it's suzy

"The idea that learning to play the game comes not just from understanding the mechanics, but from building a user experience for yourself that facilitates execution, is weirdly compelling. Controls aren't a neutral layer of abstraction—they're as much a part of the experience as anything else."

Fighting game enjoyer detected,

but yeah, XI is incredibly a peak into an era/philosophy of games and/or online experience which has been lost or, more sadly, not always productively learned from, so seeing games like that supported still is at the very least important for history

‘Trade’ with the river.

Big sickos yes to this one

Oh god. I spent FAR too much time playing FFXI back in the day. Like an embarrassing amount. Like I had a Fully Upgraded Relic Weapon Back When The Level Cap Was Still 75 amount.

I still miss it sometimes... but I also fear that might be the Stockholm Syndrome talking.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, There are also things like:

• Most quest interactables are present in the world regardless of whether or not you're on the quest, so whenever your out and about, you're constantly stumbling over these and having "I wonder what THIS is for" moments

• The way the quest system functions means there's no practical limit to the number of quests you can have open at one time.

• Equipment can be changed at pretty much any time, even during combat, with the only real penalty being if you change your weapon (which resets one of your combat resources to 0), so there's a strong market for situational gear that you macro in just for those situations, even situations as specific as "this staff will make this particular spell stronger".

• The guild system takes the form of equippable items called linkpearls, and though you can only equip one at a time you can have as many as you can carry, and it was in fact normal for people to belong to more than one - often people would have a social group, an endgame group (which might itself consist of multiple groups for different endgame events), groups for other interests... And unlike other games, all you need to start one is in-game currency, none of this "gathering a group of people to sign a guild charter" business other games do.

• The game, like many others, has passage of time, and weather, and moon phases, but these are all gameplay-relevant beyond the conventional "oh, you might catch different fish". Elemental abilities are more powerful on the corresponding day of the game week or in the corresponding weather, several merchants are only open for certain hours AND take specific days off each week, at least one (optional) quest requires an item that can only be obtained at night under a full moon - though thankfully the game clock runs 25 times faster than real time, so "come back next game day" really means "wait an hour".

• There's an arcane territory control system which affects certain vendors' inventories (among other things) which is affected by players questing or fighting enemies with a specific buff active. Some later expansions would have similar territory control systems in their areas, which are tied to their own buffs. All these territory control buffs are mutually exclusive, which is fine because they also only function in their associated areas. They are also important because the allow players to obtain elemental crystals from defeated enemies, which are vital for crafting.

• There's a complex skillchain/magic burst system that rewards players with significant extra damage for property-timed and sequenced special attacks, which mean parties often spend some time planning out which ones they intend to use, and constantly communicating (via chat macros) their current readiness.

It's honestly quite interesting seeing them Do Their Own Thing™ even within the confines of the old MMO formula.

Old style MMOs are honestly incredibly wild because a lot of these decisions have incredibly good reasons for no longer existing but you also lose some of the charm without them. Its always facinated me how theres a clear divide between modern and classic MMOs and how both have extremely distinct positives and negatives.

It is interesting to see when the more frictional, embodied kind of mechanics are what gets referenced in anime and such. Like, if a game doesn't introduce friction like that, all that's left to reference is aesthetics, instead of something that builds a story.

Modern games like to put all the friction in combat, cause somehow, there it is 'depth' instead of 'busywork' and 'tedium'. IMO that is because combat, unlike other usual mmo implementations of game mechanics, allows for expression. Where's the crafting minigame where you can decide where to put the flourish on a sword, or the number of tassels? Where is the wallrunning and double jump?

If you can only fail or succeed in one way, games get boring fast.