What's so FF about it?

[Discord]

Sounds like a fun MMO game really, but what does it have in common with the offline FFs. Is the story any good? Is there a story at all?

I've never played it before and since there's absolutely no demo, or at least I couldn't find one, I'd rather ask you guys before buying it.

PS: Oh, on a side note, does it have any recorded dialogues?

[Del Murder]

You can play it for a month free, but I guess you'll still have to buy the game. Not too expensive though, only like $20 for the game including all three expansions.

There is a story and it's pretty good, only problem is you have to get to high levels and join together with other people in order to experience it all.

Certain things that are in all FFs do show up. There are chocobos, airships, and a Cid. The job system is here, with many famous FF jobs such as Dragoon or Summoner. The gameplay has more in common with FFXII than FFXII has in common with any other FF game. Honestly it has as much in common with the other FFs that they do with each other.

As far as I can tell the only recorded dialogue is in the opening movie.

[Discord]

You can play it for a month free, but I guess you'll still have to buy the game. Not too expensive though, only like $20 for the game including all three expansions.

There is a story and it's pretty good, only problem is you have to get to high levels and join together with other people in order to experience it all.

Certain things that are in all FFs do show up. There are chocobos, airships, and a Cid. The job system is here, with many famous FF jobs such as Dragoon or Summoner. The gameplay has more in common with FFXII than FFXII has in common with any other FF game. Honestly it has as much in common with the other FFs that they do with each other.

As far as I can tell the only recorded dialogue is in the opening movie.

A pity that with dialogues. They really do improve the atmosphere quite a bit, but to be frank the FF games did well enough with their written ones too (definitely not the case in NWN and Morrowind).

No Biggs and Wedge?:p

PS: How necessary is grinding?

[Del Murder]

Very necessary.

[Markus. D]

You can play it for a month free, but I guess you'll still have to buy the game. Not too expensive though, only like $20 for the game including all three expansions.

There is a story and it's pretty good, only problem is you have to get to high levels and join together with other people in order to experience it all.

Certain things that are in all FFs do show up. There are chocobos, airships, and a Cid. The job system is here, with many famous FF jobs such as Dragoon or Summoner. The gameplay has more in common with FFXII than FFXII has in common with any other FF game. Honestly it has as much in common with the other FFs that they do with each other.

As far as I can tell the only recorded dialogue is in the opening movie.

A pity that with dialogues. They really do improve the atmosphere quite a bit, but to be frank the FF games did well enough with their written ones too (definitely not the case in NWN and Morrowind).

No Biggs and Wedge?:p

PS: How necessary is grinding?

extraordinarily... :(

but it grows on you as you progress through in the teams and learn the wonder that saves this games core gameplay. Macros!

[Discord]

You can play it for a month free, but I guess you'll still have to buy the game. Not too expensive though, only like $20 for the game including all three expansions.

There is a story and it's pretty good, only problem is you have to get to high levels and join together with other people in order to experience it all.

Certain things that are in all FFs do show up. There are chocobos, airships, and a Cid. The job system is here, with many famous FF jobs such as Dragoon or Summoner. The gameplay has more in common with FFXII than FFXII has in common with any other FF game. Honestly it has as much in common with the other FFs that they do with each other.

As far as I can tell the only recorded dialogue is in the opening movie.

A pity that with dialogues. They really do improve the atmosphere quite a bit, but to be frank the FF games did well enough with their written ones too (definitely not the case in NWN and Morrowind).

No Biggs and Wedge?:p

PS: How necessary is grinding?

extraordinarily... :(

but it grows on you as you progress through in the teams and learn the wonder that saves this games core gameplay. Macros!

So is it more of a story game, like the FFs often are (at least the first time you beat them), or more of a mindless bashing MMO, not that there's anything bad about grinding?

[Rostum]

It's a grinding MMO, with an awesome storyline. But it'll take you a very long time to get through every single mission in all expansions. It has a lot in common with other FF games, except it's all been adapted to an MMO (if you've ever played one before).

Basically, if you don't like MMO's, don't get this game.

[Yeargdribble]

The storyline is awesome, but if you want a storyline similar to other FFs you will be sad. It's about 90% grinding and 10% story. You will have to spend an absurd amount of time leveling to touch much of the story. It is likely that you will go for weeks or even months at a time between plot points which makes the continuity of it a little hard to follow.

The Chains of Promathia storyline is one of the best, but only a handful of people on this forum have even made it through, which is something to say considering how long they've been playing. It is difficult on so many levels to make storyline progress.

If you want a story wrapped up all neatly that you can easily follow along (like most FFs) then this is not the game for you. This is mostly a grinding MMO with the benefit of a very deep story.

[No.78]

The story is awesome.

[Discord]

It is likely that you will go for weeks or even months at a time between plot points which makes the continuity of it a little hard to follow.

That was my concern. MMOs are fun, but the only one I could stick with for longer than a week was WoW. Probably because of the world which wasn't really new to me. It was more of finding out "What happened to Thrall and co."...

Thanks a bunch guys.

[Miriel]

You could always try it out free for a month. Like Del already said, it's very cheap to get the newest release of the game that includes the expansions. Try it out. See if you like it. If you don't, that's that.

[eternalshiva]

3 years and I still haven't seen everything in this game ;/ If you're looking for something to keep you entertained for a long time, FFXI is it. Don;t listen to Ygg, he's a WoW turncoat so he's all about the "FFXI is just grinding" <3 <3 (I hope you realize I'm teasing you)

End game in FFXI can be very time consumming and if you want that uber gear, get ready to turn into an angry mean bitter person that will make other people miserable!

/wtfyoustolemyfaffy! /lolyouforgotblockaidnoob /eatthesespiders! /immacallforhelp! DramaTorama Found it!

Besides that there's alot of activities in this game that really makes it enjoyable. I'd spit out words that mean things to me but since you don't play, it would mean nothing to you :P Dynamis! CoP Dynamis! Sky! Sea! Limbus~!

[Yeargdribble]

I think it's unfair that SE only gives a 30 day trial. You really can't get into the meat of what makes FFXI enjoyable in 30 days. Meanwhile WoW gives a 60 day trail if you buy the game and you can honestly get hooked quickly.

Most people don't FFXI the chance it deserves because it's very difficult to get into compared to WoW. In 30 days of FFXI most new players won't see beyond Valkurm considering they have to level to 18, get their subjob and then level again to 20. By that time the trial is over, they haven't gotten to ride a chocobo and are probably thinking, "Wow this game sucks."

FFXI can be an awesome game, but do expect a significant time investment. That's not just over a long period of time, but that means for significant chunks of time at a time. You really need about 3 hours of time in one sitting to accomplish anything.

You won't run out of things to do in FFXI, but if you do get seriously into it you'll also feel the impossibility of progress at some point. It could take you months upon months of constant playing to earn a single piece of gear (hi2u salvage, hi2u northlands relic).




If you're looking for it to share a common thread with other FF games you will find that it's sort of the black sheep in that department. While it does have some very FF elements to it, a lot of them aren't that strong and even some FF fans are turned off by this.

[Discord]

Actually, I just installed it yesterday. It certainly is quite a bit harder to get into than WoW.

[Yeargdribble]

Buy your early gear from vendors. Do NOT buy gear from the AH. Also, do not sell ANY of your drop from mobs to vendors. Sell them to the AH. Some things you'll probably have trouble with are the fact that money is very difficult to come by early on (if you don't know how to make it already) and soloing is very difficult after about 6 (more or less depending on the job) before you have a subjob.


You'll find that when you get a quest you get pretty much no info in the quest log like in WoW. Basically you'll need to look the quests up to figure out how to do them if you didn't pay careful attention when you talked to an NPC that gave them to you. Check the useful link sticky in this forum. FFXIclopedia is probably your best bet for quest walk-throughs. Don't focus much on quests though. They have little to no reward at this point in the game and take up far more time than they are worth.

Make sure you talk to a guard near the gates of whatever city you are in and get them to cast Signet on you. It will help you get crystals as drops (among other benefits). Like most other things you get, sell them on the AH. When you hit around 10 you may need to start buying some gear from the AH. Hopefully you've saved up some money by then, but up until that point don't bother.

Good luck.

[nozkits]

Well you see you pay SE 13 bucks a month so that you can work your tail off through leveling up, and earning gil to buy expensive equipment that is much needed so that you can continue to level up before you even think about going through the storyline.... I'll be in Turkey in May thus I'm going to cancel my account temp. then reactivate it later.. Is there a limited amount you can do this for?

[Yeargdribble]

I think once upon a time it was like 3 months... then SE started the "Return Home to Vana'diel" thing some years back and said, "hay guyz we wer lieing lolz we still hav ur accounts even if u quit a yer ago surprize!!1" I think it's a year now, but I'm not completely sure.

I kinda have the feeling SE wants to keep old accounts around for quite a while so that they can give a very large grace period for people to come back in. Probably a good policy since growth has slowed down (to be expected in a 5 year old MMORPG).

[eternalshiva]

If someone uses your name though after you cancel it, you'll have to rename your character. It's just 13 bucks a month. Avoid the hassle if you know you're coming back.

[Discord]

If someone uses your name though after you cancel it, you'll have to rename your character. It's just 13 bucks a month. Avoid the hassle if you know you're coming back.

Or you select a name that nobody else would ever use.^^

[eternalshiva]

Unless you can mind read, I've seen 4 versions of my name out on Titan and I was 100% positive no one would use Dayala!

[Yeargdribble]

No one ever uses Yeargdribble ^^, but I'm constantly surprised at some of the names that get unexpectedly used.