...I'll take it!

I played ffxi retail way back in 04/05 but quickly moved onto other things, so horizon really hits the sweet spot for me since it's that era of the game.

it's fun, about 2k players online at 8pm est on any night. everyone's really friendly and helpful, way more than when the game launched even. but the game is a different beast than modern mmo's, and even different that mmo's of the age.

a lot of care and focus was put on the game to, by design, make you team up with others, and make everything, like literally eveything, require effort. there's very, very limited fast travel and basically none to start until you're at lvl 20. monsters that seem "like a decent challenge" are a legit coin flip if you'll win or they will. the maps are huge. the gameplay is turn based rpg, but in mmo.

the entirety of the game is played with at least one menu up on screen, usually 2. it simultaneously plays extremely chill (grind low lvl mobs while surfing the web/watching tv) but also is extremely intense (high lvl mob aggros you and you have to run off the map or they'll kill you). deaths make you lose exp, you can level down. its just...its different. it's really, really enjoyable though, for me at least.

as horizon xi, it's free, so won't hurt to try it out. shoot me a msg if you do end up giving it a whirl.

Thank you! I don't think I can handle two MMOs at once, but I definitely think I'll check it out when I'm finished with the FFXIV MSQ

I'm so tempted to considering my FC's trying to relocate from the perfect ishgardian homescape to the mist. I gotta bid somewhere else to keep this from happening... ヽ(*。>Д<)o゜

get up on horizon xi instead, i just drained like 50 hours into it

i did a full install of linux onto an old and crusty chromebook. it was pretty easy following a guide; needed to hack a bios onto the chromebook and have it always boot in dev mode, but linux ran fine (albeit, slow on the weak chromebook) and the longest part of the process was finding a usb drive.

Yeah this thing is slow as all hell lol

running linux on an ancient chromebook saved me during the pandemic, but yeah it felt like i was transported to 1995 and i was in the dining room of my family home surfing aol lol