Game Review: FFXI

I met my husband about 3 years ago, when he had just celebrated his 1year anniversary in what GameOgre calls the #4 Pay-to-Play MMORPG overall, Final Fantasy XI. MMORPG's have become very popular among youngsters, and it's a seemingly growing rivalry between those of us that play FFXI & WoW (World of Warcraft) which one is better, so let me offer my help in choosing which one you should play.

Both games currently offer a wide variety of "realms" also known to us FFXI'ers as "worlds", jobs, character models, and quests, but the similarities stop there. FFXI is a bit stunted with only offering 4 expansion packs. FFXI currently boasts 20 different job possibilities, with an endless combination of possible subjobs, my favorite currently being the Dancer/Ninja combo, although I do tend to main Redmage/Whitemage. With all these possiblities you are sure to find exactly what you want to fill your time, whether it be slashing away at monsters (DarkKnight), protecting your healers (Paladin), or keeping your friends from dying (Whitemage). Keep in mind though, that no matter which job snags your attention, there are many different ways to play. There are also 5 different possible race choices, with the most popular being Hume, although my husband plays a mithra and I play a female elvaan.

Unlike WoW, FFXI requires deep strategical thinking, and a lot of teaming up. Linkshells can offer help when looking for a few people to help you complete CoP missions (promies), getting avatars for your Summoner, or participating in endgame events such as Limbus, Dynamis, and Sky to name a few. I currently do Dynamis with ShadowRealms and am waiting on CoP mission 3.5 to move into Limbus and other events.

FFXI does only have 32 worlds, also known as servers, with SquareEnix recently opening up the World Transfer Service, allowing you to know longer be confined to one server. My husband and I currently belong on the Fairy Server. It is easy when having a conflict with someone to want to switch, but there are restrictions. The World Transfer Service does only allow 1 transfer per 3 month period, and the cost is currently $25 per character that you move. The price and limit was an effort to combat RMT (real money traders) that run rampant on all MMORPG's.

One drag to FFXI is a common problem that almost all MMORPG's are plagued with: RMTs. RMTs are 'Real Money Traders', or people who play the game and circumvent the system using 3rd party tools to monopolize farming areas, nm pops, and other such things to gather mass amounts of game money to sell for real money outside of the game. It is currently against the TOS (terms of service) in most games to participate in this process by either buying or selling, but it is hard to eliminate all RMTs from the game as some people that play FFXI as well as other games, are quite lazy and don't feel they should work to get farther in the game.

Currently FFXI offers 34 missions for it's Chains of Promathia expansion, 18 Zilart missions, 48 Aht Urhgan missions, and 8 Wings of the Goddess missions so far. Caution though, you WILL need help if you hope to accomplish all of these missions, as some of them are incredibly hard and impossible to do by yourself. The storylines for each of the missions though, without spoiling anything, are very fascinating and will definitely leave you wishing for more missions.

There is quite a lot of grumbling from players (myself included) on the high server lag at certain times of the day. The most problematic times are 11am est, which is Japanese midnight and a lot of JP are signing on to play, and around 6pmest when a lot of kids have finished dinner and homework and are hopping on to play before going to bed. If you can deal with a 20 minute lag while the servers adjust though, it is usually worth the wait.

Once you have chosen your race, job, and desired server though, the fun begins. You can either choose to start completing the missions, various quests, or go right out and look for a party to attack monsters and earn experience. Parties have a maximum number of 6 allowed, but you can create an alliance of 3 parties for a maximum of 18 players.

Given all the pro's and con's, I decided to start playing FFXI 3 months after I met my husband, and will be celebrating my 3 year anniversary on the game in June of '09. Whichever game you choose, please just remember, everyone has a different style of playing. No one way is the right way, and try to also remember that it is just a game and shouldn't too closely affect your real life.