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Final Fantasy XI Online: First Day Jitters

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 31
Date: January 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My heart raced and dinosaurs danced the Hula in my stomach as I tore off the packaging of what I hoped to be my newest MMORPG fix. After devouring my dinner (yes, yes, I was stuck with one of those bodies that require food to survive) so that I could devote a few full uninterrupted hours to FFXI, I popped in the disc marked FFXI Disc One... So I inserted the wrong disc, stop laughing. After inserting the correct CD, the PlayOnline installer was doing its thing to my delight. An hour or so had passed by the time all five discs were finished installing.

Play time!... Er, or not. I forgot about the registration process. No big deal, though, I was used to it after two years on Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. Name, address, credit card number, and agree to the dozen EULAs and Privacy Policies that sell my soul to the Dev-gods... I'd be done in three minutes... So why did such an easy task take three hours?

By the time I had finished typing in my information and all four registration codes (One code for the PlayOnline Viewer which is nothing more than a glorified account login screen for FFXI and Tetra Master, one for FFXI, one for the expansion pack to FFXI and one more for Tetra Master), it was 11 pm. Next came the hard part... The infamous patch! Now I do understand that I'm on a measly 56k but a twelve hour patch on the very first day is not a good sign.

I awoke today and logged in to see a cinematic so beautiful that the sixteen hour delay seemed worth it. The effects were stunning and the voice actors were perfect. Kudos! In fact, I think the cinematic was better than the film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within... although, most fans of the game series would state that my toe crud would make a better film. But was the game as great as the cinematic?

With a few taps of the mouse to navigate the character select screen, I was settled into Bastok with a Mithra thief sure to make my girlfriend jealous. But alas, I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to backtrack a bit to the creation of Genesys, my thief. After being spoiled by the creative designs of the Dark Age of Camelot avatars and the plethora of detail available during the creation of my Star Wars Galaxies characters, my bliss wavered at the lack of depth put into the characters FFXI offered. We are given five races to choose from: Hume, Elvaan, Tarutaru, Mithra and the Galka. Only three of the races, however, have male and female options. They all have movies attached to them that show a bit of each race's personality, and I must admit that a few of the animations left me wondering if I should seek psychiatric help for finding computer generated women attractive. Each character has eight hair styles with two colors attached to each style which vastly limits any diversity the Devs may have hoped for.

After choosing one of the six starting professions (Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief), I created something called a handle. I'm still a bit clueless as to what the handle does as I had already chosen my character name but nevertheless, it needed to be done to complete the login process. Now, before I continue any further, raise your hand if it seems something was forgotten before game play begins. You guessed it! There are no servers to choose from. Apparently, thwarting evil behemoths with a buddy is frowned upon because in order to be on the same server as your friend, one of you must buy an in-game World Pass, which is simply a password that you enter during character creation.

The screen went dark as the Loading bar filled and processed my request to begin game play. Now, I was a bit boggled at the lack of a splash screen, but Dark Age of Camelot did lack a splash screen until two years ago. I understand it's still the first week but come on! Are you expecting me to believe they thought black was an acceptable splash screen in this day and age? Make it a screenshot of a naked Tarutaru for all I care but make it at least look like you tried!

Once loaded, Genesys (my sexy feline thief) was given her very own cinematic showing her grace Bastok with her presence. Straight out of the gate, we're tossed into the tail end of a seemingly useless (and random) storyline involving a few villagers. The two I encountered consisted of some brats whining about being too young to fight and a woman who wanted to leave the city but the guards denied her the simple request. After finding the NPC who passes out the newbie money (which isn't enough to buy dirt), I ventured out into the rocky wastelands to lay the smackdown on some ne'er-do-wells.

I must say that the combat system is a rather refreshing change from the average turn based attacks. Not only do you not carry your weapon while in a non-combatant state (such as wandering town) but, unlike many other games, a very smooth animatic was inserted before and after each fight which allows us to see our weapons of choice being drawn and placed back into their respective sheath. Now maybe the average gamer won't care if they see their dagger ripped from its scabbard with zeal but it does add a bit of realism which is rather important in an RPG.

The choice of creatures to squash did leave a bit to be desired and I found myself sitting around awaiting the spawns. It seemed I was running around the map more in search of monsters rather than killing them. Normally, I'd blame it on the crowds stealing my kills but throughout the course of my night, I ran past maybe twenty other gamers. For the first week of a new game, that I believed had a huge following, it felt very barren.

I think I am a rather forgiving person but alas, now we must move on to my real grievances... and there are a few.

First things first... I have problem with the bill. As of late, many gamers have been griping about the fact that the box and registration number costs upward of $50 plus we pay the $12.95 per month, per account (save for Star Wars Galaxies that charges an insanely high $14.95). Final Fantasy XI, however, makes even me protest. Not only are we covering the bill for the game discs and the monthly service but on top of that, Square Enix has the audacity to implement a billing system that charges us per character! That's just a new low in my book.

Secondly, the HUD gets my goat. The HUD... Or should I say lack thereof? Every online game I have ever played has a very distinct layout on the screen that usually allows access to such things as the inventory window, options and exit. But no, not this game. To access any additional features, such as those mentioned above, you had better either read the manual or just start pounding keys. If you do eventually access the HUD, don't count on the keyboard configuration to fully work since it only accepts alphanumeric keystrokes (excluding the NumPad).

As a disabled man who has found it possible to fully run all online games using nothing but a standard trackball, I found it impossible to access 95% of Final Fantasy XI. It almost seems as if the Devs are placing a sign up notifying us hardcore gamers that the physically challenged are unwanted in the lands of Vana'diel. For those who use some form of onscreen keyboard to communicate, the lack of a Windowed Mode confirms the unwelcome atmosphere.

Perhaps next time, Square Enix should try making a Final Fantasy title that truly lives up to the mythos of its predecessors instead of trying to pass off a cinematic as a video game. To be honest, I can't even say the music was well-done as it was the same old score lifted from all of the console versions. Keep in mind that this is all merely one reviewer's opinion.

Worst gaming experience of my life

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 22 / 41
Date: February 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

(NOTE: some of this review relies on if you've played a MMORPG before)

This game is just horrible. Anyone who says this game is good either hasn't played any other MMORPG before, or is a zealous fanboy who is too blinded by their love for this series to realize a bad game under this title when they see one. I give my reasons why:

1. It doesn't separate people from other countries into different servers. If you're an american, and there's a guy from Japan or France near you, you'll still read what they wrote in Japanese or French, thereby creating an unnecessary language barrier between the players. I have heard that they're making american-only servers, but that won't help because of reason 2.

2. Your server is chosen at random FOR you. This is meant to "prevent server overloads and crashes" which is the lamest thing I've ever heard. If you don't have the capacity to support a MMORPG (MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER, it's in the TITLE of the GENRE for crying out loud), then DON'T RELEASE IT YET! I bet you're wondering how you're gona play with your friends if your server is chosen for you. You or your friend buys a "world pass" which allows you to get on their server. Unfortunately, the passes cost more depending on how many people have characters on that server, and their default price is 1200 gil. That's a lot of money for a beginning player, which means that your friend will be a much higher level than you when you get there. Well, you'll be able to catch up in no time, right? Wrong.

3. It takes FOREVER to level up in this game, even at low levels. You require several thousand exp, even early on, to level up. Monsters typicly give exp of about 15-50 exp per kill. 100 if you actualy managed to kill something even level and still keep your internal organs inside your body. Pair that with the 5 minute downtimes between fights, the several hundred exp you lose (even at low levels) when you die, and the frequency at which you die, and you've got a lot of wasted time. It just gets slower as you progress.

4. SOLOERS, BEWARE! KEEP OUT! DO NOT CROSS! DEATH! DANGER! This game doesn't support soloers, not at all. In fact, it's almost like it PUNISHES people who want to solo. If you solo past level 15, you're going nowhere fast. Everything can kill you. Not only that, but people on this game seem to be generaly unfriendly and cold, especialy towards new players (newbies, for those new to online gaming). It's gona take you hours of waiting to find a party, unless you're a white mage or bard. I know someone who wasn't able to play for 2 months because no one would party with her. Even if you find a party, you'll be kicked out if you chose a bad race/job or job/subjob combination. Which brings us to reason 5.

5. Square-enix made the bad, bad mistake of letting us be whatever we want. If you're a paladin, and you have anything except a warrior for your subjob, you aren't getting a party (no, that's not an exaduration). Same goes with most options. Casters should sub casters and fighters should sub fighters. This applies to races, too. Galka should never be casters, tarutaru should never be anything BUT a caster. Any exceptions would leave you without a party.

6. Most of the classes seem to overlap, instead of each one having a distinct purpose that would make them valuable over the other options. Dark knight = monk = samurai. Each one has different things they can contribute, but they all basicly do the same thing. Samurai would probably be the most hard-pressed to find a party out of those three, since they need full, complete, unargued cooporation from their team mates to be on the same level as the dark knight or monk. Warrior = paladin. The only difference between the two is warrior does a slight bit more damage, where the paladin can heal himself after fights.

That's it, but just to be fair, I'm going to list the good points about this game:

1. it has good graphics

2. there is no 2nd point, good graphics is the only thing this game has going for it.

3. refer to 2.

I really recommend you buy a game like EverQuest, or wait until World of Warcraft comes out. I can't write any more about this game, because it hurts me physicly to remember anything about it.

Don't bother...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 16 / 48
Date: October 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I played the Beta of this thing, what a waste of time. I'll just start by saying I've played all the Final Fantasy games previous to this one, many to the end, and enjoyed all of them.

This is not a Final Fantasy game.

You don't control the combat, you just tell you character to start a battle, then stare at the screen. It takes like 4 hours to gain 1 level and many more to complete one quest.

Sure the graphics look nice, but what are fancy graphics if the core gameplay is fundamentally flawed.

Also it takes FOREVER to get anywhere in this thing. Prepare to spend 10 minutes just running across town to buy or sell all the useless garbage you collect from enemies. Speaking of items, there is a limit to how many you can carry. Just one more non-Final Fantasy aspect of this game. This means you'll be making that long distance walk more often than you care to.

Back on the subject of graphics, while everything does look nice (assuming you have a powerful graphics card), it's rather bland in design. You'll come across a thousand shades of brown. Everything that isn't brown is green.

One more thing, this is the game that keeps on taking as well. You'll have to keep shelling out each month if you want to play this game. There is no single player mode. Not to mention you'll not be able to play it twenty years down the road when the servers are gone line all your other beloved Final Fantasy games.

Anyway, the final verdict is, don't buy this looking for a Final Fantasy game. I suppose that if you're into games like Everquest you may like this.

yep

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 20
Date: November 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

ok look, you people are complaining that you didnt know that you had to have a geForce card...and that the manufactures should tell it on the box, well it does ok, look on the internet, sheesh. Shopping stupidely is one way to get a bad game experiance. I havent played this game, I am unlike you guys, trying it out before buying it. You complain about the pixelated graphics, get a better video card noob. You also say its dull and boring like all other final fantasies...well if you dont like the other ones why try this one? Then complain. Just keep your mouths shut and deal with your stupidity losses, because their your fault.

Nice try

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: November 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

My problems with this game are that if you play as an amarican there is no server for you. Your forced onto a server with people who dont understand you or you them with a small translation tool that is hard to use and hardly solves the mass problems of all the people who you dont understand being a million times higher leveled then you or domanateing the econemy. In my opinon this game really treats you as tho your second class for being amarican and becuse of that I canceled my account after the first week. Haveing there team with better support and new servers for the amarican population would have helped but that was the choice they made.

Sad, sad game......

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 25
Date: April 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok, if you've played Final Fantasy games before and you want to know what this one is like........
Load up any other Final Fantasy game. Call over 2 of your friends that also like FF games. Everyone picks a character to be "theirs." When a battle starts, you only get to control "your" character. When it's someone else's turn, give the controller to them.
"What if my friends can't come over and play?" you ask. Well then you can't play either.
"What if my friends are idiots and screw everything up?" you ask. Then everything is going to be screwed up.
"Even when everything is going well, this is only 1/3rd the fun of getting to play 3 characters." you say. Yes, you are correct.
And now you have figured it all out without paying $50(+whatever extras you might have bought). You're welcome.

Final Frustration

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 26
Date: April 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

To begin with this is not the 'final' fanatasy. Its about time they dropped that stupid name.

This is a playstation game. If you own a playstation, and your a kid, you might like this game. If your a PC owner, do NOT buy this game! The cotrols are the WORST of any game Ive ever played! The game itself looks barren. It can't hold an unlit candle to Everquest. Its funny just how many Everquest copies there are and they have all failed in one way or another.

Biggest problem is that it is a playstation game, meaning the graphics and controls are designed for that format. Oh yea the install and registraion process lasted 3 and a half hours! Im not joking here! I have a fast machine with a DSL line, 3 and a half hours!!! After you install it which takes around an hour, the ENTIRE game is then resent to you over the interenet. Then there is a very annoying thing you have to do. Basically you put in your name and address and codes twice, since there are a few companies running things for Square Enix.

You WILL be playing the game with 7 year olds. Anyone whos played EQ knows that you stay away from the kiddies. The character graphics in this game seem to be designed to appeal to a 7 year old Japanese girl who likes Hello Kitty.

Enough said,
Play Everquest, Galaxies or Anarchy Online. Those are the leading games for PC multiplayer.

(...)

Monthly fee required

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 10
Date: February 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

No where on this website does it tell you that you can't play the game without paying a $12.95 monthly fee.

There are better role playing games

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 19
Date: February 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Buyers be REAL Careful. You MUST have a NVidia GEForce card or an ATI Radeon 9000 card for the game to work at all! NO Other video configurations will work. Square Enix only programmed the PC version to run on this limited set of hardward. The game will stop and give the error that the hardware is not supported if you try to run using a different video. There is NO workaround. Note that you cannot install an NVidia or ATI card without an AGP slot which is only provided on the more expensive computers.

Gameplay on any but the most expensive, fast, computer is SLOW and cumbersome. The sound breaks up and the keyboard does NOT react quickly which is what is needed when you are fighting. This was on a Pentium 4, 1.5 GHz system with and NVidia GEForce II card.

The game does run OK on a 2.5 GHz machine with a GEFOrce 4 card. I wouldn't purchase the game if you own anything less.

I would NOT recommend this PC version of the game.

12.95$ A MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is out of controle!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 14
Date: April 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

That is the most outragous thing i have ever heard u have to pay 50$ to buy the game and then they exspect u to pay 12.00$ a month!!!!!! and 1.00$ each char. I undertstand that its alot of work to maintain it but u add up all of the money they exspect everyone to pay=50$ for the game+12.00$ a month and then im shure u have to play it on dsl or higher so add on another 30-40$ a month so all together u are paying 92-102$ for the first month lol oh im sry they are nice enough to give u the first month for free lol WOW. I have been a gamer my hole life and i always thought 50-60$ just for a game was a bit pricee but thats understandable thats onely a one time payment now they are monthly!!!!!! 5.00$ a month would be more acceptable. If games keep on this path i dont see a good future for them :( sry.

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