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#1 Dec 07 2019 at 9:30 AM Rating: Good
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Granted it is a while since I visited these forums but I'm surprised they just seem to be collecting dust now.

Did something happen to XIV that caused everyone to leave en masse or did everyone just eventually grow apart from the game?
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#2 Dec 27 2019 at 10:09 AM Rating: Good
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I think it's a combination of FFXIV content on this site drying up and there being no direct links to the forums from any obvious avenue a new user would take. This has been stagnating for years.

To answer your question though, nothing happened to FFXIV. FFXIV is great. Shadowbringers won a bunch of awards and is quite possibly the best Final Fantasy game to be released in like ten years. Other FFXIV forums are quite active. Just not this one.

Edited, Dec 27th 2019 10:11am by Callinon
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#3 Dec 30 2019 at 10:04 PM Rating: Good
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XIV always had the benefit of being relatively playable without needing outside sources. However, unlike XI, SE was wise enough to start XIV with its own official forums from the start. As a result, you can figure they snag most traffic by default, where the earlier days here more often like a few hardcore players trying to crap on casuals with how they felt the game should be. Fortunately it never really panned out that way and I imagine after a point they got bored flexing.

Site management has been an issue of its own, between migrations and nukes of entire sections, part of me is surprised this place hasn't really plunged into the ether completely unless WoW or Everquest are still somehow big.
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#4 Jan 05 2020 at 10:42 PM Rating: Excellent
Still lurking! Just not posting.

Also still playing FFXIV. Don't play too often anymore -- been working a ton, and I've got some big things happening in my personal life -- but still log in and putter around a couple times per week. It's the perfect kind of game for that.
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#5 Jan 29 2020 at 5:10 PM Rating: Good
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Still playing. Most of my outside game community interaction is on official forums, the ffxiv subreddit, Twitter and various Discord groups.

I do miss the discussion here and still check once and awhile.
#6 Feb 06 2020 at 7:18 PM Rating: Good
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Huh. surprised these forums are still even "alive" (server-wise).

I can't say I've ever heard anybody talk about anything having to do with ZAM at all, for any game really. Is it really that big, that many people? Usually if someone needs to look something up in WoW, it's always Wowhead (does ZAM own that too, I forget, I thought it was just thottbot that nobody seems to use anymore?).

As for XIV, still playing! Probably will still be playing now that I quit WoW (since it's the only WoW-type game I play and have any plans of playing) over their bottom-of-the-barrel storytelling, if you wanna call it storytelling.

You can tell that most of the good talent left the company (or was laid off during the mass layoffs awhile ago) as the story seems like it came from fanboi interns.
#7 Feb 07 2020 at 9:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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Lyrailis wrote:

I can't say I've ever heard anybody talk about anything having to do with ZAM at all, for any game really. Is it really that big, that many people? Usually if someone needs to look something up in WoW, it's always Wowhead (does ZAM own that too, I forget, I thought it was just thottbot that nobody seems to use anymore?).


You can tell that most of the good talent left the company (or was laid off during the mass layoffs awhile ago) as the story seems like it came from fanboi interns.


EQ still has its large following of people, the forums and the rest of sites was set to be left to die after the new owner (editior in chief) came in and basically created a new main page for gaming journalism similar to kotaku, before it eventually was sold off to Fanbyte. There was enough volunteers and a dev for the EQ site to keep the site and forums running for the EQ players that wanted it. The nukes and removals of entire sections were to due space and server issues (causing the site to lag and error out), unable to allocate new resources for the site.
#8 Mar 08 2020 at 4:43 PM Rating: Excellent
Nothing beat the good old days of ZAM. This site was far more popular during FFXI's heyday.

Edited, Mar 8th 2020 2:44pm by Thayos
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#9 May 14 2020 at 8:00 AM Rating: Good
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I'm glad to see people are still around. I just started playing again and am really enjoying Shadowbringers.

I'd hate to see Alla fall off the map, I joined back when it was a great resource for EQ, in the infancy of online gaming where there were no real online guides so it was really word of mouth or waste weeks trying to work stuff out.

It was solid through my time in FFXI and WoW as well so I hope it manages to cling on despite all the alternatives out there.
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#10 May 28 2020 at 12:48 PM Rating: Excellent
It's amazing how I still check this forum out of sheer habit, even though it gets virtually zero activity.

Yep, I'm enjoying SB too! SE really knocked it out of the park. All of my usual complaints still remain -- mainly a lack of content that doesn't require a fixed static of exactly eight people -- but these days, I barely have time to log in and run some roulettes, so I'm kind of beyond really caring and am enjoying the game for what it is. I love the storyline updates and am happy to pay my sub.

Excited for the next expansion, too! But man, SE is going to have a really hard time upping its game. The Shadowbringers storyline was amazing!
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#11 Jun 01 2020 at 2:55 AM Rating: Good
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I finished the main storyline on WHM and am now levelling up AST. I could probably top off my WAR and NIN but enjoying healing at the minute so it's interesting to see how the other classes work. Although, I have to admit at really forgetting to pull cards on AST and just focus on healing. I've played WHM too long clearly.
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#12 Jun 01 2020 at 4:34 PM Rating: Excellent
I just bought Shadowbringers for my PS4 so I can play without having to sit at my desk... but now I'm trying to learn how to play with the controller. It's not easy! I only really play on rdm these days and I'm not ready to do anything other than the simplest alliance raids.
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#13 Jun 12 2020 at 1:33 AM Rating: Good
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Definitely takes some getting used to playing on PS4. The hotbar design is great imo but on certain classes there's a button bloat and it gets a bit tricky.
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#14 Oct 29 2020 at 6:44 PM Rating: Decent
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HAHA no! these forums were never popular.

You all know why these forums died let's not beat around the bush.
I mean 2016 I made a post about the defaulting post and what happened the post was defaulted and it proved my point.

You all let people vote down topics to the point of them being erased.
People like to read only their own stuff they don't want it in the spot light or over shadowing their post.

That is exactly why these forums croaked.

By the way to clarify what I said about forums were never popular, people in FFXI thought Zam was a joke forums made fun of it because people couldn't handle criticism so they defaulted their post and they left to FFXIAH then once Reddit came out nobody wanted to be here not even FFXIV main forums where they allow the same thing here the people run the show.

It's good to admin forums but there is such thing as too much admin powers being abused because people don't like how people type it cracks me up.

Though I was a member back in the days I know all about it your forums were horrible back then, maybe if you didn't run FFXIV forums like FFXI this would of survived but you didn't you went same route and just like FFXIAH and Zam FFXI people took off to other forums which were run far better than here.

I wasn't gonna come back but I seen the post and couldn't resist, oh here is Link to what I said https://i.imgur.com/FdG1KI7.jpg

In a nutshell defaulting killed your forums it's a bad mechanic reddit has it but they are more forgiving than this place FFXIV main forums will die also because people complain way to much about other posters because they don't like their opinions and demand admins to remove or ban said people which only will make reddit more popular in the end.



Edited, Nov 1st 2020 8:52am by ZanonX
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#15 Nov 11 2020 at 5:38 AM Rating: Good
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Interesting revisionist history you got there.

Now, while I won't disagree that the karma system is dumb, has been abused, and scared away some posters for better or worse, I'd generally argue we had a gross lack of moderation precisely because they trusted the karma system too much to do the job.

Board tribalism otherwise existed well before FFXIAH. BG, KillingIfrit, and the rare bilingual blogs all had their zealots that'd happily chirp that their preferred haunt was superior because <insert arbitrary reason here>. The internet being what it is, I'd assert that a good bit of the time some degree of being a jerk and getting away with it played into those preferences. Some places had more leniency toward hacking/bugs/expoits, or the personalities behind them. That not really being tolerated here isn't something I'd consider a detriment, but earlier portions of this paragraph still apply. Tolerance of meme (spam) or off-topic discussions likes politics is one of those give or take features.

XI is otherwise a different game than XIV. I'd implied it with an earlier post about them having the OF from the start, but the game also largely doesn't need outside sources of information for content. The raider sorts might disagree with that with demands of watching youtube videos/reading guides/following rotations to the letter, but playing blind or conversing with people in the game itself is still a perfectly viable way to play. Unofficial forums falling out of favor should be no surprise in the end. The XI connection kept some of us initially, but the same sort of discussions just couldn't be had with XIV because XIV was literally a more user-friendly game. That isn't debatable. Period.

If the implication is that people only pushed bad info here, I'm going to disagree. I did my part from time to time explaining content to people, ideally in a way where the job you played didn't matter or at least helped indicate what other party members may go through. Until wikis started popping up, this was probably the best place to find XI quest/mission information within specific guides or even just asking on the board. For every person that got salty because a question could've been answered with a search, they could've easily kept their nose out of a thread and an answer likely would've come from myself or other then-knowledgeable regulars. The whole "suck less, noob!" philosophy was never really the point of this place despite some people desperately trying to make that so and even a mantra of other locales.

Casual gamers are not the enemy. It's a sentiment that may sound out of place with me bringing it up, but that's ultimately who I would identify who this place was for. Yes, sometimes people learned things wrong, heard something wrong and repeated it, etc.. That happens. It's the nature of info dissemination. Everyone who played XI was new to it at some point, and with it its learning curve. Sometimes barking a specific formula isn't what someone needs to hear in the moment. Sometimes it's better to give the answer and let them find out how you get from A to B their own way. Some ideologies will clash. Mine sure as hell did when it came to RDM and people "happy" with its status way back when, but I also didn't relent despite knowing I had people mocking and collaborating on other boards to try and shut me up through circlejerking the karma system or skating as close as they could to violating the ToS without doing so hoping I'd ragequit. Contemplating new ideas was certainly part of the fun for myself and others, too. Though, as all routinely updates online games go, some folks tend to get really vocally bitter if what they want isn't addressed with the utmost urgency. I'd been guilty of that from time to time, myself.

Nonetheless, I'm also not ignorant of the fact XIV has its contingent of players who think they should be able to mercilessly rip into noobs, grief others, and so on with impunity. They do this "low key" in their FC chats, discords, or even on reddit where SE can't officially do anything because that's what cowardly little sh*tlords do. They want the perfect game experience handed to them instead of contributing to building the community they're in. They'll whine that no one wants to actually listen to their advice, frequently leaving out the fact they never gave it or did so in an utterly toxic manner that immediately puts the target on the defensive. They think parses justify being a d*ck instead of just keeping it to themselves and focusing on self-improvement. Merely bringing any of this up would likely encourage those same sorts to try and lambast me for being bad at the game, not having a thick skin, or whatever assumption founded on never once actually playing with me. And yeah, that was a convenient irony of my XI time, too.

Long-winded as this post has become, I don't regret my past time here. I certainly never felt a lesser. I've seen and lived the drama. The FFXIAH boards was not a deathblow. SE putting less than the bare minimum into FFXI's future did that plenty.
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#16 Jul 20 2021 at 1:47 PM Rating: Excellent
Nice post, Seriha. You're pretty much spot-on... can't find anything to disagree with.

The ZAM FFXI/XIV forums died mainly for four reasons:

1) FFXI's community plummeted in size.
2) FFXI became a raid-centric game, and ZAM was never a forum for raiders.
3) FFXIV was rebuilt to be incredibly easy for casual gamers.
4) FFXIV has official forums that address casual gaming needs.

People complained about the karma system, but it never deterred folks from posting back during XI's prime. Most people weren't affected by it. Also, admins (myself included) regularly nullified karma bombing on the backend, so that wasn't even really a factor in any real way.

ZAM was actually really popular back in the day and anyone who claims otherwise wasn't really playing back then.

Anyway, back to work! Will check back again in 2022 haha.

Edited, Jul 20th 2021 11:48am by Thayos
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#17 Oct 12 2021 at 12:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Anyone still playing XIV?
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#18 Oct 21 2021 at 3:27 PM Rating: Good
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Yep, still playing a few times a week. mostly helping my sister get caught up before the expansion next month and working on achievements.

Our FC is small but fairly active. Some raiding, lots of maps and mount farms. Been getting people caught up in Eureka and clearing BA. I think this weekend is a lot of Blue Mage spell farming and Irregular tomestones.
#19 Nov 02 2021 at 4:00 PM Rating: Good
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I mean, I still have my membership on these forums years and years after. But yeah. FFXI 'died', and several, more direct and more accessible groups were created.

People aren't even thinking about things like Reddit and Twitter becoming huge social media platforms where you could follow your own creators and block people at your will, and it all didn't even need any additional systems to do it.

I'll always remember some of Zam with a mix of chuckles and fondness. But I don't think any sort of 'central community' would work out for FFXIV - even though WoWhead thinks they can try.



Edited, Nov 2nd 2021 5:01pm by Hyrist
#20 Jan 25 2022 at 3:47 AM Rating: Good
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Honestly, I thought the decline of websites like ZAM had more to do with the creation of the official forums, companion apps, and increased developer/producer communication from Yoshi-P and SE. ZAM, at least for me, used to fill the void for recipes and information I couldn't find elsewhere.

When I still played the only time I felt I needed to go to another site was to learn which mounts I was missing and where to find them. Otherwise, most questions can be answered inside the game or in 'official' tools.

I spent loads of time here speculating about the future of XIV after 1.X all the way up to 2.0. It was not long after 2.0 launch that I stopped visiting these forums with any regularity.
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#21 Jan 28 2022 at 10:42 AM Rating: Decent
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I check here once in a while and FFXI forums.
I ended up quitting FFXIV and moving to FFXI retail for a while.
FFXIV just wasn't doing it for me. Content was nerfed, cash shop, Glamor gear became more popular than end game gear etc.
Game just wasn't making people play together. I played for a long time, I liked the game originally but it was just so repetitive.
When Eureka came out I had renewed faith in the game and was loving it. To many complained it was to hard so it got nerfed.
I was pretty much on my way out and one of the people I played FFXIV with and main reason we stayed committed suicide. He was a close friend outside the game too. He was head of Zam FC which eventually called Kraken club. He had sent me his ps4 to turn over the keys to some else for the FC right before he did it and showed up a few days after.
So it just felt weird for Tes and I not seeing him and that was the final straw. We went back too FFXI retail.
FFXI retail just didn't feel right either, Our server was pretty dead. Most FC moved on. Asura was just to crazy.
We left for a classic server and have been there since. Hoping for a retail classic server.
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#22 Feb 03 2022 at 6:25 PM Rating: Good
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Im playing on one of those classic servers myself. I miss the old days of XI more than i like the new days of XIV. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that i like about XIV. Enough to have a couple of lvl 80's and a 90 now. It is just a different play style that i dont really care for. From one Phoenix native to another, i hope for a classic retail server too.
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