Final Fantasy XI For PC Explored

Thanks to Adrenaline Vault for their hands-on preview of Final Fantasy XI for PC. This cross-platform MMORPG is due for PC this October in the U.S., several months ahead of the PlayStation 2 version, and features many features to excite the average Final Fantasy fan: "Each player is granted their own Mog house complete with a yellow cherubic Moogle servant... To travel great distances quickly... [a] favorite method of transportation is at near hand: the many splendored horse/chicken hybrid, the Chocobo." Another hands-on preview at Frictionless Insight brings up the interesting problem of control methods that work for both PS2 and PC: "What won't be familiar to PC gamers is the user interface. The system of menus... ties in with the need to be accessible to gamepad-type controllers. With a moderately button-intensive gamepad in hand, PC gamers will zip through menus with a flutter of finger twitching and d-pad action."

Comments

Ebay style economy

[Fred IV]

FFXI sports an eBay-style auction system that augments the local array of NPC-owned marketplaces. Players put items on the auction block to go to the highest bidder less a small service fee collected by the NPC auction house owners.

Nice, this sounds a lot better than the crap I have to go through to buy and sell at my current online RPG. I hope this becomes the standard way of doing things.

Is there an existing game that uses an ebay style player economy? This seems like too good of an idea to be unique to FF XI.

Re:Ebay style economy

[The Munger]

I wonder if perhaps this is to reduce the number of real-life auctions?

With all the developers/publishers putting things in EULAs and requesting auctions to be closed, perhaps they decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I think players would warm to it a lot more than forking out real cash as well.

Implementation could also be an interesting point. I wonder if you have to be in the game to collect on your auction, or whether you'll be able to do it via web/email. Couldn't you see merchants popping up who don't move away from the auction houses?

Re:Ebay style economy

[August_zero]

I don't think it's a "we are beaten" thing. I think its a "we don't want people standing in towns 24/7 lagging the servers and shouting "WHO WANTS TO BUY MY LEATHER COD-PIECE" over and over again.

As the system is now, you go to the auction house, specifiy the minimum price you will accept for the item and then wait. People will see the item listed, but not know what you want for it, so they enter a bid. If their bid is greater than the cheapest version of the item for sale, they get it. if it's to low, they have to try again. Its a good system because if your trying to sell a common item, you want to set your price a little low or else the other sellers will essentially cost cut. Rare items stil fetch good prices because there is never going to be more than 1 or 2 for sale at a time. There is even a "price history" that will tell you how much identicle items of the same type have sold for in the last 10 sales so the buyer and seller is more than likely going to be well informed on the true value of what they are trying to buy or sell.

Its a great system that i hope other games adopt.

One Beta tester's opinion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in the beta, and I am not supposed to disclose so i am not going to tell you anything

For example, I am not going to tell you that the game has a lot of little things that seem like such obvious good ideas, its amazing that they haven't been put to use in MMORPGs. The Auction system is one thing, but they go one further by allowing any item on your person to be set as "for sale" then as you are roaming around killing things, people can browse your wares, and even buy them or trade them. Your character can freely change his job (class) simply by going back to their home. This means that if you get tired of being a warrior, you could become a Red Mage without having to create a new character. Al of this is great and touched on in the article.

So in keeping with the non-disclosure I can't say anything about the fact that despite all the polish and refinement in most every aspect of the game play, its horribly boring. The XP gained from fighting is seriously out of whack. Fighting a monster that almost kills me for example gives me 36xp, while a monster that I can take out in 3 swings and maybe take 5% of my HP in damage, gives me 25xp. And being in a party is even worse. If everyone in the party isn't the exact same level, nobody gets jack for xp.

I can say nothing about how the storyline quests, that is the cycle of missions you are given by your homeland are interesting, but always the same, and not that numerous the first mission they give you will for example require you to gain about 7 or 8 levels on your own running the treadmill of kill, rest, kill, rest before you have even a fart in the winds chance of surviving it.

Nothing can be uttered about how there is a great job system, and lots of interesting "hidden classes" that must be unlocked via quests. Of course you need to be 30th level before you can do this and that equates out to about 50 hours of mindless leveling to even get the new class, then you start over at level 1 with the new class so its another 10-20 hours before you can do anything interesting. (like kill the same goblin over and over).

I shall not reveal that the character design and creature models are top-notch and gorgeous, despite the fact that the same 10 models are used over and over again albeit with different names (goblin thug, goblin weaver, goblin fisher, goblin goblin). The music is also really good, which is almost unheard of in a MMORPG

Nor shall I give you my final opinion in that while it has a lot of potential, the lack of quests is going to kill it, Only those people that can find enjoyment in doing nothing but leveling are going to be able to stand it.

I could tell you all that, but I won't

Re:One Beta tester's opinion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, here are a few other things that I am not going to say:

There is absolutely, no PVP (player killing) but there is competition... When you create your character, you may decide to belong to one of 3 kingdoms. Every region of the world, is considered under the control of either one of these 3, or controlled by the monsters. When a player from a given kingdom kills monsters, then the influence that kingdom has raises a little, if you get killed, then the monsters gain influence. Periodically each section is tallied and whichever faction has the highest influence, takes control. If you hunt in an area that is under your kingdoms control, monsters will occasionally drop crystals that can be used to craft items, this is the only way to craft items save buying the crystals yourself. The idea is interesting, but there are some problems. For one, the newbie areas tend to be under Monster control due to the simple fact that low level and in-experienced players die a lot. On some servers players with more malign agendas have actually made fresh characters and sent them off to get continually killed while allied with rival countries in order to knock them out of power. This system, while certainly unique (sort of like Dark age of Camelot without the Pking) just doesn't incite much excitement.

Combat is standard fair. You start a fight and your character pulls out their weapon and readies an attack. When you move in range of your target, you then take a swing. Unlike most MMORPGs you are not bound to the target and can move freely about the battle (you must actually disengage battle mode to run away) This is nice if you are a magic user and you are with a party, you take a few swings, then back up and cast a spell or two, then drop back into melee. Missile weapons work in a similar way, there isn't a "missile combat" mode, you just hit the "distance attack" button and your character pulls out their ranged weapon and let a shot fly. Besides your normal vanilla attacks, you may also have 1 or more special attacks depending on Job level, and weapon proficiency. Job abilities have a cooling off period after each use that varies from a few seconds for minor abilities like taunting, to 2 whole hours for your characters desperation attacks. Every job has a desperation ability that can usually be used to give you a gigantic edge from time to time, Warriors can for example activate "mighty strikes" which will make all of their attacks result in critical hits for the next 30 seconds. Thieves have "Perfect dodge" that makes them unstrikeable for 30 seconds. These abilities can come in handy if you get attacked by a powerful foe when unprepared, but long timeouts don't make them something you just use to make a quick kill.

There are other skills as well. Your character has a proficiency level with each type of weapon, and this is independent of your Job level. As you hit things with your sword, your skill improves, block a blow with your shield and you gain a bit of shield skill. While you still have flexibility to use what ever weapons strike your fancy (and your job class qualifies you for) you may not want to switch to that magic 2 handed sword you just found if you have been using scythes all this time. As weapon skills increase, you are more likely to hit and inflict good damage with them, but also you learn special attacks similar to the "limit break" attacks in some of the other FF games. As your character hits and gets hit, your Technique gauge fills up, when you rest it slowly declines. When it reaches 100% you can execute one of your weapons special strikes. The gauge an go all the way upto 300%, and in truth some of the higher level attacks require more than just the base 100% to activate. The higher the gauge is, the more powerful the hit. Magic spells use a similar proficiency system requiring you to cast a school of magic in order to advance in it. Every so many levels you gain access to new spells (though they must be found or purchased)

As I didn't mention before, the Job system is easily one

Re:Oh please no, not controlling via a pad alone.

[August_zero]

No, you can use mouse, keyboard, pad or a combination. I use mouse and keyboard, and it was awkward at first but not bad when you get the swing of it. The camera controls still irk me a bit.