The levelling experience was completely gutted due to Abyssea, you would no longer explore and lv in many areas of the world, players would just enter the Abyssea zones at lv 30 o join parties to leech exp (even tho it was designed for endgame and for players lv70+). You would basically lv 1-10 solo and 11-30 in a party of 18 players in Gusgen mines with books and 30-99 leeching in Abyssea some players had to pay others gil to get their characters boosted. You could basically get to 99 in 1 day which previously took months. This also made the player base a lot worse on how to actual play their job as you would learn everything about your job gradually overtime with the older previous lving system. 4. The enmity system was completely broken, since now DPS jobs did too much dmg at lv99, tanks could no longer hold hate on mobs. As a tank PLD main this kinda made my job redundant and no where near as needed in groups as it used to be. I have no clue if this has been fixed in the current modern game but this was something SE clearly did not plan in advance. 5. The community, since the game slowly started turning into a solo/low-man game rather than having 18-man content where it felt more like a MMO it became more like a single player game, ever since lv99 most of the content was soloable (most players even dual boxed another character just so they could do it without anyone else) and with the addition of the trust system, this made it feel like the game was no longer a MMO as you didn't need to communicate with other players as much as you used to. Without proper 18-man guild like endgame content to bring players together, the communities that were built over the yrs slowly started to die. I hope this insight helps and if you have any questions about the game in general, I did play ff11 for 10yrs and I still consider it being the best MMO ever created, there are also many secrets/hidden mechanics that most players never figured out, even today on the wiki it still has no entries just shows how massive the game is with the amount of quality depth there is.

[@vicenarian340]

@@Zellos101 I really appreciate all of this. If I find myself wanting to try out a private server, you'll be among the first to know!

[@mindofgod1543]

I did enjoy; thank you for making this presentation.

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for watching till the end!

[@zvispears7211]

Thanks for the vid. Literally saved my life

[@vicenarian340]

Glad I could help!

[@darwinmonzingo9738]

Best job I've seen explaining a heart felt view of ffxi. I've been playing as shantaru of Asura now since year one release in the USA. hope I die before the servers do! RIP

[@vicenarian340]

I appreciate it! This is part of a 7-part series, so I hope the other entries don't disappoint. Thanks for reaching out!

[@darwinmonzingo9738]

@@vicenarian340 yes I'm planning watching them all over half way there 👍

[@90sallthewaybaby]

Fantastic video!

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it.

[@unriddled]

great video. as someone who has returned recently to replay the magic of the good ole days - this video was a nice summary.

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you, and welcome back!

[@Kinnison08]

Love your videos! Would be interested in watching you stream the story if you ever do!

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for the feedback! My passion is really in the writing of the scripts and editing of the videos. I'm not sure I would be able to translate this format to a stream very well. Thank you for the support though.

[@RobbyOdom]

Awesome video!!!

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed!

[@robzon81]

I love so much this game and all expansion, i will be wait forever for the raise up for this game!!! 😢

[@vicenarian340]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I love this game too, and I hope it gets some kind of remake for modern consoles.

[@FaustusGrimwood]

This was a very intelligently put together video. You are ahead of your time. I played back in the day and I thought about returning to go through all the story content. Do you think the game as it is today is worth the grind?

[@vicenarian340]

It largely depends on what you want to get out of it. The story of this game requires very little grinding. To get to mlvl 50 and tackle v25 Odyssey and the new master trial is a huge grind though. I do think it is one of the best games of all time though, so I strongly recommend at least getting through the story.

[@twocatsyelling723]

Ahhh... Cid and his epic chompers.

[@jead7188]

Nice to see some one covering this, as a oldhead player from back in the day, this xpac was yin and yang for me. What I mean is I both love and hated it. I saw both the best and worst out of the player base in cop. I remember once some one posting about thier COP experience on, i think the killing ifriti fourms, how painful and time consuming it was, some one asked him if it was worth it. He said it totally was. Right now 15 - 17? years later? I think about that question and don't knowmhow to answer it...

[@jead7188]

Oh let me add tha my yin yang extreme feelings seemed to be just a cop thing. Both Roz and Toau I remember fondly. Looking forward to your toau review.

[@vicenarian340]

​@@jead7188Thank you. Hopefully, I'll have the ToAU review up a week from tomorrow.

[@generaltechnomage306]

My personal favorite expansion of FF11 is the Wings of the Goddess; I loved the idea of fighting in the Crystal War. I'll be waiting for the day you review WotG.

[@vicenarian340]

As a complete package, I like Wings the best too. RoV has much higher highs, but the consistency of the Wings content is just so good. I hope you don't have to wait too long. I'm working on the script for the ToAU review, but I've already got most of my notes for WotG. When I move onto that script, it should go by really quickly. Hopefully, I'll have both those expansions done by the end of November.

[@ZakRios333]

Just hoping one day they miraculously bring it back to console. Maybe 2024 with FFXIV 🤞

[@vicenarian340]

I'd love to see this too! Truth be told, I think it would be better if they remade the story (Nations - RoV) for consoles. If they did, I'd still stick with the OG, but a proper remake would have better market reach.

[@Johan87577]

Great work. Planning to do one for each expansion?

[@vicenarian340]

Thanks for the feedback. I do plan on doing essays on all the expansions, but finding the time to do these isn't always easy. So it may take me a while.

[@alexanderbassett2901]

really like the deconstruction of the sins

[@davidgartner9019]

Great video. Your pronunciation of Vana'diel is interesting. I have always pronounced it like the intro movie does. Though the pronunciation of Bastok in that intro movie is weird...

[@vicenarian340]

Way back, when I first learned about this game, that's how I read it in my head. Now, whenever I try to pronounce it properly while recording, I find myself reverting back to my own pronunciation. I couldn't agree with you more though, the Bastok pronunciation will never make sense to me from the way it's spelt.

[@sakuradestros]

My favorite story expansion, you'll see more references to it in the other content too

[@vicenarian340]

It's definitely the point in the game where I realized that I was playing a masterpiece. The fact that RoV pays so much respect to this expansion really enhances RoV too.

[@sakuradestros]

@@vicenarian340 I don't want to spoil, but the voracious resurgence does as well.

[@iyenga8804]

Did you mention how SE nerfed the difficulty of certain Promathia missions after initial release? I think there was a lot of complaining around not only the Promvyion missions but also many of the later ones as well. I could be mistaken but I remember there being a lot of boasting if you beat the expansion pre-nerf vs. post-nerf. Great video essay man, really appreciate the FFXI content.

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for the feedback! I had a section on all the hard boss fights, a section on Absolute Virtue, and a section on the nerfing update you were talking about. I had to cut those though because I couldn't get them to flow with the rest of the script.

[@simshengvue4642]

Sea and Limbus were good endgame additions

[@ztdk]

While trusts cannot be called in limbus, it isn't necessarily required to use a team. Limbus can be solo'd pretty easily at 99. Might be job dependent, I was on Blue mage, which has decent solo oomph. I never tried omega, but I was able to clear tenemos and apollyon with little effort.

[@vicenarian340]

Yeah, 119 gear makes the content relatively easy. I meant to include the caveat that if players were sandbagging at lvl 75-85, they'd need help. Thanks for that catch!

[@Khajitxi]

I’d like to chime in that while certain jobs were better than others for promyvion and other missions, I actually ended up completing them on jobs that weren’t the meta or at least less than ideal, so I strongly suspect the actual problem was skill issues from people not contributing to the group as well as they could on a grand scale because they thought they could meta their way past everything. Occasionally players are their own worst enemy in unexpected ways to the devs when it comes to a meta.

[@vicenarian340]

Funny enough, that hasn't changed too much. A lot of people try to get into modern endgame by leveling a 'meta' job like geomancer, hoping that it covers up for their lack of competency. Thank you for the input, it's always great hearing from an FFXI vet!

[@b16da93]

I remember doing promevion missions on my mnk main. Luckily I had friends that did not mind and are still rl friends to this date.

[@zillart]

The greatest game ever. Very good review

[@vicenarian340]

Thank you for watching! I agree, this is definitely one of my favorite games.

[@Agumon5]

I wish I could say that I have fond memories of this expansion, but that would be untrue. From a casual player's perspective, my memories of this expansion are it being largely inaccessible. Unless you were a hardcore of the hardcore, you played the right job, or had the right friends, there was no way you were going to get anywhere near the second half of this expansion back in 2004. Would not be until late 2007 that I actually completed this content. This was also right around the time I left FFXI for world of Warcraft. The reason I left was because, quite frankly the game was very much inacessible if you were not playing a certain way/had the right connections. Nostalgia can be very powerful, but I haven't forgotten how shit it was to be a Dragoon main trying to gear up and get through the content back then. It was not fun. It was not enjoyable. It was a chore and a slog. It wasn't until around wings of the goddess when things started getting enjoyable for me. And then they promptly killed the game soon after with the level cap increase.

[@williamnessanbaum7464]

Ooo... You're using Windower and the map plugin... I'm telling Square-Enix on you and you'll get LM-17'ed!! LOL! The company doesn't care. anymore.

[@vicenarian340]

I only started playing a bit over a year and a half ago. I did not even realize that windower was frowned upon until recently.

[@SuperDeluxe80]

CoP was known as being hard AF.

[@benseal3072]

ty

[@vicenarian340]

You're welcome, and thank you for watching!

[@dendyxyz]

song name at beginning?

[@vicenarian340]

@@dendyxyz A New Horizon - FFXI Chains of Promathia OST

[@dendyxyz]

@@vicenarian340 tysm

[@yeagercomics]

The first two expansions really did not do it for me, story wise. I liked some of the characters. I liked the Tarutaru triplets busting down doors all over Windhurst accusing everyone of being their dad and causing DRAMA. It may have been the way I played it. When i learned about Rhapsodies that was my only goal. Only progressed the first 3 expansions until I could move on with Rhapsodies. But then I became too curious as to how those stories ended so i went back and finished them. So maybe that disjointed approach is why I just could not follow the story very well. A shame because you and others speak so highly of it. Excited for your next vid. ToAU was the first story to really grab me. Thanks again for doing these!

[@vicenarian340]

ToAU really takes the polish of the story up a notch. I'm excited to tackle that essay, but I have to raise a chocobo to get a handle on the chocobo racing for that essay. Those things take forever to grow up haha.

[@yeagercomics]

@@vicenarian340 THEY DO. I raised one just because I was sick of the mount music, and I heard chocobo music actually fades away after a time to let the normal bgm play (which it does) But i raised them wrong and they were slower than the mounts i had from login points… and then I found a chocobo I could get with login points that was as fast as the other mounts… So I told Nova Dandy I was going out to pick up milk and never came back…

[@Arlacent]

You say Promathia wrong lol. But so does anyone who pronounces Zilart with a long I

[@vicenarian340]

I don't pronounce Zilart with a long I though, I pronounce it with a short I. FFXI pronunciation is a bit of an oddball topic for me. I got Promathia with a short a from a player who played from launch to Wings. I do find the topic interesting though. How do you pronounce Bastok?

[@jimmystrudel]

are you transitioning?

[@vicenarian340]

Haha, no. I have a feminine voice for a straight guy I guess. I wouldn't trade it for the world though, my wife enjoys hearing my tenor singing.

[@smilehaver]

@@vicenarian340 I like your voice! it's really unique

[@cindervile]

That "Dolphin" rendition at the end killed me. That's the song that really triggers my nostalgia...

[@vicenarian340]

I had the same reaction the first time I heard it. I thought it needed to be an a video haha.

[@pumpkinheadx3715]

FF11 still shapes FF14