Pray return to the Waking Sands.
I love this game as a whole package, I really do. But since I believe this page is for A Realm Reborn, aka the base game, I'll have to rate it accordingly.
The biggest problem with ARR for me is that I found the Main Scenario Quests completely dull and ridiculously padded to the point of absurdity.
The quests for classes and jobs are fun enough, but being forced to progress in the hundreds of boring quests in the MSQ so you can advance on the (much more interesting, in my opinion) job quests is frustrating and halts the momentum.
Doesn't help that the dialogue is exposition on top of exposition, and characters become lore dumps in lieu of having a personality. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love them, but if you're like me and are into stories mainly for the characters, you have to do a lot of headcanon-ing - and headcanons can only carry a character so far. Luckily, the subsequent patches and expansions pick up the slack.
I do love the sense of community in this game, however. The early game dungeons and raids must have been run a thousand times by any given veteran player, and yet, whenever a new player announces their presence in a duty, veterans will, without fail, help that person and ease them into the mechanics to the best of their ability.
So even if ARR is long and repetitive, it sets the stage for one of the friendliest online communities I have ever been part of, and for that reason it will always rank higher than it objectively should in my heart.
I love this game as a whole package, I really do. But since I believe this page is for A Realm Reborn, aka the base game, I'll have to rate it accordingly.
The biggest problem with ARR for me is that I found the Main Scenario Quests completely dull and ridiculously padded to the point of absurdity.
The quests for classes and jobs are fun enough, but being forced to progress in the hundreds of boring quests in the MSQ so you can advance on the (much more interesting, in my opinion) job quests is frustrating and halts the momentum.
Doesn't help that the dialogue is exposition on top of exposition, and characters become lore dumps in lieu of having a personality. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love them, but if you're like me and are into stories mainly for the characters, you have to do a lot of headcanon-ing - and headcanons can only carry a character so far. Luckily, the subsequent patches and expansions pick up the slack.
I do love the sense of community in this game, however. The early game dungeons and raids must have been run a thousand times by any given veteran player, and yet, whenever a new player announces their presence in a duty, veterans will, without fail, help that person and ease them into the mechanics to the best of their ability.
So even if ARR is long and repetitive, it sets the stage for one of the friendliest online communities I have ever been part of, and for that reason it will always rank higher than it objectively should in my heart.