My Private.s

I couldn't think of a better title for this entry,  so here goes. I'm going to talk about my private.s.

Private.Server. See what I did there?

Genitalia.

So during the wait for Stormblood to be early released for beta testing, a friend of mine got me into a FFXI private server. This particular server had the feel of Vana'diel circa 2009. I can only describe this as stepping into a time machine and emerging in some sort a parallel universe where things aren't... Quite right.

What do I mean? Let's dive in.

For starters, a private server is an awesome idea. In theory. You get to play a game you love for free. And that's where the list of 'pros' ends.

Imagine me pulling out a large, Renaissance-esque scroll that tumbles to the floor, rolling across the carpet, knocking over several scantily clad servants until it hits a wall, knocking a framed picture of me to the ground.

Now imagine the word 'Cons' at the top of the scroll.

For starters, EVERYTHING was broken. NPCs, quests, monsters, fuckin' zones. How you do break an area that you didn't have to create? It was already in the game, you just had to... Gigabyte it, or something. I'm not sure how private servers are run.

But it becomes impossible to play when you're trying to unlock a job and it becomes broken because of people trading items.

You heard me right.

On this server, if someone traded an item, then decided to back out of the trade, it would break everything and the server would have to be reset.

Yep. Good times.

Also backing out of an auction house transaction would cause the server to lag, as well as sending items via the delivery Moogle. So, this server really had its shit together.

Most of the more recent NPCs were broken. Crystalline Prophecy, Kupo d'Etat and Ascension NPCs did nothing, Abyssea NPCs were there, but nothing happened. ToAU missions only went up to 5 or 6 I think before it broke your character. There was, in fact, nothing to do in the ToAU areas aside from flagging Corsair and Blue Mage, which you would actually finish in the old areas for some reason.

Puppetmaster didn't exist, but no one cared.

Then we get into the issue all private servers have. There's, at most, 20 people on every day. And if they're busy, then you can forget about that perfect party formation, because there were only about two dedicated healers on the entire server. Everyone else was a weebu Samurai.

What a bunch of losers.

The whole party thing didn't really bother me too much. Exp came easy and cheap, like a hooker made of McDonald's fries. Fields of Valor made leveling a breeze. The server had  monsters of the month, which would grant broken amounts of exp. Then you hit level 50.

Everyone just had flashbacks. And probably peed a little. I know I did.

For those uneducated few of you, once you reach level 50 you must do a Limit Break quest in order to continue leveling past 50.

And guess what everyone was either too busy to do or didn't have a proper party?

Fuck you.

There my character stays. Perpetually level 50. Sure, I could go level up all the non-broken jobs. But in the end, what's the point?

Private servers are nice and all, and it was a nostalgia trip to go back and see what the game used to be like before it turned into a giant labia.

But don't expect the same magic. I got bored constantly and there was nothing to do aside from leveling or crafting. And staring at mithra butts. That never gets old.

The moral of this story? Leave the past in the past. Move on. Go play Stormblood, because eventually, this will be the past, and everyone will wish they could go back in time to relive the magic.

Also they're probably going to nerf Samurai soon, so play it while it's OP.