As expected, I ended up buying Final Fantasy XI for the 360 to give it another go. Last time I tried it out I played it on the PC, which wasn’t a very impressive experience to say the least – the controls were in no way well adapted to a keyboard. So with a steady controller in hand, I created a tarutaru black mage, rolled it on the Siren server and…
…got confused. I’ve played most FF-games. I’ve also been playing a lot of MMOs over the last couple of years. But I’ve never seen a game more confusing for a new player than Final Fantasy XI, not even EVE Online is this rough. You’re dumped in a world you quickly understand is huge, you need to choose between three nations to start in (a choice that actually has an effect on your character, but the game never bothers to inform you of that), you’re given a “quest”-line which involves a guard giving you directions and then sending you off to a certain doom since there’s no way you can kill those mobs on your own… Confusing only begins to describe it.
Add rather funky controls, a majorly clumsy battle menu system (Final Fantasy-style menus in real time combat is a recipe for newbie-disaster), a death penalty (starting at level 4) which might make you lose levels if you die too often, a rather slow leveling, story-line missions that again will send you into certain death unless you do a lot of grinding before trying to finish them on your own…yeah, you get my point.
At the same time, Final Fantasy XI intrigues me. It’s a blast from the past, it won’t even pretend it’s holding your hand, it’s unforgiving and hard, yet…I’m intrigued by it. I understand what people see in it, why some players would get stuck in it and never leave (not even for food- or bio breaks). The confusion annoys me. I want to understand, I want to learn, and I certainly want to see more of what seems to be a fascinating world. It’s not like any other MMO-world out there, that’s for sure. I just need to figure out how to get there, how to get away from the rather monotonous grinding that I’m stuck in right now. I’m stuck in a grind and I don’t know if I’m supposed to do it or not.
Sera’s columns over at Massively is helping, absolutely, and anyone that even considers giving Final Fantasy XI a shot should check them out. Without them I would be completely lost, compared to now when I’m only relatively lost.
My first projects for Final Fantasy XI are getting a chocobo (every nerd’s dream-mount), starting out with gardening (need something to put in my mog house) and picking up fishing. I’ve already hunted goblin fishers for their fishing rods, with the help of another player, but no luck so far. I also want to get out of Windurst and see some new and fresh parts of the world. No idea how to do that without the airship pass (available at rank 5 with your nation, I’m rank 0.33 so it will be a while until I can pick that up), but I’m sure that answer is to be found in Sera’s articles.
Confusion in a new MMO can be a good thing. It sparks my interest. But too much can be a bad thing and I’m still not sure when it will finally break my back. I got 30 days, then we’ll see what happens. As it stands now, it will be nothing more than an experiment and knowing myself I’ll probably won’t keep my sub up. Unless I finally come to terms with it and join the hordes of FFXI-players that can’t get enough of the beating and the pain.
There is something about not taking victory for granted, as in many new and “user-friendly” MMOs, isn’t it. But in this case I rather think it was just flawed design. The next Aion Beta-Weekend is coming, btw.
I played a long time ago, on the PC. I remember having a real love/hate relationship with it back then.
I understand what you mean about being intrigued by the annoyance though. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ‘old days’ and how much harder (well, more grindy, more time sinks) MMOs were, but those are the games that I remember events from.
With today’s easier MMOs, no events really stay in your mind for very long.
Looking forward to hearing how FFXI turns out for you. I might wait for FF XIV!