When you first start playing Final Fantasy XI, you are given a short cutscene and then… nothing. You are standing in a city and left without more than cursory direction. Following that cursory direction sends you to someone who gives you another cursory direction, and you then get to amble through a very gradual and meandering tutorial that walks you through chunks of the game devoid of context before finally, possibly, sending you out to kill something. Many people die from dehydration partway through.
Obviously, I love FFXI, but the game is achingly slow to get you to a point wherein you’re actually doing… well, anything. And while too much stimulation can kill a game, so can a complete lack of momentum right off the bat. So which MMO is just far too slow to be playable? Which game takes so long to start reaching the interesting bits that you can never make it through the non-interesting parts?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
