With the tenth anniversary of Final Fantasy XI’s Japanese launch having just passed, I thought it would be nice to finally sit down and do an all-encompassing blog post about the thing – what some people would call a “postmortem.”
I’ve written about the game plenty in the past – on a game site (now gone), an FFXI blog (now gone), and a piece for 1UP (now defunct; it’s an FFXIV wish list), but have never really sat down and laid the damn thing to rest properly. And after giving the game hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours spread across nearly a decade of my life, I figure it deserves it.
Vana’diel (5623×2104)
Welcome to PlayOnline
I started with the English beta of Final Fantasy XI in the summer of 2003 while living on my best friend’s couch. He was the one in the beta; I merely played the hell out of it while he worked a day job at a warehouse. Then he’d come home in the evening and play the beta while I played WarioWare or scanned maps. I played it because it was something to do, and as a lazy college student whose only source of income was writing about video games, I had a lot of free time once I had fulfilled my quota of stories for the day.
In my mind FFXI is heavily associated with summer, my favorite season. Stretching out on my friend’s couch in shorts as summer air filled the room through the balcony’s screen door was a daily habit, and one of the last times in my life I can remember enjoying a truly lazy summer without a single care.
The game itself was baffling. Compared to Final Fantasy X, trying to understand everything about XI was like launching the space shuttle. The manual covered the very basics, but there were many things left unexplained — some of them intentionally. How am I supposed to discover crafting recipes? Why aren’t Accuracy and Evasion stats listed in my status? Even after its release and a thorough dissection by the community there were things that the developers would never confirm or deny, like the formula behind the Rabbit Charm drop rate. As far as I can tell, this rare item ordinarily has a 1.4% chance of dropping from the Notorious Monster Jaggedy-Eared Jack, but the actual drop rate seemed to be far lower than even that, until an interview with the developers hinted that the charm won’t drop at all if one is posted at the auction house at the time the monster is killed. I still don’t even know if that’s how it works. The game is full of hidden requirements and conditions like this that I have always found fascinating to read about on forums and in wikis as fans postulate and collate data. It is impossible to play a game this intentionally obfuscated without these resources, most of which weren’t around during the beta (at least in English).
The unsavory elements
Though I no longer play the game, there was something intriguing about Vana’diel that kept me coming back time after time, with hiatuses lasting anywhere from a month to a year.
It wasn’t the players. I’ve griped at length about the average MMO gamer (rather, the dysfunctional personality types that emerge when one combines certain breeds of gamer with anonymity) and been sent to gaol by a GM for a late night /shout rant on the subject in the middle of Whitegate’s plaza. There are plenty of thoughtful, courteous, genial players out there, but they never seem to show up quite as often as the catty misanthrope, the bossy backseat power-leveler, or the arrogant NIN (whose death knell is always a sheepish variant on “lol”).
It wasn’t the endgame content. In fact, as Abyssea wore on, I found myself returning more often to lower level jobs and crafting. Once I hit the level cap at 90 (I ducked out before it was raised to 99), I focused almost entirely on support jobs and Notorious Monster camping. I never actually fought a single god battle in “Sky,” the shorthand nickname given to the floating continent of Tu’Lia (though I often enjoyed going up there for skilling up, farming light crystals, or just to enjoy the view), or its counterpart “Sea” (otherwise known as The Celestial Capital Al’Taieu) but had four pieces of relic armor from Dynamis (a sort of “shadow world” battlefield in which up to 64 players slay waves of monsters for job-specific relic armor and weapons) and a modest collection of powerful melee gear.
(An interesting note about endgame content: Certain superbosses gained notoriety because the “correct” means of defeating them as planned by the developers went undiscovered for a length of time. One unfortunate Linkshell spent 18 hours trying to defeat Pandemonium Warden, an Aht Urhgan boss with a staggering 20 different forms. When this showed up on Yahoo News, Square Enix put a time limit on the boss. Once time became a factor, players stopped trying to chip away at it over time and started collaborating to figure out what the trick was. And a year earlier, when it seemed that there was no way to defeat the infamous Sea god Absolute Virtue, Square Enix released a video (in four languages) of the development team doing just that, spurring the community to analyze the team’s every move. It turns out that the boss’s most powerful abilities can be “locked out” if a player uses the same 2-hour ability (so named because players can only use these powerful abilities once every two Earth hours) within three seconds of the boss using one. There is nothing in-game (that I’m aware of) to hint about any of these strategies. And while I never fought either of them, I found that entire flow of events to be very compelling as it unfolded.)
I can’t quit! I have rare stuff!
I never quite found a good Linkshell for tackling those endgame bosses, but did spend a lot of time trying to get relic armor from Dynamis. For years, my goal was a Saotome Kabuto+1, a Samurai-specific helmet that offered a whopping +12 Accuracy bonus. I had amassed all the necessary materials needed to upgrade a regular Saotome Kabuto, but never obtained the helmet itself. Even as the game was continuously upgraded and better helmets became available, I insisted that the SK+1 would be worth it, that as a Samurai I should have a distinctive piece of headgear instead of the gaudy Optical Hat (which was the style at the time), and that melees are so crippled by the game’s unreasonable emphasis on physical accuracy that it’d be silly not to wear one. Those materials are still sitting in my Mog House.
Dynamis itself was fun, but the time commitment (I was waking up at 5:00am Japan time every Monday to do Dynamis with a group in the UK for two hours before I had to go to work) and the terrible drop rates (combined with the rarity of actually doing a Dynamis that even offers the damn helmet in the first place) eventually drove me out.
I went through a similar crisis of rationalization shortly after camping the Notorious Monster Argus for a Peacock Amulet; here was a coveted piece of equipment carrying a substantial Accuracy+10 bonus, supplanted shortly thereafter by a readily available item called the Chivalrous Chain (Accuracy+5, STR+3), which I refused to use. On the surface, my rationale was based on the amulet’s superior Accuracy bonus (which is ridiculous given how precious STR is to melees, and a high-level Samurai especially), though in hindsight I’m positive that my mind was erecting a safeguard to prevent me from going insane after having camped Argus for months upon months towards the end of my college career in 2006.
This was but one curse of the game, to drive me after a rare piece of equipment to the exclusion of all fun or enjoyment. And sometimes even obtaining the thing wasn’t enough, and if it was a ring or belt or another piece of equipment not reflected on your character model? Somebody had better /check me and validate all the time I wasted camping this elusive giant beetle! I went out and bought a router just so I could play over vacation at my parents’ house so please recognize the Bushinomimi I finally won after losing the Ark Angels fight three times in a row!
At home in Vana’diel
Equipment snobs, Auction House price gouging, overcamped monsters; these are the things I do not miss about the game. But there was a wholeness about the game’s world that kept me coming back, a powerful and intangible connection to the environments that I felt in passing glimpses each time I played. These feelings could be attributed to an ordinary appreciation for a sunny day (La Theine Plateau), awe of colossal trees in a tranquil forest (The Sanctuary of Zi’Tah), excitement and fear of the unknown (Castle Zvahl Baileys), or even Stockholm syndrome (Valkurm Dunes). Some people have that “Hyrule field” moment when the sheer vastness of an environment stimulates their urge to run and explore and cover every inch of the incredible sprawl before them, and FFXI gave me that feeling every time I played.
Some of this effect was catalyzed by the music, the majority of which was scored by Naoshi Mizuta. His track A New Horizon (piano), written for the areas comprising the Tavnazian Archipelago, is an encapsulation of the peace, wonder, and fear that the player might feel (I certainly did) as they explore this new area; The Sanctuary of Zi’Tah (piano) feels like it was written to be punctuated with the player’s footsteps on the forest floor as they navigate the overgrowth; and the syncopating bells and tones of Ululations from Beyond feel appropriately foreboding as the player creeps carefully around the marshlands and caverns of Aht Urhgan, ever wary of the “truesight” imps that see through any attempt at concealment.
Something to remember
Though I’ve quit the game (for good? I dunno, I’ve said that every time), there’s an element of Vana’diel that I wish I could wrench from my computer and throw on my wall, or display on a shelf, or something. I consider myself to be less obsessive and withdrawn than the maladjusted escapist who wrestles with the notion that he cannot live on a fantasy jungle planet with blue cat people. I like to think that this is less to do with escapism and more an expression of wonder and appreciation for a well-crafted world (or at the very least a fond farewell after having dropped so much time and money into it). And because I do not have the tools or ability to create a 1:300 scale Windurst Walls, I have instead scanned the A4 CD cases that house the FFXI OST Premium Box released in 2006 and made them available on this very blog.
Unfortunately, this set does not include the Wings of the Goddess expansion from 2007, but these are still gorgeous, hi-res scans of Yoshitaka Amano’s art for the original Final Fantasy XI and the first three expansions: Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, and Treasures of Aht Urhgan. Beneath the thumbnails below you can download the full sized images as well as smaller versions perfect for your desktop (in the case of the two landscapes, anyway! Sorry about the text and spine creases, though). In reality, the world map painting actually consists of two more humongous panes (see the top of this post), but only the center two panes of the map (shown below) were included in the OST box set.
The six full-sized scans are all contained in this zip (314.4MB) for easy downloadin’.
[Note: Due to their size (I guess?), the two full-sized landscapes were automatically renamed to .bin when uploaded to Minus. If you download them individually, just delete the .bin extension at the end. The versions in the zip are unaffected.]
 Final Fantasy XI 1920×1321 | Full (9966 × 6859, 83.6MB) |
 Rise of the Zilart 1920×1277 | Full (9897 × 6584, 74MB) |
 Chains of Promathia A 1330×1920 | Full (4852 × 7002, 41.8MB) |
 Chains of Promathia B 1395×1920 | Full (4936 × 6794, 37.6MB) |
 Treasures of Aht Urhgan A 1373×1920 | Full (4950 × 6922, 42.4MB) |
 Treasures of Aht Urhgan B 1363×1920 | Full (4914 × 6920, 37.5MB) |
I came here after hearing you mention this on the No More Whoppers podcast. I never played FFXI, but I remember knowing a guy in college who was a huge fan of the series and was obsessed with it. Reading this made me wish I could have been a part of the game during it’s prime. I’m not a big MMO or FF fan, but I feel like I would have enjoyed it.
After the latest podcast, I decided to give FFXI a whirl since I bought it on Steam a year or so ago.
I’m also playing FFXIV, but FFXI appeals more to me, possibly because FFXII is my favourite entry in the series, and visually they look very similar, however I’m finding it pretty much impossible to find anyone to play with, let alone low level members.
So unless some people near my timezone (Australian) come out of the woodwork, I’ll probably end up giving the game a miss, which is sad.
Oh man! What server did you start on? I started on Fairy, which was later incorporated into Sylph, but I’m going to transfer to Ragnarok soon to play with an old friend whom I had no idea even played the game.
Japan and Australia are pretty close time zone-wise, no? If you’re on Ragnarok you have a standing invitation to FUN
I started on Fenrir, because of a two month old forum thread I saw with Australian players (Admittedly, probably not the soundest of strategies).
Well considering I only levelled up to 10 and then proceeded to give up, I’ll definitely give Ragnarok a try, and Australia is only an hour later than Japan, so it should be a good fit!.
Any race/class recommendations for a complete beginner?
Here’s the breakdown!
If you like straight up melee damage dealers: Warrior, Monk, Dark Knight, Dragoon, and Samurai are the top choices. I play Samurai and love the hell out of it.
Thief can also be considered a solid melee class as well, and is prized for its “Treasure Hunter” ability, which increases the drop rate of items. Ranger’s focus is obviously ranged attacks; they’re the only class that can use bow and crossbow weaponskills (I think) and is a lot of fun but very expensive to play for the cost of ammunition.
The two tank classes are Ninja (blink tank, i.e. absorbing damage through shadow ninjutsu – this also makes it a popular support job for certain tasks) and Paladin (straight up meat shield). Ninja also functions as a powerful melee class with the right gear. Either of these two classes will get a lot of party invites to lower-level, traditional parties (i.e. not Abyssea, which is just one enormous brawl and usually levels 75+).
The mage classes are pretty varied. Black, White, Blue, and Red are as you know them from other FF games, if you think you’d like to play a magic class. Summoner has access to a lot of powerful abilities (both offensive and defensive) through the summons themselves, but each one must be individually quested. They also require a ton of MP to function, and as a result require a lot of MP-boosting gear.
Scholar, I know nothing about! It was released in 2007 and has access to a lot of White and Black Mage spells. I think it’s intended to be like a Red Mage but with more magic power and less physical power.
Bard and Corsair are support jobs that give the party beneficial effects during battle. Corsair has SOME damage dealing ability (they can use guns) but Bard is more or less worthless when it comes to damage.
Beastmaster is sort of an odd one, it’s a solid solo job that doesn’t really fit into the party dynamic (but it can be used to solo a LOT of tough fights if you level it up). Puppetmaster is somewhat similar, they have average melee stats but you can tweak your puppet to suit your style (offensive, support, etc).
Dancer is my “fun” job, it has a high level of survivability due to various Drain and Cure dances. In fact, these things make it one of the most useful support jobs in the game, and most melees use it as their SJ when they do solo stuff.
The five races!
Elvaan: High STR, VIT, and HP. Low MP. Great choice for any melee job.
Mithra: High AGI and DEX, low STR and VIT. Great fit for any job that relies on AGI and DEX (Thief, Ranger, Ninja) and make good mages too.
Hume: The all-around class, Hume neither pales nor excels in any one area. Recommended if you’re wary about committing to a specific job or play style (which is what I did; I play a Hume, and while most of my jobs are melee, I sometimes play around with the mage classes).
Galka: High HP and VIT, with good STR and MND, but low MP, INT, CHR and AGI. Generally don’t make great mages, but excel as melees and especially tanks.
Tarutaru: The highest MP and INT in the game. Tarus make powerful mages and decent rogue-types due to their decent DEX and AGI. Their HP is the lowest, however.
While certain races may seem “better” than others with regards to certain jobs, your gear and skill will be MUCH more important to your performance. A lot of players have made powerful Black Mage Galkas and Monk Tarutarus because they have good gear (not even the best) and an understanding of those jobs enough to counter any kind of innate stats.
One more thing: Keep in mind that only Warrior, Monk, Thief, White Mage, Red Mage, and Black Mage are available from the start. I mean, I guess you know this because you already started once! But all the others must be quested at level 30. This sounds like a huge pain, but if you’re on Ragnarok I can help with anything and everything.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Okay!,
I decided to dive in, I started up a character on Ragnarok, I’m a Red Mage (IGN Arterus) and my starting area is Windurst, since from what I read it’s a decent class if I need to solo any areas. Also from what I’ve gathered a good choice of sub-job would be Dark Knight or Scholar.
So at the moment I’m still trying to get my head around the mechanics for quests and missions, I’m grinding for Crystals and selling them at the auction house so I can buy some gear and spells when I hit level 10-11. For some strange reason the way this game obfuscates quest details and certain game systems make it all the more intriguing to me, whereas FFXIV beats you over the head with tutorials and still manages to make no sense whatsoever.
So far the game is definitely scratching the festering itch FFXII left when I finished it last year.
Anywho!, let me know when you hit Ragnarok!, I’ll be sure to bother you with lots of inane questions.
Crap crap crap! I was wrong, it’s Lakshmi, not Ragnarok. :( If you don’t mind starting YET AGAIN I will gift you with FABULOUS MONIES when I switch of to Lakshmi this weekend. Sorry!!
Haha!,
Oh well, I guess the silver lining is that I’ll be familiar with all three starting zones, with this hopefully being the last time. I’ll be under the same name, and I’ll stick with the Red Mage, I only played for an hour or so on Ragnarok, so it’s not a big deal.
I’ll probably get some time to have a decent crack at the game over the weekend, so let me know when you make the move, thanks again for all of your help.
Oh man thanks, sorry again. I might actually be on Lakshmi tonight! I get off work at 4:30 Japan time and will probably be online by 5:30. POL ID is alfredo and character is Havalina (well, assuming there isn’t already a Havalina on Lakshmi and I have to rename). I’ll send you a message. Looking forward to it!
Bored at work! So I wrote some tips for beginners!
1.) Get signet cast on you from the NPC near the gate before you go out fighting so you can start accumulating Conquest Points. These are redeemed for important items like experience boosting rings (and for recharging them) and teleports. Which is related to…
2.) Do Supply Quests as early as you can. By running supplies to outposts under control of your country, you unlock the ability to be teleported there by a special NPC in your home nation. Because control of each region can change with each Conquest tally, it’s a good idea to check which supply quests are available to you about once every Earth week. You won’t be able to do a lot of them until later on, but keep them in mind. Vana’diel is HUGE, and teleportation makes a ton of stuff more accessible to you.
2a.) Also note that there are several “Gate Crystals” (I think six? Dem, (located in La Theine Plateau) Holla (Konschtat Highlands), Mea (Tahrongi Canyon), Altepa (Western Altepa Desert), Vahzl (Xarcabard), and Yhoat (Yhoator Jungle)) that correspond to a White Mage “Teleport” spell. All you have to do is examine these big blue crystals once and any White Mage can teleport you back there with the appropriate spell.
3.) Unless you know that a merchant has it for less, ALWAYS buy from the Auction House. Most of the time, merchants charge insane prices for ordinary items, like six-digit figures for stuff that you can get on the AH for 1,000 gil.
4.) When you feel like you need to take a break from leveling, try crafting! Choose a craft that will benefit your main job, if you can; I leveled Woodworking to make my own bolts and arrows for Ranger to save money, and Alchemy to make my own Ninja tools. It takes a LOT of time, money, and patience, but it pays off in the long run. If your job doesn’t rely on any one particular craft, just go with something that seems fun. Many crafts dovetail with others, so research a subcraft too if you like.
4a.) If and when you get into crafting, you’ll probably want to create a mule and start stockpiling your crystals and raw materials. Also keep an eye on crystal prices as you collect them and take advantage of any demand at the Auction House if you happen to have some extra stacks.
5.) Storage space is going to be tight at first, so try to do the Gobbiebag quests and acquire a Mog Sack as soon as possible. You can read up on these at any of the FFXI databases (I recommend the wiki, http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/ for info on pretty much anything). If you need something for any of the upgrades that isn’t available on the AH, I or someone else in the Linkshell can probably craft it for you.
6.) Try to focus on one or two stats and pump them up. I don’t remember what RDM needs (I think it’s MND or INT? Or both? I know that higher INT means a better chance of sticking an enfeeble spell, at least) and go nuts with it. Research your class’s abilities and find out what the stat modifiers are. For example, the Thief’s ability “Sneak Attack” is tied to DEX, while “Trick Attack” is tied to AGI. A Beastmaster’s “Charm” ability relies heavily on CHR, etc.
7.) Learn how to make macros and use them in battle. There are plenty of guides out there for this. “/ma Cure <me>” for example will cast Cure on yourself, while “/ma Cure <st>” will allow you to choose a target manually and then execute the spell. As you approach higher levels and accumulate gear, you might even make equipment swap macros. Melees, for example, sometimes use an “Accuracy build” to build TP in order to perform weaponskills, then macro in a ton of STR+ gear for the weaponskill itself (as most of them are tied to STR), then swap the Accuracy gear back in after the attack.
8.) Start leveling a support job. At level 18, you will be able to quest for the ability to equip a support job, which functions vaguely like FFV or FFT. A support job is capped at half of your main job’s level. For example, if your Red Mage is level 40 and your White Mage is 28, you can equip it as a support job and it will be capped at 20. This RDM40/WHM20 will (in addition to all your RDM spells and abilities) have access to all spells and abilities of a level 20 White Mage, as well as a stat boost that equates to about half of those level 20 stats (I think). For this reason, you’ll want to level support jobs for various situations. Red Mage/Ninja is a popular combo for soloing, and as I mentioned earlier, Dancer functions as a high-survival support job for almost anything. Almost all tanks use Warrior as their support job for the “Provoke” ability that draws hate.
9.) Ah yes, hate! Referred to in-game as “enmity,” this is the amount of attention that a monster will spend focusing its attacks on you. The tank’s job is to keep the hate on himself and soak up the damage with his high HP and defense (or in the case of a Ninja tank, his Utsusemi shadows). The Warrior’s “Provoke” ability is the fastest and easiest way to draw hate, but there are plenty of methods. Curing an ally will accumulate hate, which makes it dangerous for the White Mage in the party if someone is taking a lot of damage. A lot of mage gear has “Enmity down“ traits to help offset this. A sudden damage spike will also pull hate, so melee fighters need to pay attention too to avoid causing too much damage in rapid succession.
9a.) Understand party dynamics. A typical six-member party consists of a tank (for absorbing damage, typically PLD or NIN, or even WAR, MNK, or SAM at low levels), a healer (WHM is best, but SMN and SCH can excel as well), a puller (any class with a ranged attack, but usually a RNG or THF, and various damage dealers, whether physical or magical. “Support” jobs (er, not to be confused with a character’s support job) like BRD and COR are there to enhance the others. This can all vary depending on the target monster. Ninja tanks fare poorly against bats, for example, because bats have an attack that eats through shadows, but perform excellently against big, tough monsters that rely on slow, powerful attacks.
10.) Understand fame and quests. Each major city recognizes your “fame” level, that is, the accumulated fame value you earn by doing various quests. Higher fame is needed to accept more difficult quests or those with great rewards. The key to increasing your fame quickly is to find a repeatable quest that requires little effort and do it multiple times until you achieve the desired fame level. There are several fame guides on the wiki, tailored to whichever area you need to get fame in. Though the fame value is not reflected in your status, there are several “fame NPCs” that can clue you in on your standing.
11.) Level Sync is AWESOME. It was added a few years ago and gave the game a second wind. With Level Sync, any player can “adjust” their level to match the level of any one designated player in a party. This means that whereas before a level 75 player could never party with a level 14 player, level sync allows the 75 to be scaled down to 14 and earn experience points with his friend. These experience points contribute to his ascent to level 76, even though he is synced. The gear and stats of the high level player are scaled down accordingly, and you might have to adjust your macros a bit, but it’s a brilliant answer to one of the game’s worst aspects (experience distribution among disparate levels).
12.) Have fun and don’t hesitate to ask for help! Everyone was a noob at one point, and a game as complex and confusing as FFXI requires a ton of explanation. Enjoy yourself and focus on making the character that YOU want to make.
Just made an account with a copy I found laying around my apartment. Rolled a character last night on the server.
So, is this a thing people still do?
I played FFXI for about a year or so just before WoW launched, and even though most of me hated it, there was a part of me that is still very much in love with most of the ideas behind it. I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot lately, and even though I have gone back and quit again a few times, I sort of want to give it another chance. Is it worth it? Maybe now that I am older and wiser and have more experience with fruitlessly grinding, I might be able to tolerate it.
Given that I am in US Central time zone I would likely just go back to my old server. I don’t know anyone that still plays – I barely speak to the few friends I made back then anyhow – but it would be interesting to see how it has changed, maybe.