Final Fantasy XI (or FFXI) is Squaresoft's entry into the MMORPG genre, marrying the huge popularity of the Final Fantasy line with a cult of multiplayer CRPG fandom that grew from Neverwinter Nights and EverQuest.

FFXI is available for the PlayStation 2, Windows PC, and Xbox 360 platforms. On the PS2, it's bundled with a hard drive kit, and also requires the network accessory hardware. On your Windows box, the most stringent requirement is probably a display adapter with "Texture and Lighting" (TnL) support. Thus, as of this writing, only a small handful of cards (ATI Radeon 9xxx or NVidia GeForce) are supported. Finally, your PC will also need an Internet connection.

That's right, FFXI has no offline mode. You pay US$50 for the PC version or $100 for the PS2 hard drive kit that happens to include the game, and after a complimentary 1-month PlayOnline subscription, you pay $12.95 per month for 1 character plus $1.30 per additional character. There are multiple Final Fantasy servers (I play on the "Kujata" server), each hosting a distinct copy of the game world of Vana'diel, and characters are bound to the world server on which they are created. To create a character on a specific server (e.g. the server where you already have another character, or the server where a friend runs a character), somebody will have to buy a World Pass code on that server with game currency ("gil").

Character basics
FFXI character races include Hume (human), Elvaan (elf), Taru (a diminutive magical race), Mithra (cat women), and Galka (ogre men). Each race has various strengths and weaknesses in terms of characteristic scores (Intellect, Mind, Agility, Vitality, etc.) Final Fantasy fans will be familiar with the character classes ("jobs": initially Warrior, Monk, Thief, Black Mage, Red Mage, and White Mage) from previous games. Experience points accrue separately for each job, by defeating monsters, on a progressive level system. You can change jobs at will at your "Mog House" in town. Advanced jobs become available by completing associated quests: Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Beast Master, Summoner, Dark Knight; with the "Rise of the Zilart" expansion, Ninja, Samurai, and Dragoon; and with the "Treasures of Aht Urhgan" expansion, Blue Mage, Corsair, and Puppetmaster.

Initially, you get along with just a "main job", but at level 18 you can quest to add a "sub-job." Just like it sounds, this lets you use spells and skills from an additional job concurrently with your main job. Sometimes you see some weird combinations, like Dark Knight / White Mage. Effective sub-job level is limited to half your main job level. So, if you had 16 Warrior levels and 10 Monk levels, you could arrange this as Warrior 16 / Monk 8, or Monk 10 / Warrior 5.

There is also a rich system of skills - 15 weapon skills in broad categories like "sword", "hand-to-hand", "club", etc.; 6 defensive melee skills including "parrying" and "Shield", 6 magic skills, such as "healing" and "enfeebling"; and 10 craft skills. Skill level has a chance of increasing with each use, by .1 to .5 points in proportion to the difficulty of success. Job skills are capped by your current job level, e.g. a level 1 Warrior might be limited to a maximum sword skill of 10. Craft skills are capped every 10 skill levels, at which points you trade a craft item to the guild to raise your skill level cap.

Progress
Gaining levels is a standard theme of the FRPG genre. In FFXI characters gain levels by accumulating xp, which is gained in turn by defeating monsters. Monsters have a nominal level as well. Sadly, for many jobs the ability to consistently solo supposedly "Even Match" prey fades between level 10 and 20. The dwindling xp gains, longer fights, and increasing xp requirements for each level make cooperative play essential for leveling into the midgame.

Quests
Allakhazam.com catalogues 685 quests for FFXI. Thottbot.com's World of Warcraft index has 3920 quests. Many of FFXI's quests - including unlocking advanced jobs, and expansion areas as well as loot like spells and exclusive gear - require teamwork.

Death
To disappear irrevocably, a character must be intentionally deleted. Defeat in combat just leaves you "knocked out", setting your current job back some XP, and possibly decreasing your level. In this state you have a very limited chat capability, and can either wait (up to 60 minutes) for someone to cast Raise on you, or teleport to your current "Home Point". You can set your home point at your Mog House, at Home Point crystals in towns, or at Conquest NPCs in the wilds.

Partying
When you engage a monster in combat, it becomes "claimed": nobody outside your party can attack it, unless you "call for help". If you call for help, you can't get xp from that fight, but at least other players can try to spare you the xp loss from being knocked out. In "party" mode, up to 6 characters of similar levels can all fight monsters and all gain xp, regardless of who was resting, swinging a sword, casting spells, or whatever. Party balance and equipment means being able to kill tougher monsters faster, with correspondingly faster xp gain. Up to 3 parties can join in an alliance, not usually for xp gain, but rather to take on Vana'diel's most monstrous monsters.

Goods
Your new character starts with some very basic armor, a weapon, and a paltry bit of gil. There are many ways to obtain more items and cash in FFXI: looting defeated monsters; questing; harvesting, logging and mining; trade with NPC merchants, and other players individually and at auction houses; fishing and gardening; and crafting. Items often have restrictions on what races, jobs, and/or levels can use them, so as you may imagine, there is a huge selection of different items, only a fraction of which are usable to your character at any given time.

There are recipes to craft many items, using crystals and other materials. Each recipe has a requisite craft skill and level; with no skill whatsoever you have a fair chance of hard-boiling a bird egg, or grilling corn, but you'll need some practice before you can whip up a salmon sub or some carrion broth. Foods provide a wide variety of temporary stat adjustments. Past level 20 or so, the effects are sufficiently pronounced that you will be expected to use food for the entire duration of every xp party.

You can carry up to 30 items (some of which can be stacked in groups of up to 12, such as crystals, or 99, such as arrows), and stash another 50 in your Mog Safe. Furniture takes up slots in your Mog Safe, but every furniture item gives back AT LEAST 1 slot of additional Storage space. There are quests to increase your character's carrying capacity, as well as that of the Mog Safe. Finally, you have a 7-slot "delivery box", where other players can send stuff to you and where you receive payments for your auctions (or the items themselves, if they don't sell in 9 weeks). Yep, a character can only auction up to 7 items at a time; if you're accumulating junk faster than you can auction it, you might want to think about starting additional characters to multiply your storage and sales slots.

Setting
When you generate your character, you choose one of three nations of allegiance: Bastok, San D'Oria ("Sandy"), or Windurst ("Windy"). This determines which town you start in, and you'll find different costs and availability of goods in different towns, as well as different quests. Towns are separated by multiple wilderness maps, and different monsters spawn in different areas within each map. And of course there are dungeons: goblin-infested towers, mazes teeming with undead, and so on.

One day of "game time" passes per hour of real-world time, and a Vana'diel week is 8 days, so you have three game weeks per real day. There is weather, the moon cycles through phases, and these factors along with the daily elemental correspondence all interact subtly to affect gardening, appearance of rare "notorious" monsters, and what loot (if any) you get from defeated monsters.

Conquest
Vana'diel's map is divided into regions, each containing several outdoor and dungeon zones. As characters quest and accumulate xp in each region, they're also accumulating conquest points, both personally and for their nation. Personal conquest points can be exchanged for fancy equipment. Regional control is awarded to whichever nation's citizens have accumulated the most national conquest points in the region, tallied weekly.

When a nation controls a given region, that region's merchants are activated in the nation's town. This is important to crafters, as many materials are available only from regional merchants. Also, when your nation controls a region, you can do a supply mission to gain access via teleport. This is important to anyone with any hope of ever getting around without interminable walking and chocobo rides.

The Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion areas are not subject to Conquest; instead, they observe a parallel mechanic called Beseiged. Instead of Conquest Points, you gain "Imperial Standing" points in ToAU areas, which can be exchanged for yet more stuff.

Instanced Areas
Most of Vana'diel is "common ground", and the resources - mining points, monsters, treasure chests, etc. - all take a certain amount of time to respawn. Some areas, however, are "instanced", which is to say they admit only a certain number of people at a time. In an instanced area there is no concern with competing with other players for resources: your team can focus strictly on beating a scenario. Burning Circles are popular "instanced" arenas where a party can try their skills against subtly crafted monster arrangements, with fabulous (and not-so-fabulous) prizes. Dynamis and Limbus encompass several high-level instanced areas where you can find relic gear and sudden death. There are also two instanced PvP areas. Which brings us to...

Player-vs.-Player
The "Ballista" PvP game originated as part of the regional conquest system; it proved very popular, and two new instanced areas were added to accomodate more PvP matches: Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba and Diorama Abdhaljs-Purgonorgo. A very recent addition to the PvP palette is "Brenner". These are all team-oriented games, with scoring goals that go beyond merely defeating the opposing team in fantasy combat.

Critics agree that PvP in FFXI is pretty weak compared to WoW. I suspect further updates to the "Treasures of Aht Arhgan" expansion areas will expand PvP options.

Updates
3 years after the initial Japan release, Squaresoft is still updating and expanding FFXI. Initial updating for new installations can take HOURS, even on broadband connections.

The "Rise of the Zilart", "Chains of Promathia", and "Treasures of Aht Urhgan" commercial expansions added new jobs, areas, items, and monsters. Between expansions, there's been a fairly constant tweaking of recipes, character abilities, monster behavior and game mechanics. Mostly these have been mundane, like making arrowheads stack to 99, or adjusting tactical-point gain for certain jobs or weapons.

More dramatic updates include: in-game wedding events complete with wedding dress gear sets; introduction of NPC followers (limit one per character) who can be leveled, given specific equipment, and assigned to different combat roles; and a certain monster-behavior update that radically reduced instances of MPK ("malicious player kill" or "monster player kill").

Seasonal Events
Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, Fireworks Day, Girls' Day... without in-game events, these holidays might have just been another day to level your Paladin. FFXI's seasonal events add holiday-themed quests and items; a rare few such items even have actual practical uses in normal play. Due to the general uselessness of so many seasonal event rewards, a lot of players ignore them altogether.