I found this thread on google because I've been having a crisis (lol it's 3am and that's when I always have them)
I've been playing EQ since around 2003 or 2004, I did play FFXI first, (I'm bilingual and I got the game during the JP release, English is my native language so when it was released in the USA I switched to the English version, if only to avoid having to translate fantasy words from katakana to english)
A lot of people here make mention of character creation. It's simply not feasible in an MMO Serverside environment to have people editing their toons with sliders and adjusting every level of detail. It's worth noting that Everquest's character design doesn't really have an edge as I've never really cared if my toon had tattoos or blue eyes / green eyes, gray hair or eye-gouging 255, 0, 0 Red hair.
While I'll agree, it's fun to have a wider range of racial choices, I can be a frog in EQ or I can be a nekomimi in FFXI, EQ does offer much more in terms of race selection
I'm going to list the up sides of each game and then the downsides of each game, as I have around 12 years experience in EQ and I have around 9 years experience with FFXI
Everquest Pros:
1 The world is ******* huge. YUUUUUUUUGE. It's massive. I've played for 12 years and there are zones I've never even set foot in.
2 There are a lot of classes BUT (I'll go over this in the cons section)
3 Crafting is massive. There are thousands of different combines.
4 Diverse mounts (however FFXI has recently started adding more than just horsebirds)
5 There are a ton of items which vary in their usefulness. Some are point blank absolutely trash and some are good. (this is more of a neutral point, as I don't think being offered 1000 poisoned cookies and 20 non-poisoned cookies means you have 1020 cookies)
6 The community when the game started remained fairly friendly and still is quite a friendly place to be.
7: More diverse spells (not necessarily better) In current day FFXI, any number of black mages can group together to cast a group spell called Meteor, 6 mages start casting at the same time, and the end result is one hell of a ******* BOOM
FFXI Pros:
1 The world is more accessible, I feel like the one thing EQ does REALLY REALLY well that FFXI fell short on was world development but that is because...
2 The game feels like equal parts, it doesn't feel like the attention to detail or the main focus was placed on any one or two aspects. While Some aspects of the game might not be as good as everquest, there are no aspects of the game that feel like they were just glossed over
3 Every zone has it's own theme song. (I still go on youtube and listen to my favorite zone's music when I get depressed. I used to wander around Sanctuary of Zi'Tah when I had a bad day on /walk)
4 there's an actual storyline and a sense of urgency / demand. Especially vanilla FF, the Shadow Lord finale before RoZ was released I legitimately cried.
5 Gear / equipment / items. While it's true what someone here said about seeing every level 9 THF in brass. It's NOT true that every level 9 THF wore brass. In Bastok for example, there was a series of quests that, when completed, would reward you with a subligar with a stat mod, outside of Bastok there was a named bee that dropped a VERY valuable (in vanilla FF) dagger.
6: Quests are more involved and the majority of them are deeper than: Go out, kill X mob Y times, come back, reward. *some* quests were, I think the bonechip quests and the main faction quests were repeatable fetch quests, but those were the minority in FF.
7: Subjobs and advanced jobs. Advanced quests like the paladin quest, beast master quest, chocobo license quest, the airship pass to Kazham quest, RSE quests, Artifact Armor quests, etc etc etc. All offered more.
(In everquest I am currently building the HoT group gear on my paladin, it amounts to repeatedly crafting vanadium templates and farming one item and buying the other two it's not the same as feeling like I'm a Paladin doing Paladin things for the Order of the Paladins to get officially recognized as a Paladin)
8: This is more Vanilla up to possibly ToUG, the game was TOUGH. Nowadays you can get all your classes to max level in about 3-6 months playing every day. It took me about a week and a half to get my Red Mage to endgame, roughly 4 days to get my Samurai to endgame, one week to get my Thief to endgame, etc. The reason this is still a pro is because the lower level items are ******* USELESS in today's endgame, even highly prized items from old mission rewards (CoP earrings) only one is somewhat viable for one or two classes, (redmage and scholar for fast-cast) there's no point in making it hard to max out because the good, worthwhile items that will actually benefit your toon are now instanced raid drops
9: Pet spells. Classes like Mage, Necro, Beastlord in Everquest get melee pets, that's cool. The pet classes in FF get melee pets which also cast spells or use abilities when commanded to (the summon spell Shiva gets ice based spells and attacks and BST pets get a whole list of attacks)
9B/10: EVERY class in FFXI serves a distinctive purpose. While one class might be able to somewhat compensate for other classes I never felt like there was a time I should bother playing a class when one would do the same thing but better. Every class has a niche and if two classes overlap in those niches it's because of vastly VASTLY different mechanics. A Dancer and ninja can tank most things as well as a paladin can, ninjas bread and butter spell allows them to avoid 7 attacks in a row, dancers can spam self heals and provoke through different flourish abilities. Paladins can heal with magic and are basically meat shields designed to take and mitigate damage.
11: JOB ABILITIES. Every single class has abilities gained through leveling which diversifies battle situations, require timing to utilize effectively and knowledge of when to use them. The only class in EQ that I can say is almost as fun to play at high levels is Pally because the supportive and defensive AAs are combat oriented and I don't feel like I'm just sitting there watching a mobs health dwindle (even though I basically am)
Weapon Skills break up the monotony as well, with skill chains and magic bursts being available. Nothing feels cooler than being a Samurai and self-triggering 3 back to back Tier 3 skill chains.
12: say what you want about the ************ UI" it's minimalist because the focus in combat is macros. From level 35-55 to max macros make fights so much more exciting. My scholar for example... holy ****. Every single page was filled, and every page had at least two page switch macros. The hub page: White magic or Black Magic, => respective macro page, buffs/heals/enfeebs/nukes/weather spells/ etc it was so rewarding to master the complexity of Scholar and to tweak / finetune the macro spread.
Nothing feels sexier than taking the 45 second cooldown stun spell and making the cooldown 4 seconds with a properly geared, properly macro'd, properly played scholar.
13: This should be #1 JOB CHANGE. You can level every class to max on one character
Cons: Everquest
1 I still play, but haven't played a warrior or rogue or berserker in probably 8 years. There's only so many times I can right click and stand there watching an mobs health drop with absolutely zero variation, mob 1 is the same process as mob 10000. A 105 warrior in EQ plays like a level 15 warrior in FFXI without any job abilities
2 After a while everything sort of blends together. It's clear that world development was the only main focus, while AAs are neat and the spells are diverse, they seem to facilitate rather than interact with exploring the world. That is to say, even combat spells are not oriented to combat as it is, but rather to break up the monotony of exploring the vast world. I suppose this is a pro (in vanilla EQ at least) because it feels a lot more like a real world exploration experience and very table top, where battles are the result of searching the world for loot and adventure rather than the objective.
3: EVERYTHING is a melee class if you try hard enough.
Cons FFXI
1: I can't really think of a whole lot here. I suppose the lack of item diversity affects SOME classes... Black Mages for example... it's a staff and cloth armor or you're ******* A lot of the cons are localized to certain things but offset by the fact that if you're limited in one aspect you can just go to your moghouse and job-change.
2: The lack of backpacks. Although with quests you can expand your inventory to 80 slots.
3: the majority of weapons don't have additional effects, and the ones that do suck and hardly ever proc.
Ultimately the biggest con for FFXI is that it's still subscription based with no free to play option. I'd probably be on FFXI rather than EQ now if I wasn't worried about quitting and having to cancel a subscription and putting money into something that I'll probably lose interest in again after 6 months - a year.
I've never felt excited in EQ the way I feel in FFXI. My character just felt so much more powerful