FFXI was my first real experience with an MMORPG and I loved the trout out of this game.

I'm not a hardcore gamer so I can't really speak to a lot of the technical stuff but I never found the game to be super difficult. But it could definitely be a grind. I quit before they made a lot of the huge positive changes to make it less of a grind. But as far as pure difficulty goes, it really wasn't hard to "get". Some things took a lot of time to coordinate and plan which could be frustrating, but I think a lot of the changes fixed these issues.

I also really liked the community. I always found it super helpful. And despite what a lot of girls say about creepos in MMORPG, I very rarely got hit on, and was supported by lots of friendly guys and gals.

The story is great and the music in this game is wonderful. Some of the best in the series.

And the big thing, I always found FFXI to be so charming. A little like FFIX. It always had that homey, friendly, enchanting quality about it.

I always encouraged EoFFers to try out this game. Some of the best friends I've made on EoFF, I made through FFXI.