Final Fantasy XI is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or MMORPG. The game was originally released on the PlayStation 2, or PS2, by developer Square Enix. It was released for the PS2 in May, 2002. Later, it was published as a windows-based PC game, that was released in November 2002. The Final Fantasy series has always been popular, and have sold millions of copies world wide. The simple fact that this is the 11th installment of the ever popular series, tells us that this game is very popular.
The story of FFXI is set in Vana’diel, a fantasy world. Players can choose to hang out with friends, go exploring, or complete quests. Quests are tasks or jobs that are given to players from Non-Player Characters, or NPCs. The quests range from fetching some flour, to slaying dragons. Upon completion, the player who completed the quest will be rewarded with either Money, or Experience (EXP).
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of online gaming, basically, every other character you see in the game is a real live human being, playing from his or her computer. These types of games allow people to interact with each other over the internet, through their characters, or avatars. As I mentioned before, there are NPCs that are computer-generated characters that provide either quests, or things to kill, in online games. In most MMORPGs, all human characters are of a similar size and skill, meaning that no one gets to be a dragon or another giant creature. There are however different races and character types you can choose from, but all characters are roughly the same size, so everyone starts out equal.
However, characters do not stay equal! As with most MMORPGs, FF11 has a system of “leveling up”. Basically, all characters start at level 1, and slowly work themselves up. Virtually everything you do in FF XI will reward you with Experience, or EXP. With more levels, comes more abilities, including more spells, more skills, etc. So, naturally, a higher level character would be richer and more powerful than a low level character.
The basic game play in Final Fantasy XI consists mostly of Missions, and Quests. Missions must be completed in order to progress in the story. These missions tell the main story line of the game, and often reward the players with valuable items, or even new areas to explore. Quests are completely optional, and usually do not have anything to do with the actual games story line. These quests are small little tasks that players complete for a small reward.
While this game is quite long, and has pretty much an unlimited amount of things to do, you will probably never get bored of playing. However, for those who are hungry for more content, there were 4 Expansion Packs released for FFXI. These expansions were Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and Wings of the Goddess. Each of these expansions contained many hours of additional content. These expansions were released about every six months, starting in 2007. The loyal fan base of Final Fantasy Online was eager to purchase additional content for their favorite game, and Square Enix was eager to keep their game alive, as well as make some additional money.
Unlike many MMORPGs, Final Fantasy XI does not have any way to fight other human players. Player vs. Player, known as PVP, is when two or more human players fight against each other, and the victor takes the spoils of whatever their defeated opponent drops. There is no such system in FFXI, though there are certain ways you can compete against other human characters. In 2004, 2 years after the games release, Square Enix released the first competitive game. This game, known as Ballista, consisted of players threw rocks into a castle like structure, or “rook”. For every rock that was thrown into the Rook, the respective team received a point, and in the end, who ever had the most points, was the victor. Over the next few years, more competitive PVP game types were added, such as Brenner, which was similar to Capture The Flag, and many other games.
Final Fantasy XI, like most MMORPGs, has a virtual economy. The trade in FFXI is largely based on Auction Houses, in which players put up their items for public sale, using the currency in FFXI, which is named FFXI Gil. The developers of FFXI were very intelligent in their creation of these auction houses. They implemented fees, or taxes, on every single sale that took place in the auction house. These fees did not go to anyone’s character, but rather, simply disappeared from the game. This helped reduce inflation in this virtual economy, which in most MMORPGs is becoming quite a large problem. When you kill an NPC, it drops either items or Final Fantasy XI Gil, and you can pick it all up. Since most trades take place between 2 players, the developers of other games have no practical way to remove wealth from the system, thus causing inflation. But with the FFXI auction houses, every trade results in a small amount of Gil to be removed from the game, helping reduce inflation.
Soon, people began to sell FF11 Gil for real world money. This process is called Real World Trading. Players began to sell their ffix items and Gil to “newbies”, who just wanted a head start on the challenging game. Real world trading still takes place today in virtual economies, including the Final Fantasy XI economy.