Author Topic: Final Fantasy XI (Read 2711 times)

213372bu · « **on:** August 05, 2019, 02:42:44 PM »

I've been waiting for a chance to jump into this mammoth of a game to experience the story, music, and unique design.

If anyone wants to jump in there's a few initiatives they're hosting:

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/wcb/index.html

Freyj · « **Reply #1 on:** August 05, 2019, 02:49:35 PM »

It really is an undertaking to start from scratch on this thing even with all the quality of life changes they’ve made. I took a fresh DRK from scratch to 99 / through Aht Urtgahn in 2015ish and it was months of work. These free week long logins really don’t do the trick. I’m on Wings of the Goddess and I’d need enough time to finish that content off to consider starting again.

That said it’s some of the best story / music that FF ever produced so it’s not a half bad solo game these days. Ideal podcast / Netflix game as most of your time post 99 is spent commuting long distances between zones and quests.

nachobro · « **Reply #2 on:** August 05, 2019, 02:52:02 PM »

tempting as hell but i can't go back these days

Chooky · « **Reply #3 on:** August 05, 2019, 02:54:47 PM »

i wanna play this before they (someday) close it down, just so I can have played thru all the FF titles, but it's hilarious to me that the game is more of a hassle to log in to and pay for than FFXIV is.

Akala · « **Reply #4 on:** August 05, 2019, 03:03:06 PM »

Good luck! I tried a few years ago and couldn't do it. Don't think I can really go back without a remaster/reimagining.

It's a damn nostalgia bomb though, although really only up to CoP.

Bebpo · « **Reply #5 on:** August 05, 2019, 03:43:33 PM »

I’d like to see them do an asset re-use, reimagine as a single player offline game at some point.

Akala · « **Reply #6 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:06:22 PM »

Quote from: Bebpo on August 05, 2019, 03:43:33 PM

I’d like to see them do an asset re-use, reimagine as a single player offline game at some point.

They usually sprinkle some in to XIV. In the new expansion they re-did the lizards in Ahm Aurang (?) whatever the desert area was called. They had living weapons too, including the 'NM' Juggler Hectacomb. Helm Beetles in the forest as well.

nachobro · « **Reply #7 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:11:57 PM »

Dancer storyline has some minor callbacks to the XI Dancer quests too

thisismyusername · « **Reply #8 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:22:02 PM »

OP tells me nothing: MUDA MUDA MUDA.

Does this cost me per-month to play still, or is it actually free to play with subfees for bonuses like Elderscroll's Online?

Quote

During the campaign period, those who have subscribed to PlayOnline/FINAL FANTASY XI service in the past are eligible to play FINAL FANTASY XI free of charge! Experience the world of Vana'diel now with a variety of new content that has been added throughout the seventeen years of development, along with many system improvements to match your playstyle!

Campaign Period
From Friday, August 9, 2019, at 1:00 a.m. (PDT)
to Monday, August 19, at the same hour.

Quote

Eligibility (Account/Character Requirements)
To be eligible, you must meet the following requirements. You can check each of the requirements here.

1. Your PlayOnline account is transferred to Square Enix account.
2. You must have an active PlayOnline/FINAL FANTASY XI service account.
3. Character status under the inactive character options must be set to "Cancelled" status as of
Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT).

USELESS, 21337TARO, USELESS.

nachobro · « **Reply #9 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:22:38 PM »

Free til the 19th, $10 a monf after that. Click the banner and it links to more deets. Also this only applies to people who had an account previously.

nachobro · « **Reply #10 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:25:20 PM »

I love that even they recognize their own account system is obtuse and impossible to navigate

"Just don't touch anything and play the game, okay?"

thisismyusername · « **Reply #11 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:27:06 PM »

Well, that's pointless for me. I was interested in starting but it's only for returning folks, making a new character would cost me $10 a month, and while that's cheaper than the $15/month they wanted previously, that's still a "yeah, that's a no for me dog" after ESO allows me to casually play it with no monthly costs.

I guess I'm waiting for the servers to finally close for the autists that still play to finally reverse engineer everything past the first two or so expansions on a private server I guess.

(I mean at this point, does Square NEED the FFXI money? Isn't XIV doing them well to cover the 50 or so people still playing XI?)

nachobro · « **Reply #12 on:** August 05, 2019, 04:45:11 PM »

Every time I go back to XI I'm surprised how many are still playing it. It seems to make enough money to sustain itself so why not keep it running?

benjipwns · « **Reply #13 on:** August 05, 2019, 07:34:24 PM »

Everquest of all things is continuing to receive expansions. SOE/DBC has wanted to kill it multiple times. It arguably outlived Everquest II as a priority since that had to go F2P all the way back in 2011 to keep going. The original still sells subscriptions and last I knew paid expansions.

Reading about this login stuff reminds me of how bad it was back in the day when I got 10 free hours to play FF XI with some graphic card, but they counted a bunch of the downloading times and like that still was barely enough time to get to any actual content which you had to run everywhere to get to.

Quote from: 213372bu on August 05, 2019, 03:58:32 PM

Instead of using a Username/Password there's 3 different login fields

The multiple login data requirements reminds me of when I tried to fire up Guild Wars randomly and it requires you to name one of the characters on the account and like wtf how am I supposed to remember that like a decade later. And you can't actually get this resolved, there's pages upon pages of people talking about how support, after finally responding six months later, demands impossible things to recover the accounts like box UPCs, even if you bought it through Steam and all kinds of other stuff.

Akala · « **Reply #14 on:** August 05, 2019, 07:56:00 PM »

Quote from: benjipwns on August 05, 2019, 07:34:24 PM

Everquest of all things is continuing to receive expansions.

These early MMO's zeroed in on a certain kind of crazy/masochist. Once they have you, it's for life. Broadsword was pretty sharp about this, they took over both Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online from EA/Mythic. At a glance both of those are still running to this day.

If they are smart they are set for life.

nachobro · « **Reply #15 on:** August 05, 2019, 08:10:23 PM »

Anarchy Online is not only still running but recently opened a new "Classic" server for people that want to play the game without any of the expansions and start fresh.

I cannot imagine what kind of person is clamoring for that.

Sho Nuff · « **Reply #16 on:** August 05, 2019, 08:49:58 PM »

Oh my god no

thisismyusername · « **Reply #17 on:** August 05, 2019, 11:50:19 PM »

Ya'll misunderstand: I'm not asking them to kill 11. I'm just wondering why they need the "server maintenance" money from 11 players when 14 is making them money hand-over-fist and could cover the 11 server costs, to where they could drop the 11 monthly fee.

But we all know the answer is : business = $$$$$$$$$$ fuck you pay me $$$$$$$$$$$

benjipwns · « **Reply #18 on:** August 05, 2019, 11:59:17 PM »

Based purely on those directions above there's a good chance that maybe they can't disconnect any of that stuff without breaking the game and/or PlayOnline.

bluemax · « **Reply #19 on:** August 06, 2019, 12:16:02 AM »

I wish I could remember my PlayOnline login info. I tried to look it up once years ago and I couldn't recover it. This game was an experience back in the day, I never did see much of it.

Akala · « **Reply #20 on:** August 06, 2019, 12:19:58 AM »

Tbh I’d likely have installed if XIV sub included XI.

nachobro · « **Reply #21 on:** August 06, 2019, 08:41:53 AM »

There was a period in 14 1.0 where you got a discount and an in-game reward for being subbed to both, but shortly after that 14 went "free" so it didn't matter.

MMaRsu · « **Reply #22 on:** August 06, 2019, 09:57:29 AM »

Id like to go back but I cant do a monthly payment right now. I have my character who I started with on PS4, I did like this game but the monthly fee -_-

Chooky · « **Reply #23 on:** August 09, 2019, 07:16:30 PM »

i tried a free month a couple years ago and spent hours and hours just walking around the first town trying to talk to the bajillion npcs and absorb the systems they were trying to explain to me. they totally throw you in the deep end. and my god, playing a game without quest markers in 2019 feels like a personal insult lol.

Bebpo · « **Reply #24 on:** August 09, 2019, 07:18:08 PM »

I actually tried FFXI once. I had no friends and didn't know how to party up so I talked to a few people in the mining town and then fought lvl.1 enemies outside the entrance for like 30-40 mins and then gave up.

I also tried watching a Let's Play of the entire storyline with all expansions about 3 years ago when I started FF14, I made it like 10-20 hours in and don't remember anything about it at all

I think I'll just listen to the soundtracks.

thisismyusername · « **Reply #25 on:** August 12, 2019, 12:10:10 AM »

Quote from: 213372bu on August 11, 2019, 10:48:31 PM

@TIMU apparently custom content/modded FFXI servers are already a thing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXIPrivateRealms/comments/7kyvk2/looking_for_a_list_of_ffxi_private_servers_check/

I knew of Nosami, but I haven't heard of the others. I'm basically looking for one that has all the content the game came out with in the Seekers Edition, but AFAIK Square released one more expansion after the Steam copy (that is only on their shitty storefront), so...

I'll check the others, but I'd like to go through the main-expansions story lines as a slightly faster than the normal MMO exp gain. A lot of them (Nosami) seemed to focus on the first two expansions of 2003-2005, which is fine if that's what you're wanting, but I'd like the "full-game" without the monthly fees. I think I'm slightly spoiled by the Elder Scroll's Online allowing me to casually play and just use it for social/people-watching if that's what I want to do.

nachobro · « **Reply #26 on:** January 04, 2020, 05:46:34 PM »

watch out with the teleporting. that's the only feature that the devs do care about, or at least they used to be tough on that if you used it a lot. that and it letting you run super fast.

bluemax · « **Reply #27 on:** January 04, 2020, 09:32:05 PM »

Quote from: benjipwns on August 05, 2019, 07:34:24 PM

Everquest of all things is continuing to receive expansions. SOE/DBC has wanted to kill it multiple times. It arguably outlived Everquest II as a priority since that had to go F2P all the way back in 2011 to keep going. The original still sells subscriptions and last I knew paid expansions.

Reading about this login stuff reminds me of how bad it was back in the day when I got 10 free hours to play FF XI with some graphic card, but they counted a bunch of the downloading times and like that still was barely enough time to get to any actual content which you had to run everywhere to get to.

Quote from: 213372bu on August 05, 2019, 03:58:32 PM
Instead of using a Username/Password there's 3 different login fields
The multiple login data requirements reminds me of when I tried to fire up Guild Wars randomly and it requires you to name one of the characters on the account and like wtf how am I supposed to remember that like a decade later. And you can't actually get this resolved, there's pages upon pages of people talking about how support, after finally responding six months later, demands impossible things to recover the accounts like box UPCs, even if you bought it through Steam and all kinds of other stuff.

True story, I interviewed for the EQ team a couple years ago (2? 3?). They had maybe 5 or 6 programmers total working on both games. Dunno how many content people, but probably not much more than 10-20 I would guess. The games still made enough money to justify the people though. They said they had fans complain when they would do things like finally drop Windows XP support.

Also I saw someone speed running this game the other day. Beating some Shadow something or other boss. It was like an 8 hour speed run, but I think he got screwed 6 hours in by someone else beating him to a monster spawn.

Tasty · « **Reply #28 on:** January 05, 2020, 10:59:10 AM »

Is Ragnarok Online still around?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also I got into the surprisingly good mobile port of Maple Crossing last year. It's a full MMO even mobile. Lotta gatcha/cash shop but that's MS for you.

[close]

bluemax · « **Reply #29 on:** January 05, 2020, 05:20:46 PM »

I loved Red Mage in FFXI when you go to play it as intended instead of as a fake healer or fake black mage. It was like playing Synthesist and um whatever the Debuff paradigm is in FFXIII. Just constantly juggling timers and stuff.

Mind you that was circa 2004.

thisismyusername · « **Reply #30 on:** January 07, 2020, 10:26:23 AM »

Quote from: 213372bu on January 05, 2020, 06:00:43 PM

The community here is very nice.

I mentioned something in the /yell chat about how gouged some of the auction prices were for early stuff, and I had multiple people privately messaging me wanting to give me tons of expensive items just so that I could get all the inventory upgrades for free immediately. I ended up paying for just a few items that I needed, but everyone was really nice and helpful even though the chat normally is overrun with auto-translate macros asking for help with end-game or selling rare items.

Had a lot of friendly people message me as well when asking if I could hide chat in cutscenes (you can't) just the other day.

Even in an age past "social MMO", a lot of the people that still cling onto the game 2 decades later are still really nice and helpful to new players, and that's a pretty awesome experience in of itself.

https://kotaku.com/its-2019-and-im-starting-final-fantasy-xi-1831994613

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Author Topic: Final Fantasy XI (Read 2711 times)

213372bu