Great community
Keyboard plugged in, I stepped back into the world of Vana’diel once more. Now we’re talking! Any new recruits to the Final Fantasy scene may seem overawed with the sheer scale of the game and the huge menu system. I wandered around for the best part of an hour talking to people to find out how to begin the adventure. It’s actually quite simple, build up your character through gaining experience in different fields and complete a variety of quests. If you kill a beast you will become stronger, run away from attacking foes and you’ll gain evasion points, spend some time fishing and you’ll become a more adept fisherman.. so pretty much the same method of leveling you’d find in most MMORPGs and RPGs. Use the various trading points to buy and sell goods, which in turn makes you more money and use that money to buy larger weapons, spells and a multitude of other things that will help you through your quests.
Click for larger imageComputerised character’s (NPCs) names are in green. Talk to all of these characters and you’ll soon be set your first quest, head for the guard posts at the edge of each town speak to the guards and you’ll be set a mission. Mission and quests vary greatly, one minute you’ll be delivering a note to a worker down the mines, next minute you’ll be searching for an ancient scroll in the depths of the wilderness. This is the basic premise of the game; complete quests and missions and earn the rewards. You’ll then be able to head to the Auction rooms or various guilds to buy or make items that will help you on your quest; you can also trade items with other adventurers. The menu system is not as complicated as it first looks. It’s laid out well and, although the beta test disc doesn’t come with an instruction manual, there are plenty of places online that will provide you with a few starting tips. You’ll be dashing around from quest to quest in no time.
Click for larger imageThe beauty of the game is the community. You’ll bump into all sorts of people from across the globe, I’ve already had broken conversations with plenty of Japanese gamers. Final Fantasy XI does boast a language filter that translates different languages to your own, though I tried the translator a few times and I still couldn’t understand a word. This aside, you’ll meet some great people and have conversations that suck you right into this virtual world. Some people will totally ignore you and get on with their own business whilst others will follow you around asking questions. A strange thing I noticed was how people tend to flock around female characters and even ‘chat them up’ - online dating Final Fantasy style! If you are female choose a male character, unless of course you like all the attention.