Mabinogi

[TheVampire100]

I recently started to play Mabinogi again, mainly because they claimed in big news that the dungeon system has been revamped.
I've tested the dungeons but they didn't change the dungeons so much but more the rewards you get.

But let's start from the beginning. Mabinogi is my favourite MMORPG of all time. I played many different MMOs but lost at some point the interest in them. Mabinogi however is the oen I always return at some point and like it again. That's somehow impressive considering how ugly, laggy, buggy and old it is. The game was first released around 2004 so it's now 12 years old. That's quite long for a MMO (still there are some that are even older).

The game is loosely based on irish mythology and follows a quite interesting story if you are willing to spend time with it.
Like many MMORPGs you create a character in a fantasy world, choose a class, do quests, kill monsters, explore dungeons and level up.
The game does look very ugly to be honest, it uses some very poor polygon models and you can see that the graphics are outdated. Newer models look actually quite good but they never bothered to update the old ones that still make up about 90% of the game world.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Because it's an asian MMO it features an anime-style. The soundtrack is actually really good and fits the mood of the different cities, dungeons and bosses.

What makes the game so special for me is that you literally need only one character in your whole lifetime. In other MMOs you will eventually come at the poitn where your character is maxed and you realize it's not fun anymore to play with him, you can beat everything. So you start a new one with another class to play the game differently this time. Mabinogi features a talent system upon creation that allows you to give a special affinity to one of the many different skill tribes. So, pretty much, a character class hoewver with the difference there is no class restriction in the game. xcept the racial skilsl there is no restrictions to what you learn, your class gies you a simple double bonus on leveling a specific st of skills but you still could learn and level other skills.

Skills in Mabinogi are divided in 16 levels, when you use a skill it gets experience, once it's full it levels up. However, the higher the level, the stronger the monsters have to be that you have to defeat with this skill. Having the rigth talent gives you an edge in leveling your desired skills faster. Once a skill reaches a new level, you get bonus points on your stats that you can keep forever, for example leveling magic skills gives you more mana and intelligence.

So the system gives you the ability to build the character you want, you can build a spellsowrd that fights in close combat and uses spells to support him. There are many different skill types and there are also six hidden skills that you get if you level the skill sets of two different classes high enough.
The skills are currently divided in the following sets:

Combat
Most basic combat skilsl like melee and ranged (bow). Features also defensive abilities to defend yourself.

Magic
Spells, what else. Most are used for combat and are divided in three different elements (fire, lightning, ice). There are also some support spells liek healing and shields.

Life
Mostly crafting skills. Create your own equipent which is better than bought one. Also collecting skills, some healing skills and the special transformation skill that lets you transform in monsters.

Alchemie
Divided in crafting and combat. They can create their own stuff unrelated to life skills and they can also use supporting abilites  for combat like creating barriers out of nowhere. Abilitie are divided in four elementals (fire, water, air, earth) and you can channel each element to get bonuses, if you channel all four, you can cast a very powerful alchemy ability.

Fighter
Very fast close combat that uses combos on enemies to create stronger attacks. They rely on 1:1 fights with good timing but can deal really high damage to a single target but suck against groups.

Puppetry
Uses a puppet for fighting, the puppet acts as tank for the controller and can also use some powerfull spells but the puppeteer is vulnerable whiel controlling the puppet.

Music
Bard skills, they boost allies and deal no damage (except one skill), only good for group players.

Ninja
Fast ranged attacks, uses many area control abilities to dictate the flow of the shadow, can bind enemies, stun them, turn invisible and other ninja stuff.

Dual Gun
Wield two guns for fast attacks on many different targets. Can deal gret with many opponents at once because of good AoE skills but lacks dps on single targets.

The skill sets are divided in many sub catagories, for example the talent blacksmithing conetrates only on life skills that are centered around creating weapons and armor.
To allow players to test as many different skills as possible, there is a rebirth system. Rebirth means you start from scratch with your character, he keeps his skills but looses all his levels and stats (except those from skills). You also can select a new talent and get a different bonus. You can rebirth once a week unless you use a special potion, than you can rebirth multiple times in one week. Rebirth allows players to quickly chnage the class of their character if they need to and quickly accumulate the needed AP (ability points) to level up skills. It helps players to enjoy the freedom and removes a big chunk of the grind that other MMOs enforce on the player.
That does not mean the game is not grindy at all, some of the skills have terribly high requirements on the higher levels and are very grindy to level up but at least you won't have a hard time leveling your character.

The game features a wide varity of stuff to do, either in combat ot in life simulation. There are also great possibilites to play with firends, either in dungeons, in shadow missions or in raids where you defeat a giant boss monster for special items.
Unfortunately the story campaign can only be played on the first chapters with friends, they somehow thought it was a good idea to remove the ability to play with friends on story missions in the later half of the game. If you don't care that much about the story or friends to begin with, you will not misss this of course.


I still think Mabinogi is a great game. There is so much to do in this game that you will find something for yourself. I like to play with friends because it's interesting to support each other and fill out the skills that they lack.
If you ever want to join Mabinogi (or better, already have a character) I would enjoy playing a dungeon or mission together.
I can also help any newcomers with questions they might have. The game itself is free to play, the shop offers outfits/costumes and additional pets for players. Except that you can get everyhting in the game.

Homepage: http://mabinogi.nexon.net/
Wiki: http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Talent

Also, I wouldn't buy anything at the web shop. The prices are in some cases very high (in real money) and I did it multiple times in the past. I don't regret it because I like my pets but honestly, it's wasted money on something optional that you don't need. It's simply prestige stuff, it looks cool.

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest I have a funny problem with this.. I can't even register "Register" button is there, but when I press it, nothing happens. So yeah.. ;p (it says "Unknown Error" ) -- when registering directly on Nexon it tells me to activate my account, yet the activation link says "Dieser Benutzer existiert nicht." (This user ID does not exist) even though I just registered as this user.. Something is REALLY broken with this ;P Third try was a charm.. this was a really weird account registration procedure though.

Can you explain how combat works in short sentences? How is the community?

Also you better be prepared to guide me, because I am downloading it... ;P Have a week to waste.... and might as well put it into some weird mmo. Why not.

[TheVampire100]

That's odd but this migth or migth not be a case of bad redesign. Nexon (the publisher of the game) introduced their own kind of launcher/client, so you can play all their games on one client. Similiar to Steam but just for Nexon games. You didn't need it before and could register/log in on the mainsite but it could be that you now have to do this in the launcher. I can assure you however that the launcher works fine (at least for me and friends), so you should have no problems there. I guess the reigster page on the Mabinogi site is simply a "leftover" from the time when you could register there.

You can download the launcher there and you can register there once you started it. Mabinogi can downloaded directly fromt he launcher then.
https://games.nexon.net/nexonlauncher

The combat works liek a rock-paper-scissors system. There are mutliple basic skills for melee combat that counter each other. The basic attack is countered by defense and counter-attack. Defense blocks the strike, you take less damage, counterattack let's you completely evade an attack and strike back. Smash is a very powerful attack that ignores defense. Windmill is an area skill that hits all enemies aroudn you and goes through counterattack. Lastly, both Smash and windmill can be interupted with normal attacks. This system applies to many different skills too, counterattack works on any melee skill for example but cannot counter ranged skills, defense hower can but might shatter from some very strong attacks.
To help players, monsters always show above their head what skill they will use next. So if you keep watching your enemies, you can predict their attack patterns and prepare yourself better.
Monsters follow also a complex aggro system. I could try to explain this but I think the wiki does a better job at this:
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Aggro
As a new player you don't have exactly to follow this but you have to know, monsters attack one at a time (except some group attackers), so if you ignore the ones that don't attack, you can kill one after another.

The community is... okay I guess? At least no one mocks you or talks you off. I have it often that when I mess up a dungeon and appear injured at the netrance, friendly people that wait there will heal me without asking. There is a complex trading system in the game (you to th system, not between players) where you travel between towns and trade stuff. During your travel you will encounter bandits. Bypassers sometimes stop and help you just because they can. There are many helpful people in the game, at least on my server. i heard in on of the other servers are some problems with the community. But on Alexina, where I'm playing, I had no problems so far.

However, you will notice that player shop prices are quite high (in terms of gold). Players except on the lazyness of players. You can gather most stuff (except the limited web shop costumes that cost around millions of gold) in the game by yourself but soem of the stuff takes more time to gather, so players sell it for more than it's actually worth. Why? Because most players are too lazy to get it themself and pay for that price.
A good example is holy water. The stuff blesses your equipment so it does not wear down so fast, protects it also by repairs. It's actually really easy to get, you have to do a simple side quest where you have to gather eggs from chickens. This does not take much effort or a lot of time but it's not a very fun part of th egame, so people rather pay for it then to do it. As  anew player i advice you, buy nothing from players, gather stuff on your own. You want to safe gold a s much as possible at the beginning. At the later stages, when you can do shadow missions, it doesn't matter anymore, you roll in money, ou could even throw it at your enemies (which you can in this game).

[eRe4s3r]

Yep worked when I tried in the launcher, but as you say, there seem to be leftovers from different login systems.. very strange to navigate that.

Gonna be interesting how the "new player" phase is in this game Last "free" mmo I played was RIFT and yeah....
I'm at 20% downloaded now, guess it'll be done in a few hours ;P

So how will I find your char when/if I ever get into the game and on that server? Is there any way assisting me (assuming we even get that far) would not be boring as hell for you though? I suspect since this is not on steam that there aren't many new players ;p

Ps.: I can throw money at enemies? Now I am curious... especially curious about character creation though. That's quite a lofty claim they make on the website.

[TheVampire100]

There are three races to play btw. Humans, evles, Giants, unlike your appearance and gender you cannot change the race.
I woudl say, as new player human is the best way to got (I started as well as one). They branch out perfectly in any direction.
The diffrerences aen't that big but every race has an "ultimate" skill and I think the one of humans is the best.

Humans get two race specific skills, arrow revolver (load mutliple arrows at once and shot them one after another without the need to reload) and final hit (ultimate skill). Except that they stand in the middle of all stats.

Elves move the fastest. They are centered around ranged (bow fighting and magic. They get more magic related stats, shoot two arrows instead of one, get the ranged skill "mirage missile" that empowers arows with magic and their ultimate skill is "Final Shot".

Giants are the largest characters in the game and get a lot of physical stats like health and strength. They are good as fighters, as tanks and can wield two-handed weapons with one hand (maning they can eqipp a shield or another two-handed weapon along). They cannot use bows and the skills affected by them. Instead they use spears that they throw, however the spears don't have a skill set. They exceed however in melee combat so well that you don't want to use them for anything else to begin with. Their ultimate skill is Wind Guard.


The game was actually once on Steam until they released their own launcher. They still put news on Steam though about recent updates (once a month or so).

The name of my main character is Thevampire10. That's the character I mostly play, I have many different characters that I started at a time where rebirth was limited to once a month and I was too impatient to wait for it just because I wanted to try out different talents.
Like I said before, I play on Alexina and you cannot switch servers with your character, so you have to start there too.

I don't mind playing with newcomers. I probably won't have  aproblem with low difficulty dungeons since my stats are so high but I would refrain from using my main/leveled skills which would be way too overpowered at that point. I'm currently trying to learn healing and stuff like that to fit into a different role, so I could provide healing support and buffs.

[eRe4s3r]

Well I am going to be on Alexina proper ... in about 1 hour ;p Gotta make food first....

My char name is *drum roll*

Ereaser

Yes .-. +.+ ~.~ it was not taken.. haha
Also I play elf.. because elf ears.

Gonna explore the game first as is and then see where this goes... game looks pretty decent more or less... more less, than more more

[TheVampire100]

Like I said above, the game is very old and looks like crap. I play it only for the gameplay. There is so much to do that I don't get bored fast.
Eventually you will get bored like in any MMO but this will take a lot of time. And after a break you can always come back, most liekely there is something new, they still develop the game actively, create new contend and so on. Might not be always new skills (however, we got some in the last patch, so they do come) but at least new story content, events or like in the last patch, a new dungeon with a new boss.

Most patches introduce also new items that you can craft. I have to say, the last patch was really decent on the additional content, the dungeons feel much better in terms of rewards (did today twice a very easy dungeon, got 3000 gold each time plus additonal stuff), the new potions are awesome and I liek that you get exclusive crafting materials in dungeons, This gives dungeons finally the much needed relevance they lacked so long. Dungeons have been outdatted a long time with the introduction of the so called shadow missions that were faster, gave bigger rewards and had a chooseable difficulty level, so you could fit them your own level. Dungeons lacked all this but they finally have recovered.

Also, keep the wiki always close. It's basically your best companion to Mabinogi, it covers everythign, really everything, the community does a great job to maintain it and add new stuff as fast as possible to it. It also features soem good guides and tips and covers combat strategy for almost every monster in the game. It helps you also to plan your skill build but you don't have to worry that much about it. As new player you can rebirth daily instead of weekly (until you hit level 1000), so if you think a skill/play style does not fit you, rebirth, choose another. New players have big advantages that I envy you for honestly.

http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/

Edit: Sent you friend invite, this should pop up once you log in.

[eRe4s3r]

So my week of lambasting around in this weird MMO is over and I have to say it wasn't bad, and it wasn't good....

The main problem is the HUGE delay between actions (enemies actions vs mine). Since the game is based on a rock-paper-scissor system if you have over 600ms ping it can get quite a problem, I've had it regularly that enemies get knocked down on my screen, but are not actually knocked down yet attack me (without even an animation or anything) and throwing me around the map.

This got so bad that I have taken damage from enemies that were (VISUALLY!) still totally neutral. I feel like "the event" actually made the entire server unstable, with noticeable stutter every second no matter the channel.... so yeah.

Then comes the main crux of this game, it is a HUGE gold sink and grind at heart, tons of skills require resources, be it repair costs for melee (which are absolutely bonkers), be it crystals + repair costs, or be it magic potions + repair costs. I feel like 51% of the time I am managing my gold in this..  the other 49% I am juggling with the absurd inventory system. Which I guess was state-of-the-art back in 2003 (when this game was made) but it is driving me insane as someone coming from WoW before the expansions.

The real problem though is that there is not defined core reward loop. There are ton of small rewards but especially quests tend to not actually give you any equipment.

Can't say having such huge barriers in front of me every time I play is a good thing It's true you can do a lot of stuff, but at the core I want to experience something bombastic, story-wise, or quest wise. And this is where the game really falls flat. The mainquest is, not exactly bad, but not exactly very bombastic... the problem is there isn't really a localized quest line and because of this the world feels very small as you are zipping about all 3 continents without problems...

They did a lot of things to ease new players into the game, that is good. What is not good is that at around clvl 150~ the support ends abruptly, with no more guidance.. but mainly I just found myself lacking motivating to do anything in this after the [GUIDE] quest line ended.

So overall... wasn't bad, wasn't enough to draw me in substantially though.

[Misery]

Mabinogi is a Korean MMO, so that type of hyper-grindy low-reward feeling is the norm for this, really.  It's ingrained in the overall style after Ragnarok Online happened, and it's just stuck that way ever since.  Kinda like how western MMOs have certain things of their own that tend to stick to every freaking game.   The MMO genre seems abnormally prone to this happening.

But yeah, very very grindy, these games, once you hit a certain point.

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest low reward and hyper grindy is not even a primary problem, the problem I see is that there is a clear "punishment" loop instead of a reward loop, especially for item repairs, which can reduce the *total durability* of an item. Meaning even fighting normally in a dungeon can cost you 5 to 8 durability points every time, and most weapon repair costs are higher than the (usual) mob rewards.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying this is per sé a bad thing, grind can be fun, god knows WoW shows that, as long as there is some element to the game that drives it then grind can be a healthy part of the game. But with the rebirth system the game sabotages it's own progression.

Let me explain, in Mabinogi you don't have a fixed level, you do stuff, skills gain XP, leveled up skills give you stats, quests give you (usually) gold and character xp. So you level up your character, leveling up gives you AP, which you need to level skills up, to get stats. Leveling up char also gives you general boost, but it is very minor all things considered, 99% of your potential comes from grinding and leveling skills, and while SOME skills certainly improve in every combat (3 to 5..) most others require quite some effort to level, and are often not really good.

Now Interestingly, this game also has a sort of level cap for skills, skills start at F and the level progression goes like this
F - E - D - C - B - A - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

But as example, I was playng mostly melee, and within that week I got combat mastery to
F - E - D - C - B - A - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

While I got sword skill (the weapon I used 99% of the time)
F - E - D - C - B - A - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

But defense skill for example which I used whenever it was tactical sound
F - E - D - C - B - A - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

So you see, the things you do define what you level, the problem is you have to level things, as from 3 to 2 is a HUGE step and not easily done. But leveling defense to D means pressing "Defend" and waiting.... for (I calculated) around 19 hours to reach rank 3 and taking a hit while defending only counts towards level up when enemies are as strong as you.

I never really understood what korean grind was until this game. ^^ Since skill leveling is what defines your stats, and since stats play a huge role in your fighting ability (aside from the lag issues) you are in a viscous grind cycle just to improve, but the steps are really tiny. And I never feel the kind of empowerment I felt when I gained levels in WoW, where a small level difference made a big difference to your fighting ability.

And to top it you have a pet system with daily time limits.... including rideable mounts. (This is where the [GUIDE] confused me, it gacve me 3 free riding things, I thought... why? Well the answer is you can't use any of them longer than 2h

I get it, it's a f2p game and so it has stuff like that.... but playing it really feels soul draining...

Ps.: Wanna thank TheVampire for guiding me though It was interesting and not unfun, but I feel no urge to play this more ;/

[TheVampire100]

Time to finally answer this. I wanted to do it earlier but I kind of... forgot about it or maybe I just shoved it back.


Lag: probably the truest part of all. The game is simply too old, let's face it. They should have by now made a remade version of this or a sequel (which was in the planning but was canceled because players didn't want to start new... in korea). There is this kind of spin-off/prequel Vindictus which plays more action-like instead of the slower paced system of mabinogi. You also roleplay as another character the whole time, you don't create your own one, so I didn't like it. There will never be a fix for this, the only time to avoid it is if there aren't any significant events in the game. tehre are always some kinds of events but some aren't that big like the cookie island event (which featured a long quest line over mutliple days until the end where you got a new pet). But even during the off-seasons where it's a lot calmer there is lag. The servers are too old and there are simply too many players that actively play the game.


Story: The story is actually pretty huge but at some point they decided that new players should have the same chance to play the later story chapters without the need to play the first ones. this makes the whole quest window awefully complicated since for every story chapter you have a new quest tab. Finding the one you should do first is impossible without outside help (older players, wiki). The story starts out low, it's the typical "good goddess vs evil god" stereotype, and you ahve to save the goddess, the world and what not. It gets however more interesting int he later chapters. Howver, then it gets aweful in the latest chapters whcih could have written by a teenage fan fiction writing girl. Because of the long time period the game exists they had different writers over the years and you can see where oen writer ends and another starts.


Quests and rewards: Now this one is something, that new players don't understand when they come from other MMOs. In general, mabinogi is different. In everything. Quests yield (mostly) xp and gold (but not always). Item rewards are very very rare and if, they consist of story related items. Why? Because the game emohasizes to do it your own. This means the game follows the logic you either have to craft your weapon and armor yourself or you go to a dungeon and find one there. The reason why equipment isn't given out for quests is simple: There are so many different classes but no class specific quests, you will in most cases get somethign that you don't use. Either a wand when you are a swordfighter or a lute when you are a healer. What would you do with this stuff? Sell it? Mabinogi gives poor sell values for items (sadly). That's the reason why people simply drop there stuff aroudn when they got soemthign they don't need. It's faster instead of runnign to the next store and selling it for a small coin.

You get some good stuff however during the first three story campaigns. A very good armor for example. Later on you learn how to transform, either in a Paladin or a Black Knight. And even further intot he story you learn to transforminto a Demigod. That's the stuff that is really entertaining in the game.


Skills: I never really felt that skills are grindy or that I needed them to level so fast as you want to. In fact, reaching rank 1 on any skill isn't that much necessary. Ranking Defense is easier with a shield and combat mastery is used in any class, not even close combat (since you fight with everyone). some skills are harder to level because they have a greater impact to the game. Defense on higher levels is very overpowered and negates every incoming damage if used correctly. It also adds a nice passive defense boost so you don't have to activate it all the time. More improtantly would be armor mastry since it boosts the passive defense stats of armors.

You know what the real hard grind is? Tier 3 magic spells. To rank these up you have to fight dragons. And these appear only during a specific real time. Not ingame time. You probably saw this "the black dragon/white dragon appeared" during the game. These are huge raids (try to keep up with the lag on that one, good luck) with hundreds of players fighting a huge dragon. And you have to attack that thing in order to rank your tier 3 spells. Fishing and cooking is also awefulyl to rank, fishing is mostly about "I put my character here and then I do something else while he fishs". It's aweful and the only time you will do it is when a fishing event happens anyway.
However, most other skills can be ranked (until you hit a specific spot) simply by doing your normal stuff, dungeons, missions, quests.


Gold: I think this is the bane for any new player in any MMO. I never had actually a game where this wasn't present. The biggest problem is, new palyers feel the need to repair their equipment. And this is the mistake you made and where I failed to explain this properly (I think). Buying a new weapon is most of the time cheaper than repairing it back to full durability. The reason is simple, "blank" equipment is not meant to be repaired. And as new players you will have ONLY blank eqipment.
Now, what do I mean with this? Blank equipment means it has nothing, it's liek this when you buy it at the store. Equipemt gets also xp when you use it, you can use this to upgrade it. Most pieces of equipment can have up to five upgrades that improve significantly its performance, they add more damage, more balance, more durability or more ciritcal to it. After five equipments you can also applay a gem upgrade which enhances the durability. And after that you can put special upgrades that increase either base damage or critical damge. oh, and you can also put enchants on your weapon with special scrolls that add some nice stats or special properties to your equipent. And to complete it, you can also REFORGE your equipment to enhance your skills, for example you can get more damae from smash or stun enemies longer with sand burst.
It's really crazy how much you can personalize your weapons and equipment. However, eventually it will break down like anything but because you worked hard for it, you want to kep it, so you repair it. that's the only reasonw hy you should repair your stuff, becuae you have personalized it with upgrades enchants and reforges. Otherwise you are better off to buy a new one ot get one from a dungeon.

Pets: I never really got why you can have your pet only up a short amount of real time. It refreshes anyway each day and I've never seen a pet that cold kill a boss alone. It might be because you can play as your pet and the developers don't want everyone to run aroud das their pet without anyone playing their character. Than again, I don't see the problem with that, let people do what they want to do.
I got three pets at the start of the game, an eagle, a horse and another limited time horse that was from the premium shop. I bought soem other pets from the store (namely the bone dragon) and got many from events (recently a broom pet). So even if the limited time is a problem, eventually you will end up with so many pets that you can practically keep them up the whole day if you want.


Now that that is put aside, Mabinogi has started a halooween event like evry year. I excepted the cursed labyrinth again but they surprised me with somethin new. The Haunted House. In the event you will meet four different ghosts and you help the little ghost to become the "scariest ghost" while his three brothers want to stop you for soem reason. You get a quest line and have to find out what the heck is actually going on with the four ghosts and what happened to them during their life time.
It's... easier than the cookie island event and t e quests are mostly "talk to this guy, than that guy" with very little actually gameplay and the gameplay isn't even interesting or engaging. I would skip the event propably if I wouldn't get the little ghost as pet at the end.
Basically you get for everything coins (like the ones during cookie island) and for 300 you can buy the little ghost as pet (is this now slavery?). And since he is very cute, i really want to have him even if it means to keep up with a boring quest-line. At least it's easy and i don't have to redo quests.

That's how it looks anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfXG_Q4ySoU

[Aklyon]

Vindictus is practically completely unrelated to mabinogi, unless someone points out the links. Its a combat game, not an mmo.

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest I seem to be suckered in FF 14 for a while, well until the 30 day playtime is up anyway, I will probably take another month and then I will be burnt out like usually (nearly maxed out 1 class so far) and that is quite a jump from Mabinogi.. in some sense FF 14 is maybe the more hardcore "casual" MMO but it is also the prettiest of them all. And the main-story decks you out with equipment, items and everything else needed to run late-game (meaning lvl 50 content) while the expansion quest, which takes a long while to reach, gives you access to the things you need for lvl 60 content (the true end-game dungeons, extreme trials etc. etc. ,p)

In FF14 you get a chocobo which at first is just a mount, but later on also a combat pet which has quite some power and utility (it can draw aggro, mainly, but it has tons of HP and can do both dmg and tank itself, it can also heal, somewhat) and while you do get other mounts, you can deck out your chocobo with (visual) armor so I nearly always feel like using it. If you play certain mages this means you have 2 pets out when soloing, which gives you immense DPS as mage, which makes leveling / questing (and random events) a lot more fun. The main story is also typical FF stuff ;P So it isn't really bad, there is politics, mysteries and giant enemy bosses and the game weaves nearly every dungeon into the story proper. And because every class, and there are a lot, has own items (though there is some overlap) in most dungeons you only roll need against 1 or 2 other people most of the time. Meaning sooner or later you will get your lootz. And even if you only roll greed you will still get stuff useful for the other classes you might not yet have leveled.

Gold is not a problem because the market system is healthy. And it seems like this MMO might be a lot more awesome with a 2nd expansion adding something more of a global changing threat, instead of just instances dungeons.. but we'll see. There is item durability but it's just .. no real gold drain. Even if you were lacking gold, you can do certain daily things as well. It just seems are more streamlined and polished experience all around.

The main difference here, is as usual, that a monthly paid mmo just.. has more quality to it, and I feel like I already did get my moneys worth..

Wonder when I do get burned out though, usually happens very quickly with me, and I don't think I will stick around once the in-game expansion / main story ends... ;p