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BEST MMORPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is the game of games. It has so many things to do in it. You get great interaction with other people while playing. Game is constantly being updated so as to bring more enjoyment to the game. Would recommend this to any age group.

FFXI - more time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: March 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I just wish the free trial lasted longer. It is easy to get lost in the world of vana'diel

Worst Final Fantasy Game Ever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 20
Date: December 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Oh where do I start with this one. First off let me say I own this game and have completed allmost all of it and have achieved the highest level
obtainable. This game does not start off so bad. However once you get to the level where you need to make a little gil for equipment and get a party to earn experience points the whole game starts going bad very quick. On the money situation , years of explotation by child run sweat shops in third world countries has given this game an out of control economy of inflation. Most ways to earn money in this game are completly controlled by the "RMT" ,or real money trade, forcing you to buy gil on your credit card to get that equipment you want. You will face an endless amount of hackers and 24/7 "bots" standing in your way of making money and ever enjoying this game. There are "Game Managers" that are suppose to control this issue but most of them offer very negative responses to any report of offenders and rarely act. I have personally seen the same
botter in the same place for over 2 months now. If all this wasn't enough, there is the experience points issue. Most of the time while trying to get experience points you will have to wait for many hours to form a party if you can get one at all. Then , you have to hope the people you play with are competent enough to have an effective party.
If the boring redunancy of fighting the same kind of creature thousands of times wasn't enough.So all in all, do anything but buy and play this game.It is horrible.

Lags alot

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My husband really likes this game, but it lags alot on our new Vista operating system, we've tried to find help from PlayOnline and our internet provider, but it still lags a little bit.

Fun if you can handle it

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing FFXI on and off for almost 4 years. I have 2 active characters each with at least 2 jobs over level 50. I still do not have a maxed out job so I cannot comment on end-game activities.

Pros:
--community-- It is much smaller than it was years ago, but no less friendlier. In fact, I find the overall community better now as most of the members are seasoned veterans of the game and many people know each other.

--graphics-- they are "dated" in comparison to some new games, but keep in mind that this game is around 5 years old. Given it's age, the graphics are very realistic and not "cartoony". The character models are outstanding, even much better (IMO) than newer games like EQ2, WoW, etc. Spell effects and character actions are origional and fun to watch. Battle is slightly more complex than your average hack-n-slash. Very different for each weapon and how each race handles the weaponry.

--storyline-- The multiple story lines are immersive and addicting (and I haven't even begun the Zilart missions!). Even some of the smaller quests have a small taste of one story or another.

--controls & user interface-- The user interface and controls are quite unique. If you've played other MMO's, you have to forget what you know and learn these seperately. PC version (I cannot comment on console versions) you can pretty much toss the mouse. Much easier to not use it. Keypad movement rather than basic W-A-S-D (or W-A-D-X) so you have to get used to right hand motion controls. Many different options for battle/spell/emote macros using combinations with either the Ctrl or Alt keys. UI is hidden and easily accessible. Lots of menu options for keeping control of your character, game options, inventory, maps, etc.

--jobs-- Your character is not tied down to a single job/class. Every character has the opportunity to try EVERY job without creating another character. You start off with 6 jobs and can unlock at least 10 more!

--updates-- there are free scheduled monthly updates...some to add content, some to make fixes. There have been 3 major expansions since release and another one in the works so there always seems to be fresh content.

--events-- there are seasonal (winter, spring, summer, autumn) events that everyone can do. Some are lame but most are quite fun and it's a much welcomed diversion from the everyday monotony of the exp grind. Plus you get some trinkets to play around with (fireworks, goldfish, etc) to add to the fun.



Cons:
--time involvement-- Square Enix did NOT have casual gamers in mind when they created this. The time sink is enormous. I don't have the time I used to have to invest in this game. For most jobs, after you reach the teens, grouping up is mandatory to accomplish anything. This can take hours just to get a group put together depending on your job, then you need to grind for hours just to gain enough experience to level up.
*Some quests and missions can take hours to accomplish not including the time needed to organize such an event. If you do not have at least 4-6 hours to play, or cannot devote entire days to complete some quests/missions, this is not your game.
*Travel can take a long time as well. Obviously, everything gets easier as you level up with teleports, chocobos, airships and outpost warps, but low levels can easily devote a couple of hours in a session just in travel time.
*Muleing (transferring goods to an alternate character made for holding items) can take forever too. Mailboxes only hold 8 slots so transferring gear from one character to another to play a different job can take a considerable amount of time.

--money-- in game money (gil) can be challenging to come by. Farming (fighting low level monsters to get the drops for selling/crafting) is one of the most effective ways, but it's a time sink and not my idea of a good time.
*Camping notorious monsters is not very effective either. The spawn rates are slow and the drop rates of desired items is unreasonably low. It doesen't help that the competition for claiming the monster is high. You can literelly spend weeks camping the same monster and not get a claim, especially if you have an older pc or slower internet connection.
*crafting - I really cannot comment as I have not devoted much time crafting. I do know that it takes an investment to get started...either with gil or farming your materials.
*Buying gil online is against the rules of the game and can lead to banishment and account deletion. Buyers & sellers of gil have damaged the in-game economy badly.
*Questing for gil is out of the question. Quests do not pay well at all. Gil rewards are patheticly low and gear rewards are usually not up to the difficulty of the quest.

--characters-- even though you have 5 races to choose from, customization is weak...IMO the biggest disappointment of the game. Only a few pre-set models to choose from so chances are you'll find at least 1 'twin' within the first hour of playing.
*Not all races are created equal. Some races are naturally better at some jobs than others. It does make for better race identity, but it does make some job/race combinations challenging, expensive (as you rely more on gear with trait bonuses), and undesirable to some people when trying to form parties (some people will not invite a Tarutaru paladin or a Galka white mage).

--monsters-- the monsters do not change. Same ones with different names as you go up in level and change areas. In most cases, they're all the same color too even on different continents. It adds to the monotony of the grind as you may end up fighting the same 2 or 3 monsters for most of the game (mostly crabs and beetles and occasionally bats). Being that everything in the game revolves around leveling up, that's alot of beetles.

--leveling-- As I mentioned above, everything in the game revolves around leveling up. You need to level up to unlock certain quests. You need to level up to participate in certain missions. You need to level up to protect yourself when harvesting and/or fishing. Unfortunately, the ONLY way to level up is through combat. No experience points are rewarded for quests or missions, no experience points are rewarded for crafting or harvesting. Leveling requires partying...partying requires alot of wait time and fighting the same monsters over and over.

Overall, I give this game 3/5 stars. It has many fun points like the missions, seasonal events and the great community, but the time sink and the exp grind can be very boring and frustrating at times. No matter how many times I've tried to leave it, I end up coming back.

If you want a game with instant gratification, stay away. If you're looking to immerse yourself in an alternate life, this is your game.

not hapy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

couldn't get the registration codes to work with my Vista OS even after downloading the vista compatible POL. Still no success, not happy.

Moved on to World of Warcraft

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 37
Date: March 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I tried playing Final Fantasy XI a few times since it came out for PC (2003, maybe?) and I had to move on. The first time through, things really slowed down around level 18. You need to do a very annoying quest to get your "subjob," otherwise you're useless in parties. Also, around level 20, you make a crazy long and dangerous journey to a big city to get your chocobo, which involves you sitting down at your computer for 5 to 6 hours! The game gets so ridiculous with the time required to do anything... And you can forget about going "solo." Quests didn't yield any experience points so your only way to level was to fight. Once you hit levels 10 through 12, doing that by yourself becomes extremely lengthy and tedious. Monsters that seem like a "decent challenge" will really mess you up... Fighters can take hits, but can't cure poison. Mages can do a lot of damage, but spells take time to cast and get interrupted. Red mages almost cut it, but don't have a lot of hit points... In short, if you don't have a good party, your experience points per hour will be terribly low.

The second time I played the game, last summer (it's 3/23/07 right now), there weren't enough people playing to even make parties! There were only about 2k people logged on to my server period. Before, there were nearly that many within shouting distance.

I went to World of Warcraft. It's possible to get things done in shorter periods of time, and not nearly as dependent on partying with others. Ultimately, FFXI had some good ideas, but World of Warcraft pretty much fixed all the problems I had with FFXI.

It is a costly game to play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Each character you play will cost you 1 dollar a month, over and above the first one. Where as in my other games which I have played previously,
they let you have 8, or 9 characters included. I concentrated my efforts into a craft. The craft requires special tools, and special options such as an apron. A tool costs 30,000 guild points which means you must turn
in approximately 30K gil or more to gain that tool. The apron is 100K
guild points, or over 100K worth of food prepared and turned in for points. It is really more costly than that. Sales of your high quality
items barely pay for the ingredients to make them. In fact many ingredients are worth more than the finished food.

The game is fun. This particular week is their Halloween event,
with trick and treats, costumes, and special quests for good rewards.
Many of the things in a game like this, come not from the game, but
from the fun the other people playing bring to it. The humor and
the encouragement and help.

Unfortunately for me personally some problem is creating a server down error (ffxi 3001) and I cant get into the game. That is bad, to be paying, and not playing.

Good game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: June 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have had this game for a few years now, unfortunately I had to stop due to deployments and after 1 year away from the game I still want to play it. Im going to end up getting back into it once Im out of Iraq. It is a pretty addictive game and winds up taking up alot of time but all in all its really fun, your pretty much forced to interact and get to know other players so that can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Also it has a good story , fun quests, just an all around good time.

The only draw backs that Ive noticed is that sometimes it seems to be a pain to group up with people and you wind up having to sit around wasting too much time organizing a group. The graphics arent perfect either but they are good. Thats all I have to say about this game thats negative, overall I have never had as much fun with any other game so I would strongly suggest giving it a chance.

How much time do you have?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: February 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game demands alot of time, you can't just pick it casually and expect to actually do something remotely fun, the first few levels go by faster than the rest, but once you get to valkrum dunes (lvl 10-12) expect that to change you can wait for hours to get people to form a party.

Once you get to mid-levels money becomes even more of a problem just to level you'll need food which isn't cheap and you'll have to separate leveling up time with farming (killing low level mobs to get items that rarely drop) or fishing for hours, it's no wonder that people use bots to fish and etc. Whats worse is that while you might manage to open up new jobs you might not be able to to afford playing them, ie. the ninja job is rather expensive since you have to buy consumables to use your skills and, ninja, since last time I played, was the subjob of choice for the new aht urghan class the blue mage.

All that being said if your a fan of final fantasy and rpgs you'll find something interesting amongst all the stories and because, despite everything its still a final fantasy. The amount of work you must put in to this game at least gives it some sense of accomplishment when you managae to do something, like get your subjob or open up a new job. There is fun to be had if you enjoy rpgs that make you work hard.

If you plan to play this game do your research, find what servers are popular and to whom, read forums etc. and pick your jobs well since you're more apt to get a party invite with certain jobs and less with others.

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