OMGJeremy

Review: Final Fantasy XI

We here at OMGJ pride ourselves (IE: Waste time) with our coverage of various online role playing games. In the past, we’ve single-handedly taken on the behemoths of online multiplayer games like:

Horseland:
I got the honor of playing this net-based game that more or less focuses on raising horses, and then entering them in beauty pageants (or something of that nature) where you win money depending on how you place. Needless to say, Horseland was the most boring game of all time, where I spent countless minutes staring at the screen, wondering why my horse just wouldn’t fall over and die so that I could say I at least finished enough of it to write a review.

Furcadia:
Chris stepped up to the challenge to review what has to be the single most frightening game of all time. Stomping through hundreds of animal-like characters, all bent on having sex with each other, Chris ultimately found that Furcadia’s one redeeming quality was its ability to make him realize that the people who played this game are actually real people – probably even in his own neighborhood – giving him an excellent reason to finally purchase a firearm.

Hooray for adventure! And... whatever is happening here...

Not exactly a stable of veritable champions of gaming I’d say. As a matter of fact, if you were to compare those games to real steeds, our stable would be full of rotting dead horse carcasses. It was obvious we were going to need some sort of high profile RPG to review so that we could at least get away from the various badness that we’re associated with. So I decided that perhaps I’d check out a “real” online rpg. Or, more specifically, the massively popular Final Fantasy XI. Or, more commonly referred to by its fans as, “The most frustrating thing ever created”.

My reasoning on picking up Final Fantasy XI (From now on referred to as FFO) was something like this:

Me: Hey, I like Final Fantasy, I bet I’ll like to play it 24 hours a day with people I don’t even know too!
Brain: Wait, I didn’t come up with that… WHO ELSE IS MAKING DECISIONS?
Colon: HAHAHA

So without hesitation, I picked up FFO, only to immediately drop it to the ground, as the box had to weigh no less than fifty pounds. I eventually managed to drag the box to the counter, where the young man checking me out decided to inform me on some of the game’s… finer points… all of which I had absolutely no clue as to what he was talking about:

Him: So you’ll need to start in San A’Doria and then use the Wild Hare furs on the trapper…
Me: uhuh
Him: And then you’ll make money so you can buy an Onion Sword for your lowbie character class
Me: Yeah
Him: Then go to the East Ronfaure woods and to the temple and change the King’s water and get some gil, okay?
Me: I like games

But whether I was totally oblivious to everything he was saying wasn’t important. As his meaningless, scary words now had me pumped up to play FFO. Because nothing says “great game” like having no clue as to what you’re doing. And if I was to be compared with being prepared for what I knew was to come, I would be the equivalent of a newborn baby that had just been dropped on the floor. And then stepped on. Repeatedly.

On my arrival home, I decided to open the box, to see if my suspicions were true that the developers had included a cement brick in each box, since it’s the only thing I could imagine that could make it that damn heavy. Surprisingly though, no brick was present, but instead I found many other things that would ultimately prove less useful than the brick. At least I could have used the brick to smash in my monitor later on, but we’ll get to that in due time. I’ve decided to document this on an hourly basis, to show the day that I spent with FFO, and the many adventures that came with it. Starting, of course, with the time I started installing it, and ending with the time I sucked my tongue down my throat in sheer frustration.

Hour One Through Eternity: Getting FFO Installed

I begin to unload the FFO box contents, which seems to include five cd cases, an instruction booklet made out of an entire tree, and several other pieces of paper that serve no other purpose than to collect in a pile on the floor, mercilessly mocking my laziness at throwing them away.

Yes, they're still in there somewhere

I was shocked to see how many discs are included. Five total. One disc for the Playonline frontend which is required. Three discs for FFO. And then a fifth disc for the FFO expansion pack included. A daunting number of discs for sure. But who cares, I’m ready for some Final Fantasy action, baby! Nothing’s gonna stop me!

Hour Two

Nothing except maybe the LONGEST INSTALL EVER. I have been sitting here for an hour now, watching this bar creep across the screen. The best part is that I can’t get up and leave, since I have to change the cd when the current cd in my drive either runs out of memory, or melts from the intense heat of spinning full speed for thirty minutes straight. I’m halfway done though. I’ll soon finally be able to live out my dream of living in a persistent fantasy world filled with weird fantasy shit. As it stands now, a goddamn GPS satellite control center wouldn’t take this long to install. I’m now sure the installer is doing this just to piss me off. I’m waiting for it to suddenly decide it would be a veritable riot if it decided to give me an abort error for no reason at close to 95% finished. A riot indeed. Especially when I would be found, days later, lying on my floor, dead from a massive hernia after I attempted to pick up the FFO box to throw it out of my window.

Hour Three and 1/2

Finally, after three and a half goddamn hours, it says that FFO is installed and ready to play. I celebrate by wiping the cobwebs from myself, and opening up Playonline for the first time. Playonline is Square-Enix’s online frontend for all of its online games, which as of now, consist of Final Fantasy XI. Not exactly a big variety for such a massive frontend, but oh well. There’s also a card game playable online, but that’s pretty gay, and costs an extra buck to play each month. Yes I’m that cheap.

What I mainly use Play Online for.

Now, if I could just get logged into Playonline. It seems that registering for Playonline is about the same as registering to work in some sort of secret spy network. Just with more passwords and random codes. In all, I spent a good 45 minutes just registering my names, passwords, emails, profiles, handles, game verification (which should also be mentioned that the game forgets to mention the cd keys are found on a page inside the instruction booklets. All SEVEN of them) and various other shit. All told, by the time I finished registering for Playonline, I felt my in-game character should get an automatic five levels, just from the sheer frustration so far.

Hour Four: Seeing the Light

After seemingly hours of filling out registrations, I finally make it to the actual Playonline games screen, and into the Final Fantasy XI area, where I’m greeted by a Mog (Final Fantasy’s equivalent of the annoying cute animal character) who welcomes me to FFO, and offers me some tutorials for first time players. Sorry, Mog, I have no time to participate, as I’ve already been waiting damn near 5 hours to play this game, and by god, that’s what I’m gonna do! I hastily press the “Play” button, where it takes me to a new screen, saying I need to update my game. Then it begins downloading the files….

Estimated time remaining for download to complete: One hour and thirty minutes

SHITASS

Hour Five and 1/2: Finally Getting There

I’m blasted into consciousness by the sound of in game music, as I awake to what has to be some sort of beautiful dream. The game is running… I can finally play! I quickly fumble for my mouse, but having to stop for a second to breathe deeply to calm down. I’m cautious to actually click on the character creation button, afraid that it may lead to another screen telling me I need to install another four cds worth of shit. Thankfully though, I was taken to a fairly basic character creation screen, where I could choose my race, character face, name, etc. Not exactly the most in-depth ever, but I’m not complaining at this point. At least I’m DOING SOMETHING.

It's like looking in a mirror. If I didn't look anything like myself.

I then select my starting point (recalling the name San A’Doria from the spooky clerk, since it was the only name I vaguely recognized) and FINALLY began my quest as a new Final Fantasy character. Hooray! My first order of business is to wander randomly around the city, asking people for sexual favors.

Welcome to San A'Doria. You'll see a lot of this town

Well, that would have been what I’d do if I could have figured out how navigate my way through FFO’s horribly designed window system, and its equally gruesome camera. I’ve never been a big fan of third-person cameras, and FFO’s didn’t help any to change my opinion. The mouse controls your camera position, which in any other pc game ever made, is commonplace and natural. But somehow, Square didn’t understand how to do this, and even the slightest movement by the mouse will cause the camera to go into some sort of speed overdose mode, flying everywhere until you get smart enough to release the look button and never, ever press it again. But nevertheless, I was in the game and playing. After buying a few cheap supplies, I then decided to do what all newbie adventurers do: Look for other people to help you look better than you really are. Or, more commonly referred to as “Getting a Party.”

Hour Six: Other Players Be Damned

After several minutes of shouting “HAY FAGS I NEED PEOPLE TO KILL SHIT FOR ME” I was still without a party, or even any takers. I did have a Japanese player ask me if I was female, but he did not want to be in my party though. In hindsight, I probably should have been female. Eventually though, I gathered up a few people who were obviously so new that they didn’t realize I was going to lead them to certain death in a few moments, as I had no clue as to what I was doing. Hell, I had no idea how to get out of the damn town yet. The poor fools.

Large groups of people are easy to find. Getting them to give you all their belongings is slightly harder.

With my party now together, we then spend the next 20 minutes or so trying to figure out how to actually group into a party, and then spend another 20 minutes randomly running around town, trying to find an exit. We finally make it outside of the castle, where we spot a small rabbit jumping about. Ah! My first prey! This small rabbit will be the perfect for my first kill. Well, it would have been if we didn’t suddenly see another player come into view with several large monsters chasing him, which spurred this spectacular moment:

Me: haha what a moron
Elf: Hey guys I think I can get those monsters to stop chasing him!
Elf: *casts provoke*
Me: NO YOU FOOL
Elf: OH NO THEY ARE COMING AFTER US FOR SOME REASON! RUN!
Me: SON OF A BI-
*entire party is defeated*

After this, our party disbanded, realizing that we could probably do more harm separately than in a group. My adventures in getting a party have so far all met with similar fates. But Square has made it impossible to get far in the game without adventuring with other players, so it’s a matter of how much stupidity you can stand before you start threatening to piss on people.

Hour Seven: Discovering Other Cultures

FFO has been out for a relatively long time overseas now, which means there is a fairly large group of established Asian players already populating the servers. This is both a good and bad thing, as these people can be very helpful in helping you come to grips with the game, it’s just that you won’t be able to understand a damn word they say.

Thankfully, Square decided to include an automatic translator for this, in hopes that we could better communicate with other peoples’ languages. At least until their country forces them to learn ours. And while that’s all well and good, it’s just unfortunate that the translator doesn’t work very well. Proof of this came as I was being slaughtered by small rabbits in the fields, when I came across a small cat girl named, ingeniously, HJKL. HJKL asked me if I needed help, to which I replied “Give me all of your money.” She laughed, not realizing I was dead serious, and then informed me she was from Thailand. She then said she would help me, and asked me to do what she said:

Her: Lick me
Me: uh?
Her: Well? Can you lick me?
Me: uh… sure I guess
Her: Then lick me!
Me: er…*lick*
Her: WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Me: LICKING YOU
Her: NO! Lick my ball!
Me: Okay this is getting pretty crazy about right now
Her: LICK MY BALL
Me: Wait, you’re gonna have to explain what you mean and how old you are because I’m not going to jail for this shit.
Her: Do you see the ball by my name? Lick it.
Me: Wait…do you mean CLICK it?
Her: YES! LICK IT!
Me: Son of a BITCH

It's like sweet, sweet poison

Lesson learned: Stick with your own language. It’s easier, and you won’t accidentally lick someone. Even if it is a cat girl.

Hour Eight: Learning How to Cope With Being Killed By A Small Rabbit

Now that I’m successfully learned in the ways of FFO (ie I can now do complicated things, like chat to other players, without crashing the game to the desktop), I decided that it’s now time to head out into the wilds, and try to make my character a bit more… not sucky. As of now, my character is about on par with a small one-celled organism, just slightly uglier. So off to the woods I go!

I started out my killing spree in West Ronfaure, a woodsy type area that happens to be located in… well… West Ronfaure. Several daunting creatures lay before me, like the ever popular Wild Rabbit. And the equally scary, yet not as fluffly, Tunnel Worm. Both of these enemies are basically meant for lower level characters to level up on when they begin the game. I figure that since my warrior has a sword roughly three times the size as either of these enemies, I should be able to best them pretty easily. Right?

I was wrong.

That fucking rabbit took me all nine rounds and then some, as blow after blow was dealt with mighty sparks flying with each hit. I quickly decided that the rabbits in FFO must be made up of a much tougher stuff, than say our gimpy rabbits, who will probably hobble around, if not die altogether, after a simple stabbing. THIS rabbit however, had me to my knees after I had already stabbed it 20 times with a sword.

Small, and fragile, it brings death in large doses

Eventually, I bested the rabbit, from which I gained a “Rabbit Hide” that I wanted to hang up in my virtual home as some sort of trophy. I would proudly show it to everyone. “Look! I beat that fucking rabbit,” I would say, as other much higher level characters walk by and call me colorful things like “gimp lowbie fag” and the ever cruel “Anus warmer.”

My victory was short-lived however, as I was immediately attacked from behind by a large monster, dying instantly. But I had had my day in the sun. Oh yes, this is a story Grampa’ Jeremy will be telling his imaginary grandchildren someday.

Hour Nine: Living in A Totally Original World With No Originality

Wandering around the capital city after one of my many deaths, I started to notice that, in a game filled with so many original characters and locations, that its players seem to lack any type of originality at all. Don’t find it surprising if you find yourself running into people named “Aerithg” or “Sephiroth1″ or some other slight variation of some other Final Fantasy character. There are also many of the obligatory names such as “assnigger” and “IHAVEAPENIS” that are also running around, but at some point, you just start expecting to see those names in every game.

But really, is it that hard to come up with an original name and gimmick for your character? I mean, I may not be much of a “role player” and I generally goof off while playing, but I at least had the sense to make an original character name that didn’t instantly get on my nerves after the second time I read it. I think the breaking point came when I ran across “Luke Skywalker65″ outside of the castle. It was one of those moments when you want to hurt someone until they realize how stupid they are.

Wow, someone tried hard

Nonetheless, I haven’t seen many people who actually role play. Though I’m sure some do. This doesn’t make FFO a bad game (role playing is pretty rare in mmorpgs, and even single player rpgs lately) but it can still be more of a distraction when you have three fags arguing over whose staff looks more like a giant cock. In short, the fantasy in FFO is only skin deep.

Hour Ten: Realizing It’s Time to End This Shit

I would say ten hours is more than enough time spent for any first impressions of FFO. So what do I say? Well, for all the negative things I’ve said, FFO is by far my favorite online rpg. It’s a very well designed game that actually features a fun and rewarding battle system. It may not be the most diverse place ever, but it’s still varied enough to give you the sense that you are playing in a large community, and not just a small town.

That’s another thing going for FFO, its size and popularity. As of writing this, FFO was hovering around 430,000 user subscriptions. Just 70,000 short of the current king, Everquest. That’s a pretty big achievement right there, though the sheer amount of anime fanboys probably make up a significant number of those subscriptions, as their game has finally arrived. And this isn’t even counting the as-of-yet unreleased Playstation 2 crowd, which will be mingling with the PC crowd as well. So if you’re looking for something that’s already shown it has a fantastic userbase, then this is where it’s at.

I think another review I read described FFO the best. It said it tries its hardest to make you not like it, but it seems no matter what it does, you’ll still have a hell of a lot of fun with it.

Even if it does make you realize how much blood can run to your brain all at once.