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Final Fantasy XI Review: Final Fantasy XI Review - Edit
6.5
Mediocre
| Graphics | 8 | |
| Role-Playing | 3 | |
| Fun | 8 | |
| Performance | 9 | |
| Sound | 5 | |
| Value | 8 | |
| Community | 8 | |
| Service | 3 |
;)
Final Fantasy XI, by Square Enix, has enjoyed a successful run over the course of the last three years; four years if you were playing the imported Japanese version. The game has changed dramatically during this time, with the addition of three expansion packs, and numerous content updates provided to the players for free. Bringing in an approximate 500,000 subscriptions a month, FFXI has proven itself to consistently please its old player base, while continuing to draw in new customers to the world of Vana'diel.
Story
One of the more interesting aspects of FFXI is that there is a dark, complex storyline supporting the mainframe of the game. The opening movie will show you the background concerning the war between the Beastmen and the Alliance of mankind. Before one can even begin to immerse oneself in the world of FFXI, players will pledge their Allegiance to one of three nations; Bastok, San'Doria, or Windurst. Each nation has its own separate storyline, yet all three will guide players to uncovering the secret evil that lies in the shadows in the world of Vana'Diel. Players advance through the storyline by completing missions issued by their home nation. By advancing their "Rank", players will be rewarded with more storyline details, access to new areas to explore, and even exclusive pieces of gear. There are other hidden privileges as well to gaining rank... such as the ability to travel between cities on the infamous airships!
On top of the original storyline, the numerous expansion packs have added in-depth sub-plots into the game. The "Rise of the Zilart", the "Chains of Promathia", and the "Treasures of Aht-Urghan" all present new challenges, storylines, and rewards to the players who dare to complete them. The storyline is one of the finest qualities about FFXI, as it provides even the highest level players with something to do after they've hit the level cap.
;)
However, there is one particular weakness presented by the mission-based storyline. While in the early stages of the game, nearly all of the missions are very simple, and can be soloed with minimal effort. Naturally, the missions will become more difficult, and require a party, and in some cases, numerous parties to complete them. However, the difficulty curve in missions is both quick and unforgiving. Players will not be able to advance very far into the storyline until they have hit the level cap, 75, or without the aid of numerous high level friends. Whether this was the intention of Square Enix or a flaw in the game's design is not my place to say, however, I found it frustrating personally to advance halfway through the game's storyline, only to be stonewalled for nearly 40 more levels. Essentially, if you aren't planning on playing this game all the way to the end, there's a very good chance you won't be able to truly appreciate the game's storyline. Even if you do manage to hit the level cap, you will not be able to progress without the aid of numerous friends/allies, and the missions can take several hours to complete. It requires a certain degree of dedication and networking to really enjoy advancing the plot.
Character Creation/Customization
FFXI has a very limited amount of options regarding the creation of your personal avatar. There are five races, each specially suited for a particular roll by default. For example, Galka, the gorilla-like race, has an exceptional amount of vitality and life points, and therefore are naturally better tanks than other races. This can discourage players from experimenting at earlier levels, but the difference is not so terribly significant to force a player to play a certain race and job combination.
;)
Of the five races, there are only eight face options, with a minimal amount of pallet-swapping options. As a result, you'll be running into your twins quite a lot in the World of Vana'diel. There are also size options; small, medium, and large. While they don't really appear noticeable, if you stand beside a character of a different size, you'll notice a slight difference.
At the beginning of the game, you'll only have the option to choose between the six starting jobs. When you advance to level 18, you'll quest to acquire your "sub-job", which will allow you to choose a secondary job to help enhance your primary profession choice. Upon reaching level 30, you will be able to quest for a variety of "advanced jobs". These are not necessarily better than the starting classes, but they tend to be more specialized in a particular field, or else they serve as a hybrid between two different classes.
Lastly, as I mentioned in the previous section, you'll choose which nation you want to pledge your allegiance to before you begin playing the game. Certain races are rewarded for starting in certain nations. For example, Bastok is the home of the Hume race and the Galka race, so if you pledge allegiance to Bastok, and you're a Galka or a Hume, you'll receive an exclusive ring when you start the game. Also, your home city's storyline will reflect on the history of your chosen race, so it may be of interest to the player to start at their designated nation. Do not be discouraged though, there's no requirement to serve any city, so if you'd prefer to serve Windurst as a Hume, you won't be penalized for doing so, you just won't start off with the nifty ring.
I think that people are forgetting how to get the 2048x2048 textures, you just adjust the two registry keys under square enix and i think the two numbers are meant to be 800 and 800 then you have 2048x2048 textures. the game looks much nicher. also if you have a HD tv then you can plug your computer into your TV I have a HDMI enabled graphics card and can run it at 1080i and 1080p (almost 2000 pixels width!!! cant remember the height though
The sounds are gradually being fixed. In the review it mentions the graphics but to be honest that would take absolutly months!!! remodelling the characters for the smoother looking bodies so that the upgraded textures look right on it as well. then of course there is the incredibly massive world that would need retexturing! and finally think of the weapons and armour that would have to be rebuilt. This would be great but I would rather have more options for changing the characters looks (like face and torso)
The communuity is great and I find that at level 20 I can solo just fine. It is good when you get into the game!
UnrealSWAT
Square Enix should stick with RPG's on the next-gen consoles.
The game was definitely memorable, but too much of a timesink. Everything in the game was tedious, and not really fun, but the atmosphere and everything was awesome. I want to go back to it every now and then, but I just can't do it, especially since all my characters have been deleted now and I don't wanna start over.
The thing that really screwed the game up for me -- and it relates to customer service -- was that on two different occasions, they charged me twice for one account. My cousin and I both played, and we had an account for each of us (we live in the same house, and are charged on the same credit card), and for some reason, my account was charged twice and his once, two different times. Called customer service and asked them what to do, and they said to fax it over to them and they should fix it. Long story short: they never fixed the problem, I quit, and I will never trust another asian company, and thus, refuse to pay monthly for any of their MMO's from that point on.
I played FFXI from its NA launch on PC and I have seen the game go from one that I once considered the greatest game ever to one that I've finally decided to walk away from for good, overwhelmingly in disappointment of what it's become.
I *especially* agree with the part about the community. The community in FFXI used to be one of its strongest qualities, in my opinion. However, over time the game has been reduced to a literal grind-fest as everyone follows the same step-by-scripted-step treadmill to the "end-game" to farm Sky/Sea or Dynamis/Limbus, etc. etc. Experimentation and exploration are not embraced as you are expected to stick to a very limited handful of leveling spots at any given level-range; suggestions to try other spots are met with incredulity and scorn - how dare you suggest going off the beaten path! Need proof? Ask most players what they think of Valkurm Dunes, or Garlaige Citadel... then watch their faces distort into all manner of disgust. Then, offer an alternative spot to try out instead... and watch their faces distort into expressions of disbelief and disapproval at the very suggestion, as they rattle off the mantra "no.. you're supposed to level there at levels x-y!". Players have reduced progress in FFXI down to near cook-book rigidity. So, very very much of the expansive world created by SE goes unused.. a mere place to get through on the way to somewhere else.
The heavily party-centric gameplay would be wonderful - were the mentality of most players compatible with it. The gameplay/quests/missions in FFXI are built around people maintaining a degree of selflessness and embracing the sense of "team" and helping each other achieve common goals. Sounds wonderful, don't it? However, the ugly truth is that the mentality of too many players is oil to SE's water...
You can almost make a theme song of the self-centered, opportunistic attitude that pervades a large portion of FFXI's player-base...
Sing along, the words are easy...
"Me me me... mine mine mine.. me me me. No time for you.. It's all about me me me".
To a very large degree, people are only interested in their own progress with little time for, nor interest in helping anyone else. The back-stabbing and deceit the reviewer mentions starts well before the end-game. I, personally, have been stabbed in the back by my own linkshell mates. I've got a novel's worth of stories about such behavior in that game.
Not to make this all negative, the game *does* have beautiful environments and an amazing sense of atmosphere. The earlier ones are, perhaps, the most "mundane" - well, except for the Ronfaure region.. they've captured the feel of a "misty morning forest" better than any other game I've ever played. And as you get farther into the game, the areas become more interesting, more beautiful and, in some cases, alot wierder. The artists and world designers on the FFXI team are *extremely* talented and I give them all kudos for that. In the music department, I agree with the review as well. Some of the tunes in that game are very addictive and often beautiful. Sanctuary of Zi'tah has an amazing theme.
I have many, many fond memories of FFXI from "back in the day". And those are the ones I'll keep going forward. The game has gone very much down-hill in many ways.
Perhaps SE's next MMO will bring a breath of fresh air - for a while.
Sorry...I'm a raging grammar nazi =]
Thanks
but anyway I heartly recommend this game to anyone that enjoys a good mmorpg. I started in March 2006 and the game was good but bored me, so I quit in the may, I restarted in august and the ammount of updates and new things was AWESOME. I am on FFXI quite a bit now if anyone on the fenrir server wants to party.
UnrealSWAT
Some things I should point out:
1. Your account is not deleted after 3 months. Your character data is saved for a year and can be reactivated for the entire year. This was changed during the "Return to VanaDiel" campaign.
2. There are no player guilds in the game. Linkshells take their place.
3. There are usually 4 or 5 role-playing linkshells per server. If you enjoy role-playing, you can find like-minded individuals fairly easily. There are linkshell listings on the Playonline Linkshell Community for every server
4. Chocobo raising and breeding has been in place for about 50 or so days now.
I recommend this game to everyone. SE did a great job of creating a world to explore. The NPC's have personalities that set them apart from the usual "hail fellow well met! Bring me 12 octopus tentacles and a clove of garlic." questing that I have seen in other games. The world is beautiful, most of the people you meet are helpful and nice, the ones that aren't you can blacklist and never see or hear a thing they do ever again. You can change your job at any time with no penalty. Be a thief one day and a white mage the next. Spend your day fishing, riding the ferry or the manaclipper, clamming, harvesting, excavating, logging, xping, whatever you decide.
The quests range from very easy to very hard. The missions are graded in difficulty by rank and they do get harder as you increase your rank but all them them are doable before you reach level 69, much less the level cap of 75. Although most of the missions are team-based, there are a few that you can get through solo with sneak and invisible.
Sure, you can decide that you want to get to 'endgame' really fast and do nothing but level if that is how you want to play the game. I know a few people who did that in a couple of months. It's all up to you!
edit: too early in the am, I can't spell.
Amen to that. I was gonna touch on that in my response (above), but figured it was negative enough :-).
Part of the rigidity and "script-like" treadmill the players have introduced is exactly what bountydog says. There are a total of 300 or so possible job combinations in FFXI. Only a relative handful are "accepted".. or, rather, "demanded".
In the same vein as trying different places to hunt and gain xp, don't dare try any job combination not on that "approved" list, you know.. to experiment, or perhaps get something more out of the game than what everyone else does and expects you to do. You will be called "noob", you will be berated and lectured and shunned from parties and told you don't know how to play. It happens all the tme.
You might notice that 90% of my disappointment with FFXI is related to the player-base, not the game itself. With a different, less egocentric player mentality pervading it, FFXI would be a drastically different experience, and likely still the most amazing MMO I'd ever played.
Zyrs, when this was originally written, the balance patch and chocobo breeding had not yet been implemented. So it's slightly dated now...but not by too much. Another person also wrote me in about the character deletion thing, my mistake there.
WSIMike, I'm generally in agreement with you on many aspects regarding FFXI. I honestly enjoyed the game a great degree, it's the people who detracted from the overall experience. HNM linkshells, NM botters, gilsellers, bossy elitists, greedy players, and dramaqueens definitely deteriorate from the Community as a whole. Honestly, had I written this game in the first few months of playing, maybe up to even the first year of player, my review would be rather different, and likely much more positive overall. However, I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly over the years....and I think it's important to make potential players aware of what they'll be getting themselves into with FFXI.
To all those who read the review, I hope you're not getting overly discouraged from even giving it a try, but please consider that FFXI really is a committment. If you're not willing to dedicate a good month of solid playtime to it...FFXI isn't for you. I know of very few people who logged on for 1 day for 1 hour and decided to play the game for years. Generally, it's the person who logs on for a couple times for a couple hours, despite initial frustrations, and sticks with it. Those are the people you'll see at the end-game.
I was wondering, did you alter the registry keys or anything when you played the game, what Antialiasing was this reviewed on, I recommend playing the game on the best possible hardware for the kick@$$ experience
UnrealSWAT
Then I upgraded to an ATI 9800 Pro 256mb, and ran the game at much higher resolutions, I think the highest I ran it at was still 1280 x 1024, with 2x Ani-aliasing. The game ran significantly better, weather effects didn't affect performance.
I did not alter registry keys...sorry. I don't know how to do that, unfortunately.
The Customer Support was not based solely on phone service however. I based it off of GM-call response time [Nothing like waiting 9 hours for an in-game problem to be addressed...only to be told they can't help you], billing issues [I STILL have one that hasn't been corrected...5 months later], phone support [the most prompt way to achieve service], email support [ see; useless], and live chat functions [rarely provided anything other than ''I'm sorry, but if you can go to THIS department...maybe they can help you...].
It may seem a bit harsh, but I don't think moderate phone support justifies inferior support from all other aspects. That's why I gave it a 3.
Well what was the issue that you nedeed a GM?
Also I cant help to think of when someone tried to report a gil-seller but ended up being asked by the GM to ban himself (that is, ban the one reporting the gil-seller).
Messing about in registry for a game is ALWAYS a no, one misstake & you need to use registry backup or re-install windows.
The game had average textures & models already when it was released in the west (havent played the expansion areas though) & compared to newer games it doesnt hold up.
More importantly came AH issues. There were 2 seperate occasions where I purchased something off the AH, but the item did not appear in my inventory, or when an item was sent and it wouldn't appear in my deilvery box.. When I asked for my gil to be restored, or my item presented, I was greeted with a ''Sorry...we can't do that, and we're not refunding your money either''.
The billing issue which still has yet to be resolved involved being triple billed one month.
A final GM issue can be noted with harassment. A linkshell had been harassing my exp party, and we blacklisted them, and they proceeded to have their LS mates harass us further. When we asked the GM to take some action, all we got was a ''We'll look into it''. Sure enough...nothing happened. Sorry, buy telling me you'll ''look into it'' isn't enough when I can show you my chat logs right then and there. Action, not promises, are what I look for in terms of customer service.
However, you wouldn't rate a sports team now by the way they played back in 2002 now, would you¿
I tried to keep in mind it's release date when I wrote it, while not disregarding the fact that there are standards for today as well.
FFXI renders the entire 3D scene to an offscreen buffer (render to texture) rather than directly to the framebuffer. Because of this FSAA has no effect on the game at all other than slowing it down. Multisampling FSAA is simply incompatible with render to texture and any game that uses this (usually it's done because the designers feel the improved effects are worth sacrificing FSAA) will either have graphics errors or simply won't work at all.
There's a sort of way around this, but first a warning. If you read the following and have no idea what the hell I'm talking about then it's safe to say you shouldn't be doing this anyway so just learn to live without FSAA in FFXI. If you don't know what you are doing you could seriously mess up your windows install.
You can do the supersampling trick. You edit FFXI's registry values so it renders the 3D graphics at 2x the screen resolution. Your graphics card will then scale the image down to fit the screen. ideally you want 2x the actual screen resolution. (though FFXI is limited to a max rendering resolution of 2048x2048)
This is what the "background" and "overlay" settings in the game setup are about. "background" = 3D graphics and "overlay" = actual screen resolution (and menus). The config utility only allows 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 but if you edit the registry settings you can set it to anything up to 2048x2048.
Supersampling FSAA is technicly higher quality than Multisampling FSAA (it anti aliases the entire scene not just polygon edges) but it also a lot slower. Only do this if you have a fast video card.
i started playing just before the RMT fall, prices droped down to normal, it was nice that i could buy decent amour at a decent price when i hit lv 30 on my rdm, at that point i decided to unlock ninja and use thf/ninja, im now currently lv 45, and am part of a large social linkshell, i have a friend, who is part of a major HNM linkshell, we hardally have time to hang out becuase hes always fighting genbu and the other gods, not AV yet...
this game takes alot of dedication if you want to go far, not so much to have fun, but if you want it all, you've got to play, there are still things that only 3-5 people have done (each server i mean), like getting the final wepon skill "knights of the round", it takes at least a year, and the same with the lu shang fishing rod quest, you have to fish 10,000 moat carp, and after that, you recive a fishing rod (kinda lame huh?). but apparently its worth it, yet it takes about a year also.
monsters the same lv as you arnt not easy, unless you know what you are doing, and it costs money, lots of it. solo isnt really an option on the game unless your going to do a diffacult class like beastmaster, wich can be somewhat rewarding, but partying and making friends is the ture aim for players on this game.
the game will lagg on a very busy day in a dense area, but even then not much.
Lv 45 thf/24nin/31rdm
Well, by this logic, this argument applies: Shouldn't every MMORPG be re-rated every year to keep a more current standard? Are they? DAoC, for example, has an 8.4 rating; surely, according to 2006 standards, that rating should have gone down, right?
I'm just saying, if FFXI is to be compared with 2006 gaming standards, so should every MMO.
From the EVE-re-review: mmorpg.com will re-review old mmorpg:s. Cant remmember if they set any time-limit though.
Also, MMORPG.com has started doing re-reviews on all the games. It just takes awhile for all of them to be aired. Just give it some time.
There is a reason people won't invite you if you are a NIN/THF, WAR/RNG or MNK/WHM. It is because certain job combinations work and others are simply useless.
Hey those pics on page 3 are my pics!!!!!!
The Hume Thief and hume ninja are meeeeee!
Want proof, here.
http://www.theforcels.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1027
Name is Seraphex on the alexander server, i think MMORPG.com owes me some gil for using my pics
My account was deleted and I was never even able to TRY the game. The fact they change it doesn't correct the situation for players, like me, that just waste $70 and never where able to even play.
Considering it is a raid-end-game, it just save me time, still I waste $70 and all I saw was the character creation, never even able to try the game...(my computer was to weak back then and when I buy a new computer, my account was completely deleted).
Square Enix may change and improve, they still wrong me in the past, and I am a vindicative person on such a level. I am glad to hear they no longer do that, but it doesn't change anything about how it WAS when I grant them some interest.
The other issues you mentioned I didn't know about, but it sounds like this game is even worse than I had thought. If Square Enix is too lazy, or stupid to prevent players from using 3rd part apps to cheat in their game then they deserve to lose every player they have. Games like Dark Age of Camelot do a great job, mostly, of preventing such blatant issues. Aside from the occasional radar user, or people who use macro programs to level up crafting (which I personally have noting against because crafting in DAoC is a nightmare, although Mythic has finally acknowledged this and is going to be changing a lot of things) you really don't see this kind of exploiting. When it does happen the community tends to jump on it, and let Mythic know that it needs to be fixed asap. Lucky for us Mythic doesn't have their heads up their butts, most of the time, but it sounds to me like SE does. I really love the Final Fantasy series, but FFXI is a huge disappointment imo.
Anyways, one of the best (read: fair) reviews of FFXI I have seen in a long time.
About the part where you mention the game deleting inactive accounts after 3 months, that's not always the case. I know they had a Return to Vana'diel campaign a while back that allowed old players to reactivate long gone characters but I don't know if that's still active anymore. However, I thought I quit earlier this year and left the game for 7 months. I just returned last month to find that all my characters were right where I left them. Whether this has to do with the above mentioned campaign, a plus of being on a slightly less-populated server, or the fact that I've been a subsciber for 3 years, I have no idea. Some accounts are still there after 3 months, some aren't. I don't know why.
Anyhow, I enjoyed your review of the MMORPG I love to hate and hate to love but can't stop playing no matter how hard I try.
Good job.
honestly I played the game for a year but found it not really to my liking... I'm a very "I want to do this" type and "why can't I do this?" and reasons like "because everyone else says you can't" just aren't good enough for me..
mana-burn parties would never have come into existence had someone not asked the question of "why"... "out of the box" thinking is not a common thing in FFXI though... to that effect, what works works well but due to the games rather brutal punishment of failure few people are willing to take a risk.
I left FFXI around 2 years ago, maybe more.. SWG introduced a world where solo'ing was possible and for a while that alone made it a good game.. then I moved to EQ2 and finally WoW, but I did miss FFXI until I re-activated my subscription. Honestly my 2nd go around I didn't get higher than around 10th level because I knew the future LFG hell that was to come.. I spent a lot of time fishing and playing the AH and it got old fast. I was in one of those HMN linkshells too but the thought of the grind was just too much..
anywho, the depiction of FFXI in the review is accurate enough to give people a good idea.. it truly is a *HEAVILY* social networking necessary game and it requires a pretty big investiment of consequitive blocks of time. If you can do both of those the game will be good for you.. if you can't, move on and don't try it there are lots of other mmo's out there better suited to a more casual playstyle.
I personaly enjoy playing this game...
that was a good review btw...
But.....for those who dislike this game please bequite...im tired of hearing "this game takes to long" "people in this game arnt new player friendly" blah blah blah
most pro players expect you to have at least read a guide so you know what your doing, and expect to know you can type...
i personaly hate dealing with new players that dont even try to make full words...
"how do u heal?" "type /heal or press H on the keyboard..."
simple...
but off of that,this game does take lots of time so you gotta make sure you have 3+ hours a day to play to get a good amount of things done.
and i have had personal experiance, most people hate players who beg for gil (myself im poor constantly x,x)
Linkshells are a key part of having fun in this game.
this game IS almost complete partying after about 25+ (unless your a beastmaster or MAYBE puppetmaster)
but please PLEASE, when you talk use words that have ALL the letters and dont consist of NUMBERS PLEASE...its so hard to comunicate with players when you do and trying to explain to new players about things when they dont use all the words in a sentence makes you just /walk away.....
thats about all i can think of >,o
OH and i enjoy starting over and leveling to 30 and such so fun for me :D (just started over again)
if anyone lands on searph when starting just ask for help from Okima and im sure i can do something.
i really want to try it but the cost to buy it from my country is too big couse i have
to order it from elsewhere...
so i would like to try it at least for a week i think !!!
thnx in advance!!!
Especially when my game KEY for other games never have expired even after longer absenses from the game then I've had from FFXI. I don't care about them deleting my characters, I would most likely have done so myself, but they went way beyond that...
So, if you want to take some time of from the game, make sure you know how long you have before your game KEY expires, not just before they delete your characters...
Most of the review was pretty much bang on.One point i would like to mention about the majority of gamers in general.Too many people in there complaints are worried about time???Why are you playign any game at all if you are worried about time?You are suppose to be in there having some fun and teaming up with other players.
It always becomes very imminent to me that players are in some kinda hurry to romp through any game,why is this?IMO that proves how bad a game is ,if you just want to whip through it without enjoying it.
If/when your time limit is up for the day,so what,logoff the game and continue it again when you have the time.This is not at work where your being paid to complete so much by end day.If your bound to a LS and playing with other players then yes you have to commit time to them to accomplish anything,otherwise you shouldnt be playing a MMO but rather play a free asian solo grindfest or play FPS's.
This game has been and IS designed for group play,so don't ever ridicule it because it's not solo friendly.Solo friendly games i have seen take very little effort to design and usually have terrible content.Fps's are the only genre that is truly designed properly for solo play.If you like to play solo there is amillion asian games or try quake/unreal tournament/serious sam[lol][funny game]/call of duty there is a ton of options.
I myself flip flop from party based games to solo based games to keep my interest going,i think others should follow the same routine to keep from ridiculing games that cant solo or are very time consuming.
For the life of me i can't figure why i would want a game to finish super fast if its a game i enjoy alot.The majority of people i know that truly enjoy a game,pretty much want it to last forever.
I also want to point out that your players are NOT deleted after a cetain time frame,only YOU can delete them.If you deleted them then why the heck are you blaming squenix for your stupidity?I have been offline for a year and still re-activated all my players.If it's past a year you just email them and they can still re activate a player,but no you cannot bring back deleted players lmao,that's your fault.
No they are still copyright of Square-Enix, EVERYTHING on your account is also owned by Square-Enix (ingame name, items etc). Also show the pics WITHOUT the mmorpg.com logo on them (since you say you took the screenshots), you have only shown the pics that ALREADY are linked to on this very site (that have mmorpg.com in the corner along with copyright info).
Uhm, bit late in reply.. haven't really followed the thread... but still better then not bothering (or being able) to read what is being said...
I never said I deleted my characters, I haven't ... what I said is that I wouldn't mind if they would delete my characters after not being active for more then a year (since I would probably do so myself) rather then being told to buy a new key after reinstalling everything ... nothing was mentioned about an option for reactivating the account, if that's a possibility then I might consider going back to this game, enjoyed my time in it...
After 3 months of inactivity all characters are deleted on the account, there was one campaign last year that let you activate account & get back your characters (I think, dont remmember too much of it).
For the numerous keys for account AND game I am not sure how they are handled, if you canceled the playonline-account you need to buy a new game.
Square-Enix really need to take lessons from other mmorpgs in regards to keeping character records & account keys (FFXI uses four(!) different cd-keys for a single account, that is 3 too many).
Nah, I don't care if I'd have to type in 200 account keys to activate my account (well, it would get real tedious, but that's besides the point), what bothers me is that they want me to buy the game again. I don't have any of the expansions, except for rise of zilarth (believe that's the name), and they do have those nice boxed sets that include the old game plus all expansions, so it's not like it's undoable, but I wanted to see if I could get back into the game before I did that... and now I think it's just not going to happen.
Not when a game like Anarchy Online even has all my characters fully intact after 2+ years of complete inactivity, and no BS about buying a new game key.
Customer service in FFXI is rather laughable. GM's are seemingly powerless to do anything. If you trade an item and it disappears, that item is gone forever, and it won't be getting replaced. While billing issues can usually be resolved with great efficiency, in-game problems are normally just ignored. It can be extremely frustrating when a repeat botter is constantly reported, and no action is taken to prevent these illegal activities from going on.
One other thing of interest is the fact that Square Enix will nullify your content ID, which is essentially deleting your character, if you stop playing for more than three months. Considering inactive characters aren't really affecting their server, it seems peculiar that they would not want to secure their customer's satisfaction by just leaving their character alone, at least for a longer amount of time. Games like Dark Age of Camelot have kept characters forever and it's absolutely laughable that Square Enix does not.
Just wanna point out that the above information is no longer valid. SE does not delete characters anymore. Also GM's have become a bit more player friendly. Now if you lose an item you CAN call a GM to get it back, and they do take botter's seriously. This score needs to be brought up.
im about to start this game, and would like to thank you for tellin me what to expect.
/sigh such an underrated game on this site :(
Sorry, read the review... and its rather off key an not entirely factual.
This game should be reviewed again without someone racist towards the game, in whole or just partly.
Dont use this review to decide not to play, look how long ago the review was even.
this game was designed in the wake of EQ1, so it has a lot of EQ1 aspects. Even the not so fun "level down" feature that if you die close to the bottom of your exp pool then you'll De-level. the xp loss at high levels is horrid if you die. As said, if you don't bring 6+ people along with you that will play at the exact same times then trying to get a pickup group in this game is about 2 to 4 hour wait at level 40+. Needless to say this game is very anti-casual.
this game lacks solo gameplay bad, the only 2 classes that seem to solo OK is redmage and beastmaster. other than that it sucks. But even if you do solo, the level grind in this game is just crazy bad, ala EQ1 style. Grind until you are blue in the face, the only good thing is the down times aren't quite as bad as EQ1. but they are still pretty close.
Good review nonetheless...