As my play-experience has been maturing this past month, I’m finding more to like and less to dislike about FFXI than I had initially expected. I’m still chafing at the flagrant recipe-following tendancies that a great many players have (see previous reference to fansite resources). This results in areas such as the Valkrum Dunes being chock-full of adventurers, including a lot of my fellow Windurstans. Meanwhile the Tahrongi region (right next door to the Sarutabaruta Plains, the heartland of the Republic of Windurst) is neglected to the point that none of the civilized kingdoms exert control over it.

Many of my brave young countrymen are making a long voyage by sea to Selbina in order to partake in a quest to acquire the “subjob” ability. A similar quest is possible closer to home, but our blackmages, warriors, and monks have been emigrating steadily at the behest of their web-found follow-the-instructions recipies. The result of this has been neglect of our own hinterland. How are our Dhalmel herders to get Papaka Grass? Who will ensure that our books of lore and magic are properly accounted for?

As a Windurstan nationalist and patriot, I find this to be inexcusable, and am doing my utmost to remedy the situation. Alas, game mechanics restrict Expeditionary missions to citizens that are both powerful and in high regard (level 25 and rank 3 required), so I have only been able to participate thus far by thinning out the Goblin, Dhalmel, and Rarab populations of the Tahrongi Canyons and Buburimu Peninsula areas. Keep those signets up, folks!

Life in Vanadiel has been going pretty smoothly. I’ve left behind my Bastokan warrior to join an old coworker and friend on a server he’s sharing with some of his friends up in Portland. A little readjustment was necessary, as Windurst has a much different feel than Bastok. Lots of tarutaru, a lot less Quadav.

As expected, the year this game spent in the Japanese market has made for an extremely smooth US/Canada release. Luckily, the Japanese players have been living up to their national reputation for courtesy. The autotranslation dictionary is going to take me some getting used to, but I’m getting a lot of use out of some key phrases I know off the top of my head. Nihonjin desu ka? Wakarimasu. Sumimasen.

Numerous fansites and resources are available online, including Stratics, Allakhazam, and Warcry. I’ve found these to be handy with the crafting aspects of the game, but the mission and quest system has been quite well-crafted. Almost every interaction with an NPC that wants you to do something gives you at least a very strong hint as to what you need to do. My main problem has been the number of “Harutoto Ruins” you can go to in the Sarutabaruta Region, which was rather confusing while I was trying to complete my first mission for my country.

It’s the 28th, Final Fantasy XI day. Ever since I played Asheron’s Call during its early days, I’ve thought it would be great if Square or Blizzard were to throw their hats into the MMORPG arena. Well, it turns out they’ve both done so, with Square having successfully released Final Fantasy XI last year in Japan. As with all things Final Fantasy, we had to wait for quite a while here in the US (those of us not willing to import a copy and play with a dictionary on our desks, that is). From what I’ve heard from folks that have been playing it, it may almost live up to the hype.

Expected problems are the same you’ll find in Everquest, Asheron’s Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Earth & Beyond, and Shadowbane…

1. There will be complaints of lack of content (this will be allayed by the fact that the underlying game is over a year mature in Japan, so there’s a lot of content already present that other such games have lacked at launch time).
2. There will be obnoxious power-gamers who will abuse the game mechanisms to create insanely-powerful characters that will spend months complaining about the lack of high-level content.
3. There will be obnoxious wannabe power-gamers complaining about every minor glitch that you, a more reasonable gamer, would have passed without batting an eye.
4. There will be mooches running around trying to beg equipment, advice, and emotional support from you.
5. There will be tedious combat in which one presses an attack button and waits for the critter to fall over. The critter will then be looted, and the cycle restarted.
6. The gaming company will react to any complaints about game mechanisms by changing rules. All players that had an advantage under the old mechanisms will cry bloody murder.

There are other likely problems (ah, system requirements…), but before this game hit the US market the underlying system had been in use for over a year across the Pacific. It was made to be used with 2002 hardware by a fairly broad market. It requires an 800MHz processor and 128MB RAM. Oh my.

And so it comes to pass that I’ll be purchasing another MMORPG. I fully expect to enjoy it greatly for at least several months before the other players drive me away. Some day I hope an MMORPG will come along that doesn’t coddle problem players. Some day I hope that the makers of such a game will let the game stand on its own merits rather than give in to the demands of a vocal minority of whiney and abusive players. Perhaps Final Fantasy XI will be such a game. My Japanese isn’t up to the task of checking out the existing FFXI forums, so I don’t know whether this will be the one. I’m cautiously optimistic.