Last night, I logged in for the first time as a new player to find a clumsy but engaging world full of kind and enthusiastic players.. For a while, it was one of the go-to launch applications for accessing online games, particularly in Japan; it also hosted Everquest II and the short-lived online mode for Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. PlayOnline is a bubbly little thing, its menus home to jazzy music and other ambient tones.
When I signed up, I even received a unique email account that I could access through the application. After navigating its menus and accessing Final Fantasy XI , I endured a six-hour patching process and then finally logged in. What I found seemed hostile by modern standards. Final Fantasy XI exists in a sort of stasis lock where all of its old-school sensibilities make it incredibly hard to get started.
When an NPC initially directed me to a quest giver, they laid out strict directions as if I was talking to someone on the street in New York City. Beyond that, there was little guidance. There were no quest markers or any form of guidance. A tutorial existed, but it was buried deep within menus and I only later found out about it when another player walked me through some basics. While this apathy can initially be frustrating, it also leaves the player with an overwhelming sense of freedom.
And where games like Star Wars: the Old Republic limit newbies to a starting zone whose story needs to be completed, I was completely free to choose a direction, walk wherever I wanted, and chat with NPCs in the hopes of stumbling upon adventures and quests.
I settled for leaving the city and beating up wildlife in order to level up and increase my skills. Whereas most current games have you cycling through a collection of abilities with a variety of effects and cooldown lengths, much of Final Fantasy XI is automated.
As you defeat enemies, you gain experience that raises statistics like health and strength, and you also gain individual points for special traits like hand-to-hand combat or dodge. You wander from area to area, size up enemies, and maybe occasionally select an ability to use. There is a lot of planning to it, but that was different from any sort of planning that groups might do in Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XI had chaos built into the fights to offset the redundancy that could arise from its more limited movesets.
To avoid redundancy, players were also encouraged to acquire a wide range of gear suited for different abilities and situations which they could swap out in the middle of battle. The unknowns meant players had to react to changing battles, and party composition felt like an extremely important thing to pay attention to.
It was frustrating when this happened, but there was an understanding between players that this was all part of the social contract. It certainly heightened the drama, too. Because so much happened out in the game, players had to trek long distances between locations. This was as perilous as the target monster from time to time, as a long journey could mean sneaking by dangerous monsters, and each monster each person creeps past is an opportunity for swift disaster to strike.
The more people you bring into a maze, cave, or temple, the larger the middle finger you hold out to fickle fate. Final Fantasy XIV is gorgeous and its scenery is something spectacular to behold. Once the story is done, players teleport about, queue up for instanced content, and soar past or far above the terrain with flying mounts. The monsters that roam the landscape are of little consequence.
A lot of time in it might be spent in a single town waiting to be matched with people. Each expansion typically has a new town in it where players will congregate. Saying hi is a good way to make this time pass in a more meaningful fashion.
You can also listen to player-controlled bards play songs, note by note, or just revel in the cacophony of shouted memes and pop culture references. Largely, Final Fantasy XI has changed, though. It has, by necessity, grown with the times and this takes shape in several different ways. The most palpable way is that most of the community I have been championing is gone, having moved onto other things like raising families or, say, playing Final Fantasy XIV.
The players who remain are, largely, at the maximum level. When participating in endgame content, it is tricky to find help in earlier levels. The compromise Square Enix had to make in order to keep the game going was to introduce a system of recruitable NPC allies called trusts so players could play old content by themselves.
I still prefer actual human players acting in the role of adventuring fellows, though. Final Fantasy XIV, on the other hand, was built to accommodate a single player approach, only occasionally forcing players to team up.
It also makes a lot of sense for XIV. I sympathize with those players, too. I can see how some people might not want a monstrous looking player character dressed in a Halloween costume appearing in the cutscene before a dramatic story encounter.
Yoshida has also said that there are players who use the game like a chatroom. The developers have built a brilliant place for all types of people. That was certainly how I felt. Some just stuck by their friends. If you head to the Final Fantasy XI subreddit there's still several posts every day, even if things have slowed down. It's a testament to how many players were invested in the game over the years. Strong design and a dedicated community can keep a game afloat for a while, but true longevity only comes when a developer continues to iterate upon what they created.
Amazingly the game has received a new patch nearly every two months since its launch, with the latest version update hitting on March 10, On top of that, Final Fantasy XI received an expansion or major update every year or two years after its launch, until Rhapsodies of Vana'diel in Each of these expansions added on a variety of content like new races, new jobs, new areas, and extra story content.
This kept a constant stream of new content for fans to dive into, ensuring that the community had something to talk about and some new challenge or boss to beat. Final Fantasy XI had a strong enough user base that it stayed a consistent moneymaker for Square Enix, and in turn, they continued to update the game and bring new content.
No doubt, there will continue to be a community until the game's last days. Hayes is a Staff Writer for Screen Rant. You can find him on Twitter Solfleet.
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