Final Fantasy XI Review

The story of this Final Fantasy XI MMORPG is very good, expected from this game, since other versions of Final fantasty has a great story in the game.

The five playable races in Final Fantasy XI are
Elvaan – Strong melee fighters, reasonable healers but weak in black magic.
Hume – A race resembling humans, with no notable strengths or weaknesses.
Galka – An all male race, masculine in appearance, they resemble large pale lizards; their face, however, is slightly ursine. Strong and tough, but weak with magic; they reproduce through reincarnation.
Mithra – Cat-like humanoids, of which only the females are playable characters, agile and dexterous, but slightly lacking in charisma and strength.
Tarutaru – Tiny humanoids with incredible power over magic, but physically weak

The gameplay of this game is easy to understand and to follow. The most of your time is doing missions from the storyline and you can do quests.

There’s also a party play system you can invite other players to join a party to defeat more dangerous monsters.

This game has many classes/jobs to play, like warrior, mages, thiefs, beastmaster, ranger,samurai, ninja, bard, dragoon, puppetmaster,corsair, dancer, scholar. it’s up to you to play these classes/jobs.

This game is very good, I’ll give it a 9/10.

You can choose from 5 races: The ‘jack of all trades’ Humes, the magically adept childlike Tarutarus, The dextrous feline Mithra, The strong warrior-like Elvaans, or the hulking bear-like tanks, the Galkans. Each race has unique bonuses to various stats, but can easily fit into any of the job roles on offer. Some races perform jobs ever-so slightly better than others, but never so much as to impact your choices.

The job system is perhaps the single greatest feature in any MMO to date. Choosing from any of the basic classes, with many more expanded classes available from level 30 onwards, you are free to swap job roles at any point in your career. Squad needs a healer? Switch to that White Mage job. Need a tank? Time to become a Paladin! Each job is levelled individually from the others, so the true perfectionists can master every job in the game if they choose to, all on the same character!

However, it’s also here where we hit the first of our snags with the game. Inventory space is a huge bugbear when it comes to having multiple classes. Virtually all equips are class specific, with only a few classes able to equip each item. With limited inventory space, you will run out fast if you choose to level multiple jobs, forcing many players to purchase ‘mule’ characters to hold excess gear. Further items are deemed rare/exclusive meaning they cannot be traded and thus cannot be moved to their mules, escalating an already troublesome issue.

However, back to plus sides. The graphics on this game, while starting to show their age, are still pretty enough to stand the test of time. Magical spells are varied and suitably impressive, special ‘limit break’ style abilities called ‘Weapon Skills’ can be chained together to add bonus damage in the form of a ‘Skillchain’ effect, and magic cast shortly afterwards can burst for yet more damage.

Monsters are far stronger than rival MMOs, with 1 XP-worthy monster often being strong enough to wipe out an entire party. Teaming up against these powerful beasts relies more heavily on teamplay than other games, reinforcing the need to party rather than solo.

I cannot leave this review without touching on the crafting system. You can choose to specialise in up to 2 crafts, taking them to a maximum of level 100. Minor crafts can be levelled to a maximum level of 60. Occasional ‘high quality’ items can be made which often have superior bonuses to their ‘no-quality’ equivalents. Levelling up crafts is a very slow and laborious process, but one which ultimately proves vastly rewarding at high levels, allowing you to make some of the games most coveted items.

All in all, this game is NOT intended for the soloist nor is it intended for players with little time on their hands. But, if you have time to kill and enjoy the thrill of team play as opposed to PvP, I cannot recommend this game any higher.

PLD75, NIN75, SAM75, DRK75, MNK75, WAR75, BRD75, BLM75

I really don’t want to offend all FF fans out there, I myself am a fan of the game series since FF1, however FF11 takes too much effort, too much time and too much patience to the expense of a good online community and interesting game plot… then later when the game becomes an old nobody plays anymore you will realize that the time you spent here was not worth it…Therefore I DO NOT recommend this game to anybody.

Sorry about that…

I have also played World of Warcraft and was kinda dissapointed at it, with ten million players you would think that it was have something special about it… Well it really dosnt its only popular because it ability of mass advertisement, something Squar Enix is good at in countries other then Japan.

Also Final Fantasy XI forces you to get out and communicate with other people instead of just be all by your lonesome your whole time and someone blames your for not know how to do something or mess up because it happens and they have been in that position befor.

Pros:
1. It has an ACTUAL story! WITH Cutscenes!
2. Spectacular music thats to be expected from any Final fantasy game.
3. Its a really hard game that will keep you active for years!
4. The graphics. Now, I’m not one to usually whine about graphics (I own a wii instead of an xbox) But these graphics where great!….For its time. sometimes the trees look grainy from far away, But what else are you going to expect from a 5 year old game?

Cons:
1. The level grind is tough, but it just adds to the difficulty and makes the game feel like you’ve accomplished something from leveling up
2. The money…Ohhh the money. T_T Its hard to make it at lower levels but as you go up and start killing some serious monsters(in BCNM) the money starts rolling in.
3. 1 word: RMT. nuff’ said.

All in all, If you don’t play this game you can never call yourself a gamer.

I than switched to Star War Galaxies, A complete opposite of FFXI and really enjoyed it. But than the new gaming experience came out and Jedi was an option to all players from level 1….That killed the game….Than I followed my ex’s route and played WoW..Yeppers that’s all I say is WoW….I have tried City of Heroes…Installed it, played for 3 days…Uninstall. Than Lord of the Rings….HAHAHA cheap version of WoW…That was only on my PC for ~5-6 hours before I uninstalled that….

In conclusion….WoW gives me the solo play / PvP / Grouping and a AWESOME Endgame…BUT, even 3 years latter I miss my FFXI. I’m itching to play something different (would never cancel WoW account) and I was thinking about going back to FFXI…If anyone can help out and give me some info that would be great….Has it changed much in the past 3 years? Is it the same old waiting for 7 hours to get into a group cause you’re a DPS not tank/Buffs/healer…Can you at least solo a Mob the same level as you :o) Thank you in advance. Have a good one :o)

Graphics 8 – I’ll give it an eight, cuase I really don’t think that the environments are the greatest. Now, as the expansions came out, SE has found more ways to push the ps2 to allow better environments, but, you can still see the limitations that the ps2 has invoked. Now, as far as character models, there isn’t another MMO on the market that has characters and enemy models that look this good. I’ll remind you that this game launched (in japan) in 2002, and was only ps2 to start. The armor and weapons are fantastic as well, and there are plenty of variations without getting ridicoulus.

Sound 7 – Music is ok, and so are sound effects. There are zones with no music, but, there really isn’t much to write home about here.

Community 10+ – The best thing SE did was to allow the player to play all the jobs with 1 character. This keeps a strong community, since everyone will always be logged in on the same character. Think about WoW, where you will have multiple characters, and some people would only know a few of your characters, but not all of them. In FFXI, you are always held accountable for your actions. People know who the bad apples are, and people know who the good ones are. Friends you meet in FFXI will turn out to be friends long after either of you quit the game.

Endgame 10 – Nothing comes close to the depth that FFXI has when it comes to endgame. SE has gone above and beyond when they released expansion packs. Zilart added Dynamis and Sky as the initial Endgame features for FFXI. It also added new zones and new jobs. Chains of Promathia was different, in that SE wanted to focus on creating a better story, and they did. There isn’t another MMO on the market that can match the cutscence driven storyline of CoP, or the difficulty in completing it. Also, as a player, there is a special feeling about completeing these missions, it’s hard to describe, but this game does deliever a true sense of satisfaction when you earn things, or beat things. SE did not release any new jobs with CoP, which players complained about till the next expansion came out. But they did unleash new Dynamis areas, new zones, and 2 new endgame areas, Limbus and Sea. There were also HNMS (rare monsters that spawn once a day, or once several days, that drop good loot. These monsters take several members to take down, and usually last 10-40 minutes depending on the skill of the group fighting it). Treasures of Aht Urghan was really a turning point in this game’s history. SE made it easier to lvl past 50, with the new zones released, and they even graced us with 3 new jobs. One of those jobs, is the most misunderstood job in FFXI history, the Puppetmaster. SE didn’t stop there, they also added several new gameplay features. Besieged features tons of beastman that attack the city, and players have to defend the city from the onslaught. There is a lot of lag, mayham, death, as hundreds of players take on dozens upon dozens of monsters that are probably lvl 90-100. It’s fun as hell though, and no xp loss. Assualts was added more for the casual gamer to get better gear, without having to do dynamis runs, or limbus runs. Salvage, is probably the most challenging endgame event, due to the tremendous amount of strategy that needs to be employed each run, and the 100 minute time limit. Even if groups make it to the final boss, they still will either wipe, beat it with barely anytime to spare, or not beat it in time. Einherjar is just ridicoulus. You can have up to 36 ppl, and you need all 36 cause everything links no matter how far away it is. But, in the end you can take on Odin, and get some good loot. After the success of besieged, SE made their next expansion, based on that battle style. Wings of the Goddess, the newest expansion, features time travel (to the past) in order to fight in the great war that shaped the worlds present. You can fight battles against beastman in every region of the world (in the past). This feature, also brings about something the casual gamer has been calling for…solo xp. Campaing Battles offer a good amount of xp, and thus you don’t have to go LFP for parties anymore, unless you want to. A group of 6, in the ToAU areas will still gain more xp an hour, but one of the best features of campaign is that you can get xp, while you are lfp. No more sitting around doing nothing while LFP, unless you want to be. WoTG also introduced 2 new jobs, one of them is rather solo friendly, the Dancer. All in all, no game offers the variety, and depth, and the challenge of endgame that ffxi does. As pointed out by a previous reviewer, there is no leet armor set, every piece has it’s purpose, and players will equip it based on the situation at hand.

Design 10 – There is no mmo like FFXI. FFXI is not a quest based mmo like WoW, LOTRO, Guild Wars, and hell, every other mmo on the market. You can get to 75 with only doing a few quests (ie you have to do the limit break quests at 50, 55, 60, 65, and 70 in order to unlock your lvl to 75), aside from that xp is gained by going out and killing crap, not from quests. They don’t have quests like “Kill X Number Enemeis”, more so, it’s the standard Final Fantasy style game where you don’t really understand what the hell they are asking…But, questing is completely optional, as well as the missions. The missions feature plenty of Cutscences and epic, final fantasy type stories. Some storylines, (ToAU) are easy as hell, while others (CoP) will make you wanna toss you console or pc out the window. Even a lot of quests that you can undertake in the game has ingame Cutscences. The presentation of these CS’s are amazing, and you feel immersed in the world. speaking of immersion, there is not one mmorpg (second life is not an mmorpg), that makes you feel part of a living, breathing, fantasy world like ffxi does. You can do whatever you want, the players shape how the game is going to be. You can explore, xp, craft, farm, do endgame dungeons, endgame farming, sit and chat, chocobo racing, pokemon style monster fighting, fishing, besieged and campaing battles against armies of enemies, missions, quests, and pvp. I’ve probably even left some of the features out of this game in that list, cause it’s hard to remember everything.

Attention to detail 10 – Again, another area that no other mmo can top. The moon phase, game day, weather, and direction you face, all play important factors in crafting items. What day it is and moon phase effects the drop rate of items. The game day and weather effect the potency of spells, and the mana cost of summoned creatures. Even the element a staff has effects spells. At night time undead come out to play, some mobs even sleep at night, and some can only see at night, or hear at night, etc. Shops are closed from certain times during the gameday, and have even 1 gameday where they can be closed the entire day. I haven’t even touched on the importance of stuff like, Skillchains, Magic Bursts, the relationship of elements (light, dark, and which ones they are weak to), the relationship of beasts (which families are strong and weak against each other…etc). The game has so many details to it, that it takes awhile to get used to all.

Conclusion – yeah…I love the hell out the game. I truly feel that I am part of another world when I play ffxi. I have great friends in the game that I have known for years. SE does a great job of making it even better as the years go by. I’ve played WoW (my 2nd favorite mmo), guildwars, eq, lotro, flyff, rappelz, shayia, saga of ryzom, daoc, rf online, and countless others over the years, and none of them have come close to providing the satisfaction the ffxi has given me. This game does take patients, and it doesn’t hold your hand. It’s really not a hard game to learn, it’s pretty easy, and the people in the game are always willing to help the new guy get started.

Kyran 75 Scholar, 75 Summoner
Fairy server

I think the biggest con for the game is that when you equipt armor it stays in your invantory. . .

Graphics/Sound: 8.5/10
For a game made in 2002, the graphics still hold up pretty well. That said, many complaints about graphics are probably geared more towards style than to quality. Unlike WoW, there are very few bright colors or exaggerated character features. There’s even less in character creation (sorry, no huge-breasted skanky females here.) However, it does have a subdued color scheme that blends in with the natural surroundings and impressive attention to detail in all the the environments. Did I mention that the framerate is near-perfect and the lag nearly non-existant in towns? This is playing on broadband with a 5-yr old 512MB laptop and 32-bit ATI Radeon graphics card FYI.

The soundtrack was not created by Nobuo Uematsu and a few zones (dungeons) are lacking in music altogether, but the pieces you do get are catchy and memorable. It’s not all orchestral like FFXII but the style is similar and fitting. Good thing the battle music is upbeat and very FF, since you’ll be hearing it a lot.

Community: 9/10
It may be difficult starting out, but the fact that experienced players are always switching and lvling up new jobs means that there are plenty of opportunities for a new player to learn the ropes as long as he/she has an open mind. The fact that you are required to PT to gain exp at a reasonable rate is a good thing, since it forces you to learn and play your job well. However, keep in mind that you’re bound to run into l33t ppl that suck as well as people that actually are elite – they just get pissy when things are inefficient. Tip: Learn to use your auto-translator early on and you’ll have a much easier time finding PT since you can communicate with anyone to an extent. There are many types of linkshells out there to fulfill your needs: social, lvling, role-play, and endgame.

Gameplay: 10/10
Easily the strongest point. Fighting is difficult and involving. The hate system (agro) is so fine-tuned that you will find people that know exactly who will gain hate by analyzing PT dmg output and skill-usage. A normal exp mob usually takes 1-3 min to kill, but you get a proportional amount of experience points. Ex: Killing an even match solo always give 100 exp regardless of lvl. At lvl 10 you need about 2000 exp to lvl up. At 75 you need 44,000. At first, the pace of fighting may seem a little slow especially when solo. But this becomes a necessity later on because you will need to keep track of what abilities a mob uses and those of your teammates.

Missions in FFXI are really something else. Not only do they reward you with access to new and beautiful areas (sky and sea are breath-taking), but they also give you some of the best items in the game, and tell a compelling story to boot. Some missions, CoP missions in particular, are very very HARD. Many of these require BCNM battles, which are basically instanced boss fights. There is no way for a high lvl person to just come and solo it, since many of them are lvl-capped, or are simply hard even if your lvl is maxed out at 75. These require a lot of planning, skill, good gear, and sometimes very specific PT-setups to beat. Couple this difficulty with some of that FF boss music everyone loves and you can’t help but describe it as epic.

Endgame content is huge. You can travel into alternate-reality beastman versions of your own nations with large groups and lay siege via dynamis. You can farm mini-bosses to obtain the items to get a shot at sky Gods or sea Jailers. You can take small groups and perform various special ops missions to work your way up the military ranks via Assault. There are many, many ways of acquiring different pieces of non-sellable drop-only gear. And a good thing is that many of these pieces are only situationally great. There is no single set of gear that’s plain better than everything else. Ex: A good mage make use of many different pieces of gear by macroing a different elemental staff for elemental nukes, enfeebling gear for add control, and mp-regeneration gear for resting. Melees will switch in accuracy gear for attack gear to fight evasive mobs. Tanks will change gear on whether to hold hate better or absorb dmg better, etc.

PvP does exist in the form of Ballista. However, this is done in a controlled environment and requires that you set it up in advance. The fighting itself is great, as you can set up rules before the match, but it can become tedious to set-up. As a result, there is no way to PK other players and it is very difficult to MPK other players, which I personally believe is a good thing. You also cannot steal someone else’s mob unless they activate the “call for help” button.

The economy has pretty much been fixed now. Square-Enix did a lot to get rid of botters and gil-sellers and it shows. Prices have been pretty stable for the past 6 months and few players still have large amounts of gil saved up from inflation. The crafting system (which is extraordinary and may actually teach you something about material production) seems to have reached equilibrium as well.

Conclusion: 9.5/10
FFXI has created a great PvE environment that encourages the development of a skilled and helpful playerbase through challenging gameplay. There is a somewhat steep learning curve, but if you can get past it, there is plenty of content and an active community to keep you going for a long time.

I played this game for almost 2 years loved it, Just feel it lacks a bit of end game content, also economy, also seemed like if your not a gil-sellin or from Japan your 10 steps behind.

Ex- I use to be able to sell scorpion harness +1 for like 15-20 million. 3-4 months later there 5 mill? common now.

I have only played WoW for year now, and have cleared Hyjal and BT so now i have nothing to do, but hope FFXI can fix that or a new game comes out from Square Enix L
But I do give this game a 9 for game play and graphics. The party thing was ok to, but I mean until I found a linkshell that did endgame stuff it was a rough ride on the game.

Cheers
Season^^

Graphics:9/10
Considering the fact that many years have passed since the game went out they hold their line pretty well

Gameplay:8/10
I admit it this game could be hard as hell for a wow player because u’ll need a party but this makes difference between a little whiner and A PRO GAMER.Like challenges?this is the game for u.

Charisma(story):10/10Incredible,addicting,full of suspense….u got it?

Community:9/10:Always ready to help newbies,has only one minus:u can’t solo it almost at all(only with certain classes it can be done)u need parties but it’s not hard to find a group that will accept u.

Runescape? Gameplay? Better than FFXI? Does Runescape even have gameplay? Sorry rural, but your a moron.

Rating: 5
Author: runescaperocks
Comment: My friend who used to play this quit because you had to be rich to be invited into a party, so you had to farm a ton.

Umm, maybe if people made you PAY to join a party this would be true, but they dont, so I suggest you shoot your friend. His stupidity doesn”t deserve to continue it”s existence.

Rating: 5
Author: midnightxxs
Comment: all i want from a game is a big sword great parties and nice players is that too much to ask i mean really i want to be able to have a fun time and explore but i am a red mage and i hate it i mean it is terrible i want a good job and a cool link shell i want to have an adventure i mean id there dungons and far away places and at the end of it an amazing iteam

What the hell did half of those poorly-spelled words even mean? If you join one party and it”s a bunch of morons, that doesn”t mean they all are. If you want a good linkshell, try to make a friend or two first and maybe they will invite you into theirs.

Rating: 0
Author: froeseje
Comment: well i ordered this game through ebay and waited for weaks for it to come checking my mail every weak or so andwhen it finally came i downloaded it and played it for 10 minutes and then put it back in the box uninstalled it and went to bed =]

Wow, that is the most shallow-minded, moronic thing I have ever heard anyone with an IQ above 3 say. How do I know how high your IQ is? You managed to click the “Send Review” button. Or did you need to hire help to do that?

For instance:
(Population)
You can only make one character without paying an additional $1 for every new character you make besides the first. EVERY job is playable through ONE character… which brings me to the “know-it-alls”. Everyone’s played everything. Everyone can see your equipment (leaving them able to tell you that your gear sucks and you should go die). Everyone will tell you how to play your job. Now don’t get me too wrong, there are some awesome people… but most of them are dicks.

(Size)
Now for the size… when you start out, you will want to rip your eyeballs out with how much time you spend on travel. (atleast thank them for autorun) But even that is a bad thing in some cases… most areas around the initial start-off areas are FULL of extremely strong monsters. It’s not until you complete an ass load of quests ( they’re ALL long, drawn out and boring *see Story) that you get a pass to use the airship. Not to mention to use Chocobos you have to do a long dumb quest that takes like, literally, 6 real-life hours to complete, no less. Unless of course you buy money from one of the craploads of Gil sellers and buy a airship pass right off the bat.

(Story)
Wow… as I’ve said the quests are UBER long and drawn out. But, whereas the story is a VERY good one… it’s SOOO drawn out that you want to kill yourself trying to get to the next part of it. Eventually you find yourself wanting to know the next part right away. The only problem is that you can’t do hardly any of the story quests without atleast being highhh level or getting high levels to help you (good luck, they only take money and as I’ve also said before, people are assholes in the game). I kind of think of the story as a book that’s really good but you can’t go to the next chapter without banging your head on a table for about 6 hours with someone telling you that you’re going no where in life and are a complete failure.

Now, despite every bad thing I’ve said, there are TONS of good aspects to this game, but I’ve rambled enough for now. This game deserves a 8.

Story line – Check+
Graphics – Check+++
Community – Check +++
Economy – o_o WTF? uncheck —

FFXI has beautiful graphics, cool special moves, cool abilitys, and lots of thrills… like when you level up its not just like *woo yay that was fun….* its like * OMG SWEET OMFG U JUST LEVELED UP LIKE WTF WOOOO!?!?!?!?* .. it really makes the game a lot harder, unlike wow, you cant eat with two hands while leveling & playing it.

I view WOW as a cheezy crappy rip off of FFXI with horrible graphics and lame glitches/ideas AKA: when you die and u dont wanna run to your body u lose a lot of item duration? should items even have duration? should you be able to repair duration? ffxi doesnt worry about crap like that, that will waste your time, unfortinatly, in ffxi you cant jump and run around on the terrain like you can on wow. but the graphics… they kinda make up for it, the aggro system is logical, monsters are difficult to take down with a crappy party, now i could ramble on like this all day, but ffxi is the best game, and dont say “its got horrible graphics omg!?” because you can ajust the graphics/rez size/chat filters/ect.. and they work on stuff like MPK’ing and preventing that… GM’s work as fast as they can and are constantly protecting the game from hackers/botters.
FFXI 4 EVA

Graphics 10/10: As I play WoW, I secretly desire to see these graphics again. The spell effects are gorgeous (especially the infamous Black Mage spell Burst). If you play as a TaruTaru (the game’s midgets), your armor is shrunk down to a size that is so intricately detailed that it looks like the game was made 6 months ago instead of 5-6 years ago. The texture details suffer when the armor is blown up to a larger size on races like the Galka (big, lumbering, giants), but this is a small price to pay. The areas are so beautiful and detailed, and have a complete story for each one, you can easily get into exploring and roleplaying in the game.

Gameplay 9/10: Superior gameplay, challenging like no other game I’ve ever played. You actually need to think, because when you go out to kill things, you can’t just sit in an area and attack everything. The game doesn’t tell you “This monster is level 15”, it gives you an estimate of how strong it is relative to you (Too Weak, Easy Prey, Decent Challenge, Even Match, Tough, Very Tough, Incredibly Tough, and Impossible to Gauge for monsters whose level they want kept secret). This forces you to think, How tough is this particular type of monster?, How tough can I take on?, are there any monsters nearby to help it? It’s not always “You can take on Even Match or lower”, it depends on your class greatly. For example, a White Mage will be unable to solo an Even Match at most times, but this is an easy task for a Warrior or Dark Knight. However, the game’s combat system should be revamped so it feels a little less slow and robotic, this damages the fun of melee classes that don’t use many spells or abilities. Almost EVERYTHING is done in groups, so there is alot of downtime while sitting with LFG flag up. This makes it so that a group of players quitting FFXI dramatically effects the game, making it harder to find a party in certain areas or at certain levels.

Class System 3,678/10: The best class system of any game I have ever played and ever will. You have to pick one of the basic classes at first (White Mage, Black Mage, Warrior, Red Mage, Thief) but when you hit level 30 you get to do (very challenging, like almost every aspect of the game) quests to unlock a massive slew of new classes ranging from Dragoon (gets a pet wyvern) to Samurai, to Blue Mage (can learn abilities by draining them from monsters, my personal favorite: the approptrietly named “Bludgeon” summons a staff that bludgeons the enemy to death. Good Times.) You aren’t bound to one class on your character, you can switch classes via a trip to your house and talking to your pet Moogle (famous creature of the series and a helpful manager of classes and item storage in your home). At level 18, you can do another challenging quest to get a “subjob” so you can be a White Mage/Black Mage, gaining the Black Mage spells up to half it’s current level (it’s simpler than it sounds).

Community 11/10: The best part! You need to do 99.9% of things in parties from lv10 on, so you make tons of friends. The community is mature and almost always willing to help newbies. Say you are having a lot of trouble getting to level 10 from level 9, you can shout for a few minutes in a major city and almost always get a high-level player to help you out. If you are new, you will quickly be picked out by a recruiter and invited to a “linkshell”, the game’s version of guilds. Me and my linkshell members (I founded by own after the tragic end of the best linkshell I had ever been in) did some of the most fun things I’ve done in any MMO to date. We raided orc and quadav (large, turtle-like humanoid beasts that play a key role in the story of the nation of Bastok) bases and gone after crazy new items dropped off of Notorious Monsters (rare monsters that drop rare and powerful items if defeated). Which brings to mind this: In WoW, you need to get toogether a big group and do a large, involved raid on an instance to battle bosses and get rare gear. In FFXI, Notorious MOnsters are everywhere. You can be wandering around an area on a quest and notice one, then kill it and get an extremely rare item. Much less involved but more fun. In WoW, and I do not exaggerate, you can get from 1-15 without talking to a SINGLE SOUL in the process. I miss the constant chat and friendliness of the FFXI community to a point of agony.

Economy 6/10: The game’s only true weakness. There was so much inflation over the years that the gil rewards you get from quests and selling items to NPC vendors is practically worthless. But the game’s excellent auction house (no lame buyout feature here)ensures that you can always get what you need from another player. The economy could be easily fixed by simply increasing the amount of money gained from quests, selling to NPCs, etc. Minor issue, you can still get by with the economy the way it is.

Story OMG/10: I… I can’t explain it… Heart wrenching, awe-inspiring, provocative storyline that will hook you and never let you go. The basic storyline is ridiculously awesome, but is made better by the fact that EVERYTHING has a deep, well thought-out story to it. FInd a stone tablet in an area and it will be engraved with the zone’s deep history. God, I can only say you have to play it to believe it.

FInally, the game is so great that I wish I hadn’t quit. I plan on returning once by next 3-month WoW subscription runs out. Pizzaboy from Hades server, out.

The only weakness in it is you won’t have as much fun making a second character to play it again as you would most other games. But considering how it takes your breath away the first time around, I still give this a 10/10

I played this for 3 years then went to WoW for 4 months, WoW is unrewarding, you don”t make friends, you play alone, usually late into the night, you cap your skills everytime you synth something you get a skillup, it just stinks.

I don”t need to explain anything about FFXI, play it, get past lvl 30 and i”m sure you”ll agree, UNLESS you”re younger than 15 yet this game does have an age limit of 13 or older. (this game is much more complex and square enix knows little kids shouldn”t play mmo games) I can say it”s a TINY bit japanese sides but only in some cases. I know i”ve gotten a japanese person banned so it”s not like they run around like “silly round eye! this JP ONRY!” but some cases are JP sides, like most updates they set for when Japanese people are sleeping while everyone else would normally be playing, they hardly ever have updates tho, usually only With expansions, every now and then for about a month after an expansion came out, or after they changed a new feature with the game.. i”d say an avg of like once every 5-6 months, not including expansions which they”ve only had 4 in the 5 years they”ve been around.

Anyways, here”s my total for my rating:

Player Friendly: 10/10
Control: 10/10
Support: 8/10
Storyline: 10/10
Social: 10/10
All around fun!: 11/10

Something I love is that FFXI, unlike WoW, has a quest-line with a major plot to it. it has alot of jobs to choose from, most of which get unlocked when you reach lvl 30 and do the quests.

the guild community runs on a linkshell allowing you to have more than one guid, by un-eupping and re-equipping a new one in your inventory! thats nifty.

the animations and style of the game remind me of FF as well as its Job system, when you get to lvl 15, you can have a sub-job which allows you to use a main job at the same time you have your main job, but at half its level, you get to use that jobs abilities, except the 2hr.

the community is VERY NICE they are all courteous, except for maybe a few people that like to ruin it all for you.

the jobs you can be are as follows:

Warrior: Melee Powerhouse
Theif: Silent but Deadly
Monk: melee hand to hand combat! including feet!
Black Mage: powerful damaging spell caster
White Mage: powerful healer
Red Mage: a little mix of whm and blm
Ninja: dual wielder! ninja spells!
Samurai: combo master uses 2h katanas
Dragoon: you get your own dragon!
Paladin: holy warrior whm war mix
Darknight: unholy warrior blm war mix scythes!
Summoner: summons monsters to fight for him!
Beastmasters: control animals and nature!
Bard: music buffs your party!
Ranger: powerful long range attacks!
Blue Mage: learn your foes magic and use it against them!
Corsair: pirate! deals with fate, gun slinger!
Puppetmaster: complex fighter, use a puppet to fight along your side!

the game just really rocks, but you have to have patience because waiting for a party dosent come as soon as you look for one!

To Blazzer101: That’s what World Passes are for! If your friends really wanted to play with you, they would have paid a very meager sum to buy you a world pass, which would have put you on their server.

I’ve played WoW for quite some time now. I have a level 38 Warrior and 21 Hunter. Before WoW, I played FFXI and had a 33 Red Mage and 18 Warrior.

It should be noted that both games play differently and involve different play styles, strategies, and levels of maturity. The fact is that if you’re immature and impatient, Final Fantasy XI is NOT the game for you! Stick to WoW if that’s the case. The community in FFXI is very mature, and it’s by far the most enjoyable out of all the MMORPGs I’ve played – including City of Heroes/Villains, WoW, and Guild Wars.

This game involves a depth of strategy that is virtually non-existent in WoW. It also is far more reliant on the group aspect of MMORPGs, much like Everquest and many other games. This game requires a bit more time than WoW, but if you’ve got the time and are looking for a rewarding, challenging experience in a game, I urge you to consider playing. If you do not have much time and consider yourself a casual gamer, I must warn you that this might be a bit over your head.

Don’t get me wrong – World of Warcraft is a good game with a good story and a lot of content. But so is Final Fantasy XI. FFXI will challenge you in ways that WoW could never dream of challenging you, and if you’re looking for that kind of challenge, then you’ve found it.

As of the date of this post Square Enix has fixed the economy. From my experience in WoW I can say the economy was completely flooded and the overall up keep of the game was pathetic, I actually fell through the world once and half the time I encountered “Internal bag errors.”.

Unlike WoW if you like to bot and speed hack you will likely be banned within a week. The up keep of FFXI is very acceptable and if you ever need to contact a GM you can usually get help within 10 minutes of making the request.

The actual gameplay of FFXI is quite demanding, so if your use to the simplicity of WoW’s click and kill battle system, FFXI will take a lot of getting use to. When you are in a party if FFXI you actually feel like you effect the outcome of the battle, not to mention how fun the game is when you take down mobs in an actual group.

On the downside, FFXI is relatively slow in comparison to a lot of other MMOs, leveling and obtaining Gil is far from impossible, but isn’t WoW easy.

Believe me, having played both games, WoW is fun for those who dont want to think, and FFXI is good for those who want strategy, although it may be slow at times.

First: as WHM75 and DRG58, I”m no noob to this game!

Graphix: desperately needs an update, which IS possible to do! I just bought a $2,000 PC, and I thought this game would be outstanding. Truth is, hardly any difference! And yes, I”ve tested almost all modes and settings.

Other:
Sound is actually very good, but not always, of course. And controlling this game works great. I haven”t tried the X-box 360 version, and will never do. Stories in this game, including the 3 expansion packs, are simply superb! Some of the movies shown when you progress, are breathtaking!

Ok, then the bad stuff:

Getting to around lvl 12 is meant to be done solo, and it”s easy. After that, it can get bad, unless you don”t play BST fairly good (the only job said to be able to reach lvl 75 solo). What”s bad, is that you can”t even wipe your ass without several pairs of hands to assist! Nothing bad about playing with others, but all high lvl DRGs knows how it is to look for a party several days in a row, without the hint of luck! SE (Square-Enix) nerfed this job beyond recognition.

As I said, I”m a DRG58 and WHM75. When the last expansion pack was released last year, everything went from bad to worse! Why? Because my 2 jobs are probably the only 2 (out of 18) no one wants in end-game stuff (Assault)! WHM is VERY popular in exp groups, so it”s fast to lvl, but it”s not a job I recommend waisting time on at all. Btw, lvling is done by having the party stand at the same location, all the time, while someone pulls a mob to kill. Can be both fun and boring, I”d say it depends on which mob + party setup.

RMTs, or Gilsellers (selling game money for real money), is a problem in this game, and even if SE claims to take the matter seriously, not much even hints that they do. Try to report this activity to see what I mean. Instead, this is the ONLY game I”ve EVER heard of where people are being banned for using software which lets you play in windowed mode! ANY 3rd party software is a violation of this game”s rules! To compare, Blizzard offers tools we can use to make addons for WoW…

FFXI”s strength lies in the subjob system, and the ability to lvl all jobs on SAME character. Note that SE, I mean $E, charges $1 extra for each additional character, per month. In WoW, you can have 10 chars per server (total of thousands!) with NO additional cost! And in FFXI, you only get access to one server…

NMs are the “tough mobs which drops the goodies” in this game. Everyone can reach the same “copy”, and claiming them is often a big competition. Some NMs are ALWAYS camped by someone. Might be what Blizzard saw when they put the goodies inside of instances, unike to you and/or your group.

Oh yeah, worse issue in this game, is that you can lose quite a bit exp EACH TIME you die – you will most probably experience the bitterness in dropping down a lvl too… If you just spent lots of money on new equipment you suddenly can”t use till you get your lvl back, well, people have cried for less, I”m sure.

This game has severe downsides, but still I”ve had much fun with it too. Especially because of a great linkshell (FFXI”s guilds). Hard to set a score, but I ended up with a 6.

A few comments on other posts:

Oneyx: this game does NOT cost $50-60, it”s $30, including ALL EXPANSIONS!
Check for yourself as Square-Enix”s webshop:

Anime?
How can you call this game anime? I”m pretty sure I”ve seen close to all NPCs and types of players, none with those large childish cow-eyes.

Firefeng: using ANY 3rd party tools in this game is ILLEGAL and you WILL get banned for at least 3 days if you get caught. Happened on a large scale in August. And if NPCs/characters in WoW actually SCARES you, well, that says it all. And “real anatomy”? Seen any Galkas where you live?

Tinytox:
You have NOT played this game for several years, and not even seen 1/4 of the game world. That”s a lie – it isn”t THAT big!

runescaperocks:
You don”t have to be rich to get a party invite. And DON”T rate games based on lies from your “friend”.

ligato:
Emulators are for console games and such. Trust me, you will NEVER see anything like that for an online game. And, if you meant to say DEMO, the game does have a 30 days free trial. If you have a friend with the discs, you can borrow them and install the game with the guest pass that should be in the package.

final fantasy is too slow for me and doesnt have a pvp and its all about the pvp in my books but all in all it is still a decent game i have a 64 samurai and he was pretty pwnage but i quit it and now have a 70 farel druid which is awesome is the best mmorpg out there imo

The first point is moot: bad people make for bad parties; awesome people make for parties that are a blast. In this game, you are accountable for your own state of being good or not. If accountability scares you, go solo your way to level 60 in WoW in a couple months grinding away mindlessly. I”ll take my variegated party dynamic over soloing any day. Seeking an exp party is somewhat annoying *if you have nothing else to do*. If you”re sitting around with your thumb up your ass while you hope someone takes pity on you to exp, you don”t really have any idea how to play the game. Some jobs get snatched up fast; the job I play doesn”t, so I occupy my time seeking a party while I make gil. Honestly, though, if you”re really jonesing for that exp fix, any halfwit could build a party with relevant jobs in 5-25 minutes.

(B) Making money is only difficult in this game if you”re an idiot. Seriously. Making extremely large amounts of money in this game is usually a factor of luck, and sometimes pure, unadultered stubborness and dedication. Either way, you”ll have no problem whatsoever competently gearing yourself if you just take some time to find your own niche in the market. It”s not rocket science.

(C) The graphics are only not great if you don”t know how to configure them using the *gasp* FFXI Configuration program. Moreover, you can graphically go above and beyond what the devs programmed for with a few 3rd party tools, if you so desire. Aesthetically speaking, the character, level, and monster designs, while a bit dated, are elegant, complex, and mature. If you want intricately designed, functional-looking armor, FFXI has it. If you want lots of big scary spikes jutting out for no particular reason other than the fact that they”re SHARP and SCARY and SPIKEY, go play WoW. Enjoy looking like a total, spike-armored badass with a superdeformed toon that looks like the product of a gorilla and a really ugly, hairless, radioactive gorilla. That”s WoW. Real anatomy? FFXI.

So far as story? FFXIs is among the best of any game, MMORPG or not. By its very nature, it”s incredibly deep, exciting, and emotional. Its only equals that I can think of off the top of my head are Xenogears and Planescape: Torment, and I”m not even to the really juicy, endgame bits, either. It is slow starting, but any good RPG will pace it that way…build suspension slowly, then keep the excitement running all the way to its climax. The great thing about FFXI is that the story doesn”t end. Ever. 🙂

This is the only MMORPG I”d ever play. Especially after that month with WoW that made me want to tear my face off to verify I was, indeed, still alive and not bored to death.

Goodluck to all and to those who say 99.9 % DONT speak english… go to a different server -.-

This game I can say is probably one of the better ones out there. The quests follow a very nice storyline. The graphics don’t look like something shot out of a disney cartoon and the game play in general can keep you playing for hours on end. Theres one downside that I’ve found though and thats getting a party quickly. I have a White mage, which is pretty much required for a good successful group and I still find myself waiting and waiting for a group invite. Other than that I find the game fun and enjoyable and the only mmorpg that I can keep going back to and not having to worry about becoming terribly bored of. I would recommend the game if you are into this type. Its not for the gamers who want to shoot to 60 in a week with no effort though like WoW, so be ready to have a good challenge. Also being able to play all of the classes is really nice so if you don’t like one class than you can simply change it and try something else out to see what fits you best.

This is a highly addictive game definately on to get! (Does get a bit expensive though but it s worth it)